Why wait for Superman?
SEPTEMBER 24, 2010
Of course, there is already buzz about Davis Guggenheim’s new film “Waiting for Superman”. Guggenheim’s recent Oprah appearance as “expert” on education was a perfectly timed PR move. I was already bothered by something that I’d read on the film, and over the week the grain of irritation grew by degrees. It occurred to me, after I had read Trip Gabriel’s Sunday New York Times piece on this one-sided film that I am really pretty annoyed by the social paternalist implication of the title. The title purportedly refers to a childhood memory recounted by an Harlem educator interviewed in the film, who once yearned for Superman to arrive and save the neighborhood’s problems. It also vexes me that Guggenheim, with his money and potential
