Disillusions of silk sheets, Superman

Willing Suspension of Disbelief

by Jenny Applegate

Snippits of memory remain from my earliest years of life. A pretty leaf. A bedroom floor covered entirely with "Weeble People" (I'm told they were called.) Running my feet through my sandbox. Silk sheets.

What!?! Go ahead and ask. I had a normal childhood.

It included "Superman II", made in 1980 and rated PG. The one where Superman gets in bed with Lois Lane. He had white silk sheets to match the icy interior of his Superman-cave, and for years that's all I could recall from the movie. Superman's silk sheets.

And every year since I first saw it, I've included silk sheets on the Christmas list I posted on the fridge. And every morning when I tore open packages, they were never there.

Why my young mind focused so closely on those soft sheets I can't say. They struck a chord, though. They were decadent. You just knew they would feel good against your skin, and I guess they were exotic. If Superman had them... you know.

"Superman II" was on HBO last week.

I caught it in between an econ test and my next history class. Right at the point where Superman brings Lois dinner inside his cave. When she goes "to change into something more comfortable," Superman gives up his powers so he can live the rest of his life as a regular man at Lois' side. Then they commence to the bed of - gasp - sheets that looked a little more crinkly plasticy than silk. They were a little more silver than white, too.

What was this?

I felt cheated. Where in the heck were Superman's silk sheets?

Had the caustic outlaws from Krypton taken them earlier in the movie? Had I missed it?

Eeek.

Where had my memories of soft silk come from?

While many people remember super battles, I remembered silk sheets. While some remembered Superman giving up his powers for love, I remembered silk sheets - that really weren't silk sheets. Am I abnormal?

I asked around, figuring after talking to many people that I was. Strange. Odd. Perverted?

Well, I don't think so. It really wasn't about the sex. It was the integrity of the situation. Integrity is "the state of being whole or entire. An uncompromising adherence to moral and ethical principles," according to Webster's.

Superman's silk sheets, as I imagined them, were an extension of how highly he regarded his body and soul. He was confident - he just put it all out there. Welcome to my silk sheets! They surrounded his body when he slept, cushioning that part of him that was most himself.

What else could do but silk?

You see, cotton sheets are regular. People sleep on them when they have a cold. But people with silk sheets savor their experiences. They luxuriate in being in bed, and I identified these people as luxuriating in themselves. I saw Superman as completely happy with whom he was and completely proud of everything he was.

"If you don't have integrity, you don't have anything," Jada Pinkett Smith yelled from "The View" that same day on a different TV station.

If Superman didn't have his silk sheets, what did he really have?

And I guess, technically, he didn't.

He compromised. He got his powers back (somehow) in time to fight the evil-doers from Krypton. He decided not to stay with Lois Lane. He took away her memory so she wouldn't be sad that she couldn't be with Superman/Clark Kent.

Superhero? Sure, if super powers make you a superhero.

I'm not completely dissing Superman. I am just questioning how super Superman acted every day of his life, every day of his personal life.

Integrity. Silk sheets.

In the meantime I have scored a set of silk sheets (blue). They're nice. They're soft. They're decadent. They don't give me an immediate sense of integrity, but I like 'em quite a bit. They make my futon into a bit of a wonder world. They give me a reason to pause in the midst of a rushed day.

In the meantime, I talked to someone who made me feel better about my choice of memories.

"All I remember about Superman movies was Lois Lane going behind a steel thing. 'What color are my underwear?' she asked Superman. He said he couldn't see through steel."

And as the story goes, later Superman said Lois' underwear were pink.

Jenny, who's always favored Batman, thanks her silk-sheet benefactor. Send arguments to her at ja422897.