Look, Up in the Sky

Yesterday we went, en famille, to see Superman Returns. It isn't perfect, but over all I thought it was smart about the right things, and made by people who were familiar with the canon (both the movie and comics).

( So what was good? Or bad? Don't read if you don't want to trip over information. )

Superman has always been the straight arrow of the comics universe. Batman is all dark and tortured, but Superman (as has been demonstrated ad nauseum in the comics since the 70s or 80s) is a boy scout. One thing I liked about this movie is that Superman retains his essential honor and optimism but has both a melancholy and a nobility that is not boy scoutish. If you are thinking of seeing it, go. It's fun.

Arghh.

Okay, at least as I remember it, the title "Ms." was invented in the seventies to give women a courtesy title that did not announce their marital status (on the assumption that if I can pump gas or remove tonsils or assemble an AK-47 in 23 seconds, marital status is not germane). My belief, all these years, has been that a woman who styles herself Ms. Smith is not a woman who married who kept her name, or an unmarried woman, but a woman. Married, took the spouse's name? Ms. Unmarried? Ms. Married, kept own name? Ms. Simple as pie.

But according to The New York Times, at least in Congress, my quaint notion that titles should be marriage-neutral has passed into history. Hillary Rodham Clinton is Mrs. Clinton; Nancy Pelosi is Mrs. Pelosi (except on the sign outside the office, which bears what the Times refers to as bearing "the mark of her feminist roots." Olympia Snowe of Maine and Katherine Harris, both of whom kept their names, are Ms. Snowe and Ms. Harris, respectively.

Snarl. This wasn't just a silly affectation; nor was it supposed to create a third classification for women. It was supposed to make marriage irrelevant to ability in the workplace. Guess we have to take that one out of the sketch.