The summer of 2011 featured an unprecedented four comic-book superhero movies, all origin stories: X-Men: First Class, Thor, Green Lantern and Captain America: The First Avenger. (That’s not counting the January release The Green Hornet, based on a hero whose origins were not in comic books, but radio serials.)
Next year, besides the Avengers ensemble movie — featuring Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, the Hulk and the Black Widow — the slate includes a new Ghost Rider film, a Spider-Man reboot and the conclusion to Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy. Additional Iron Man and Thor sequels are already planned for 2013, along with the return (again) of the hero who started it all, the Man of Steel.
Why are superhero movies so popular? Are comic books simply another reliable source of familiar pop-culture franchise fodder, along with TV shows, cartoons and anything else we grew up with? Another source of escapist spectacle to divert us from the sorrows of a world of terrorism, war and economic woe?
Partly, yes. But superheroes also fill a cultural niche that belonged 60 years ago to Westerns and 25 years ago to Star Wars. Superheroes have become a major strand in today’s pop mythology — stylized, larger-than-life stories about heroes whose adventures give shape to ideas about the world we live in and how we live in it, about who we are and who we aspire to be.
More superhero movies today are lame than good (the same was true of the Westerns of yesterday), and this summer Captain America and X-Men: First Class (a “preboot” to the existing X-Men franchise) stand head and shoulders above the rather mediocre Thor and Green Lantern. But the genre itself, the mythos, is larger than the individual characters and stories.
What do today’s superhero movies tell us about ourselves? Among other things, we’re more skeptical these days about heroes and heroism. In contrast to the stoic confidence of the typical Western hero — or even of Christopher Reeve’s Superman, who as late as 1978 could unabashedly say, “I’m here to fight for truth, justice and the American way” — today’s heroes have feet of clay and have to grow into their heroic roles.
Bad-boy cockiness and womanizing are common weaknesses. Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark in the popular Iron Man movies created the template here, and Green Lantern’s Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds), an irresponsible, self-destructive skirt-chaser, comes off like Stark’s screw-up kid brother. The movie introduces Hal with a one-night-stand/morning-after bedroom scene overtly reminiscent of a similar incident early in Iron Man, though without the pointed moral critique of that film’s treatment.
The young Charles Xavier of X-Men: First Class, played by James McAvoy (The Conspirator), isn’t nearly as flawed a character. Altruistic and idealistic, he already exhibits some of the nobility of the older Xavier, played by Patrick Stewart in previous X-Men movies. Yet he’s also brash and somewhat lacking in self-awareness, as well as being a rather flagrant ladies’ man who isn’t above using his telepathic powers when hitting on women.
Arrogance and recklessness are major themes in Thor. From the outset, the son of Odin (Chris Hemsworth) revels in the acclaim of his fellow immortals and surreptitiously leads a foolhardy attack against Asgard’s enemies against his father’s explicit orders and desire for peace. This temerity leads Odin to exile Thor to Earth to learn humility.
On the other hand, not only is Thor refreshingly free from the womanizing weaknesses of other heroes, its hero treats the film’s love interest, Jane (Natalie Portman), with unfashionable courtesy and respect, going so far as to chivalrously kiss her hand twice — a mark, presumably, of Thor’s noble Asgardian upbringing. (Despite this, the film fails to establish an emotional bond between Thor and Jane, and the climactic smooch that she plants on his lips falls flat. But that kiss is as far as it goes between them, and he doesn’t initiate it.)
Captain America’s Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) benefits even more from his cultural milieu, embodying the ideals of the “Greatest Generation”: responsibility, modesty, respect, fortitude. Like Thor, he treats women with respect, though it’s true that prior to the “super-soldier serum” that transforms him into Captain America, the 98-pound weakling Steve hadn’t had much opportunity to be a ladies’ man.
(Later, as an established war hero, Steve does briefly succumb to the aggressive advances of a blonde bombshell who wants to “thank” him on behalf of the wives of the troops he’s rescued and the “women of America.” This, too, goes no further than a passionate but brief lip-lock. It’s possibly Steve’s first kiss, and I’d be inclined to cut him some slack — though Steve’s incipient love interest Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell), with whom he later shares a single, more meaningful kiss, understandably takes a dimmer view.)
Judging from Thor and Captain America, we can appreciate heroes who are gentlemen, not playboys. Perhaps audiences just find them easier to accept when they aren’t products of our own time and place. Gallantry is a virtue we as a culture can admire from afar but can’t relate to; with great power comes great temptation, and many people more or less assume that men like Hal Jordan, Tony Stark, and to an extent the young Charles Xavier probably won’t fare much better than Bill Clinton, Tiger Woods or Arnold Schwarzenegger. (Xavier’s story is set during the Kennedy presidency.) Yet we can imagine, and appreciate, gallantry in a historical or mythic context. Perhaps this indicates some awareness that our cultural standards or expectations are too low.
Captain America aside, how successful are these movies at bringing their flawed heroes up to heroic heights? Here the superhero films of 2011 — at least Thor and Green Lantern, which feature the most flawed heroes — come up short.
Thor and Hal Jordan do improve by the ends of their films — particularly Hal, who goes from being a delinquent Green Lantern running away from his calling to exhibiting heroic responsibility and resolve in the face of overwhelming odds. Thor, too, is found to be worthier by the end of his adventure and expresses humility and filial piety toward Odin quite unlike his initial demeanor.
Yet neither film makes this moral trajectory convincing. Thor is stunned to find that he can’t lift his own mystical hammer, but this is merely because Odin has placed a charm on it that will not permit it to be lifted except by one who is worthy. Later, when the hammer test establishes Thor’s worthiness, it’s not clear how he has really changed, or why. Hal, meanwhile, is chosen for superhero greatness by the alien power ring, but it’s never clear what untapped potential for heroism qualifies him for this honor or why he eventually develops truly heroic qualities seemingly overnight.
Both films fall short of the movie that is to an extent their model, the first Iron Man. Iron Man succeeds in depicting a moral awakening in Tony Stark by persuasively humbling him with a frightening near-death experience — caused, significantly, by one of his own irresponsibly sold weapons — and his captivity by terrorists in Afghanistan. Confronted with the consequences of his moral failings and his own mortality, Tony undergoes a satisfying, if incomplete, redemptive conversion. Nothing like this happens with Thor or Hal.
Interestingly, Charles Xavier, like Tony, suffers an incapacitating injury from which he will suffer for the rest of his life — though this happens at the end of X-Men: First Class, and how it will affect his character arc remains to be seen.
Perhaps Captain America offers the best depiction of what makes for a good hero: being a good person in the first place. (Cap’s old-fashioned virtue hasn’t hurt him at the box office, either: Captain America has already outgrossed Green Lantern as well as X-Men: First Class, though it may not be able to catch Thor.) In this summer of raunchy comedies, it’s gratifying that audiences are still interested in a hero who is (along with Superman) one of the genre’s biggest Boy Scouts.
Like others of his generation, Steve’s character was tempered in the forge of the Great Depression as well as the shadow of world war. Next year’s Avengers movie will throw this Greatest Generation warrior into the mix with the Tony Stark generation. What will that show us about ourselves and the world we live in? I’m almost afraid to find out.
Register film critic Steven D. Greydanus blogs at NCRegister.com.
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I appreciate this insight. I wonder, though, whether superheroes are so much more meaningful today than they were 60 or 25 years ago, or if it’s simply that westerns and Star Wars have faded and superheroes are the default option. When you say “stylized, larger-than-life stories,” does that refer to the tendency of superhero stories to have universe-spanning, cosmic pretensions, or only to the characters of the superheroes themselves? If the former, I don’t see that things are different than they were 25+ years ago, and if the latter, that just seems to be the nature of superheroism. For example, it’s a commonplace that Superman struck such a chord with people in 1932 because he was a mythical, archetypal figure. “Giving shape to ideas about the world we live in and how we live in it, about who we are and who we aspire to be” is what myth always does.
(I just realized on rereading the paragraph that you may not have meant to imply at all that superheroes are more meaningful today than 60 or 25 years ago. But your comparison with westerns and Star Wars does sort of invite that impression.)
Aw, cut it out with the perspective. You’ll spoil everybody’s fun.
Yeah, <i>Thor wasn’t that great. I’m looking forward to Captain America. I haven’t seen X-Men, but I’m curious: what’s the difference between a preboot and an ordinary prequel?
Which reveals an insidious intention to subvert traditional gender roles. That’s dangerous, leveling talk. Beware of the Tower.
Two points come to mind here. First, while raunchy comedies will always be with us, these tend to be movies where immorality and irresponsibility are celebrated and affirmed. It seems odd to compare these with “serious” superhero movies in which these things are repented and overcome. Second and more important, you seem to prefer superheroes who are already perfect before they get their powers to ones who have to grow into their roles. In other words, you seem to feel that the best superhero movies are the ones that do without mundane things like a real dramatic arc for the main character.
(I can guess some of your response. You’ll say you have no problem with the Tony Stark type of hero, but you don’t want every superhero to give the impression that morality is only for those who have something extraordinary happen to them and that making decency inaccessible to ordinary human beings, or at least all those who end up doing something important, is false to life as well as a disservice to audiences. You’ll also connect this to the point above about superheroes being mythical, archetypal figures, and point out that there need to be some heroes who fill the myth perfectly, both to preserve the integrity of the genre and to bring out the truth that it represents the perfection of one aspect of human nature, not something completely foreign to humanity.)
Wow, Pachyderminator, great comments. Thanks.
Have superheroes and superhero stories changed? Partly, perhaps, but an important part of what has changed is the cultural context. On the one hand, as you note, Westerns have faded, and Star Wars, though still important, has become a static story that belongs to the past.
Superhero stories, on the other hand, have moved more into the cultural mainstream. If it’s true as you say that they have always had a certain mythological dimension, they have functioned mostly as a mythology for a subculture rather than the larger culture.
Spider-Man has always been a towering figure in my personal imaginative world, but he was a mythic figure only for fellow comic-book geeks. The larger world was certainly aware of who he was, but he didn’t have the cultural penetration to function on a mythic level for the larger culture. For that, you need a broad awareness not only of who Spider-Man is but of his world—of Aunt May and Uncle Ben, of J. Jonah Jameson and the Daily Bugle, of the Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus and Mary Jane Watson and Gwen Stacy.
As always happens with mythology, those stories have been told and retold until they no longer greatly resemble the original stories. But as I say the individual stories are less important than the worlds and even the genre itself. It is the mythos of the superhero as such, more than the mythos of any particular hero, that I think has really taken root in the popular imagination in a new way.
“Preboot” is a portmanteau of “prequel” and “reboot” (Rise of the Planet of the Apes is another example). It implies that X-Men: First Class is not simply a new, earlier chapter in the existing X-Men franchise, but is in some way a reinvention or new start to the franchise itself. Although it clearly connects to the existing franchise in several ways, not least by featuring cameos of actors reprising their roles from earlier films, it’s not entirely clear yet that the new film really belongs to the exact same world as the earlier films. Partly the change in creative teams as well as the recasting of all the characters justifies seeing this as a new start for X-Men rather than a strict prequel.
Raunchy comedies will always be with us, but they seem to be picking up steam, don’t they? I could be wrong, but my impression is that this year and last year have featured more raunchy comedies than the previous several years combined. The point was simply that if our comedies seem to suggest that we are a nation of neanderthals, the success of Captain America at least suggests we don’t require our heroes to start out as neanderthals before learning about power and responsibility.
As for your final question, you possibly did a better job answering it yourself than I would have done. Cheers!
“Which reveals an insidious intention to subvert traditional gender roles. That’s dangerous, leveling talk. Beware of the Tower.”
I can’t tell if you’re being serious here or not, please explain. It does annoy me when the hero goes to kiss the girl and then she does that downwards swoop kiss thing to him, rather than the other way around, but IIRC, in Captain America, it was one of those good luck on your dangerous mission type kisses girls are supposed to give the hero ;)
Pierce O: FWIW, the kiss I was talking about (in the line Pachyderminator’s comment was in response to) was the smooch that Thor gets from Jane Foster at the end of the film. My point in noting that Jane initiates the kiss had nothing to do with gender roles; it was simply to point out Thor’s gallantry in kissing Jane’s hand and not trying to steal the next base, or whatever. I didn’t particularly appreciate Jane kissing Thor, but I wouldn’t have appreciated Thor kissing Jane either; the problem with the kiss to my mind was that the film had failed to establish an emotional connection between them.
There might be times when I would be serious about such a thing, but actually I don’t care whether Thor kisses Jane or the other way around. I try to use A Man for All Seasons quotations in a way that preserves their original meaning in the new context. Don’t mistake my appetite for apathy!
Even though the mainstream movies of today spice the super hero films of today with such scenes as the opener of Green Lantern and the tad nod to Iron Man’s Tony Stark with a brief in-bed scene, Super Heroes, to me, can give many boys some hope that they can become great in their own ways in regards to brains (like Batman, Spider-man and IronMan) and Brawn (like Thor and Captain America). They also help them feel good about themselves when they feel they are “different” and when even poeple can be cruel, know to do the right thing and help others (such as in the XMen films.)
And, yes, the lack of “sexual” conduct as depicted in the Thor and Captain America films also show that to be a heroic man, can also be respectful to women—and I was glad to see this in those two films.
What I’m trying to get at is despite the film’s somewhat Hollywood tarnishings, the stories of super heroes can offer children positive lessons and influences. Batman used his wealth to educate himself and to obtain tools to fight crime. Spider-Man learned a great lesson that being egotistic and not helping someone that treated him bad led to the consequence of his uncle being killed. Steve Rogers had a passion and never gave up at trying to enlist in the army until he finally got the chance from someone. And the Fantastic Four is a group that is like a family—and uses teamwork to get the job done at fighting villians.
Though the films sometimes do get shafted by hollywood’s posion, it is good to know that the classic comic stories can be bought in paperback form—and the true origins and stories can be shared with youngsters to enjoy—without the film industry “sexing” it up.
Comic books are also a great escape for young and for older (I’m 39 and still enjoy comics). They expose children to reading, creativity, vivid colors, fantasy and artwork.
Between comics and the bible—I feel the two can be great tools to teach kids (and to remind adults)about things such as not to give up, (sometimes they show to have) respect for women, to help out fellow man, to do what is right, to benefits of teamwork and to diminish prejudice.
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