By Guy Chapman – Navarro County Gazette
Yes We Can
For those who know me outside of my Gazette life, I have a fondness for pop culture. Movies, in specific.
I had the opportunity to recently visit the Texas Theatre in Dallas to check out a 4K screening of the original 1978 Superman film. While I greatly enjoyed seeing the movie on the big screen again, I walked away from the experience with a little something more.
The Christopher Reeve/Gene Hackman/Marlon Brando led film was one of my formative “first” films (1977’s Star Wars being the other).
The turnout was respectable, and very enthusiastic. Among the crowd was a fellow film goer dressed as the Man of Steel’s secret identity, Clark Kent. During photos, would open the top buttons of his dress shirt to reveal that red and yellow “S” against a blue uniform.
Of course I had to talk to him.
What I hadn’t expected is that fellow Superman fan Daniel Sanchez is also a reporter. For the Daily Planet (yes, really). It’s an interesting news site, merging pop culture subjects with real-world news.
When both of us discovered the other was a fellow newshound, I never realized I go into a “news mode” when talking to other reporters, but the conversation was fun, informative, and lively in an enthusiastic room. Daniel even quoted me for an article he wrote about the 45th anniversary of the film.
Watching one of my formative films again in a theater affected me a little differently this time. I appreciated the selfless, brave, and hopeful aspects in what I still believe to be the definitive version of the comic book hero (John William’s fantastic score still inspires), but I also found the newsroom aspects of the movie a lot more relatable, and admittedly more “familiar” now. True, the 1970s press and media industry has seen its “hustle and bustle” era come and go, but I well understand the deadlines, research details, grammar obsessions, and the “present” nature the work involves.
After eighteen years of writing articles for various publications, I never realized how deep the “news bug” ran in me. Thinking back to my childhood, my two favorite fictional heroes were DC’s Superman and Marvel’s Spider-Man. I keep figures of both characters in my room where I write these articles. Superman’s Clark Kent lives as a news reporter. Spider-Man’s Peter Parker is a photojournalist. The irony is not lost on me. I suppose this calling to write has been present all along.
I’ve been looking at the Gazette‘s foundation a lot lately. There’s still much to do to tell the broader story of where I… we, call home, and I plan to play a more active role in the future as one of our local narrators.
To paraphrase my quote from Daniel’s article, I never want to be too big or too busy to be helpful in the smallest of ways.
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