Behind a superhero is an actual person.
Cognitively, we know that. In practice, though, we tend to forget that underneath the spandex and stripped of any powers is a real-life human. Perhaps, though, we should be forgiven for the confusion. Because the man who is the prototype for the superhero, as we know it through pop culture, manifested the attributes of a fictional person whose mission is to save the world, and translated that mission into practice in his own life.
The documentary Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story is now available to purchase on several digital platforms, and there is no better day than Election Day today to watch it. It’s a story about the life of an extraordinary human and how he so perfectly portrayed a superhero that an entire entertainment industry now revolves around the genre. But it’s also about harnessing the fantasy of needing supernatural gifts to be heroic into the reality of finding ways to just be a good person: a good partner, a good dad, a good activist. To find a way to make a difference.
“He would have had his fan base just having played Superman in the way that he did and invented the genre that everyone is obsessed with now,” Peter Ettedgui, who co-directed the film with Ian Bonhôte, said. “Just that would have done it, but the fact that he then used his superpowers in his life, both before and after the accident, to raise awareness of issues, to change the world for the better—that layering of on-screen and off-screen heroism is something that that that makes him very dear to people.”
Ettedgui talked to The Daily Beast’s Obsessed at the SCAD Savannah Film Festival, where Super/Man continued its film festival run, which kicked off when the incredibly moving film scored rave, tear-soaked reviews at the Sundance Film Festival in January.
The documentary chronicles the life of Christopher Reeve, an actor who was essentially plucked from obscurity to play Superman and Clark Kent in Richard Donner’s 1978 film, a trailblazing project that we might now consider Patient Zero of the superhero pandemonium enveloping Hollywood. The film also focuses on Reeve’s activism, both before and after a tragic horse riding accident caused a spinal cord injury that left him paralyzed. Confined to a wheelchair and using a ventilator, he spent the last two decades of his life crusading for research and policy to support people with disabilities.
It’s an extraordinary life with uncanny parallels: the original superhero who, as a human, was dedicated to saving lives. So there’s something profound about the documentary’s title and its mission. There’s a slash mark in the title between “Super” and “Man.” So much of what Reeve did was comic-book-worthy heroic. But he was also a father, a person who was motivated by his everyday beliefs, who had flaws, and who navigated the world in spite of them. “He was just a man,” Ettedgui said. “But he was also a superhero.”
Christopher Reeve was essentially unknown when he was cast as the world’s most iconic superhero. Ettedgui laughed when he recounted how he, and probably most comic book fans, reacted to the news that he was cast in the hotly anticipated film adaptation: “It was like Marlon Brando! Gene Hackman! And then this name Christopher Reeve no one ever heard of. How was that gonna work?”
The role launched Reeve’s celebrity into the stratosphere, at a time when he was navigating fatherhood and, as the documentary portrays, messy relationships with his partners. He has three children: Matthew, Alexandra, and William. The siblings had been reticent about potential projects about their father. But enough time had passed that they felt comfortable with Ettedgui and Bonhôte, whose film McQueen, about fashion designer Alexander McQueen, they were fans of.
“This is a film that is as much about them as it is about their dad,” Ettedgui said. “Or at least it’s their dad refracted through the lens of the three kids.”
The fact that the world’s greatest superhero suffered a tragic accident is something that rocked the world. Super/Man puts into great focus how remarkable it is that the person who that fate befell did everything in his power, despite his condition, to become a pioneer in celebrity activism.
Reeve was on the ground floor of the Creative Coalition, which started in 1989 with actors like Susan Sarandon and Alec Baldwin, aimed at teaching celebrities how to use their fame to knowledgeably advocate for political issues.
“The idea behind it was to empower actors to help them understand what the issues were and be able to argue them in a way that wasn’t just glib soundbytes,” Ettedgui says. “So he was a real trailblazer in that sense.”
After his accident in 1995, Reeve was galvanized to use his celebrity to push for legislation, funds, and awareness that was long-needed for the disabled community, culminating with the launch and success of the Christopher Reeve Foundation.
We’re in an era where the Avengers assembling to make a political endorsement is considered so impactful that the actors from the franchise that were conspicuously missing from the stunt is its own news story—presumably with accompanying real-world ramifications.
While not speaking specifically to that, Ettedgui understands how Reeve created the template through which we now judge all actors who don a cape, so to speak. “He just embodied everything you could have wanted and expected from Superman and Clark Kent in that performance,” he says. “And because there were no other superheroes, that was the only one. It’s difficult to imagine now in today’s world. I think everything he did had that much more impact.”
Ettedgui was eager to tell me the stories about Reeve that didn’t make it into the film.
There was the time, in 1987, that Reeve traveled to Chile to support the artists who were facing the ultimatum of exile or execution under the regime of dictator Augusto Pinochet. He was there for less than 72 hours, without bodyguards. But the amount of press that his visit and his support received is credited with playing a part in reversing that edict, and, indirectly, ending Pinochet’s reign.
“I think that trip had a big impact on him, personally,” Ettedgui says. “After his accident, when he discovered the awful state of affairs for people with spinal cord injuries, and the fact that nothing was happening in terms of really meaningful scientific and medical research, he was ready. He was ready to go to work and change things. That early activism really was invaluable. It was his training ground.”
If that was Reeve’s Super/Man origin story, then another of Ettedgui’s anecdotes is the proof that his heroism wasn’t just a costume.
Three or four years after Reeve’s accident, a man in the U.K. named Rob Moriarty suffered a similar event. Out of the blue, he received a letter that was dictated by Reeve, who at that point couldn’t write or type on his own.
Ettedgui paraphrases the letter: “It says, ‘I’ve heard that you’ve had this really awful accident. I just want you to know that you’re not alone and not to give up hope. There’s a whole group of us working through the Foundation to try and improve things, to try and find treatments and cures. I hope one day that will have a big impact on your own life, but just know that you’re not alone and that you can achieve your dreams still.’”
Moriarty was invited to the U.K. premiere of Super/Man. He framed the letter that Reeve sent him, and gave it to his children. He also had a second gift: a photo of himself, decades after his accident, having benefited from the advancements that Reeve spearheaded with his crusading, skydiving. Yes…skydiving.
“He gave the kids a photo of it, and just put a little caption under the photo, saying, ‘Your dad was right. I’ve achieved my dream.’”
