What Los Angeles superheroes fight about

It isn't only in the movies that you see two superheroes fighting, points out Rob Long

An enthusiast dressed as Superman rides the escalator on first day of the Comic-Con convention in San Diego, US (Photo by Denis Poroy/Invision/AP)

It’s summer in Los Angeles, which means that tourists from all over the world throng the streets of Hollywood and its environs, walking in the hot and dusty sunshine with disappointed looks on their faces. They expected glamour and glitz, and instead discover that Hollywood is, mostly, a working town of drab, beige stucco buildings and boulevards crowded with cars.

Like everything else, Los Angeles looks better on television. There is no “historical centre” or collection of cultural monuments. Instead, we have endless rows of shopping plazas and pop-up nail salons. If they came looking for the glitter they’ve seen on the red carpet at the Oscars, tourists are quickly disabused of their expectations.

Well, it’s not that bad. While it’s true that Hollywood Boulevard –which has a name that conjures up the old-time movie golden age – is a motley collection of downscale retail shops, thumping nightclubs and cinema palaces of yesteryear, it can be lots of fun for the kids.

On the main part of the boulevard, in front of the old Chinese Theatre and the cinema and shopping complex called “Hollywood and Highland”, the street is filled with out-of-work actors dressed up as everyone’s favourite movie characters. The costumes range from the highly elaborate to the threadbare homemade, but on any given weekday there are Batmans and Supermans and Luke Skywalkers galore. They’ll pose for pictures, act out famous movie moments – pretty much anything you like – all for a few dollars.

It’s disconcerting, of course, to see instantly recognisable characters getting out of a broken-down old Toyota like the desperate Hollywood hangers-on they really are, under the make-up and the wardrobe.

It’s easy to have the spell broken. If you come late in the day, you can spot a Darth Vader and an Ariel from Disney’s The Little Mermaid taking a break together by the side of a building, sharing a diet drink and a cheap lunch. There is something deeply unsettling about seeing a relaxed and casual Darth Vader folding a slice of takeaway pizza and sliding it through the mouthpiece of his helmet while Ariel hunts around for her cigarettes.

Recently, a costumed Donald Duck and a costumed Mickey Mouse – both of whom, apparently, were chasing the same family of tourists and offering to pose for photographs – became embroiled in a protracted and brutal fist-fight. Police were called, but not before traumatising dozens of children, who had never imagined that Mickey and Donald were capable of bloodying each other with such vehemence, and, according to witnesses, such foul language. To be fair, it was a very hot day, and the young actors inside those heavy costumes must have been nearly unconscious with heatstroke.

Superman and Wonder Woman, though not usually romantically linked in the comic books, were being depicted a few months ago by two young actors who were an item. Their public, and very loud, lovers’ quarrel caught a tour bus filled with German visitors by surprise, as did their passionate reconciliation moments later.

The big studios spend a lot of time and money trying to keep all of this from happening. These characters are a major part of their revenue expectations, and they guard their likenesses and characteristics with paranoid intensity. They claim, with total legal justification, that these characters are the “intellectual property” of their respective corporations – in the case of Mickey, the very symbol of the enterprise – and so all of this unauthorised pantomime is a violation of their copyrights.

This being the United States, you won’t be shocked to learn that the performers have responded occasionally by claiming that their “right to free expression” includes dressing up as Minnie Mouse for spare change.

Some of the performers have also resorted to making subtle – but key – alterations in their costumes. Spider-Man becomes, with a bit of careful cutting and sewing, “Spider-King” or “Arachnid Boy” – same colour scheme, same web-like pattern, but just different enough to keep the lawyers at bay.

The studios hate this, but to be fair, they’re the ones who invented this kind of barely-legal copyright theft. When a television show or film depicts a character using an instantly recognisable product, the prop will be disfigured or painted to obscure the specific brand name while keeping the basic idea.

And besides: the tourists who come to Hollywood for a holiday don’t want to see perfectly airbrushed versions of their favourite characters. They can see these anytime, online or at the cinema. What visitors to Hollywood want to see is juicy backstage stuff, the insider’s view, the world behind the camera.

Romantic spats, fist fights, lawsuits, physical collapse – these are all, when you get right down to it, perfectly emblematic of the entertainment industry. This is what goes on all the time, behind studio gates and in dressing rooms all over town. Maybe seeing a bunch of short-tempered actors hop around in costumes for money, chased by police and legal writs, is a perfect way to see Hollywood.

Rob Long is a writer and producer in Hollywood

On Twitter: @rcbl