Where is Superman's butt?
This essay was originally posted to Twitter between March 18, 2021 and March 20, 2021. It was composed of 763 words across 16 tweets.
Pop quiz: How many times, during SUPERMAN, do you see Superman's butt?
It's not a trick question. In fact, how many times, over the course of four SUPERMAN films, do you see Superman's butt?
I'll answer for you: once, in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment.
/END
Just kidding.
Seriously though. We've seen Captain America's butt. We've seen Spider-Man's butt. We've gotten lingering looks at Batman's butt. Over the course of four movies and roughly eight hours of runtime, why is it that we so rarely bear witness to the Buns of Steel?
The answer has to do with the costumes worn by Christopher Reeve, which were designed and fitted by Yvonne Blake between February and March of 1977. Blake had won the Academy Award for Best Costume Design for the drama Nicholas and Alexandra (Franklin J. Schaffner, 1971).
Blake had also worked with SUPERMAN producer Ilya Salkind and future SUPERMAN II and III director Richard Lester on The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers--a back-to-back production whose success led Salkind to use the same approach with the first two SUPERMAN movies.
(Well, that's not 100% true. Like SUPERMAN, the two Musketeers movies were filmed simultaneously as a single massive production, that much is true. But it was intended to be a single movie at the start and was split later on, midway through production. But that's another thread.)
Movies are magic, made up of illusions by meticulous craftspeople. The reason the Superman costume looks so terrific onscreen--aside from the guy wearing it--is because we only ever see it shot in certain ways, from certain angles. Like a magician using sleight of hand.
A lot of it does come down to Reeve himself. According to Tom Mankiewicz, uncredited screenwriter and credited creative consultant: "With the costume, you're stuck with the fact that Superman is in tights. Chris was so disarming, and so kind of shy, that you barely noticed."
According to Christopher Reeve: "There were about 25 different costumes. Some for the flying rig, some for just walking, others for flying on wires." For the most part, in addition to sitting, standing, and talking, these are the only things we see Superman doing.
If we see Superman from behind, whether standing, walking, or flying, all we see is the cape, which was crafted for maximum drama. According to Yvonne Blake: "It took a lot of testing and a lot of trying out of different looks and different shapes to get to what we finally used."
The cape is a big part of the sleight of hand that allows the costume to work. It distracts us from how it was put together, keeps us looking at the costume only in certain poses and from certain angles. It keeps you from figuring out the illusion, which I will soon reveal.
The cape had a backpack-like apparatus that would slip inside the collar of the tunic and down Reeve's back. Straps would go over the front of his shoulders--again, under the tunic--and go under his arms to connect to the backpack component, anchoring the cape to his body.
The shoulders of the cape would be affixed to snaps on the top seams of the tunic, further securing it in place. Costume design isn't just a matter of creating something that looks good under optimal conditions, but something that stays looking good through the rigors of filming.
If we got a look at Superman's behind without the cape in our way, we'd see the open segment at the rear of his belt. (Rather than circling his waist completely, the belt was fixed to his body with hidden hook and loop pads.) We would see the zipper at the back of his tunic.
They seem like small details, but these things remain hidden so that the costume looks colorful and majestic, and doesn't look like a movie costume. Just a glimpse of them could take the viewer out of the movie. It could take Superman from heroic to silly within a split second.
The fact that we so seldom see Superman's butt is a testament to how well the costume was constructed, how carefully the film was shot and cut to keep Superman looking as good as possible, how skillful the filmmakers were in maintaining the illusion and creating the magic.
Just for the record, I wasn't kidding about Superman's butt being visible just once, in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment. It's about an hour, forty minutes, and some change into SUPERMAN II.
On behalf of Christopher Reeve and the whole cast and crew: you're welcome.
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Published 3/9/2024
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