There is a scene in Superman Returns where a boy uses his phone to snap a photo of Superman lifting a car to safety. Ironically, the photo is visually similar to the No. 1 edition of the Superman comic (above)—which I’m sure is an intentional statement. But the cool thing about this scene is that the journalists at the Daily Planet are looking for photos to use on the front cover of the Newspaper—and they can’t find any as good as the one that the boy took with his phone. So, citizen journalist gets a little validation.
It’s a subtle nod to the power of Consumer Generated Media. And the way the movie did it was pretty clever. The photo taken was shown in black and white and even decribed by the journalist as “iconic”. So CGM has officially come of age. When Hollywood incorporates something like this in a film—you know it’s become part of the culture.
