Superman: Highly Heterosexual!

Rest assured, the Man of Steel is no fag:

After weeks of Internet buzzing that the new Superman movie portrays the Man of Steel as gay, the director of the film issued a strong denial on Friday and said it was the most heterosexual character he has filmed.

Superman "is probably the most heterosexual character in any movie I've ever made," said Bryan Singer, director of "Superman Returns," a new movie about the crime-fighting superhero that opens June 28. "I don't think he's ever been gay."

Except for that one time, maybe, but what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

So what prompted Bryan Singer, who himself is openly gay, to issue this firm denial that Superman is light in the leggings?

Young men are the movie's target audience and the film needs to attract millions of them to earn a profit and relaunch the "Superman" film franchise.

Right, money. (Which is almost as good as truth, justice, and the American way.) Goodness knows, we don’t want to disenfranchise young men with any hint of the appearance that Superman’s a homo. If straight kids start admiring gay superheroes, it would totally undermine the sanctity of the Justice League.

Aside from the idiocy of the belief that young men’s homophobia is something worth indulging and protecting, the other thing that annoys me about such an explicit assertion of Superman’s heterosexuality is that it betrays the unspoken agreement of sorts that the entertainment industry has honored with gay and gay-friendly audiences since film began—which is, basically, that as long as they get to keep making all the superheroes and such straight, we get to keep exploiting the subtext of it for our own amusement. When we giggle to ourselves, “Sure, Superman says he’s got the hots for Lois Lane, but look at his outfit!” they’re not supposed to come back with, “So he wears a leotard and flies around in a red cape. Big deal, Singer said, noting Spider-Man wears tights. The X-Men do too, and they aren't gay.” What a party-pooper.

Of course, in the time-honored tradition of gays, hags, nerds, fat girls, and other marginalized folks who rarely see themselves onscreen in the blockbusters, I’ve decided to regard this press released equivalent of “Don’t go there, you subverts—he’s all hetero!” as an obvious example of “He doth protest too much.”

“We were all scratching our heads," said Paul Levitz, president and publisher of Superman owner DC Comics. "He's not a gay character."

OMG. That means Superman is totally gay—and I bet Paul Levitz is, too!

(Hat tip 429News.)