#MovieMonday – Why Super Hero Comics Keep Dominating Cinema

The emergence of epic, multimillion dollar, blockbuster films produced by major studios based off of comic book super heroes happened to occur just during my early teenage and high school years, and it’s an artistic and cultural trend that has endured throughout my college years and into my early adulthood. Because of my age, watching the trend unfold has been a great personal delight, and seeing super heroes on the big screen was always especially inspiring to my lost and confused adolescent mind. But what does this trend say about an entire culture of people spanning all age groups who have been similarly delighted by so many cinematic presentations of comic book super heroes and their storylines? The X-Men trilogy, Spider-Man, The Hulk, Daredevil, The Hulk again like two years later, 300, V for Vendetta, Christopher Nolan’s Batman reboot, Iron Man, X-Men First Class, Wolverine Origins, The Green Latern, Spider-Man all over again too, and plenty of others…

Why is this all happening now?

Here’s my theory: The world (and especially English-speaking audiences uneasily disillusioned with their entrenched establishment that thrives on the hegemony and inherent economic inequality of its global empire) wants a superhero to set things right, a superhero who absolutely must be larger-than-life. The old rough-and-tumble cowboys and smooth-talking special agents of cinematic eras past just won’t do. Neither will your average Joe hero like the crime sleuth (take Hitchcock’s Scottie Ferguson for example), Mr. Smith (yeah, the one that went to Washington), or even John McClane (whose progressive superhumanness throughout the Die Hard movies further illustrates my point). Movie goers want to see super human, larger-than-life, super heroes on the big screen because they are mystified by the problems that plague our civilization. The evils we’re up against are larger-than-life, existential threats to what movie audiences know in their hearts is true, just, and even– in some way that few of them can clearly articulate– American.

Back in 2008, I remember reading an astute analysis of the political mythology skillfully woven by the twin presidential campaigns of Senators Barack Obama and John McCain. I regret being unable to recall the title of the piece, name of the publication, or even the author for the purposes of citation, but the author’s argument stuck with me because it rang so true: Both campaigns ran their respective candidate as super-heroes. John McCain was the Vietnam War veteran who suffered torture at the hands of enemy soldiers, only to survive and return to America to continue his fight for democracy. He was a hero then, and he could be America’s hero now if the electorate would put him in the White House. Barack Obama was the rags-to-riches hero of humble origins, raised in a single-parent household, who against all odds would become the nation’s first black president and fundamentally change the broken system of politics Americans had come to detest. His campaign did a better job than McCain’s of making him larger-than-life. In 2008, if you’ll remember with me, Barack Obama was not a man. He was a larger-than-life phenomenon. He was a messiah. Because his narrative was stronger, he won.

Movie goers like to see super heroes saving the world these days because all of us understand, at least intuitively, if not more consciously– that the world needs to be saved. They also like to see the clear cut battle between an unambiguously “good” hero and an unambiguously “evil” villain. Again, I theorize that in our culture, people are mystified by the evil and suffering that continue to pervade our world despite the fact that at this point in history there’s no good reason why they should. Though we are modern, technologically advanced, and “enlightened,” the truth is that we live in a world dominated by violence and lies. “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” So much progress, enlightenment, and tolerance unheard of at any previous point in history is yet shrouded in a darkness of murder, theft, and deceit also unrivaled in history. Consider that with all genocides and wars accounted for, human beings killed more of their own in the 20th century than the previous 19 centuries combined. 1900 years of wars, crusades, inquisitions, and slavery the entire world over is no match for the number of human beings killed by the 20th century’s wars, genocides, and police states. Surely historians will call this a dark age!

And as we spiral ever faster toward some kind of historical singularity, as the changes happen faster and faster, as more and more people wake up and expand their consciousness to see the world in global terms and to see their place in it in historical terms, the depth of good and evil at work in our world becomes more apparent. Though it was fashionable for a time in Western culture to consider good and evil mere cultural artifacts or linguistic constructs, there’s a deep, bellowing cry from somewhere in the collective human conscience that something is not right about our world. Evil exists. And without the language to define it or the philosophical framework to understand it, many Westerners just feel an inexplicable, panicked, and guilty sense of deep and abiding dread. They dread a faceless, nameless enemy who they know is evil, but they cannot say what the enemy is or why it’s evil. Seeing a caricatured comic villain on screen soothes them by putting a face on the thing they dread and pitting it against the thing they crave most– a super hero, someone they know is unambiguously good, a person of incorruptible values, of limitless benevolence for other human beings, and naturally someone with the kind of superpowers that the average movie goer imagines must be required against a force so great as the evil they intuitively perceive in the world.

Seeing films then, has become an eschatological exercise for movie goers. It is a soothing message that they crave dearly: Yes, there is evil in the world. You were right. Here’s a face and a name for it to demystify it. Here’s also a super hero with the ability and the character to defeat it. And here’s a story line in which good wins and evil loses. And you never really doubted for a second that the super hero would win did you? Good always wins. Everything’s going to be okay. Also: special effects. Dazzle. Dazzle. Dazzle. And the fact that this kind of movie-going experience resonates so strongly with audiences, works so well on them, keeps them coming back again and again to spend ridiculous amounts of money on tickets and sugared drinks– it’s a very good sign. It means so much of the hard work is already accomplished. People already understand the world needs to be saved and that it takes something super-human to save it. The question is, will enough of us transcend, evolve, or whatever word you want to use for whatever it is we have to do to leave behind the worst of our humanity and embrace the best within it– the super hero within? Will it happen soon enough? Like so many lost adolescents enamored by the good example of comic book super heroes, will the super heroes of the big screen inspire our adolescent civilization and help us on our journey to finally grow up?

Don’t forget to visit our official website to learn more about the animated heroes in our own film– Silver Circle:http://SilverCircleMovie.com