Near the conclusion of Quentin Tarantino’s epic revenge film Kill Bill (Vol. 2), title target Bill, in the best role of David Carradine’s life, explains to Uma Thurman’s character, Kiddo, why she could never give up her life as an assassin to become one of the regular folks. His argument focuses on superhero mythology – origin stories of Batman, Spiderman and specifically Superman.  Bill reminds Kiddo that while Bruce Wayne and Peter Parker put on costumes to morph into superheroes, it is Superman who must wear the costume of Clark Kent. Batman and Spiderman are men who perform great acts while in costume, but Superman IS a great man who tries to blend into society by wearing a costume.  He did not become a superhero because of a chemical reaction to a spider bite or an unquenchable thirst for revenge – he was BORN a superhero.

Here, Tarantino, a true auteur, uses Bill as a mouthpiece for serious social commentary: Superman, an alien being who was born with supernatural powers, tries to blend into American society costumed as a dorky, unsure reporter wearing glasses and a dark suit. Kent is a passive coward who is awkward around women. In order to blend in with all of us, this incredible superhero tries to be as weak and powerless as possible – in this action Superman expresses how he sees us. All of us. He’s trying to fit into our world by being boring and lame.

Why would someone so great try to cover up their unique abilities and talents into order to fade into the gray mass of the work-a-day world?

Don’t most of us hide our best qualities in order to commute to a cubicle and mail merge our way through a 9-5 job? Aren’t we all activists, paleontology enthusiasts, yoga aficionados, poets or musicians under our dark gray suits? Don’t we all have an impressive baseball card collection, raging wanderlust, or a bird watching hobby that we forget to remember, forget to celebrate, because we are busy blending in?

Many of us live our lives as Clark Kent even though we were born as Superman. We’ve chosen to amplify the parts of ourselves that blend, that are rewarded in the business world, that make us more like everyone else. I don’t know if Superman was just frightened of what the authorities would do if they found out he lived among us, or if any part of him was ashamed or uncomfortable about being different. I wonder if he just wanted to be like everyone else – and not always feel like he didn’t fit in. Maybe he feared rejection by Lois Lane and other people in his life who trusted him – maybe he felt like after lying for so long he couldn’t be honest. But, I think this idea, the ClarkKentization of society, if you will, also applies to those of us that have not come completely out as gay, lesbian, queer, bisexual or transgender as well. For whatever reasons, some of us live our lives pretending to be just like everyone else when we are not – we should take off our dark suits and dorky glasses (although I think I look pretty spunky in mine, and mostly likely you do in yours, too), and stop trying to blend. We were not born Clark Kents, we were born Superheroes – its just a matter of taking the costume off and letting the world see what we’ve got.