Now, there are parts of SR I like - I saw the film twice in the theater and bought the DVD as soon as it came out, so I must enjoy something about it - but overall I just never bought Brandon as the character, 100%. The rooftop scene was cringe-inducing to me, as well as the Creeper-Superman stuff. I do get where Singer was trying to go w/him "checking-in" on Lois - and maybe it would've played better for the larger audience had Singer audience allowed us in a bit more on the character's thought-process and not made him so silent.
I think the larger audience (with no notion of Supes being the apex of moral perfection

) simply accepted the scene as intended: a depiction of longing and regret. Its the life Supes
might have had with Lois. And this lament functions on two levels. Perhaps if Supes just hadnt been gone for those five years, hed be in Richards place. Perhaps (and more likely), the absence made no real difference.
The broader theme in
SR is that the heros obligations preclude the quaintly idealized domesticity thats being observed and represented in the scene. In order to be who he is and do what he does, Superman must be (in both a real and symbolic sense) the outsider. Thats actually a classic construction within the hero mythology. True sometimes the hero does get to partake of the normalcy (the proverbial happy ending) that he worked to bring about. But thats because the crisis/villain has been vanquished and the hero (as such) is no longer necessary. In serial adventures, however, the crises are never-ending. So conventional normalcy is always beyond reach.
Now in terms of the
moral objections to the so-called peeping tom scene
those strike me as dubious (a bit of affected indignation, pearl clutching not to say sanctimonious). Its one thing for Supes to be a boy scout. Its another to demand he be the product of an immaculate conception.
In the first place, Supes violates personal privacy all the time. In
STM, for example, it wasnt necessary for him to x-ray Loiss purse ($10, two credit cards, a hairbrush, and a lipstick
) or her lungs (an intrusive medical examination!). Do these (and similar examples in comics) warrant outrage too? Doesnt seem so. But whether done for laughs or drama, the principle of privacy violation would seem to be the same. Yet instead of acknowledging a problem thats symptomatic within the
entire mythos,
SR is singled out for special condemnation. Some consistency would seem to be in order.
In the second place, its clear that Supermans motive (in the
SR scene) was (as you mentioned) just to check in on Lois to confirm in his own mind that she was happy and that, with him out of the picture, things had worked out for the better. Of course, Supes lingers too long and overhears Loiss explicit rejection of him. So the knowledge gleaned served as a kind of poetic punishment for the transgression. Indeed, this type of accidental discovery is a fairly common device within drama. Yet it seemed to cause apoplexy when used in a Superman story.
Idealize a character too much and you drain the life out of him. Theres a reason that few stories feature God as the protagonist. Dramatically, God is boring.
