tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/marvel-films-60662/articles
Marvel films – The Conversation
2023-06-01T12:29:23Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/205892
2023-06-01T12:29:23Z
2023-06-01T12:29:23Z
‘Across the Spider-Verse’ and the Latino legacy of Spider-Man
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529439/original/file-20230531-21-rqrm8k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C26%2C878%2C570&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Spider-Man Miguel O’Hara, who first appeared in the 1992 comic series 'Spider-Man 2099,' was the first Latino superhero to assume a starring role.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/marveldatabase/images/f/f0/Miguel_O%27Hara_%28Earth-6375%29_from_Exiles_Vol_1_75_001.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20090903231159">Marvel Database</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As a Latino literature and media scholar, a lifelong gamer and a Guatemalan-American girl whose dad read her comics every night, I quickly became a fan and then scholar of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00064246.2022.2007345">Miles Morales</a>, the Afro-Puerto Rican Spider-Man who first appeared in comic book form in 2011’s “<a href="https://www.marvel.com/comics/issue/39962/ultimate_fallout_2011_4">Ultimate Fallout #4</a>.”</p>
<p>Just seven years after his introduction, Morales swung into theaters in
“<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4633694/">Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse</a>,” a visually stunning, 3D-animated film that won an Academy Award for <a href="https://variety.com/2019/film/news/spider-man-into-the-spider-verse-wins-oscar-best-animated-film-1203145826/">best animated feature</a>.</p>
<p>Now, its sequel, “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9362722/">Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse</a>,” features two Latino Spider-Men in starring roles. Irish-Latino Spider-Man Miguel O’Hara of “Spider-Man 2099,” voiced by Oscar Isaac, is jumping into the fray. And although he was a well-received Spider-Man as a Marvel comic book character in the 1990s, there’s a good chance you’ve never heard of him.</p>
<h2>Breaking the mold</h2>
<p>Latino characters, particularly ones who have a starring role, have traditionally been <a href="https://uapress.arizona.edu/book/latinx-superheroes-in-mainstream-comics">underrepresented in mainstream comics</a>. </p>
<p>Marvel’s first Latino hero, Hector Ayala, debuted in 1975, <a href="https://utpress.utexas.edu/9781477318966/">after the success of “Black Panther</a>.” Written by Bill Mantlo and drawn by legendary comic artist <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIH3dbQftAc">George Pérez</a>, Ayala, known as <a href="https://youtu.be/ODOlsQVdHgM?t=224">White Tiger</a>, was a Puerto Rican college student living in New York. His powers came from a magical amulet that bestowed him with speed and martial arts expertise.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://uapress.arizona.edu/book/latinx-superheroes-in-mainstream-comics">Latino comics scholar Frederick Luis Aldama argues</a>, Mantlo and Pérez avoided many of the stereotypes that plagued Latinos in comics, which often cast Latinos as criminals or drug dealers. <a href="https://www.marvel.com/characters/white-tiger-hector-ayala">Later iterations of White Tiger</a> included his niece Angela del Toro and his sister, Ava Ayala.</p>
<p>The first Marvel Latina superhero, also co-created by Mantlo, was Firebird – real name, Bonita Juárez – who first appeared in 1981. A Catholic social worker from New Mexico, she represented a departure from the Black and Latino comic characters <a href="https://uapress.arizona.edu/book/latinx-superheroes-in-mainstream-comics">who predominately come from big cities like New York</a>.</p>
<h2>Spider-Man’s web extends into Latin America</h2>
<p>In Latin America, Spider-Man has been a popular character since the hero first appeared in his own series, “Amazing Spider-Man,” in 1963. </p>
<p>Marvel licensed Mexican publisher La Prensa to print Spanish translations of Spider-Man issues <a href="https://codigoespagueti.com/noticias/comics-hombre-arana-hechos-mexico/">just a few months</a> after its release in the U.S. </p>
<p>La Prensa also extended Spider-Man’s reach to Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Perú. In Mexico, Spider-Man quickly became more popular than any other Marvel character, save for his girlfriend, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-CJwX2VRQ8&t=1s">Gwen Stacy</a>. </p>
<p>So in the 1970s, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20080327084155/http:/bajolamascara.universomarvel.com/2008/02/el_spiderman_ilegal_mexicano.html">La Prensa began to create its own Spider-Man stories</a> on weeks when Marvel didn’t release a new Spider-Man issue. These new stories, like an issue where Peter Parker dreams that he married Gwen Stacy, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210424122019/https:/spidermex.com/inicio.php">only appeared in Mexico</a>. </p>
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<p>Perhaps Spider-Man’s popularity in this part of the world is due to the fact that he’s scrappy, hardworking, and trying to help his family. Or maybe Latin Americans love <a href="https://youtu.be/w-CJwX2VRQ8?t=1172">his luchador-esque costume</a> – Peter Parker did, after all, debut his Spider-Man title and threads <a href="https://spiderfan.org/review/comics/amazing_fantasy/015.html">as a professional wrestler</a>.</p>
<h2>An Irish-Latino swings into the Spider-Verse</h2>
<p>Firebird and White Tiger never headlined their own series, though. And the Spider-Man who Latin Americans embraced in the 1960s and 1970s was white.</p>
<p>So it was a big deal when Miguel O'Hara took on the mantle of Spider-Man in his own series, which ran for four years.</p>
<p>While <a href="https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Multiverse">the multiverse</a> is a recent development in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, multiple Earths – each with its own versions of Marvel superheroes – have existed for decades in the comics.</p>
<p>This has allowed for different iterations of the same superhero.</p>
<p>Peter Parker is the Spider-Man of Earth-616, the official Marvel universe. Miles Morales began as the Spider-Man of Earth-1610. </p>
<p>Miguel O'Hara is the future Spider-Man of Earth-616 in the year 2099, a post-apocalyptic future run by greedy corporations. </p>
<p>When O’Hara first appeared in 1992 as the main star of the “2099” series, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/remembering-the-first-and-forgotten-latino-spider-man">fans embraced him</a>, with little controversy. </p>
<p>It’s possible that O'Hara was uncontroversial because questions of race and racism <a href="https://amazingspidertalk.com/2014/12/spidiversity-2099-regarding-miguel-ohara/">didn’t factor explicitly into the plots of each issue</a>. And perhaps O'Hara’s light skin made it easy for readers to forget that he was Latino in the first place.</p>
<p>Yet comics scholar Kathryn M. Frank argues in the collection “<a href="https://utpress.utexas.edu/9781477309155/">Graphic Borders</a>” that the writers of “Spider-Man 2099” were aware of their hero’s ethnic identity and subtly incorporated commentaries on race into the series.</p>
<p>In the comics, O'Hara has an accent due to his elongated, spiderlike teeth, which may reflect the assumed foreignness of Latino citizens in the U.S. and the discrimination they suffer for it. He also embraces his difference in his own style. As fans have pointed out, <a href="https://cdn.superaficionados.com/imagenes/dia-muertos-cke.jpg">his costume</a> mixes a <a href="https://www.rutgers.edu/news/what-meaning-behind-day-dead-symbolism">Day of the Dead skull</a> with the classic spider insignia in an explicit connection to his Mexican heritage.</p>
<h2>Recasting Spider-Man as an Afro-Latino</h2>
<p>Then, in 2011, Marvel announced Miles Morales, the first Spider-Man who was both Black and Latino. </p>
<p>This time, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewnewton/2011/08/04/how-the-media-reacted-to-news-of-a-non-white-spider-man/?sh=49edfabc4f61">the responses</a> <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/21504857.2014.994647">were more polarizing</a>. </p>
<p>Former Fox News pundit Glenn Beck <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/peter-parker-replaced-by-mixed-race-spiderman/2011/08/03/gIQAyQQ6rI_blog.html">blamed then-first lady Michelle Obama</a> for the creation of Morales, pointing to <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/story/rewriting-our-history-changing-our-traditions">a clip of her saying,</a> “We’re going to have to change our traditions.”</p>
<p>However, to some fans, recasting Spider-Man as Black made perfect sense. Walter Moseley, a popular crime novelist, has provocatively argued that the original Spider-Man of the 1960s is actually “<a href="https://www.vulture.com/2016/10/walter-mosley-on-why-spider-man-is-black.html">the first Black superhero</a>,” since his backstory – raised by his extended family, growing up in poverty and demonized by the media – was more relatable to Black New Yorkers.</p>
<p>When Morales came on the scene, he wasn’t merely a carbon copy of Peter Parker, though. He was raised by his African American father – an ex-con who had turned his life around – and Puerto Rican mother in Brooklyn.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Smiling man with dreadlocks poses with 'shocker' hand gestures." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529438/original/file-20230531-21-3hlj3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529438/original/file-20230531-21-3hlj3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529438/original/file-20230531-21-3hlj3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529438/original/file-20230531-21-3hlj3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529438/original/file-20230531-21-3hlj3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529438/original/file-20230531-21-3hlj3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529438/original/file-20230531-21-3hlj3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Actor Shameik Moore, who voiced Miles Morales in ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,’ celebrates after the film won best animated feature at the Academy Awards in 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/in-this-handout-provided-by-a-m-p-a-s-actor-shameik-moore-news-photo/1127271085">Matt Petit/A.M.P.A.S. via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>How Morales’ race and ethnicity would play into the stories has been a point of contention. As English professor Jorge J. Santos, Jr. argues in the collection “<a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/mixed-race-superheroes/9781978814592">Mixed-Race Superheroes</a>,” the first comics series featuring Morales “barely makes any mention of Miles’s ethnicity.” He didn’t seem to speak Spanish, nor did he have any Puerto Rican or Latino friends. He even resisted <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2018/12/miles-morales-of-into-the-spider-verse-the-race-problem.html">being seen as a Black Spider-Man</a>.</p>
<p>That somewhat changed in the following series, which came out in 2018 and was written by Saladin Ahmed and drawn by Javier Garrón. In December 2022, Cody Ziglar, a Black comic writer, took over as the head writer of Morales’ story.</p>
<p>Latino representation in the Spider-Verse is still somewhat lacking. Araña, <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.7560/309148-012/html?lang=en">a Mexican-Puerto Rican Spider-Girl</a> conceived in 2004, is the only other major Latino Spidey character.</p>
<p>Marvel has tried to highlight <a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/panthers-hulks-and-ironhearts/9781978809215">Latino diversity in its other comics</a>. In 2021, the comics publisher released an entire collection showcasing Latino characters titled “<a href="https://www.marvel.com/articles/comics/marvels-voices-comunidades-1-announcement">Marvel’s Voices: Comunidades #1</a>.”</p>
<p>The sequel to “Into the Spider-Verse” is sure to make viewers of color in the U.S. cheer. As Latino media scholar <a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/mixed-race-superheroes/9781978814592">Isabel Molina-Guzmán</a> argues, while race complicates Hollywood casting and writing, Black and Latino viewers reacted very positively to Morales. But she insists that the movie also invites longtime fans and audiences of all backgrounds “to stand in Miles Morales’s space” and root for the mixed-race teen trying to save the world.</p>
<p>To me, that’s what makes superhero films starring characters of color so compelling. These characters are, in many senses, outcasts searching for community – in their real lives and in costume.</p>
<p>As Frank, the comics scholar, notes, these differences can lead to feelings of alienation.</p>
<p>But they can also be a source of empowerment.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cqGjhVJWtEg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’ follows its 2018 predecessor, which incorporated a groundbreaking mix of 2D and 3D animation.</span></figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205892/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Regina Marie Mills does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Latino characters have traditionally been underrepresented in mainstream comics. But Spider-Man’s backstory makes him the perfect superhero to be recast as a minority.
Regina Marie Mills, Assistant Professor of Latinx and U.S. Multi-Ethnic Literature, Texas A&M University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/186639
2022-07-12T01:44:16Z
2022-07-12T01:44:16Z
For the love of Thor! Why it’s so hard for Marvel to get its female superheroes right
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473300/original/file-20220711-26-sq97xn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C9%2C6029%2C3992&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">©Marvel Studios 2022. All Rights Reserved</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When it was first revealed that Natalie Portman was to become the “female Thor” in Marvel’s latest superhero instalment, Thor: Love and Thunder, fans were quick to <a href="https://www.igi-global.com/chapter/if-she-be-worthy/259582">condemn the decision</a> on social media. </p>
<p>Portman was lambasted as not “<a href="https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Swole">swole</a>” enough, too petite, and generally not what people imagined the character to be. Ten months of <a href="https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/movies/new-movies/natalie-portmans-trainer-reveals-how-the-star-got-so-ripped-for-thor/news-story/f068c4080ebb18716dcd25855905611b">intensive workouts and a high-protein diet</a> later, and Portman is being <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/women/natalie-portman-thor-arms-madonna-b2117769.html">applauded</a> for arms that “could actually throw giant hammers at baddies’ heads”. </p>
<p>Yet that early reaction to Portman’s casting attests to how the representation of female superheroes can be difficult for movie-makers when the established audience is often perceived to be young, white, cisgender and male. </p>
<p>It seemingly doesn’t matter that the number of women consuming superhero content has <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09540253.2019.1633460?journalCode=cgee20">increased</a>. Offering feminist depictions of characters that could challenge the defining masculinity of the genre remains a problem.</p>
<p>What does this mean for Portman and the female superheroes who have come before (and will follow) her? The answer seems to be that the makers of superhero movies inevitably <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781793624598/The-Superhero-Multiverse-Readapting-Comic-Book-Icons-in-Twenty-First-Century-Film-and-Popular-Media">subvert some gender stereotypes</a> while maintaining others. </p>
<p>In short, they offer token female representation so as not to ostracise audiences. So while she might now be more muscular, Portman is still subordinated to Chris Hemsworth’s Thor by highlighting that she is first and foremost his love interest.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473303/original/file-20220711-12-cwnqgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473303/original/file-20220711-12-cwnqgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473303/original/file-20220711-12-cwnqgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473303/original/file-20220711-12-cwnqgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473303/original/file-20220711-12-cwnqgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473303/original/file-20220711-12-cwnqgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473303/original/file-20220711-12-cwnqgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">More muscles but still mainly the love interest: Natalie Portman and Chris Hemsworth in Thor: Love and Thunder.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">©Marvel Studios 2022. All Rights Reserved</span></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Too few female superheroes</h2>
<p>Granted, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) franchise has at least attempted to cast female leads and to advocate for women’s issues. For example, Black Widow’s standalone film was in part <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/scarlett-johansson-black-widow-feminist-me-too-times-up-empire-a9704806.html">intended to contribute</a> to the dialogue around the #Timesup and #MeToo movements. </p>
<p>And the latest Thor offering explores the value of female friendships, with co-star <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2022/06/22/thor-love-and-thunder-natalie-portman-building-mighty-physique/7687523001/">Tessa Thompson attesting</a> to her character Valkyrie being “happy to have found a new sister”.</p>
<p>There’s no doubt female viewers can identify with these powerful women and their stories and as a result form positive attitudes to the superhero genre in general. But that means more superhero films need to be made with the female viewer in mind.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-witch-treatment-what-dr-stranges-wanda-tells-us-about-representations-of-female-anger-184509">The witch treatment: What Dr. Strange's Wanda tells us about representations of female anger</a>
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<p>Such offerings are few and far between, however. Let’s not forget it took Marvel ten years to give Black Widow her own film after her original introduction to the franchise (in 2010’s Iron Man 2). </p>
<p>In many ways, Marvel’s films continue to depict women as auxiliaries – damsels in distress, love interests, or subordinate in some way to their male counterparts. In fact, actress <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-57524423">Scarlett Johansson criticised</a> the earlier “hyper-sexualisation” of her Black Widow character. </p>
<p>Similarly, Scarlet Witch, one of the most powerful of the Avengers characters, is often defined by the male relationships in her life. In the recent Dr Strange: The Multiverse of Madness, she typifies many <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-witch-treatment-what-dr-stranges-wanda-tells-us-about-representations-of-female-anger-184509">unfavourable female tropes</a>, including the “hysterical woman” and “monstrous mother”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473309/original/file-20220711-23-gukdpa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473309/original/file-20220711-23-gukdpa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473309/original/file-20220711-23-gukdpa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473309/original/file-20220711-23-gukdpa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473309/original/file-20220711-23-gukdpa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473309/original/file-20220711-23-gukdpa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473309/original/file-20220711-23-gukdpa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A billboard advertising Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow: ‘hyper-sexualised’ stereotypes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span>
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<h2>The hyper-sexualised stereotype</h2>
<p>Treating even powerful female characters as <a href="https://www.panicdiscourse.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/5-19-Holding-Out-for-a-Heroine.pdf">subordinate or dependent</a> might reassure male fans that superheroines aren’t a threat to the masculine undertones of the genre, but it does a disservice to the female audience. </p>
<p>Asked to assess superhero graphic novels and films, most women in <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1045159514546214">one study</a> said they disliked and avoided the DC Comics character of Catwoman because she was presented as manipulative and emotional. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/captain-marvel-why-female-superheroes-are-not-just-for-international-womens-day-113083">Captain Marvel: why female superheroes are not just for International Women's Day</a>
</strong>
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<p>Other <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/car.1094">research has found</a> that exposure to messages of powerlessness can lead girls to feel demoralised and dissatisfied with their own identities, and the overly sexualised depiction of female superheroes can result in <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-015-0455-3">lower body esteem</a> in women.</p>
<p>On the other hand, some also rebel against the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21504857.2014.916327">stereotypes</a>. <a href="https://thehawkeyeinitiative.tumblr.com/">The Hawkeye Initiative</a>, for example, parodies the male gaze within the comic book genre by depicting men in the same absurd costumes and poses normally reserved for female characters.</p>
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<h2>Male backlash and box office risk</h2>
<p>The real issue, though, is whether women should even have to challenge such depictions. If more films and comics were made by women for women, perhaps there would be fewer tokenistic portrayals to begin with.</p>
<p>Marvel has rejected criticism of its female characters, with its <a href="https://www.thewrap.com/marvels-kevin-feige-calls-black-widow-backlash-a-little-strange-boasts-his-movies-are-full-of-smart-intelligent-powerful-women/">president saying</a> the studio has always “gone for the powerful woman versus the damsel in distress” and pointing to the recent release of female-led superhero films and TV programs such as She-Hulk and Ms Marvel.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/supermans-not-the-first-hero-to-be-portrayed-as-bisexual-but-hell-bring-hope-to-lgbtq-fans-169898">Superman's not the first hero to be portrayed as bisexual, but he'll bring hope to LGBTQ+ fans</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Trouble is, it’s hard to keep everyone happy. Marvel has felt the backlash from die-hard male fans to a supposed feminist agenda underpinning the studio’s direction. 2019’s Captain Marvel, for example, was touted as <a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-ca-mn-captain-marvel-directors-20190228-story.html">bringing feminism</a> to the Marvel universe, but <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/13/movies/captain-marvel-brie-larson-rotten-tomatoes.html">poor reviews and audience ratings</a> were attributed in part to perceived political correctness and a narrative based on female agency. </p>
<p>Researchers such as <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21504857.2016.1219958?casa_token=DXr8QHcO8nUAAAAA%3AHBBbBqJoe6-VxG-a1kak5O-52rNPUXySYFwJRKjh9ALcXyO9KpYTQLcRL0j-7Q6AVIdGp6Kq7pVibA">Stephanie Orme</a> have contended that the dominance of men in the superhero genre leaves many female fans feeling alienated and unable to change the gender stereotypes, precisely because they’re not seen as the target audience.</p>
<p>It seems that without more and better film and comic female superheroes telling women’s stories, these male-centric genres will continue to alienate female audiences – and to fall short of their creative and commercial potential.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186639/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Angelique Nairn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Director Taika Waititi’s new Thor: Love and Thunder features a female superhero, but again struggles to transcend the stereotypes of a genre where the male fan base still decides the rules.
Angelique Nairn, Senior Lecturer in Communication Studies, Auckland University of Technology
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/184509
2022-06-14T15:07:42Z
2022-06-14T15:07:42Z
The witch treatment: What Dr. Strange’s Wanda tells us about representations of female anger
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468285/original/file-20220610-17-s9ew68.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C28%2C1218%2C633&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Wanda's rage fuels her actions in 'Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.' </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The visual effects in Marvel’s <em>Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness</em> don’t disappoint, but the treatment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) lead female villain does. </p>
<p>Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) hasn’t <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/wanda-maximoff-doctor-strange-mcu">been given much positive character development</a>. In contrast to <a href="https://thedirect.com/article/mcu-thanos-next-threat">Marvel’s</a> <a href="https://www.marvel.com/comics/discover/601/dormammu">notorious villains</a>, Wanda has no grand design, no desire to rule or destroy humanity. Her goal is limited to her self-created picture of domestic happiness: she fights to reunite with her two sons. </p>
<p>Such treatment is an illustration of <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=AnKGWlZG_ncC&pg=PA16&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false">the separate spheres’ sexist doctrine</a>: to men, the world is a stage, while women must limit themselves to the private sanctum of the house. </p>
<p>But more problematic is the representation of one particular aspect of Wanda’s character: her anger. In the film, references to mythological and popular culture figures of female anger are allusions to stereotypical expectations associated with women’s conduct.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aWzlQ2N6qqg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Official trailer for ‘Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Female demonstrations of anger</h2>
<p>Mainstream media images contribute to drawing emotional norms of what is considered appropriate behaviour. Female demonstrations of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMt0K-AbpCU">anger are often associated with negative values, lack of control or deviant and pathological behaviours</a>. </p>
<p>Such <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2019.1609197">rhetoric plays an important part in maintaining a gendered social order</a>. By preventing agency, it also contributes to gate-keeping positions of power.</p>
<p>Wanda appeared in several instalments of the MCU franchise where her character experienced important changes: first as a villain, then as a rehabilitated ally to the Avengers. She then became the complex character of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9140560/">the <em>WandaVision</em> mini-series</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman in a dress and red lipstick is seen standing with two male superheros in costume." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468288/original/file-20220610-18059-xoyccj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468288/original/file-20220610-18059-xoyccj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468288/original/file-20220610-18059-xoyccj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468288/original/file-20220610-18059-xoyccj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468288/original/file-20220610-18059-xoyccj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468288/original/file-20220610-18059-xoyccj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468288/original/file-20220610-18059-xoyccj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Wanda, played by Elizabeth Olsen, first appeared in ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron,’ from 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Alter-ego: The Scarlet Witch</h2>
<p>Wanda’s rage fuels her actions and gives her the will to kill anyone who stands between her and her sons. And killing she does throughout the film — superheroes and civilians alike. With the aid of <a href="https://www.theringer.com/2021/2/26/22303461/wandavision-episode-8-recap-wanda-scarlet-witch-agatha">her alter ego, the Scarlet Witch</a>, and the control of <a href="https://collider.com/darkhold-book-of-the-damned-explained-wandavision-episode-9/">the Darkhold</a>, she seems unstoppable.</p>
<p>This anger-fuelled behaviour is depicted <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Rage-Becomes-Her/Soraya-Chemaly/9781501189562">as stereotypical female anger: over-emotional and irrational</a>. </p>
<p>The lack of rationality in Wanda’s acts is exposed in her second encounter with Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) when he tries to bring her to reason: an offer she rejects by stating “This is me being reasonable.” She then draws a trail of death <a href="https://marvelcinematicuniverse.fandom.com/wiki/Kamar-Taj">in Kamar-Taj</a>.</p>
<h2>A modern Medusa</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468290/original/file-20220610-18059-2c4omy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Mosaic showing a head with snakes." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468290/original/file-20220610-18059-2c4omy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468290/original/file-20220610-18059-2c4omy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468290/original/file-20220610-18059-2c4omy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468290/original/file-20220610-18059-2c4omy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468290/original/file-20220610-18059-2c4omy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=698&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468290/original/file-20220610-18059-2c4omy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=698&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468290/original/file-20220610-18059-2c4omy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=698&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Medusa’s head, seen on a mosaic floor of the Roman era.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/">(Ad Meskens/Wikimedia Commons)</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In this same scene, Wanda leaves bodies literally petrified: a reminder of the fate of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Medusa-Greek-mythology">Medusa’s victims</a>, the female monster of Greek mythology that turned to stone the men who dared to look into her eyes. </p>
<p>As noted by professor of English Elizabeth Johnson, “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/11/the-original-nasty-woman-of-classical-myth/506591/">Medusa has haunted western imagination, materializing whenever male authority feels threatened by female agency</a>.”</p>
<p>Wanda wears her anger on her sleeve, or rather in her hands, from which she shoots lethal balls of fire, an extension of her unbridled emotion. This may strike viewers as an allusion to <a href="https://screenrant.com/maleficent-sleeping-beauty-origins-powers/">the powerful fairy Maleficent</a> who <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1587310/">in Disney’s 2014 film</a> commands the growing of thorns from the palm of her hands.</p>
<p>As writer Hephzibah Anderson suggests, such thorns are another <a href="https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20140602-secret-meanings-of-fairy-tales">powerful symbol of woman’s rage towards men who try to breach boundaries too hastily</a>. </p>
<h2>Blood rage</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468300/original/file-20220610-45569-am4w3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Movie poster showing one young girl in a prom dress smiling and dressed up and another of her screaming covered in blood." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468300/original/file-20220610-45569-am4w3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468300/original/file-20220610-45569-am4w3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468300/original/file-20220610-45569-am4w3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468300/original/file-20220610-45569-am4w3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468300/original/file-20220610-45569-am4w3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468300/original/file-20220610-45569-am4w3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468300/original/file-20220610-45569-am4w3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In ‘Carrie,’ the teenager’s power and killing spree follows her menses and shaming about it.‘</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In another key scene, Wanda proceeds to systematically massacre the Avengers and appears dressed in a white shirt covered in blood, her face stained by red streaks. Viewers are unsure whose blood it is, and no explanation is given.</p>
<p>This scene <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/movies/stephen-kings-carrie-through-the-ages.html">refers to the cult horror film <em>Carrie</em> (1976)</a> where Sissy Spacek’s character’s power and her subsequent killing spree is triggered by her menses and the shaming that she experiences as a result. </p>
<p>This is a reminder that menstrual blood <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-myth-of-premenstrual-moodiness-10289">has long been associated with female irrational anger</a>, but also that female rage has often been pathologized, sometimes <a href="http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/documents/articles/Anger.pdf">linked to hysteria</a>.</p>
<h2>Anger: Noble or stigmatized?</h2>
<p>Since the foundation of the western heroic mythology — and as far back as Homer’s <em>Iliad</em> (that begins with Achilles’ righteous anger) — <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/rage-and-time/9780231145220">literary tradition has given men the right to make productive use of their anger</a> while negatively representing the angry woman.</p>
<p>When expressed by the powerful, emotions are received as appropriate, noble even. <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctt1g09x4q">The same emotions expressed by minoritized groups are stigmatized</a>. Women’s anger can also be racialized: for example, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000884">research about the reactions to Black women’s expressions of anger at work</a> finds that “expressions of emotion are evaluated differently depending on demographics” and that racial stereotypes affect how people perceive anger in Black women.</p>
<p>As cultural critic Roxane Gay asks: “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/opinion/sunday/who-gets-to-be-angry.html">Who gets to be angry?</a>”</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/that-racist-caricature-of-serena-williams-makes-me-so-angry-103390">That racist caricature of Serena Williams makes me so angry</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Victims of oppression feel pressurized to let go of their anger to appease discussions. According to professor of political and social theory, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26948107?seq=1">Amia Srinivasan, this is injustice through the policing of emotions</a>. </p>
<p><em>Dr. Strange</em> seems to recognize an emotional double standard at the beginning of the film when Wanda makes the following comment to Dr. Strange: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“You break the rules and become a hero? I do it and become the enemy. That doesn’t seem fair.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yet even when there is no doubt that the cause of their emotion may be valid (rape for Medusa, while Wanda was <a href="https://collider.com/doctor-strange-2-where-is-vision-explained-multiverse-of-madness/#:%7E:text=Not%20only%20was%20it%20devastating,him%2C%20to%20destroy%20the%20stone.">forced to murder her own partner</a>), victims’ anger is <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26948107?seq=1">depicted as a threat to social peace</a>.</p>
<h2>Reclaiming feminine power</h2>
<p>For centuries, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/mar/08/nicola-sturgeon-issues-apology-for-historical-injustice-of-witch-hunts">witch hunts realized male desire to control women’s bodies and social role</a>. The function of witches is today defended <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/aug/07/monsters-men-magic-trump-awoke-angry-feminist-witches">by feminists who reclaim feminine power and women’s political role</a>. </p>
<p>But the MCU franchise’s representation of the female villain clearly ignores this dimension.</p>
<p>Spectators might wonder whether the scarlet linked to Wanda’s character refers to the blood that she sheds, to the colour associated with rage — or to the stigma that was attached to the letter in the classic 19th-century novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, <em><a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Scarlet-Letter-novel-by-Hawthorne">The Scarlet Letter</a></em>. </p>
<p>Disgrace befalls the woman who endeavours to carve her own path.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184509/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gaelle Planchenault does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Visual references to mythological and popular culture figures of female anger abound in the latest Dr. Strange movie.
Gaelle Planchenault, Associate Professor of French Media, Culture, and Applied Linguistics, Simon Fraser University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/170953
2021-11-03T23:19:14Z
2021-11-03T23:19:14Z
Eternals is something entirely new for Marvel – and entirely ancient in its origins
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430109/original/file-20211103-17-5jz3nm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2003%2C1120&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">IMDB</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Marvel’s Eternals will likely divide audiences into two groups: those who wish to tease out the mythical and comic book influences in Chloé Zhao’s modern epic, and those who prefer to enjoy the spectacle. This review takes the first approach, yet the film offers much to entertain both types of viewer.</p>
<p>Eternals explores new horizons in the Marvel Universe, both in its god-like protagonists, and in the <a href="https://variety.com/video/eternals-angelina-jolie-salma-hayek-kit-harington-mcu-marvel/">inclusivity of its casting</a> and plot-lines. </p>
<p>Shifting the franchise’s focus from mortals with extraordinary abilities and/or superpowers (such as <a href="https://screenrant.com/marvel-iron-man-vibranium-suit-endgame-death-live/">Iron Man</a> or <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/oct/04/chadwick-boseman-howard-university-scholarship">Black Panther</a>, the Eternals are new breed of Earth-defenders: a group of immortal (or at least, impressively enduring) superheroes often mistaken for deities.</p>
<p>But while they are new to the Marvel universe, they could more accurately be described as the (very) old guard. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/x_me3xsvDgk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>An early origin story</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20150819-before-marvel-and-dc-superheroes-of-the-ancient-world">Classical myths play a shaping role</a> in many modern superhero stories, a trend that continues in Eternals. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429890/original/file-20211103-25-1f090cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429890/original/file-20211103-25-1f090cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429890/original/file-20211103-25-1f090cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1277&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429890/original/file-20211103-25-1f090cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1277&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429890/original/file-20211103-25-1f090cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1277&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429890/original/file-20211103-25-1f090cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1604&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429890/original/file-20211103-25-1f090cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1604&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429890/original/file-20211103-25-1f090cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1604&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Eternals Sersi aligns with the Ancient Greek Circe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">J W Waterhouse/Art Gallery of South Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Thena (Angelina Jolie) is associated with the Greek goddess of warfare, Athena. Sersi (Gemma Chan) aligns with the enchantress from <a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-homers-odyssey-82911">Homer’s Odyssey</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/06/books/madeline-miller-circe-novel.html">Circe</a>. Ikaris (Richard Madden) parallels the flying (and falling) <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/nov/03/we-have-one-chance-to-kick-the-carbon-habit">Icarus from Cretan myth</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.marvel.com/comics/issue/8799/eternals_1976_1">first Eternals comic book</a> was released in 1976. There, the Eternals and their enemies, the war-mongering Deviants, arrived from distant galaxies in ancient times and were viewed with awe by their puny Earthling relatives.</p>
<p>As the comic goes, the battles between Eternals and Deviants (continued in the film) were translated into the legends of numerous ancient cultures. </p>
<p>As per the self-mythology of the Eternals, it is not that these characters are inspired by Ancient Greek legends, but that Ancient Greek legends were inspired by them.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-homers-odyssey-82911">Guide to the Classics: Homer's Odyssey</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The first ancient Near Eastern Marvel superhero</h2>
<p>The film opens with ten Eternals, <a href="https://screenrant.com/eternals-costumes-different-how-marvel-explained/">clad in colourful cosmic activewear</a>, establishing their role as planetary protectors in Mesopotamia around 7000 BCE. </p>
<p>Ancient Mesopotamia (roughly located in modern-day Iraq) was home to many early developments in civilisation, such as writing, agriculture, and even some of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/marvel-meets-mesopotamia-how-modern-comics-preserve-ancient-myths-101529">earliest known literary “superheroes”</a>: the legendary king Lugalbanda, for example, was divinely gifted with superspeed.</p>
<p>The character of Gilgamesh in Eternals is the first ancient Near Eastern hero with a leading role in a Marvel film.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429891/original/file-20211103-25-1bmbu64.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429891/original/file-20211103-25-1bmbu64.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429891/original/file-20211103-25-1bmbu64.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=639&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429891/original/file-20211103-25-1bmbu64.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=639&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429891/original/file-20211103-25-1bmbu64.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=639&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429891/original/file-20211103-25-1bmbu64.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=802&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429891/original/file-20211103-25-1bmbu64.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=802&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429891/original/file-20211103-25-1bmbu64.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=802&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The 11th Tablet of the Epic of Gilgamesh and tells how the gods determined to send a flood to destroy the earth, dated to the 7th Century BCE.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© The Trustees of the British Museum</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In myth, Gilgamesh is the heroic protagonist of the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-21/us-returns-gilgamesh-tablet-to-iraq/100478858">world’s oldest known epic</a>. The ancient story follows the journey of the heroic young king as he adventures to the edges of the world in search of fame and immortality.</p>
<p>Eternals gives further nods to Mesopotamian myth. There is speculation from fans that Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani) <a href="https://nerdist.com/article/marvel-eternals-based-on-gods-mythology-olympians/">could represent the deity Kingu</a>, from the Babylonian myth, <a href="https://www.worldhistory.org/article/225/enuma-elish---the-babylonian-epic-of-creation---fu/">Enuma Elish</a>. In this myth, the primary deity Marduk battles the primordial ocean goddess, Tiamat. </p>
<p>Indeed, even Tiamat herself – or Tiamut in the film – counts among the heroes’ adversaries in Eternals.</p>
<p>A scene where the Eternals battle Deviants before the famous <a href="https://brooklynrail.org/2020/02/artseen/A-Wonder-to-Behold-Craftsmanship-and-the-Creation-of-Babylons-Ishtar-Gate">Ishtar Gate</a> in ancient Babylon beautifully captures the largely untapped cinematic potential of the Mesopotamian world. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429892/original/file-20211103-23-ra3rd0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A lion mosaic" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429892/original/file-20211103-23-ra3rd0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429892/original/file-20211103-23-ra3rd0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=260&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429892/original/file-20211103-23-ra3rd0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=260&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429892/original/file-20211103-23-ra3rd0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=260&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429892/original/file-20211103-23-ra3rd0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429892/original/file-20211103-23-ra3rd0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429892/original/file-20211103-23-ra3rd0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Ishtar Gate dates to the 6th century BCE. These lions lined the road of the Processional Way.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Metropolitan Museum of Art</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Don Lee’s Gilgamesh is a delight, well reflecting the brawny charm of the ancient hero as he smashes his way through crowds of Deviants with the same strength used to defeat the Stone Ones and the Bull of Heaven in the original epic. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-the-epic-of-gilgamesh-73444">Guide to the classics: the Epic of Gilgamesh</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A journey worth taking</h2>
<p>The presence of a Mesopotamian legend and Korean superhero are just two of the “firsts” seen in Eternals. Others include the first openly gay superhero in the franchise (Phastos, played by Brian Tyree Henry), and a superhero who is hearing impaired (Lauren Ridloff’s Makkari). </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/karltonjahmal/all-the-lgbtq-characters-in-the-mcu-so-far">presence of same-sex relationships</a> and characters with disabilities are common to <a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/disabity-access-ancient-greek-temples-1896160">many ancient myths</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-ouch-27883836">modern comics</a> (<a href="https://screenrant.com/mcu-fan-theories-hawkeye-make-sense-wont-happen/">Hawkeye</a> of Avengers fame is portrayed with a hearing impairment in many comics). Here, Eternals’ Phastos is identified through his technical skills with <a href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Hephaistos/">Hephaestos, the Greek god of metalwork</a>. In Classical myth, Hephaestos is depicted with a physical diability, walking with a limp. </p>
<p>Interestingly, <a href="https://dergipark.org.tr/en/download/article-file/615820">metal work may have been a common occupation for people with physical disabilities</a> in ancient Near Eastern culture — reflecting the interplay between history, myth, and popular culture common to the superhero genre. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429893/original/file-20211103-25-jycquh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429893/original/file-20211103-25-jycquh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429893/original/file-20211103-25-jycquh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429893/original/file-20211103-25-jycquh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429893/original/file-20211103-25-jycquh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429893/original/file-20211103-25-jycquh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429893/original/file-20211103-25-jycquh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429893/original/file-20211103-25-jycquh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In various Ancient Greek myths, Hephaestus was disabled from birth, or after being thrown from the heavens by Zeus. He was known for his metal working, as painted here by Anthony van Dyck.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kunsthistorisches Museum</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Indeed, the film’s <a href="https://screenrant.com/eternals-movie-angelina-jolie-diverse-cast-important-why/">increased inclusivity</a> brings it into closer alignment with both its ancient and modern sources. </p>
<p>For myth and comic book buffs, there is plenty to explore in Eternals. The film’s <a href="https://www.cbr.com/marvel-eternals-practical-locations/">use of on-location shooting</a> helps create a universe that feels broader and deeper than many before. The journey of Madden’s Ikaris reflects the typically creative recycling of ancient legends found in the comics.</p>
<p>Like speedy Makkari (whose character aligns with the messenger deity, Mercury known for his winged shoes), Ikaris’ power of flight is shared by his mythical counterpart Icarus - but it’s a power that must be used wisely. </p>
<p>Fans of the Gilgamesh epic will note his tendencies to take power naps and fight celestial bulls are adapted from ancient legend. </p>
<p>For those seeking pure entertainment, Eternals offers an inviting – at times spectacular – step into a world that is at once both old and new.</p>
<p><em>Eternals is in cinemas from today.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/170953/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Louise Pryke does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
There are many nods to Mesopotamian myth in Marvel’s Eternals. The character of Gilgamesh is the first ancient Near Eastern hero with a leading role in a Marvel film.
Louise Pryke, Honorary Research Associate, University of Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/168273
2021-09-26T20:06:25Z
2021-09-26T20:06:25Z
From Bruce Lee to Shang-Chi: a short history of the kung fu film in cinema
<p>With action sequences that are being hailed as some of the best in the history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is shaping up to overtake Black Widow as the <a href="https://deadline.com/2021/09/shang-chi-weekend-box-office-1234839150/">biggest film of the pandemic</a>.</p>
<p>A hit with critics and audience alike, <a href="https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/shang-chi-and-the-legend-of-the-ten-rings/">many commentators</a> are praising Shang-Chi’s cast and, in particular, the performance by <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2021/09/shang-chi-tony-leung-interview-wenwu-fathers-the-mandarin-stereotypes">Hong Kong screen legend Tony Leung Chiu-wai</a>, for helping breathe new life into a familiar Marvel formula. </p>
<p>Given the huge challenge of presenting a film of this scale with a kung fu master as its central character, it was imperative the filmmakers delivered authentic fight scenes that could stand alongside the classics and showcase the best action the genre has to offer. </p>
<p>Tracing through China, Hong Kong and Hollywood, martial arts films have a history almost as long cinema itself. This history is on exciting display in Shang-Chi, and will cement the film’s position in kung fu cinematic history. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/i-didnt-have-a-superhero-that-looked-like-me-marvels-new-female-culturally-diverse-and-queer-protagonists-mirror-our-times-160917">'I didn't have a superhero that looked like me': Marvel's new female, culturally diverse and queer protagonists mirror our times</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Birth of the kung fu genre and the first boom</h2>
<p>Beginning with Shanghai productions in the 1920s, early martial arts films drew influence from Chinese opera and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuxia">wuxia novels</a>: narratives set in Ancient China focusing on heroes with supernatural martial arts abilities. Fight scenes in these early films emphasised flowing dramatised movements, but rarely showcased actual martial arts skills. </p>
<p>This changed with the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_of_Hong_Kong#Years_of_transformation_(1970s)">transformation of Hong Kong cinema</a> in the 1970s. Resisting the fantastical elements of the wuxia style, local studios Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest put actual martial artists into their films. </p>
<p>With this move, the kung fu genre was born. </p>
<p>Popular titles of the time like <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077559/">Five Deadly Venoms</a> (1978) and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078243/">The 36th Chamber of Shaolin</a> (1978) are classics, and the films of Bruce Lee brought kung fu to the world’s attention.</p>
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<p>Lee’s intense and realistic fighting style, as shown in films like <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067824/">The Big Boss</a> (1971) and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070034/">Enter the Dragon</a> (1973), sparked an international obsession with the art of kung fu — even as international fans often had to deal with poor-quality dubbing and bootleg videos.</p>
<p>After Lee’s untimely death in 1973, the genre morphed from showcasing ferocious physicality into a more acrobatic, comedy-infused approach, such as in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080179/">Drunken Master</a> (1978) and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079472/">The Magnificent Butcher</a> (1979) starring, respectively, Jackie Chan and his China Drama Academy “brother”, Sammo Hung.</p>
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<p>Hong Kong cinema entered its <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_of_Hong_Kong#1980s_%E2%80%93_early_1990s:_the_boom_years">Golden Age</a> in the 1980 and ‘90s. At this time, contemporary kung fu classics like Chan’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089374/">Police Story</a> (1985) complimented popular historical films such as Jet Li’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108281/">Tai Chi Master</a> (1993) and Donnie Yen’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108148/">Iron Monkey</a> (1993).</p>
<h2>The second boom</h2>
<p>In the late 1990s, around the time of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handover_of_Hong_Kong">Hong Kong’s handover to China</a>, many of the industry’s leading figures made the move to Hollywood. </p>
<p>With films like Chan’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120812/">Rush Hour</a> (1998) and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0184894/">Shanghai Noon</a> (2000), and Li’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0165929/">Romeo Must Die</a> (2000) and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0267804/">The One</a> (2001), English-speaking fans could finally see kung fu films on a big screen without the need for subtitles.</p>
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<p>Celebrated martial arts choreographer Yuen Woo-ping also lent his talents to international productions, allowing kung fu to find its way into hits like <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133093/">The Matrix</a> (1999) and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0266697">Kill Bill</a> (2003).</p>
<p>In 2000, the Chinese blockbuster <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0190332/">Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon</a> showed modern international audiences now had an appetite for the elaborate swordplay and gravity-defying wirework of wuxia films, and many stars returned to China to capitalised on the trend. </p>
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<p>Jet Li’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0299977/">Hero</a> (2002) and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0446059">Fearless</a> (2006), as well as <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0385004/">House of Flying Daggers</a> (2004) and the first film to feature both Jackie Chan and Jet Li, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0865556/">Forbidden Kingdom</a> (2008), all helped to redefine the martial arts film: bringing star power and global audiences to an industry that had, until then, largely received only local attention. </p>
<p>These Chinese-made films focused on producing elegant wuxia action dramas. In Hong Kong, kung fu was still going strong, largely thanks to Stephen Chow’s hugely popular comedies <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0286112">Shaolin Soccer</a> (2001) and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0373074/">Kung Fu Hustle</a> (2004), and Donnie Yen’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1220719/">Ip Man</a> (2008).</p>
<h2>Shang-Chi: the first Asian superhero</h2>
<p>In many ways, the character of Shang-Chi may be seen as the cultural successor to Bruce Lee. Created during the height of the global obsession with Lee’s films, the character of Shang-Chi first appeared in Marvel comics in December 1973 – just months after the death of the legendary actor. </p>
<p>Marvel’s “other kung fu hero”, Iron Fist from the 2017 Netflix <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3322310/">series of the same name</a>, was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/17/watching/iron-fist-review-roundup-controversy.html">controversial</a>. The star, Finn Jones, lacked martial arts experience, and the show was criticised for its <a href="https://metro.co.uk/2017/03/17/iron-fist-marvel-could-have-avoided-a-white-saviour-and-made-the-netflix-series-better-6514756/">“white saviour” narrative</a>. </p>
<p>In light of this, the producers of Shang-Chi were keen to bring together a predominantly Asian and Asian-American cast and crew who could do justice to the first Asian superhero to headline a Marvel feature film. </p>
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<p>This has paid off: Shang-Chi is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/sep/06/shang-chi-and-the-legend-of-the-ten-rings-makes-up-for-the-flaws-of-mulan">being praised</a> as both a classic Marvel superhero film, and an exceptional kung fu film in its own right.</p>
<p>Under fight director Andy Cheng and stunt coordinator Brad Allan, the film draws upon <a href="https://screenrant.com/shang-chi-martial-arts-styles/">a range of different styles</a>, including wing chun, Shaolin kung fu, bajiquan and hung ga stances, and the iron rings from which the film gets its title. </p>
<p>Hollywood has come a long way from declaring Lee “<a href="https://time.com/5953090/kung-fu-cw-asian-representation/">too authentic</a>” to take the lead role in the original 1970s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068093/">Kung Fu</a> television series. Shang-Chi is likely to inspire a whole new generation of kung fu cinema fans.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168273/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joyleen Christensen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The history of martial arts films is almost as long as the history of cinema. Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings excitingly pushes the genre forward.
Joyleen Christensen, Senior lecturer, University of Newcastle
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/160917
2021-05-31T04:13:40Z
2021-05-31T04:13:40Z
‘I didn’t have a superhero that looked like me’: Marvel’s new female, culturally diverse and queer protagonists mirror our times
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402802/original/file-20210526-21-1nkmgmb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=19%2C4%2C1657%2C1319&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Simu Liu plays the title character in the upcoming film Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marvel/Disney</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Last week, the trailer dropped for what will be the 26th movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise: Eternals, directed by Chloé Zhao. Opening with a dreamy, misty shoreline, we hear Skeeter Davis’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSTHOqO6A7Q">The End of the World</a>. An ominous spaceship appears over the ocean, and the Eternals begin to prepare for the impending battle. </p>
<p>This year, Zhao was only the second woman (and first woman of colour) to win <a href="https://www.elle.com/culture/movies-tv/a36221619/chloe-zhao-best-director-oscars-win-history-first-woman-of-color/">Best Director at the Academy Awards</a>: a reminder of Hollywood’s entrenched gender and race biases. The cinematic world of Marvel, which began with Iron Man in 2008, has been similarly male and white.</p>
<p>Of the 23 Marvel films released so far, just one has been directed by a woman (Anna Boden, who co-directed Captain Marvel with Ryan Fleck) and two by people of colour (Ryan Coogler for Black Panther, and Taika Waititi for Thor: Ragnarok).</p>
<p>But things are changing.</p>
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<p>In July, Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) — one of the original Avengers — will finally get her own film in Black Widow, directed by Australian Cate Shortland.</p>
<p>In September, Destin Daniel Cretton’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings will showcase a predominantly Asian cast, where superhero Shang-Chi (Simu Liu in the character’s film debut) encounters the terrorist group Ten Rings.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/oscar-winners-how-the-pandemic-led-to-a-record-breaking-year-of-diversity-159102">Oscar winners: how the pandemic led to a record-breaking year of diversity</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Zhao’s Eternals, to be released in November, will see an immortal alien race forced out of hiding after thousands of years in a quest to save humanity. Starring a multicultural, ensemble cast including Gemma Chan, Salma Hayek and Angelina Jolie, Eternals will feature Marvel’s first openly queer superhero — Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry) — and deaf superhero — Makkari (Lauren Ridloff).</p>
<p>Asian American <a href="https://observer.com/2019/09/marvel-shang-chi-details-destin-daniel-cretton-tiff-interview/">Cretton has said</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Growing up, I didn’t have a superhero that looked like me and it’s really exciting to give a new generation something I did not have.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Owned by Disney, Marvel Studios is an entertainment giant, which has grossed over <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/31/the-13-highest-grossing-film-franchises-at-the-box-office.html">US$22.5 billion</a> (A$29 billion) at the global box office. Its investment in more diverse stories, characters and directors is clever marketing. But it is also an indication of the dynamic relationship between one of the world’s biggest film franchises and its fan base, and how they both sit within the broader culture.</p>
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<p>Marvel, like all film studios, has found itself creating popular culture during a period of great social and political upheaval. Global movements such as #MeToo, #BlackLivesMatter and #StopAsianHate have been a clarion call for social justice. </p>
<p>These movements have exposed and challenged discrimination and violence against marginalised groups, including exclusion from representation on screen and behind the scenes. </p>
<p>Pressure from #MeToo activists has seen <a href="https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/has-metoo-changed-how-hollywood-hires">Hollywood hire more female filmmakers</a> since 2018. In the wake of #BlackLivesMatter’s growth in 2014 came #OscarsSoWhite in 2015, a movement which led to a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/06/movies/oscarssowhite-history.html">remarkable change</a> in the diversity of filmmakers — and the recognition they received.</p>
<h2>Knowing their audience</h2>
<p>2018’s <a href="https://time.com/black-panther/">Black Panther</a> broke new ground with its all Black lead cast and Coogler as the franchise’s first African American director. Making US$1.34 billion (A$1.72 billion) at the box office, it is the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/travisbean/2020/04/24/all-23-marvel-cinematic-universe-films-ranked-at-the-box-office-including-black-widow/?sh=23494e21494e">second highest grossing</a> Marvel film in the US.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-i-marvelled-at-black-panthers-reimagining-of-africa-91703">How I marvelled at Black Panther’s reimagining of Africa</a>
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</em>
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<p>2019’s <a href="https://www.antithesisjournal.com.au/blog/2019/4/18/feminism-as-a-super-power-why-captain-marvel-is-the-ultimate-female-superhero">Captain Marvel</a>, the franchise’s first standalone female superhero film, with its first female director, made US$1.13 billion (A$1.45 billion) at the box office.</p>
<p>This year we had a <a href="https://tv.avclub.com/what-does-it-mean-for-a-black-man-to-be-captain-america-1846744340">Black Captain America</a> for the first time in the Disney+ spin-off series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Directed by Kari Skogland, the series was the streaming service’s <a href="https://screenrant.com/falcon-winter-soldier-series-premiere-views-disney-plus/">most watched premiere ever</a>.</p>
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<p>This casting, and the story the series told about race, <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/falcon-and-the-winter-soldier-reckons-with-an-american-burden-4167996/">resonated with viewers</a> who were frustrated and angry at the criminalisation and disempowerment of Black men playing out time and again in the news media. </p>
<p>This is not to suggest Marvel is radically undoing the biases of society and the film industry, smashing stereotypes shored up by centuries of <a href="https://slate.com/culture/2019/04/avengers-endgame-female-representation-black-widow.html">patriarchal</a> or <a href="https://variety.com/2021/film/news/doctor-strange-whitewash-tilda-swinton-kevin-feige-1234977525/">colonial domination</a>. That would be an insurmountable challenge even for the Avengers. </p>
<p>Rather, Marvel’s increasingly liberal steps stem from an understanding of the power of the people. The franchise’s continued success depends on remaining culturally relevant and, crucially, not underestimating what its audiences want — and who its audiences are. </p>
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<p>Familiar tropes of Asian-ness will appear in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (Shang-Chi’s powers are, of course, martial arts skills). But by handing over the keys to Cretton and his culturally diverse creative team, we can expect Marvel’s first standalone Asian superhero film to be a nuanced, multifaceted depiction of Asian cultures and identities not seen before in the genre.</p>
<p>As an immigrant female director and Marvel enthusiast, Zhao perhaps epitomises the future — and logical endpoint — of Marvel’s quest for inclusion and diversity. </p>
<p>“I’m not just making [Eternals] as a director,” <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/director-chloe-zhao-arrives-with-hot-oscar-contender-nomadland-and-next-years-eternals-4053382/">she said</a>. “I’m making the film as a fan.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/160917/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christina Lee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is becoming increasingly diverse, on and off screen. The franchise’s continued success depends on remaining culturally relevant.
Christina Lee, Senior Lecturer in Literary and Cultural Studies, Curtin University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/129786
2020-02-06T19:03:27Z
2020-02-06T19:03:27Z
Friday essay: Hail Hydra - on comics, ethics and politics
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313622/original/file-20200205-20026-109ekkm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=93%2C0%2C1675%2C885&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4154796/mediaviewer/rm1606914561">IMDB</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Do you trust me?” An earnest question.</p>
<p>“I do.” An earnest answer.</p>
<p>And then that ancient, global gesture of earnest intimacy: a handshake.</p>
<p>For many, this is <em>the</em> moment from the <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4154796/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Avengers: Endgame</a> movie: Captain America and Iron Man putting aside their conflict for the common good. Tony Stark asks, Steve Rogers answers – and the Marvel Cinematic Universe is made whole. </p>
<p>After three years of conveniently aggressive animosity, these Avengers are once again allies. Instead of punching or shooting at each other, the two superheroes look into one another’s eyes — and touch.</p>
<p>I confess that, for all my weary cynicism, I was moved as I watched this scene. Both times I watched it. And again, as my children and I saw it together. But why?</p>
<p>There is spectacle, of course. The protagonists must sprint faster than cars, punch through walls, swing off buildings, shoot rockets from their shoulders. There must be explosions and cosmic ripples and glowing pulses and beings turning to dust and so on. The studios cannot make back their production and advertising costs – perhaps more than half a billion US dollars (A$746 million) in this case – with a quiet seminar on Aristotle or Confucius.</p>
<p>Still, the digital marvels are not enough to move me or to keep me returning for the next episode, in perpetuity. For the franchise to profit as it does, the violence has to mean something more.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313618/original/file-20200205-41485-1daedlq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=29%2C5%2C1713%2C726&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313618/original/file-20200205-41485-1daedlq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=29%2C5%2C1713%2C726&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313618/original/file-20200205-41485-1daedlq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=252&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313618/original/file-20200205-41485-1daedlq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=252&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313618/original/file-20200205-41485-1daedlq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=252&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313618/original/file-20200205-41485-1daedlq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=317&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313618/original/file-20200205-41485-1daedlq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=317&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313618/original/file-20200205-41485-1daedlq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=317&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">So much earnest. Iron Man and Captain America shake on it.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4154796/mediaviewer/rm508531201">IMDB</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The comic politic</h2>
<p>Perhaps politics? There are certainly political ideas in the Marvel films. Witness state surveillance in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1843866/">Captain America: The Winter Soldier</a>, white colonialism in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1825683/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Black Panther</a>, asylum seekers in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4154664/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2">Captain Marvel</a>.</p>
<p>And there are countless comic book precedents for this. In <a href="https://www.marvel.com/comics/issue/7849/captain_america_comics_1941_1">Captain America Comics #1</a>, published in 1941, the superhero socked Hitler in the mouth. Almost 30 years later, in <a href="https://www.marvel.com/comics/issue/7503/captain_america_1968_122">Captain America #122</a>, he was hesitantly praising hippie peace protesters: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’ve spent a lifetime defending the flag and the law. Perhaps I should have battled less and questioned more.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Moving from the texts to their broader contexts, it is also political that some were recently angry at Marvel films with more diverse casts and crews. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313620/original/file-20200205-20022-19ogvwt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313620/original/file-20200205-20022-19ogvwt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313620/original/file-20200205-20022-19ogvwt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=911&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313620/original/file-20200205-20022-19ogvwt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=911&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313620/original/file-20200205-20022-19ogvwt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=911&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313620/original/file-20200205-20022-19ogvwt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1145&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313620/original/file-20200205-20022-19ogvwt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1145&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313620/original/file-20200205-20022-19ogvwt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1145&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Captain America Comics #1.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.marvel.com/comics/issue/7849/captain_america_comics_1941_1">Marvel</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The film review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, for example, reported a pre-emptive spike in “non-constructive input, sometimes bordering on trolling” from fans unhappy about Captain Marvel. Similar campaigns were attempted against Black Panther. These were the first Marvel movies featuring female and black solo heroes. Captain Marvel was also co-written and co-directed by women, while Black Panther was written and directed by African-American men. </p>
<p>“It’s not difficult to see the common thread,” <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/3/8/18254584/captain-marvel-boycott-controversy">writes</a> Alex Abad-Santos for Vox, “that superhero and other franchise movies with woman [sic] and people of colour as protagonists are regularly met by toxic trolling online.” As in Australia and the UK, many white men are furious at small but noticeable challenges to their power.</p>
<p>In short: yes, there are politics in and behind Marvel’s tales.</p>
<p>Still, the logic of superhero stories is rarely political, strictly speaking. Politics is about the organisation of society: who we are; who our enemies are; who rules whom; who controls what institutions or resources. Businesses like Marvel are interested in characters thumping or blasting other characters, often while looking beautiful. These fistfights or firefights can symbolise broader and deeper issues – but the symbols are used for close-up entertainment rather than wide-shot social and economic analysis. Captain America summed up this cinematic approach with his own ethos in Captain America: Civil War:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>My faith’s in people, I guess. Individuals. And I’m happy to say that, for the most part, they haven’t let me down. Which is why I can’t let them down either.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Put another way: the studio’s writers have “faith” in individuals too, and these individuals have yet to let their accountants down.</p>
<p>Alongside this individualism is conservatism. For all their speeches about freedom and justice, these heroes almost always end up punching their way back to the global status quo. They steadfastly avoid what Greek-born French philosopher <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40548695?seq=1">Cornelius Castoriadis</a> called the “political imaginary”: our power to invent new collective identities and institutions. For Castoriadis, the point is not simply to follow certain laws or parliamentary procedures, the point is to interrogate and reimagine the basic cultural assumptions beneath these. There is very little of this in the Marvel universe, especially the films. As pop culture scholar Noah Berlatsky <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/7/18168909/2018-superhero-movies-marvel-dc-black-panther-infinity-war-aquaman">riffed</a> in an essay for The Verge in early 2019: “Great power is used to protect the world, not revolutionise it”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313628/original/file-20200205-149747-nwj80.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313628/original/file-20200205-149747-nwj80.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313628/original/file-20200205-149747-nwj80.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313628/original/file-20200205-149747-nwj80.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313628/original/file-20200205-149747-nwj80.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313628/original/file-20200205-149747-nwj80.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313628/original/file-20200205-149747-nwj80.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313628/original/file-20200205-149747-nwj80.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Spider-Man looking typically heroic, a key virtue in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marvel</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Setting high standards</h2>
<p>For these reasons and more, the Marvel films are more comfortable with individualistic ethics than with politics proper. Rather than explaining and exploring our collectives, they tend to highlight people’s virtues and vices. As philosopher Mark D. White argues in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Virtues-Captain-America-Modern-Day-Character/dp/1118619269">The Virtues of Captain America</a>, characters such as Steve Rogers offer audiences “moral exemplars”. These might be fictional rather than lived, but they are still portrayed with subtlety, and with surprising fidelity to everyday ambiguity.</p>
<p>This does not mean the superheroes are all perfect Aristotelians. They are rightly flawed characters and – perhaps more importantly – typically very American. “If Aristotle could somehow have imagined the Captain’s mission of giving everyone freedom to live as they choose,” philosopher John Gray <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/117241/captain-americas-moral-philosophy">observed</a> in The New Republic in April 2014, “he would undoubtedly have reacted with incredulous contempt”. We turn to Marvel to see virtues dramatised, not exemplified.</p>
<p>The most obvious virtue, common to almost all cinematic heroes, is bravery. In <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0458339/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Captain America: The First Avenger</a>, a spindly Steve Rogers demonstrates this by jumping onto a grenade to save burly but cowardly soldiers. </p>
<p>Perseverance is another: witness the same hero in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3498820/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Captain America: Civil War</a> preventing a helicopter taking off simply by holding it. This involves no serious thought or complex negotiations or planning. Captain America simply has to strain and groan and suffer until the job is done.</p>
<p>Alongside these and other classical virtues is the excellence suggested by that handshake between Captain America and Iron Man: trustworthiness.</p>
<p>Trustworthiness is not itself a single virtue, but rather several excellences working together: goodwill, honesty, constancy and the competency to achieve what is promised.</p>
<p>Someone trustworthy can be counted upon to help another who needs it – even if this “help” is being silent or staying still. They do this not only because they can help, but also because they know they ought to. This ought arises from an ethical readiness rather than from selfishness or friendliness. This is the difference between someone trustworthy and someone merely reliable. The greediest and/or sneakiest can be relied on if they’re paid or scared. The truly trustworthy help us not only because their help is necessary, but also because it is in their moral power to do so. They recognise that we are all fundamentally needy, and require others to achieve worthwhile things. “We are finite dependent social beings,” philosopher Karen Jones <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/667838?seq=1">writes</a> in Trustworthiness, her 2012 article for Ethics:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We want there to be others who will be responsive to our counting on them so that we can extend the efficacy of our agency.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So, to trust someone is to have an idea of their character: to believe that they are able and willing to assist us, because we need assistance. And part of being trustworthy, in turn, is showing others that they can trust us; that we can be relied on – if not right now, then when it counts. There is a mirroring of minds here. Each of us needs the ability to imagine the other’s state of mind – and to imagine the other imagining us.</p>
<p>Importantly, we can be wrong about trustworthiness, and this is one of trust’s defining characteristics: we are taking a risk when we exercise it. Put another way, trust is a profoundly mortal achievement. Omnipotent and omniscient gods need no trust between them, since they are never helpless, and always know the souls of others.</p>
<h2>To err is human</h2>
<p>There are few true divinities like this in the Marvel universe, since all-powerful and all-knowing beings make for dull drama. Even Galactus, the fabulously purple planet eater who first appeared in <a href="https://www.marvel.com/comics/issue/13253/fantastic_four_1961_48">Fantastic Four #48</a>, has need of minions and allies.</p>
<p>Our earnest handshaker, Captain America, is also the trusted Marvel persona. Well-meaning, sincere, forthright and somewhat transparent in his moral simplicity, Steve Rogers can be counted upon when it matters. This is perhaps his defining characteristic: whatever happens, he will be there for his friends, allies and the world.</p>
<p>This is why Tony Stark’s sickbed rejection of Captain America in Avengers: Endgame is so powerful. Haggard and slurring his words on tottering legs, Tony returns from being stranded in space to accuse Rogers of failing him personally. “I got nothing for you, Cap,” he says. “No clues, no strategies, no options. Zero, zip, nada. No trust, liar.”</p>
<p>The point of this is not that Iron Man is correct or that Captain America is a capricious and deceptive man-child in a flag suit; the point is that Tony is beaten and weak and a little mad, and this is why he doubts his comrade’s integrity. As soon as the entrepreneur is well again, his trust in Steve Rogers returns. Iron Man thinks the great American hero is simple, naive and smug – but always worthy of trust.</p>
<p>This dramatisation of trust continues throughout the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Should Captain America trust Thor’s brother, Loki? (Probably not.) Should he trust Bucky Barnes, though his old partner has become a brainwashed cyborg assassin? (Yes.) Should he trust former spy Natasha Romanova, the Black Widow? (Yes.) Should anyone trust Nick Fury? (No. The spymaster is reliable, but not trustworthy.)</p>
<p>As these examples suggest, Captain America is not only trustworthy, but is also trusting in return. He is not afraid to ask for help, and thereby to demonstrate that someone is more trustworthy than they seem – even to themselves. As Karen Jones phrases it: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Sometimes displaying trust is sufficient to elicit trustworthiness as we respond to the call to be moved by the other’s dependency.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Steve Rogers is the personification of hopeful trust: he allows characters to believe in mutual, mature goodwill.</p>
<p>Likewise for the comics. What distinguishes Captain America from other super-soldiers is that this often lonely professional hero is surprisingly vulnerable. He might be quaint and a bit staid, but he will risk his life for trust. In Mark Millar’s Civil War, Steve Rogers ends his fight with Iron Man by turning himself in. “We’re not fighting for the people any more,” he says, weeping. “We’re just fighting.” Knowing the dangers, he allows himself to be handcuffed, jailed and put on trial by the authorities. If he is suspicious of institutions, he believes in good individuals. Captain America is then shot on the steps of the New York federal courthouse: his trust in his fellow citizens leaves him bleeding.</p>
<p>And this is only one storyline in one superhero series – Marvel has the <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/11/marvel-cover-story">rights</a> to some 7,000 characters. Almost all of their storylines involve trust and its betrayal.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/izxgf6RU98Y?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A dedicated fan exploration of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Lessons for young players</h2>
<p>Because of these ethical dramas, I am comfortable with my children watching Marvel films. (I say “comfortable” as if I’m a serious and aloof philosopher, and not a grown man with his own Punisher action figure.) While their political message is often a soufflé of puffy fascism inside a liberal crust, their moral drama is instructive. Over the dinner or café table, I have asked our kids about Iron Man’s instrumental rationality, Captain America’s dogmatism, Thanos’s Malthusianism, Captain Marvel’s glorified militarism.</p>
<p>As a public philosopher, I have taken these kinds of puzzles into schools. The pupils might not be familiar with Aristotle’s theory of the virtues, but from <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2250912/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Spider-Man: Homecoming</a>, they are familiar enough with Flash Thompson, Iron Man and Spider-Man to recognise the philosopher’s tripartite scheme of courage, bravery and foolhardiness.</p>
<p>And trust has been a large part of these conversations. Trust is especially fraught for children. Kids are more powerless than adults and require more help to realise their needs. They are also more vulnerable to trickery and coercion, so they often trust the wrong people – those who suggest they can be counted on, but who are actually capricious or malicious. Children need to tell the difference between Thor’s well-meaning bluster and Loki’s smiling malice in Thor; between Talos’s evasions and Yon-Rogg’s manipulations in Captain Marvel; between Iron Man the altruistic amateur soldier in Iron Man and Iron Man the manic narcissistic technocrat in Captain America: Civil War.</p>
<p>This answers one of the questions of parenthood: with what or whom can I leave my children alone? Our kids can watch Marvel films whenever they like. These movies might be glib, cynical or boring – but as moral dramas, they are benign.</p>
<p>But do I trust Marvel? Shit, no. (Apologies to Captain America for the “language”.)</p>
<p>To begin, the company is constantly trying to sell me and my children stuff. Picture the ultimate Marvel brand manager’s fantasy: me driving to the supermarket in my Avengers: Endgame product-placement Audi, wearing my Avengers tie and cologne. The kids munch on their Spider-Man fruit snacks, and sip on their Spider-Man water bottles – all purchased with my Marvel Mastercard. At home, I cook snacks in my Avengers waffle maker, then we all watch Spider-Man: Homecoming before sleeping under our Guardians of the Galaxy bed linen.</p>
<p>The important thing, for Marvel, is to make sure that each product continually advertises another Marvel product. In this corporate universe, films spruik merchandise that spruiks television shows that spruik tie-ins, and so on.</p>
<p>Marvel’s industrial relations record is also worrying. They are now owned by Disney, hardly a corporate superhero. While profits have risen, wages at Disneyland have actually fallen in real terms. According to a Los Angeles Times <a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-disneyland-study-20180228-story.html">story</a> from 2018, a survey of the Anaheim theme park’s workers found that “three-quarters say they can’t afford basic expenses every month”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313625/original/file-20200205-20022-682tzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313625/original/file-20200205-20022-682tzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313625/original/file-20200205-20022-682tzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313625/original/file-20200205-20022-682tzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313625/original/file-20200205-20022-682tzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313625/original/file-20200205-20022-682tzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313625/original/file-20200205-20022-682tzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313625/original/file-20200205-20022-682tzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Marvel at the array of action figures.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/kuala-lumpur-malaysia-june-22-fictional-1626605533">Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>As Sean Howe details in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13623814-marvel-comics">Marvel Comics: The Untold Story</a>, Marvel comics itself was also notorious for exploiting freelancers. Despite their works selling millions of copies, authors and illustrators were paid page rates and nothing more. The vast Marvel Cinematic Universe was built by low-waged, precarious labour. Put simply: it is naive to believe a superhero business is anything other than a business. There are certainly more exploitative firms in the world, but this does nothing to make Marvel trustworthy.</p>
<p>In fact, nothing can make Marvel trustworthy. Not because it is evil, but because it is a corporation, and the notion of “trust” does not apply. Corporations are often treated as individuals in law, but they are not individuals as we are. They can be governed more or less ethically; can work for or against the common good; can be regulated to minimise harm or deregulated to maximise profit. They can, in other words, be guided or coerced politically. But they are not ethical persons, with whom we can develop trustworthy relationships.</p>
<p>Think of how it feels to pledge yourself to someone; to show that you understand that they are in need of help, and what this means as a finite dependent social being; to demonstrate – or hope to – that you are helping because help is simply necessary, and not because of anger, fear or greed. A corporation cannot think of how this feels, because it is not able to think of someone at all. It lacks what philosophers call a theory of mind: the ability to imagine the mental states of others, and to imagine them imagining us. There can be no mirroring of minds here, because a corporation is neither conscious of itself, nor conscious of anyone else. It is not an immature or immoral person. It is not a person at all – and it is a “category mistake” to think otherwise, as philosopher Matthew Lambert observes. Put another way: Marvel will never respond to Captain America the way I have – it cares nothing whatsoever for his moral ideals, because it has literally no conception whatsoever of morality itself.</p>
<h2>The story of us</h2>
<p>As I suggested earlier, I grant that Marvel’s stories might be discussed ethically and politically. In fact, this kind of conversation is required by Castoriadis’s “political imaginary”. As a community, our revised conceptions of “us” cannot be legislated by representatives, nor outsourced to experts – they must arise from our negotiations. And they involve not only formal politics, but also art. As Castoriadis <a href="https://www.pdcnet.org/scholarpdf/show?id=gfpj_1983_0009_0002_0079_0115&pdfname=gfpj_1983_0009_0002_0079_0115.pdf&file_type=pdf">argues</a> in The Greek Polis and the Creation of Democracy, tragedy enabled the Athenians to witness and debate their own partial values and ideals; to confront the ambiguous and fickle nature of political action. </p>
<p>Sophocles’s <a href="http://classics.mit.edu/Sophocles/antigone.html">Antigone</a>, for example, revealed that “nothing can guarantee a priori the correctness of action – not even reason”. There is a similar mood to Marvel’s Civil War stories: the violent confrontation of good against good, in which pious duty or technocratic certainty are equally destructive. This is hardly Antigone, but it is occasionally poignant, and certainly stirring.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313619/original/file-20200205-41503-7486pf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313619/original/file-20200205-41503-7486pf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313619/original/file-20200205-41503-7486pf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313619/original/file-20200205-41503-7486pf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313619/original/file-20200205-41503-7486pf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313619/original/file-20200205-41503-7486pf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1183&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313619/original/file-20200205-41503-7486pf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1183&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313619/original/file-20200205-41503-7486pf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1183&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Daredevil #232.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.marvel.com/comics/issue/8221/daredevil_1964_232">Marvel</a></span>
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<p>Superheroes also provide familiar ideals for us to seek. And there is an Athenian precedent for this, too – though by no means democratic. Plato’s utopia in The Republic was modelled after Socrates’s beautiful soul, and the Marvel superheroes offer similar existential symbols. They are political and moral forces, encapsulated in selves. Captain America alone can be a potent sign of freedom or fascistic tyranny, of rebellion or nationalistic obedience, of solitary obsession or charismatic esprit de corps. We can explore rage in Wolverine, the trauma of marginalisation in X-Men, seductive nihilism in the Punisher, faith in Daredevil and so on. While these stories typically lack genuinely political thought, they can offer emblems of personal striving, and provide memorable celebrations or warnings.</p>
<p>One such warning is offered by the criminal Kingpin in Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli’s <a href="https://www.marvel.com/comics/issue/8221/daredevil_1964_232">Daredevil #232</a>. As he manipulates a crazed super-soldier, Nuke, into attacking his enemies, the Kingpin reveals the very ordinary reasons for violence: profit. While his greed is gussied up in the star-spangled banner for Nuke’s sake, this is about business. Hindered by regulation, Kingpin must break the law. “I am not a villain, my son. I am a corporation.” There will be no reform, no rehabilitation. This is who the Kingpin is, and always will be.</p>
<p>While simplistic, this message resonates with me. For all the earnest speeches and handshakes, Marvel the business will never gain my trust. But it will also never betray me. More likely it will just disappoint me, until I am too exhausted or exasperated for disappointment. Either way, I ought to look elsewhere for the virtues advertised in the Avengers films.</p>
<p>I leave my kids with Marvel not because I trust the corporation, but because I trust my children.</p>
<p><em>This piece is republished with permission from <a href="https://www.griffithreview.com/editions/matters-of-trust/">GriffithReview67: Matters of Trust</a> (Text), ed Ashley Hay</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/129786/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Damon Young does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The Marvel Cinematic Universe brings the virtues and politics of the comic world - indeed the Ancient Greek world - to life. But trusting the message doesn’t mean I trust the corporation behind it.
Damon Young, Associate, School of Philosophy, The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/131099
2020-02-05T11:31:36Z
2020-02-05T11:31:36Z
Oscars 2020: Why people are talking about visual effects
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313513/original/file-20200204-41476-18q7c68.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C0%2C1763%2C752&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Universal Pictures</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the presentation of the 2020 Academy Awards approaches, there has been a <a href="https://www.goldderby.com/article/2020/1917-visual-effects-oscar-predictions/">lot of buzz</a> around the visual effects category. Two films – Sam Mendes’s 1917 and Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman have, in particular, <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/the-irishman-and-1917-among-oscar-nominations-for-best-picture">attracted a lot of attention</a> for the tricks they use to immerse the viewer in the characters and storyline.</p>
<p>The first film to win an award for visual effects, in the first ever Oscars ceremony in 1929, also won best picture. American special effects artist and film director <a href="http://americanpomeroys.blogspot.com/2013/02/roy-jobbins-pomeroy-oscar-winner-and.html">Roy Pomeroy</a> won for Wings, a first world war movie featuring breathtaking realistic dogfight sequences. His work still looks amazing, given the tools he had to work with. In the 90 years since he won his award, though, visual effects have become ever more sophisticated.</p>
<h2>Big bangs theory</h2>
<p>If we take a look at the films that are nominated for Best Visual Effects in this year’s Academy Awards, we see five very different types of film.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is the continuing sci-fi saga of the battle between the Jedi and the Sith. A set of tried-and-tested visual effects techniques were <a href="https://screenrant.com/star-wars-rise-skywalker-visual-effects-interview/">used in the film</a>.</p>
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<p>This included the return of a <a href="https://www.insider.com/how-carrie-fisher-was-in-star-wars-the-rise-of-skywalker-2020-1">fully digital replacement for Princess Leia</a> using pieces of old footage of the late Carrie Fisher and computer-generated elements to create a complete character that blended seamlessly into the new narrative. Most of the environments were created in the computer and then composited with actors’ performances against a green screen that allows backgrounds to be replaced with digital sets.</p>
<p>Avengers: Endgame, is the final episode of a comic book-based world of superheroes and their enemies in one final, epic battle. Green screens played a huge part in this film as well, allowing intricate digital environments to play their part in the storytelling.</p>
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<p>As you’d expect there are plenty of pyrotechnics, explosions and battle scenes that were made with animated digital characters.</p>
<h2>Rumble in the jungle</h2>
<p>The Lion King, a computer-generated remake of the Disney classic, originally animated, on the whole, by hand in 2D. Many of the techniques used in this movie were originally developed for the making of the 2016 remake of Jungle Book which, like The Lion King, was reworked as a fully digital film – apart from Mowgli who was played by a real boy. </p>
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<p>In The Lion King, director John Favreau developed a technique that he felt would inform the animation of the animals in a far more realistic way than how animation is traditionally created. Rather than simply recording voice actors in a sound booth, he put them in a studio and filmed them acting together so that animators had nuanced reference to work with to ensure the tiniest of reactions were captured in the creatures’ performances.</p>
<p>Virtual reality also played a big part in the making of the film. Camera operators were able to use digital sets to see the environments and move digital cameras in a realistic way.</p>
<h2>Forever young</h2>
<p>The Irishman jumps between present-day action and as far back as the 1950s, made more complicated by the fact that the characters are played by the same actors. The point of difference is that prosthetics and makeup weren’t used, but stars including Robert De Niro and Al Pacino were “de-aged” using computers, using images of the actors from photographs and previous films to build “digital masks” in the computer that replaced the actor’s real faces.</p>
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<p>This meant that De Niro who plays the lead role was, at 74 when filming began, playing the role of a man in his 30s and by the end of the film the same man in his 80s. How <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/the-irishman-netflix-ilm-de-aging/">successfully</a> is something that has been <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/12/the-de-aging-technology-that-could-change-acting-forever">hotly debated</a> – but nobody can doubt the expertise with which the artists carried out their task.</p>
<h2>Spot the joins</h2>
<p>The final film nominated is the first world war epic 1917, co-written, produced and directed by Sam Mendes. Loosely based on a story Mendes was told by his grandfather, the film relies on a <a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/1917-sam-mendes-film-one-shot-vfx">single shot depiction of the entire narrative</a>, following the main character on his journey to get a message to the front line. This technique, also used in 2015’s best picture winner, Birdman, required meticulous planning to ensure that the cuts that occurred were invisible to the viewer. </p>
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<p>Camera moves were choreographed to allow two scenes that were filmed in the same location at different times to be taken into the computer and “stitched” together as if they were one complete shot. Doing this over and over enabled the illusion of one continuous sequence.</p>
<p>Like many films though, 1917 used a host of other visual effects techniques that were unseen. This is often regarded as the pinnacle of success in visual effects – an effect that can’t be seen versus one that is smacking you in the face with a large, wet fish.</p>
<h2>Appliance of science</h2>
<p>Some of the nominated movies need visual effects to create worlds and creatures that don’t exist, while some employ tricks to enhance the cinematic experience and the ability of the filmmaker to tell their story. All of them use the technical expertise of visual effects artists to bring the director’s vision to the screen.</p>
<p>And there’s a great deal of scientific knowhow that goes into creating cinematic illusion. The movie that won the visual effects award in 2014, Interstellar, involved recreating the appearance of a black hole. To do this, visual effects artists worked with scientists to accurately model the phenomenon. The results were so advanced that scientists have since <a href="https://www.wired.com/2014/10/astrophysics-interstellar-black-hole/">cited its importance</a> to their ongoing work.</p>
<p>This scientific knowledge underpins flawless visual effects production. Not only does a visual effects artist need to know how their tools work, they need to be able to understand the science that informs the visuals we see on the screen. Human and animal anatomy, lighting, pyrotechnics, fluid simulation, mechanical engineering and robotics are just a few of the scientific disciplines that add strings to a visual effects artist’s bow.</p>
<p>So, when we talk about visual effects and the people who create them, remember the science that supports almost everything they do. Every frame is looked at in minute detail, so much so that the casual viewer might never understand the hours that go into making one of these films look the way they do and allow us to sit back and enjoy the story.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/131099/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Williams does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The range of movies in the visual effects category shows how advanced this science has become.
Chris Williams, Senior Principal Academic, National Centre for Computer Animation, Bournemouth University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/125771
2019-10-24T13:41:46Z
2019-10-24T13:41:46Z
Martin Scorsese says superhero movies are ‘not cinema’: two experts debate
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298519/original/file-20191024-170475-9zkfcb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2044%2C1076&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jeremy Renner and Robert Downey Jr in Avengers: Endgame.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">©Marvel Studios 2019</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and Ken Loach have all recently expressed scorn at the growing dominance of superhero movies in the commercial cinema, with Scorsese saying that the Marvel film universe is “not cinema”. We asked two academics: an expert in cinema and an expert in comics to debate the question.</em></p>
<p><strong>Julian Lawrence: senior lecturer in comics and graphic novels, Teesside University</strong></p>
<p>Marvel movies aren’t cinema. So what are they? Martin Scorsese <a href="https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2482391/martin-scorsese-clarifies-controversial-comments-about-marvel-movies">recently labelled them</a> “<a href="https://variety.com/2019/film/news/martin-scorsese-marvel-theme-parks-1203360075/">theme parks</a>” but I suggest they function primarily as commercials. I agree with British filmmaker <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/ken-loach-marvel-superhero-films-boring-and-nothing-to-do-with-art-of-cinema-11841486">Ken Loach’s comment</a> that Marvel movies are “a commodity which will make a profit for a big corporation – they’re a cynical exercise”. </p>
<p>Fellow film great Francis Ford Coppola <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/oct/21/francis-ford-coppola-scorsese-was-being-kind-marvel-movies-are-despicable">agrees with them both</a> – except he doesn’t think they went far enough, labelling superhero films “despicable”. </p>
<p>They are not the first to take aim at superhero movies. In 2014, director/screenwriter <a href="https://www.nme.com/news/film/birdman-director-alejandro-gonz-lez-i-rritu-c-868003">Alejandro G. Iñárritu</a> (Birdman) condemned superhero blockbusters saying “… they purport to be profound, based on some Greek mythological kind of thing. And they are honestly very right-wing … Philosophically, I just don’t like them.”</p>
<p>He could be on to something about the right-wing propaganda aspect. Superhero movies tend to set up situations where the world is in grave danger – and sell superheroes as the solution. The message here is that might makes right and that the end always justifies the means: a classic fascist trope. You can see why someone like Loach might not like this narrative trend. His stark new film, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysjwg-MnZao">Sorry We Missed You</a>, makes it clear there are no superheroes to save us, just ordinary people in real situations living lives of quiet desperation.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/bread-and-circuses">bread and circus</a> commodities, Marvel movies also function as self-advertisements – not just for the countless prequels and sequels, but also for merchandising, which is the real cash cow. Licensing revenue for toys, games, clothing, even breakfast cereal far <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/superhero-earns-13-billion-a-748281">eclipses box office receipts</a>. </p>
<p>Selling a commodity as art has become so normalised that we consumers gladly invest our money and time to collectively participate. I <a href="https://time.com/3630878/binge-watch-tv-shows/">invested a great deal of time</a> watching the TV series Mad Men, only to discover in the final episode that it was a <a href="https://variety.com/2015/tv/news/mad-men-finale-coca-cola-hilltop-ad-1201499510/">seven-year-long Coke commercial</a>. Since then, I’ve refused to spend any more of my life on episodic television and had to laugh when I read abut the inadvertent <a href="https://fortune.com/2019/05/06/game-of-thrones-starbucks-cup-advertising/">Starbucks product placement</a> in the final series of Game of Thrones.</p>
<h2>The ninth and seventh arts</h2>
<p>Franco-Belgian scholars <a href="https://www.tempslibre.ch/actualites/la-classification-des-10-arts-que-personne-ne-connait-vraiment-146">classify cinema</a> as the “seventh art”, with comics being the ninth. But if we are to distinguish cinema from a murky mash-up of all media, then some protocols are needed. First, how about a moratorium on custom-made scenes that pander to international audiences? Iron Man 3 was <a href="https://kotaku.com/why-many-in-china-hate-iron-man-3s-chinese-version-486840429">cut for the Chinese market</a> by upping the screen time for a minor character and adding foreign product placement that are not included in the original version. This is not done for art’s sake, but to generate increased revenue.</p>
<p>The backlash to Loach, Scorsese and Coppola is not surprising, since <a href="https://www.the-numbers.com/movies/franchise/Marvel-Cinematic-Universe#tab=technical">almost everyone in Hollywood</a> (and beyond) is in on this game. For instance, Marvel movies accounted for 48.2% of Samuel L. Jackson’s <a href="https://comicbook.com/marvel/2019/04/28/samuel-l-jackson-films-13-billion-dollar-box-office-gross-worldw/">entire career box office take</a>, and a whopping <a href="https://www.the-numbers.com/movies/franchise/Marvel-Cinematic-Universe#tab=acting">82.6% of Robert Downey Jr’s</a>. Over in the DC Extended Universe in 2017, feminist icon Wonder Woman earned millions for her investors, which included oil tycoons <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/conservative-koch-brothers-are-secret-investors-wonder-woman-1027376">Charles G. Koch, David H. Koch</a> and Donald Trump’s treasury secretary, <a href="https://variety.com/2019/politics/news/mnuchn-ratpac-dune-jackie-speier-1203125377/">Steve Mnuchin</a>.</p>
<p>It isn’t the genre that is the problem, it’s that mainstream superhero movies are created primarily to sell more mainstream superhero movies. The claim that Disney/Marvel innovated “narratives that are dispersed across its extended network of movies” is more evidence for their being capitalist commodities rather than cinema. Dispersing narratives across a network is a marketing ploy used by Marvel and DC for decades (known as <a href="https://www.marvel.com/comics/events_crossovers">crossovers</a>) to boost sales of failing titles– readers are lured into buying issues of comics they don’t normally follow in order to continue reading a storyline or get closure. The films are essentially doing the same thing.</p>
<p>The best superhero film I’ve seen all year is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2v3_jHrvBQ">Woman at War</a> by <a href="https://www.screendaily.com/news/woman-at-war-director-benedikt-erlingsson-blasts-film-industrys-carbon-farting-crisis-in-karlovy-vary/5140851.article">Icelandic director Benedikt Erlingsson</a>. It tells the story of one woman’s battle against planetary annihilation. Go see it if you get the chance.</p>
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<p><strong>Neil Archer: senior lecturer in film studies, Keele University</strong></p>
<p>For the record, I’m ambivalent about much of Marvel’s Cinematic Universe (MCU) – yet I was still struck by <a href="https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2481615/martin-scorsese-has-some-blunt-thoughts-on-marvel-movies-and-james-gunn-is-sad-about-it">what Scorsese had to say</a> about Marvel movies being more theme park than cinema. </p>
<p>That Scorsese should take this line, in some respects, is apt. <a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/interview-peter-biskind-revisits-easy-riders-raging-bulls">Peter Biskind’s 1998 book</a>, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, evokes Scorsese as one of the great filmmakers of the “New Hollywood”, the decade or so from 1968 when it seemed that film-literate, adventurous directors and writers would re-imagine Hollywood.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298521/original/file-20191024-170458-17ob0ca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298521/original/file-20191024-170458-17ob0ca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298521/original/file-20191024-170458-17ob0ca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298521/original/file-20191024-170458-17ob0ca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298521/original/file-20191024-170458-17ob0ca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298521/original/file-20191024-170458-17ob0ca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298521/original/file-20191024-170458-17ob0ca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Josh Brolin as Thanos in Avengers: Endgame.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">©Marvel Studios 2019</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The end of this period, in Biskind’s view, was down to the infantilism of films such as Jaws and Star Wars. These were films which were often viewed more as amusement-park rides than cinematic art – what Robin Wood critically dismissed as the childish, commercially-driven “<a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=lM-rx7S2ijoC&pg=PA350&lpg=PA350&dq=robin+wood+spielberg+lucas+syndrome&source=bl&ots=7EcDUK5f7c&sig=ACfU3U0RIq_THBU4qFm0caG9sGG9yl2x5w&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj6ht3m4LTlAhVAShUIHYOlA7AQ6AEwB3oECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=robin%20wood%20spielberg%20lucas%20syndrome&f=false">Spielberg-Lucas syndrome</a>” dominating mainstream film.</p>
<p>But if you want to look at the economical, expressive storytelling possibilities of film, just watch Spielberg’s Jaws, or even better, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLiRnvppAaM">Close Encounters of the Third Kind</a>. Don’t take my word for it – <a href="https://www.empireonline.com/movies/news/martin-scorsese-jj-abrams-christopher-nolan-pay-tribute-steven-spielberg/">Scorsese, ironically, said so himself</a> in a 2018 interview with Empire magazine, describing Spielberg as “a pioneer of visual storytelling … reinventing our art form with each new picture”. </p>
<p>Since he so strongly supports Spielberg, sometimes associated with the demise of grown-up cinema, it’s surprising that Scorsese should come out against the most current examples of popular film.</p>
<p>So what’s the problem with Marvel? As I <a href="https://filmkeele.wordpress.com/2019/03/05/hooray-for-hollywood/">explored in a recent book</a>, the MCU’s most significant contribution to modern cinema – like it or not – has been to rethink the idea of the “standalone feature”, favouring narratives that are dispersed across an extended network of movies. From one perspective, the superhero franchises have simply expanded “classical” narrative form across a series of films.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298522/original/file-20191024-170489-18vkz6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298522/original/file-20191024-170489-18vkz6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298522/original/file-20191024-170489-18vkz6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298522/original/file-20191024-170489-18vkz6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298522/original/file-20191024-170489-18vkz6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298522/original/file-20191024-170489-18vkz6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298522/original/file-20191024-170489-18vkz6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Comic book hero: Zade Rosenthal as Iron Man.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© 2012 MVLFFLLC. TM & © 2012 Marvel.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Has this been at the expense, in Scorsese’s terms, of the “<a href="https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2481615/martin-scorsese-has-some-blunt-thoughts-on-marvel-movies-and-james-gunn-is-sad-about-it">emotional, psychological experience</a>” and the emphasis on “human beings” that is his preferred view of cinema? Well, Hulk is not Hamlet – and nor is Iron Man, despite the absurdly regal send off that character gets at the end of Avengers: Endgame. </p>
<p>But for all its self-congratulation, <a href="https://youtu.be/ooAsQ7Z5d2A">Endgame</a> still offers much of the experience Scorsese demands – and which he might recognise. There are meditations on loss, on family, as well as debates on responsibility and moral choice, reflections on time and the impact of life decisions. And while we’re at it, were there many more films made in 2018 as refreshing, and politically engaging, as <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-i-marvelled-at-black-panthers-reimagining-of-africa-91703">Black Panther</a>?</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-i-marvelled-at-black-panthers-reimagining-of-africa-91703">How I marvelled at Black Panther’s reimagining of Africa</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Corporate enterprise</h2>
<p>But isn’t Loach right about Marvel being <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/oct/22/superhero-films-are-cynical-exercise-to-make-profits-for-corporations-ken-loach">a corporate enterprise</a>, designed to take our money? Of course he is – these are Hollywood movies after all (I believe Scorsese makes these too). Do we then disqualify every major studio production in history as an advert for itself?</p>
<p>But the bigger issue here is that, because they are linked to broader practices of commercialisation, the films themselves are – mistakenly – deemed guilty by association. The political critique of the films also reduces the sizeable audience to an undifferentiated, uncritical mass. Loach, like most critics of the films – who also admit to not watching them – doesn’t seem to credit Marvel’s viewers with any discernment or intelligence. But marketing and merchandising - as plenty of Disney flops have shown - can’t alone guarantee audience devotion.</p>
<p>Indeed, as <a href="https://nyupress.org/9780814743485/media-franchising/">media scholar Derek Johnson reminded us</a>, within “corporate” Hollywood, filmmaking and merchandising divisions are often separate – even in conflict with each other. The skill of Marvel’s filmmakers, in fact, has been both to create and sustain an audience that wants to follow its characters over ten years and more. This is an achievement in narrative – not in flogging toys or pillowcases.</p>
<p>To be clear: I get why people don’t like Marvel. But why can’t filmmaking like theirs, and like Loach’s, coexist? As <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=xPGPXu2MokkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=tom+shone+blockbuster&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiTtrb_8a_lAhWCThUIHUnvAPkQ6AEIKDAA#v=snippet&q=biskind&f=false">Tom Shone wittily asks</a> in his book Blockbuster, the demonising of modern movies tends to be all one-way traffic. Film connoisseurs tear into Star Wars for failing to be The Godfather, but nobody rips up Coppola’s family saga for missing a few space battles. Why need cinema be just one thing? Why not both? Isn’t cinema, in the end, something for everyone?</p>
<p>The elephant in this particular room, I suspect, is neither art, nor commercialism. And probably not “right-wing neoliberal propaganda” either. It’s exhibition. For the likes of Scorsese, the popularity and distribution muscle behind such films make it harder both to make and screen non-franchise or lower-budget movies. And he has a point. </p>
<p>But while there is clearly an imbalance problem within the contemporary cinema landscape, that doesn’t mean the films themselves are “not cinema”. Maybe they are just the cinema you’d rather not see.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125771/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Martin Scorsese believes superhero movies are ‘not cinema’. What do the experts think?
Julian Lawrence, Senior Lecturer in Comics and Graphic Novels, Teesside University
Neil Archer, Senior Lecturer in Film Studies, Keele University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/120749
2019-07-22T10:56:07Z
2019-07-22T10:56:07Z
‘Avengers: Endgame’ is nowhere near the worldwide box office record – here’s why
<p>Marvel’s gambit to propel “Avengers: Endgame” to become the top-grossing movie of all time finally paid off.</p>
<p>The studio <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/noradominick/avengers-endgame-extra-footage-post-credits-scene">re-released</a> the final film in its “Avengers” series earlier this month with extra footage and a post-credit tribute in an effort to pass James Cameron’s 2009 film “Avatar” as the world box office record holder.</p>
<p>As of July 21, “<a href="https://www.marvel.com/movies/avengers-endgame">Avengers: Endgame</a>” had <a href="https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=marvel2019.htm">collected US$2.79 billion in worldwide ticket sales</a>, <a href="https://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/world/">edging out “Avatar” by around $500,000</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.thewaltdisneycompany.com/avengers-endgame-is-the-no-1-global-release-of-all-time/">Marketing</a> and <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/adambvary/lion-king-box-office-avengers-endgame-record">bombast aside</a>, however, the reality is “Endgame” isn’t even close to the real record-holder – nor is, for that matter, “Avatar.” The reason why gives <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=385083">me an excuse</a> to offer a short lesson on inflation.</p>
<h2>Why adjust for inflation</h2>
<p>Prices from year to year cannot be directly compared with one another because the cost to buy things changes dramatically over time.</p>
<p>For example, in nominal terms, it costs more today <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/coca-cola-is-raising-soda-prices-ceo-says-consumers-likely-to-feel-effect">to buy movie tickets, popcorn and soda</a> and get to the theater than it did in the past, while it <a href="https://theconversation.com/rise-and-fall-of-the-landline-143-years-of-telephones-becoming-more-accessible-and-smart-113295">costs much less to call</a> your friends and invite them to come along. </p>
<p>Without <a href="https://www.bls.gov/cpi/questions-and-answers.htm#Question_1">adjusting for inflation</a> and changes in purchasing power, comparisons from one time period to another are meaningless.</p>
<p>One of my grandfather’s favorite stories helps illustrate this. He used to talk about the “good old days” in the 1940s when a cup of coffee or a loaf of bread cost just 10 cents. But my grandpa didn’t consider how much lower his wages were back then. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm">Adjusting for inflation</a> means a 10-cent cup of coffee in 1940 would cost about $1.84 in 2019 dollars. Today you can buy <a href="http://www.wegotcoffee.com/cafe/sizes-and-prices-of-coffee-at-7-11.php">coffee at chains like 7-Eleven</a> for a lot less.</p>
<h2>The real box office king</h2>
<p>And that’s why “Avengers: Endgame” is a long way from becoming the box office king. The heralded numbers don’t reflect inflation.</p>
<p>To demonstrate, let’s first look just at U.S. domestic ticket sales since it’s easier to calculate and see the effect. </p>
<p>The current <a href="https://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/domestic.htm">list of top-grossing films</a> at the U.S. box office is led by “<a href="https://www.starwars.com/the-force-awakens">Star Wars: The Force Awakens</a>,” which came out in 2015 and earned a nominal $936 million, followed by “Endgame” at $854 million and “Avatar” at $761 million.</p>
<p>Adjusting for inflation alters the <a href="https://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm">list dramatically</a>. Box Office Mojo, an online box-office reporting service operated by <a href="https://www.imdb.com">IMDb</a>, calculates inflation by multiplying <a href="https://www.mpaa.org/research-docs/2016-theatrical-market-statistics-report/">average ticket prices</a> in a given year by estimated admissions. </p>
<p><iframe id="6BezM" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/6BezM/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>As a result, “Endgame” drops to 16th place. “Avatar” slips to 15th with $877 million in adjusted ticket sales. “<a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gone_with_the_wind">Gone with the Wind</a>,” released in 1939, meanwhile, vaults to first place with $1.8 billion in adjusted ticket sales. </p>
<p>Calculating sales internationally is trickier because inflation is different in every country. IMDb, however, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/list/ls026442468">makes a valiant effort</a> making these adjustments. </p>
<p>Based on its estimates, “Gone with the Wind” is the worldwide box office leader with $3.4 billion to $3.8 billion in global sales. Cameron’s “Titanic” comes next at $3.2 billion to $3.4 billion, followed by “Avatar” with $3.2 billion.</p>
<p>With $2.79 billion, “Endgame” falls to fifth, leaving it with almost $1 billion in ticket sales to go to before it could legitimately lay claim to the top title. </p>
<h2>Don’t believe the hype</h2>
<p>We love Hollywood movies because they provide entertainment and escapism. </p>
<p>However, the marketing of Hollywood movies and the hype surrounding ticket sales records, like movies themselves, often play fast and loose with economic reality. This is something I expect we’ll see more of as films get released on far more screens and <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/china-box-office-total-revenue-2018-1172725">more people in countries like China</a> go to see them. </p>
<p>I liked “Avengers: Endgame,” whose plot is based on time-traveling superheroes. It was definitely three hours of escapist fun. But the hype surrounding its box office records, like its plot, shouldn’t be taken too seriously. </p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an <a href="http://theconversation.com/thanks-avengers-endgame-for-reminding-us-why-inflation-matters-119735">article originally published</a> on July 2, 2019.</em></p>
<p>[ <em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120749/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jay L. Zagorsky does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Disney says the Marvel movie just beat ‘Avatar’ as the top-grossing movie of all time. Inflation tells a different story, as an economist explains.
Jay L. Zagorsky, Senior Lecturer, Boston University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/116080
2019-05-20T13:37:38Z
2019-05-20T13:37:38Z
Avengers Endgame: how the Marvel Universe helps children (and adults) understand the world around them
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/273809/original/file-20190510-183109-17i7o1e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C0%2C1769%2C933&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Don Cheadle, Bradley Cooper, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Brie Larson and Chris Hemsworth in Avengers: Endgame.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">©Marvel Studios 2019</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There have been more than 90 superhero films since the 1980s and they have become incredibly popular – Avengers Endgame broke <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-news/avengers-endgame-box-office-records-1-billion-opening-828389/">box office records</a> in its opening weekend, taking US$1.2 billion worldwide. All the predictions are that it will go on to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/apr/28/avengers-endgame-breaks-global-box-office-record-in-opening-weekend">surpass Avatar’s record</a> as the highest grossing movie of all time.</p>
<p>Superhero movies may be fantasy, but they reflect trends in our society and encourage us to reflect on societal problems such as prejudice and diversity.</p>
<p>The stories can also help shape our development. For example, starting in childhood, creative play is very common – and superheroes have long been staples for children leaning about the social world. Creative play helps us develop several skills – for example learning that other people do not necessarily think in the same way we do. We can then play out how they might respond to a situation and what the outcome of this might be. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/273805/original/file-20190510-183106-hcry06.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/273805/original/file-20190510-183106-hcry06.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273805/original/file-20190510-183106-hcry06.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273805/original/file-20190510-183106-hcry06.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273805/original/file-20190510-183106-hcry06.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273805/original/file-20190510-183106-hcry06.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273805/original/file-20190510-183106-hcry06.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Different approaches: Iron Man, left, and Captain America.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">©Marvel Studios</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We might play out a story where we pretend to be Captain America and follow all the rules, doing <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/04/captain-america-mccarthyite/360183/">what is right</a>. Later we might play a similar story but pretend to be Iron Man and break the rules, doing “what we want”. Regardless of what sort of person we are, we can put ourselves in the shoes of the characters and try out these different roles.</p>
<p>We can also see what happens in the two different stories and reflect on how the others playing with us respond to our actions. This can help us in real-life situations when we need to decide how to behave. </p>
<p>Creative play also teaches us about emotions. When we play creatively, we experience genuine and sometimes strong emotions. For example, we can feel fear when hiding from the villain Thanos – or joy when the crowds cheer as we save New York. </p>
<p>We learn what these emotions feel like, how to label them and how to express them so that others can recognise them. We also learn what verbal and non-verbal signals other people use when they feel angry, upset and excited. These skills help us to develop better relationships with our parents and friends and may even <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21291449">enhance our academic performance</a>.</p>
<h2>Goodies and baddies</h2>
<p>Even as we get older, role models in films can help us to think about what sort of person we want to be. When we are young, we typically enjoy stories where the “goodies and baddies” are very clear. Happily, the “goodies” usually triumph and the “baddies” get their comeuppance – or are transformed into “goodies”. But as we get older our thinking develops and we understand that the world is rarely black and white and, as a result, our tastes change and we begin to enjoy ambiguous – “grey” – characters who may be “baddies” but may have interesting motives that we can relate to. This links to our <a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/kohlbergs-theory-of-moral-developmet-2795071">stages of moral development</a>. As young children, our sense of morality is tied to avoiding punishment and gaining rewards for being a “good girl/boy”. As we get older we see morality as an agreement between people to maintain social order and everyone’s rights, but we also develop our own personal moral ideals.</p>
<p>Thanos in the Avengers Movies aims to wipe out half of the population of the galaxy. His reasoning is that the galaxy is overcrowded and civilisation will be wiped out if overpopulation continues. By removing half the population at random it means that everyone will have an equal chance of survival, rather than over time, the poorest people being less likely to survive. A key element in lots of superhero stories is “does the end justify the means?”. These situations give us space to reflect on this maxim and our own sense of morality.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275425/original/file-20190520-69192-lf70wq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275425/original/file-20190520-69192-lf70wq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275425/original/file-20190520-69192-lf70wq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275425/original/file-20190520-69192-lf70wq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275425/original/file-20190520-69192-lf70wq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275425/original/file-20190520-69192-lf70wq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275425/original/file-20190520-69192-lf70wq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Destroyer of worlds: Josh Brolin as Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">©Marvel Studios 2018</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Superheroes also often face personal crises and we can look at how they respond, and the consequences of their actions, in order to guide our own behaviour. Many superheroes lose their parents at a young age – and, depending on who they are, they deal with this in healthy or unhealthy ways. They also often have challenging relationships with others. For example Iron Man is not wrong when he says that he is “volatile, self-obsessed, and doesn’t play well with others” and this makes his personal relationship with his partner Pepper, as well as his work relationships within the Avengers difficult. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/H0TkbVM8sBM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>By following their stories we can learn more about our own ways of coping and those of our friends and family. A bit like creative play in childhood, this helps shape our behaviour. </p>
<h2>Power and the glory</h2>
<p>Superhero stories also encourage us to reflect on current issues in our society. The focus of these stories therefore changes over generations. For example, X-Men comics dealt with prejudice, becoming <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2000/aug/12/features">popular during the civil rights movement in America</a>. In these stories, mutants born with superpowers <a href="https://www.history.com/news/stan-lee-x-men-civil-rights-inspiration">encounter prejudice and discrimination</a>. </p>
<p>More recently, many films featuring the Avengers explore the impact of advanced weaponry, capable of destroying entire cities or worlds. In the films a key question is who should decide if, when and how they are used. This reflects issues in our society now. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/273803/original/file-20190510-183083-457jx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/273803/original/file-20190510-183083-457jx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273803/original/file-20190510-183083-457jx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273803/original/file-20190510-183083-457jx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273803/original/file-20190510-183083-457jx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273803/original/file-20190510-183083-457jx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273803/original/file-20190510-183083-457jx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chris Hemsworth as Thor.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">©Marvel Studios 2019</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The fictional worlds in superhero stories create a safe space for us to think about and discuss these issues. For example, reflecting on and discussing real-world prejudice may be challenging, we may like to think that it does not exist nowadays, but exploring this through the treatment of fictional mutant characters may make it easier for us to have an open conversation about it. We may also experience empathy with characters who we see on screen and this may encourage us to take action when we see discrimination in our lives. </p>
<p>Superhero stories have a powerful impact on our development and raise questions important to our society. It is therefore vital that those creating the stories remember that with great power comes great responsibility.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116080/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yvonne Skipper does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Good versus evil, tolerance and discrimination: there’s a lot we can learn from the Marvel universe.
Yvonne Skipper, Lecturer in Psychology, University of Glasgow
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/115705
2019-04-24T08:24:12Z
2019-04-24T08:24:12Z
Avengers: Endgame exploits time travel and quantum mechanics as it tries to restore the universe
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270636/original/file-20190424-19307-g2hh9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Even Thanos has a retirement plan...</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marvel Studios</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>At the end of <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-biggest-clash-of-heroes-and-villains-in-avengers-infinity-war-but-can-science-survive-95421">Avengers: Infinity War</a> half the people (including heroes and villains) in the universe were gone in the snap of a finger from Thanos (Josh Brolin).</p>
<p>So how can <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4154796/">Avengers: Endgame</a> (in cinemas from this week) try to bring them back?</p>
<p>Well, with that tried and tested movie plot device: time travel. Plus a surprising amount of scientific jargon thrown in, including <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/quantum-mechanics-physics">quantum mechanics</a>, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/2008/02/28/time-travel-machine-oped-time08-cx_dt_0229travel.html#45bdaa8d2a87">Deutsch propositions</a>, <a href="https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/eigenvalue">eigenvalues</a> and inverted <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/mathematical-madness-mobius-strips-and-other-one-sided-objects-180970394/">Möbius strips</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-did-a-breakthrough-speed-test-in-quantum-tunnelling-and-heres-why-thats-exciting-113761">We did a breakthrough 'speed test' in quantum tunnelling, and here's why that's exciting</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>But don’t think that everything you hear during the movie was created in the minds of some crazy screenwriter. Many of the time-travel concepts in Endgame are connected, at least in name, to recent scientific theory, simulation and speculation. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TcMBFSGVi1c?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Endgame – official trailer.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Let’s dive into the science of quantum time travel and discuss whether eigenvalues can really save the universe, but be warned: <strong>moderate spoilers</strong> ahead.</p>
<h2>Time travel 101</h2>
<p>The key premise of the movie is that the only thing that can reverse the deaths of half the universe are the things that caused those deaths in the first place: the powerful <a href="https://marvelcinematicuniverse.fandom.com/wiki/Infinity_Stones">Infinity Stones</a>.</p>
<p>Problem is, Thanos destroyed these in the present day, so the stones are only available in the past. Retrieving them will require a convoluted journey back in time to multiple locations by the remaining Avengers.</p>
<p>Is <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/time-travel-158">time travel</a> actually possible? We’ve known since Albert Einstein posed his <a href="http://www.einstein-online.info/en/elementary/index.html">Theory of Special Relativity</a> more than 100 years ago that travel <em>forward</em> in time is <em>relatively</em> easy.</p>
<p>All you need to do is move at close to the speed of light and you can theoretically travel millions or even billions of years into the future within your lifetime.</p>
<p>But could you get back again? This feat appears to be much more difficult. Here are a few challenges and possible solutions.</p>
<h2>The grandfather paradox</h2>
<p>Travelling back in time can cause apparent logical inconsistencies in reality, like the well-known <a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/9aakpe/the-grandfather-paradox-what-happens-when-you-travel-back-in-time-to-kill-your-father">grandfather paradox</a>.</p>
<figure>
<img src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/566/gif1.gif?1556085403" width="100%">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Disrespecting your elders doesn’t pan out well for you.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">iimages / 123rf.com / Michael Milford.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If you went back in time and killed your grandfather when he was young, then you could never be born, but if you weren’t born, then how did you go back and kill him? </p>
<p>Scientists have several theories about these time loops (physicists call them <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms5145">closed timelike curves</a>). Some theories state that such loops are just physically impossible and therefore travel back in time can never happen.</p>
<p>But we know, also thanks to Einstein, that spinning black holes can <a href="https://blackholecam.org/black-holes-distort-space-time/">twist up both space and time</a>, which is why one side of the black hole is brighter than the other in the <a href="https://blackholecam.org/">first picture ever taken of one</a>.</p>
<h2>Time travel in the Endgame</h2>
<p>In the movie, the characters first make fun of many other time-travel movies such as <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28374-back-to-the-future-does-physics-of-martys-time-travel-add-up/">Back to the Future</a> and the <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/dp5pxv/we-asked-a-physicist-how-time-travel-in-the-iterminatori-movies-works-721">Terminator series</a> where changing your own past and future is possible.</p>
<p>Instead, Endgame goes with the alternative reality idea, where any changes back in time cause a whole new universe to be created, a so-called splitting or branching off of multiple timelines. In physics, this idea is called the <a href="https://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/everyday-myths/parallel-universe2.htm">Many Worlds Theory</a>. </p>
<figure>
<img src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/567/gif2.gif?1556087980" width="100%">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Changes in the past cause multiple future timelines in one theory of time travel.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">lilu330 / 123rf.com / Michael Milford.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To avoid this problem, the Avengers plan to borrow the stones from past timelines, use them in the present day, but return them to exactly the same moment once they have finished with them. But will it work?</p>
<h2>Enter quantum mechanics</h2>
<p>Quantum mechanics is mentioned a lot in the movie and there are in fact many emerging theories about <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms5145">quantum time travel</a>, including some that <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/time-travel-simulation-resolves-grandfather-paradox/">potentially solve the grandfather paradox</a>.</p>
<p>In quantum mechanics, atomic particles are more like <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-wave-particle-duality-7414">indistinct waves of probability</a>. So, for example, you can never know both exactly where a particle is and what direction it’s moving. You only know there is a certain chance of it being in a certain place.</p>
<p>A British physicist named David Deutsch, who is mentioned in the movie, <a href="http://thelifeofpsi.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Deutsch-1991.pdf">combined this idea with the Many Worlds theory</a>, and showed that the grandfather paradox can disappear if you express everything <em>probabilistically</em>.</p>
<p>Like the particles, the person going back in time only has a certain probability of killing their grandfather, breaking the causality loop. This has been <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/time-travel-simulation-resolves-grandfather-paradox/">simulated successfully</a>.</p>
<p>This might seem strange, and while some of the jargon used in the movie may seem a little over the top, you can be sure that real quantum science is <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22229692-600-quantum-twist-could-kill-off-the-multiverse/">even stranger</a> than movie makers could ever imagine. It’s clear that even scientists are struggling to make sense of the implications of quantum theory. </p>
<h2>Terminology for effect</h2>
<p>The time-travel theory scenes (of which there are several) are filled with technical jargon, some out of place, some in the right ballpark.</p>
<p>Here are a few of the terms we hear in the movie concerning time travel:</p>
<p><strong>Eigenvalues</strong>: In discussing their approach to time travel, characters Tony Stark and Bruce Banner mention <a href="http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Eigenvalue.html">eigenvalues</a>. This is most likely an example of movie maths talk for effect, as eigenvalues are a fairly low-level (basic) concept in linear algebra.</p>
<p><strong>Verdict:</strong> A case of the math mumbles</p>
<p><strong>Planck scale</strong>: The Planck scale is all about very small things. Planck length, time and mass are base units used in physics. A Planck length is 1.616 × 10<sup>−35</sup>m. That’s very small.</p>
<p>It is the distance that light travels in one unit of Planck time – which is also a very small amount of time. Given the movie is about quantum mechanics-based time travel, chatting Planck scales don’t seem too far off topic.</p>
<p><strong>Verdict:</strong> Planck has a point.</p>
<p><strong>Inverted Möbius strip</strong></p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270672/original/file-20190424-19283-h0c4a5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270672/original/file-20190424-19283-h0c4a5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270672/original/file-20190424-19283-h0c4a5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270672/original/file-20190424-19283-h0c4a5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270672/original/file-20190424-19283-h0c4a5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270672/original/file-20190424-19283-h0c4a5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270672/original/file-20190424-19283-h0c4a5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270672/original/file-20190424-19283-h0c4a5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Möbius strip.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:M%C3%B6bius_strip.jpg">Wikimedia/David Benbennick</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The time-travel jargon also discusses <em>inverting</em> a Möbius strip. A normal Möbius strip is a surface with only one side. You can create one easily by taking a strip of paper, twisting it once, and then sticking it together. </p>
<p>Although a Möbius strip has a range of interesting mathematical properties, its technical relevance to time travel is tenuous, beyond <a href="http://www.cix.co.uk/%7Eantcom/mtl.html">some high-level attempts</a> to explain the grandfather paradox.</p>
<p><strong>Verdict:</strong> Twisting theory a little.</p>
<h2>Verdict</h2>
<p>From a scientific perspective, it’s intriguing to have a new movie with such a heavy plot foundation in time travel, and the movie doesn’t pull many punches in diving straight into both the jargon and implications of various time-travel scenarios.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/remember-blockbuster-nirvana-and-pagers-the-new-captain-marvel-lives-in-the-1990s-112617">Remember Blockbuster, Nirvana and pagers? The new Captain Marvel lives in the 1990s</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>While some of the mathematical terminology is clearly there for effect, the plot makes a reasonable effort to adhere to current high level-thinking about time travel – to a point.</p>
<p>Time travel is one of those captivating scientific concepts that is perhaps furthest from implementation by scientists, and so its pivotal role in a movie about superheroes who can fly, go subatomic, destroy universes and change reality is perhaps particularly apt.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270668/original/file-20190424-19276-16nnc4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270668/original/file-20190424-19276-16nnc4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270668/original/file-20190424-19276-16nnc4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270668/original/file-20190424-19276-16nnc4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270668/original/file-20190424-19276-16nnc4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270668/original/file-20190424-19276-16nnc4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270668/original/file-20190424-19276-16nnc4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270668/original/file-20190424-19276-16nnc4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Thinking about time-travel paradoxes makes me cry…</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marvel Studios</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115705/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Professor Michael Milford is a Chief Investigator at the Australian Centre for Robotic Vision, an Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Microsoft Research Faculty Fellow and Founding Director of the education startup Math Thrills Pty Ltd. He receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the Queensland Government, Caterpillar Corporation, Mining3, Microsoft, the Asian Office of Aerospace Research and Development and AMP. He has board director and advisory roles at Motor Trades Association of Queensland and Queensland AI.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Stratton receives funding from the Queensland Brain Institute, the Asia-Pacific Centre for Neuromodulation and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is affiliated with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).</span></em></p>
Plenty of movies have tried to play with time travel to help develop their plot. But Avengers: Endgame adds a little quantum mechanics into the mix as well.
Michael Milford, Professor, Queensland University of Technology
Peter Stratton, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, The University of Queensland
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/113083
2019-03-07T15:05:32Z
2019-03-07T15:05:32Z
Captain Marvel: why female superheroes are not just for International Women’s Day
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262654/original/file-20190307-82695-1xwu6xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1215%2C258%2C4087%2C2422&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Brie Larson as Captain Marvel. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Chuck Zlotnick..©Marvel Studios 2019</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The release date of Marvel’s first solo female superhero film was deliberately timed to coincide with International Women’s Day. But is this a celebration of women or a bit of a cynical ploy? <a href="https://www.internationalwomensday.com/">International Women’s Day</a> has become something of a media, <a href="https://ahrc.ukri.org/research/readwatchlisten/features/forgotten-women-composers-to-be-recognised-in-iwd-concert/">cultural</a>, and <a href="https://www.marketingweek.com/2018/03/08/international-womens-day-brand-campaigns-2/">commercial</a> event in recent years. This year, for example, alongside Captain Marvel, soap operas <a href="https://www.digitalspy.com/soaps/emmerdale/a867505/emmerdale-plans-special-female-episode-international-womens-day/">Emmerdale</a> and <a href="http://www.bandt.com.au/media/neighbours-celebrates-iwd-female-episode">Neighbours</a> have announced special episodes with all-female cast and crew.</p>
<p>It’s a great marketing strategy, but the line between celebration and cynical cash-in is a fine one. <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2582296">Several</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/08/period-poverty-housing-austerity-gender-pay-gap-international-womens-day">commentators</a> <a href="https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2018/03/08/1520503532000/International-Women-s-Day--drowning-in-corporate-guff/">have</a> <a href="https://i-d.vice.com/en_uk/article/mb5y3q/brands-celebrate-international-womens-day-but-theyre-still-oppressing-women-workers">criticised</a> <a href="https://www.thedrum.com/opinion/2019/03/04/marketing-s-faux-feminism-problem-international-women-s-day">the commodification</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/17/magazine/how-empowerment-became-something-for-women-to-buy.html">of IWD</a> and the emphasis on projects such as these media launches over raising awareness of more serious issues affecting women globally.</p>
<p>Focusing the need for greater female visibility (both behind and in front of cameras) around a single day also runs the risk of women’s participation becoming a “special” or unusual event rather than something so equal that it becomes commonplace and unremarkable.</p>
<h2>Enter the Captain</h2>
<p>Captain Marvel is one of the most-anticipated films of 2019 – and is one of the most established brands in the comics world. Captain Marvel and her alter ego, <a href="https://comicvine.gamespot.com/carol-danvers/4005-21561/">Carol Danvers</a>, both have long histories within the Marvel Universe (and, indeed, the DC universe, with <a href="https://www.newsarama.com/43256-captain-marvel-shazam-name-history.html">their version</a> also an alias of the star of forthcoming film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0448115/">Shazam</a>).</p>
<p>Like pretty much everything in comics, <a href="https://dcmultiversehistorian.wordpress.com/2014/12/03/dc-and-marvel-both-have-a-captain-marvel-whats-the-story-there-also-what-big-differences-are-there-between-superman-and-shazam/">it’s complicated</a>. Danvers only assumed the mantle of Captain Marvel – a role that has had <a href="https://bookriot.com/2017/11/09/captain-marvel-101/">several inhabitants</a>, much like Spider-Man – in 2012. The character is a powerful and dynamic one: in the comics she has leadership within the Avengers team, and Marvel boss Kevin Feige <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2016/10/captain-marvel-movie-director-kevin-feige.html">has claimed</a> she has the strongest superpowers of all their heroes.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Z1BCujX3pw8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>The announcement of a solo Captain Marvel film came in <a href="https://variety.com/2014/film/news/black-panther-inhumans-captain-marvel-marvel-announces-new-wave-of-superhero-movies-1201341076/">2014</a>, with <a href="https://ew.com/comic-con/2016/07/23/brie-larson-captain-marvel/">Brie Larson attached to the lead role in 2016</a>, closely following her Oscar win for Room. It is common practice for Marvel and Disney to announce films several years before release, but the <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/08/captain-marvel-delay-director-brie-larson">long wait</a> for a female-led film has <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2014/08/marvel-reason-why-no-female-led-superhero-film-rings-false">angered</a> <a href="https://geeks.media/why-didnt-captain-marvel-make-an-entrance-sooner-in-the-mcu-and-have-to-wait-for-nick-furys-message">some</a> <a href="https://www.slashfilm.com/kevin-feige-marvel-female-superhero-movie/">fans</a>.</p>
<p>In between the announcement of Captain Marvel and its release, of course, <a href="https://theconversation.com/review-wonder-woman-reinvigorates-tired-superhero-conventions-78517">Wonder Woman</a> arrived. The Patty Jenkins film was released to much fanfare and its <a href="https://www.metacritic.com/movie/wonder-woman">critical</a> <a href="https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=wonderwoman.htm">and commercial</a> success was seen as a rare coup for Marvel’s rivals DC, whose <a href="https://www.metacritic.com/company/dc-comics">recent cinematic outings</a> have generally been regarded as weak.</p>
<p>Interestingly, both franchises have launched with films set in the past: Wonder Woman during World War I and its forthcoming sequel in 1984, and Captain Marvel in the 1990s (allegedly 1995, although there are some anachronistic details in the marketing such as songs on the soundtrack that weren’t released until much later). </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262656/original/file-20190307-82652-1wmk8dr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262656/original/file-20190307-82652-1wmk8dr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262656/original/file-20190307-82652-1wmk8dr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262656/original/file-20190307-82652-1wmk8dr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262656/original/file-20190307-82652-1wmk8dr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262656/original/file-20190307-82652-1wmk8dr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262656/original/file-20190307-82652-1wmk8dr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Period drama: using 1990s-style Magic Eye images as a marketing tool.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">©Marvel Studios 2019</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These past settings may not just be for plot reasons. Given it has taken embarrassingly long for these female-led superhero films to arrive, it may be no coincidence that neither franchise is set in the present day. It is almost as if the studios are embarrassed of the fact and are trying to retrofit their past so that by the time the series reach the present day, the cinematic universes will have plenty of female superheroes fighting alongside their male counterparts. To launch a Captain Marvel film set in 2019 with her being presented as a “novelty” in a man’s world within the film’s world would seem tone deaf and clumsy (even if that is what’s happening in the “real” 2019).</p>
<h2>A cinematic Marvel?</h2>
<p>Initial reviews of Captain Marvel have been somewhat <a href="https://nerdist.com/article/captain-marvel-review-round-up-mixed/">mixed</a> – it has received few truly bad reviews, but several highlight flaws in the film. Larson’s <a href="https://nerdist.com/article/captain-marvel-review/">performance</a> has been praised, as have the <a href="https://www.gamespot.com/articles/captain-marvel-review-the-right-movie-but-the-wron/1100-6465111/">humour</a> and <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/captain-marvel-review-soaring-tale-of-self-discovery-with-a-90s-riff/">energy</a> of the film. But it’s been criticised for not featuring enough <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/03/captain-marvel-review-brie-larson-anna-boden-ryan-fleck/584125/?utm_term=2019-03-05T14%3A00%3A02&utm_content=edit-promo&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_source=twitter">big set-pieces</a>, its narrative focusing too much on an <a href="https://www.denofgeek.com/us/movies/marvel/279390/captain-marvel-review">easily resolved mystery</a>, and having a slightly <a href="https://film.avclub.com/the-dream-of-the-90s-is-alive-in-the-underwhelming-capt-1833044950">lacklustre plot</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tkSuLa3o_5A?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Captain Marvel is hardly the first superhero film to encounter mixed reviews, of course. Its current <a href="https://www.metacritic.com/company/marvel-studios">Metacritic</a> and <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/franchise/marvel_cinematic_universe/">Rotten Tomatoes</a> scores rate it similarly to Iron Man 2 and 3, Doctor Strange, Avengers: Age of Ultron and both Ant-Man films, and significantly higher than the likes of the Fantastic Four and Hulk.</p>
<p>Even the well-regarded Wonder Woman was not without its problems, including the overemphasis on the love interest, the bloated running time, and the establishment of Diana’s race of fierce Amazonian women warriors at the start – only for them to be sidelined and replaced by an all-male team of laughably bad ethnic stereotypes.</p>
<p>So what might Captain Marvel indicate about the present – and future – of women in film? Within the superhero genre, it’s likely to lead to more. There are strong rumours of a sequel in the works and also murmurs of a Black Widow film. With other popular female comic heroes – such as Ms Marvel – ready and waiting for the big screen, if Captain Marvel proves a success, more will no doubt follow.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262657/original/file-20190307-82652-1myp8c6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262657/original/file-20190307-82652-1myp8c6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262657/original/file-20190307-82652-1myp8c6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262657/original/file-20190307-82652-1myp8c6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262657/original/file-20190307-82652-1myp8c6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262657/original/file-20190307-82652-1myp8c6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262657/original/file-20190307-82652-1myp8c6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Captain Marvel: rumours of a sequel already in the pipeline.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">©Marvel Studios 2019</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But some critics have noted that simply increasing the presence of women in genres such as superhero films is insufficient to address the issues of gender inequality – <a href="https://theconversation.com/this-is-the-toxic-myth-at-the-heart-of-female-movie-reboots-102125">privileging typically “male” genres</a>, still offering a <a href="https://theconversation.com/simply-putting-women-on-screen-wont-be-enough-to-sustain-marvel-post-avengers-95721">limited range</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/female-thor-knocks-out-anti-feminist-villain-but-this-isnt-the-coup-it-seems-38064">of female representations</a>, and focusing more on what is on-screen than broader <a href="https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/comment/invisible-woman-film-gender-bias-laid-bare">inequalities within the industry</a> where female filmmakers are still a minority.</p>
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<p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/oscars-2019-olivia-colman-wins-best-actress-but-yet-again-hollywood-shows-it-thinks-film-making-is-a-man-thing-109534">Oscars 2019: Olivia Colman wins best actress, but yet again Hollywood shows it thinks film-making is a man thing</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Having a female-fronted and directed Marvel superhero film is to be celebrated, of course – though its release on IWD may be too cynically opportunistic for some. Hopefully, Captain Marvel will entertain and inspire audiences – men as well as women. But the fact that it is still an exception, rather than the norm, shows us that the film world still has a long way to go before women achieve anything approaching equality.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113083/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ruth Deller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The film’s release has been timed for IWD, but powerful female action heroes should now be an everyday matter for movie producers.
Ruth Deller, Reader and Principal Lecturer in Media and Communication, Sheffield Hallam University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/112617
2019-03-07T04:51:26Z
2019-03-07T04:51:26Z
Remember Blockbuster, Nirvana and pagers? The new Captain Marvel lives in the 1990s
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262308/original/file-20190306-48441-q4jaah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Captain Marvel has fun taking us back to the 1990s.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marvel Studios</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Captain Marvel flies into movie theatres from today, and apart from introducing a great new hero who combines the righteousness of <a href="https://www.marvel.com/characters/captain-america-steve-rogers">Captain America</a> and the humour of <a href="https://theconversation.com/thor-ragnarok-pitches-superheroes-against-science-and-how-does-hulk-keep-his-pants-on-86211">Thor: Ragnarok</a>, it’s also a cultural reference bonanza for anyone who grew up as a child of the 1990s.</p>
<p>There are the obligatory references to the <a href="https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2019/03/theres-only-one-surviving-blockbuster-left-on-planet-earth/">now-declining</a> Blockbuster video store, a fantastic music soundtrack (Nirvana, Hole, TLC to name a few), and tech jokes galore.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fingerprint-and-face-scanners-arent-as-secure-as-we-think-they-are-112414">Fingerprint and face scanners aren’t as secure as we think they are</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>We see the origin story of her character <a href="https://www.marvel.com/characters/captain-marvel-carol-danvers">Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel</a>, meet the Shield agents in the early days, and get set up with an interstellar conflict with some satisfying subversion of your typical expectations.</p>
<figure>
<img src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/512/gif1.gif?1551831185" width="100%">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Blockbuster takes a beating, and perhaps a premonition of its future prospects.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marvel Studios.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So let’s go back to the ‘90s (like the movie’s <a href="https://www.marvel.com/captainmarvel/">website</a> does) to some long-forgotten tech as well as some that has aged surprisingly well, and see how it all checks out, both scientifically and historically.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Z1BCujX3pw8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Don’t mess with this pilot.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Projecting holograms through a landline phone</h2>
<p>Upon landing on Earth, Danvers raids a Radioshack shop and with a few deft modifications manages to set up a <a href="https://theconversation.com/five-surprising-ways-holograms-are-revolutionising-the-world-77886">hologram</a> communicator from a conventional wired phone.</p>
<p>The projection side of this feat would take some pretty impressive tweaking of 1990s technology (she appears to set everything up in a few minutes), but the bandwidth side of things can be analysed – that’s the amount of data needed for a hologram communication.</p>
<p>The bandwidth required for holograms varies widely, but figures of about <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254033574_3D_holographic_display_and_its_data_transmission_requirement">10Gbps</a> are mentioned in the literature. There are also <a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/latest/media/media-releases/2015/6ghz">proposals to use 5G’s up to 10Gbps bandwidth to do holographic projections</a>.</p>
<p>So if Danvers’ modifications have upped the bandwidth to modern day 5G standards, it’s feasible she could receive sufficient data to get a hologram up and running. </p>
<p><strong>Verdict:</strong> A plausible projection.</p>
<h2>Digital reading speed</h2>
<p>There are lots of nostalgic tech moments in the movie – an internet connection dropping out, and the whole crew waiting around for a computer to read data from a CD.</p>
<p>Although done for humorous reasons, this depiction is entirely accurate, as anyone who lived through the 1990s can attest.</p>
<p>CD read speeds <a href="https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/X-compact-disc-access-time">varied</a> from hundreds of kilobytes (kB) per second to 6 megabytes (MB) per second. Even with the fastest disc drives of the time, it could take many seconds to read even a moderate-sized file, and minutes to read an entire CD’s worth of data (about 700MB).</p>
<p>Compare that to today - we have <a href="https://www.techradar.com/au/news/best-usb-flash-drives">USB drives</a> with capacities up to 1 terabyte, and read speeds of more than 400 megabytes per second.</p>
<p><strong>Verdict:</strong> Painfully on point.</p>
<h2>Fighters – not much has changed</h2>
<p>In one of the secret hangar bases in the movie we get a shot of what looks remarkably like a <a href="https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/products/f-22.html">Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor</a> fighter aircraft.</p>
<figure>
<img src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/514/gif2.gif?1551833430" width="100%">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">We get a sneak peak at an F-22 Raptor.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marvel Studios.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With the movie set in 1995, it’s somewhat plausible there could be a prototype F-22 at a secret base – the plane flew for the <a href="https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a28102/20-years-old-f-22/">first time in 1997</a>. Danvers is meanwhile seen to be <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/watch-captain-marvel-star-brie-larson-take-flight-in-an-air-force-f-16-2019-1/">flying F-16s</a> at a normal aircraft base.</p>
<p>What’s also interesting is while on-board electronics and related technology have changed significantly, the core airframe tech has not advanced much over the past nearly quarter of a century – the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-went-wrong-with-the-f-35-lockheed-martins-joint-strike-fighter-60905">F-22 is still considered to be one of the best aircraft</a> around today.</p>
<p><strong>Verdict:</strong> Fighter is fair.</p>
<h2>Lifting fingerprints off sticky tape</h2>
<p>To escape a fingerprint-tagged room, Nick Fury grabs a piece of plastic tape and runs it over where a staff member grabbed his ID card. He uses the fingerprint on the tape on the reader to unlock the door.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262293/original/file-20190305-48447-1dqh20h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262293/original/file-20190305-48447-1dqh20h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262293/original/file-20190305-48447-1dqh20h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262293/original/file-20190305-48447-1dqh20h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262293/original/file-20190305-48447-1dqh20h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262293/original/file-20190305-48447-1dqh20h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262293/original/file-20190305-48447-1dqh20h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lifting fingerprints.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">microgen/123rf.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Grabbing fingerprints off a surface with tape <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/finding-fingerprints/">can be done</a> if the surface is prepared through a process called dusting. Dusting uses a fine powder to stick to the oily residue left by a fingerprint, which is then transferred to a piece of tape. </p>
<p>But Fury doesn’t appear to do any surface preparation, lifting the print directly off the ID card, which is pushing plausibility.</p>
<p><strong>Verdict:</strong> Fury’s fingerprinting fail.</p>
<h2>What do we know about non-carbon-based life?</h2>
<p>All life on Earth is <a href="https://www.scienceabc.com/humans/why-is-life-on-earth-carbon-based.html">based on the element carbon</a>. This is why when you burn either wood or meat, all you are left with is charcoal, which is mostly just pure carbon.</p>
<p>But when one of the alien Skrulls dies and the body examined, the doctor says it is definitely not carbon-based.</p>
<p>This is theoretically possible. We’ve known for a long time that life on other planets could also be based on other elements that are similar to carbon, <a href="https://bigpictureeducation.com/possibility-silicon-based-life">for example silicon</a>.</p>
<p>Even though carbon and silicon might look very different, chemically they are very similar regarding the kinds of chemical reactions that are needed to support life. This is because they are in the same column in the <a href="http://www.rsc.org/periodic-table">periodic table of elements</a>.</p>
<p>But then the doctor says something strange, whatever the alien is made of, it’s not from the periodic table. </p>
<p>This is highly unlikely. All known matter in the universe exists on the periodic table, and the alien doesn’t seem to be made of any strange unknown substance like dark matter, just <a href="https://www.seti.org/seti-institute/news/goodbye-little-green-men-0">rubbery green flesh</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Verdict:</strong> Off the planet.</p>
<h2>Paging the ‘90s</h2>
<p>Nick Fury’s pager features quite prominently in this movie. Paging technology was all the rage back in the late 1980s and '90s. </p>
<p>With today’s mobile and smart phones, texting (SMS and MMS), a huge range of messaging apps and always-on connectivity everywhere, you might think pagers would have gone the way of dial-up internet. But that’s not quite so.</p>
<p>Pagers have a much longer range than phones, are harder to hack, don’t store conversation histories (important for privacy and security), and are more reliable during natural disasters.</p>
<p>They are still used by many <a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xyw9zq/why-are-pagers-still-a-thing">emergency services</a> and <a href="https://www.rd.com/health/healthcare/hospital-pagers/">medical personnel</a> who need to be <a href="https://theconversation.com/nhs-to-banish-pagers-from-its-hospitals-but-is-this-a-rash-act-112647">contactable in extreme emergencies</a> even when all other power and communications might be down.</p>
<p><strong>Verdict:</strong> Retro tech still comes to the rescue.</p>
<h2>The verdict</h2>
<figure>
<img src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/515/gif3.gif?1551834918" width="100%">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">She gets knocked down … and she gets up again.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marvel Studios.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The movie is a fun chance to be reminded of all the technology and culture of a quarter-century ago, and to think how much (and how little) has changed. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/virtual-reality-adds-to-tourism-through-touch-smell-and-real-peoples-experiences-101528">Virtual reality adds to tourism through touch, smell and real people's experiences</a>
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</em>
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<p>The movie’s depiction of the 1990s is generally pretty spot-on – a fun way for a younger audience to be introduced to what life was like before smartphones and ubiquitous high-speed internet. The pain of removable media, unreliable and slow internet connections, and having to go to the store to get a movie is all captured humorously on film. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262309/original/file-20190306-48450-1w0m6a1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262309/original/file-20190306-48450-1w0m6a1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=311&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262309/original/file-20190306-48450-1w0m6a1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=311&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262309/original/file-20190306-48450-1w0m6a1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=311&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262309/original/file-20190306-48450-1w0m6a1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262309/original/file-20190306-48450-1w0m6a1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262309/original/file-20190306-48450-1w0m6a1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marvel Studios</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112617/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Professor Michael Milford is a Chief Investigator at the Australian Centre for Robotic Vision, an Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Microsoft Research Faculty Fellow and Founding Director of the education startup Math Thrills Pty Ltd. He receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the Queensland Government, Caterpillar Corporation, Mining3, Microsoft, the Asian Office of Aerospace Research and Development and AMP. He has board director and advisory roles at Motor Trades Association of Queensland and Queensland AI.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Stratton receives funding from the Queensland Brain Institute, the Asia-Pacific Centre for Neuromodulation and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is affiliated with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).</span></em></p>
The new Captain Marvel movie takes us back to the 1990s with a look at some of the technologies of the day. Do people still use pagers?
Michael Milford, Professor, Queensland University of Technology
Peter Stratton, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, The University of Queensland
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/112268
2019-02-21T19:01:31Z
2019-02-21T19:01:31Z
‘Black Panther’ and its science role models inspire more than just movie awards
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260249/original/file-20190221-195873-1czfcxm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=122%2C77%2C1252%2C694&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">King of a technologically advanced country, Black Panther is a scientific genius.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1825683/mediaviewer/rm2447322112">© 2017 – Disney/Marvel Studios</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It has been said many times that the Marvel movie “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1825683/">Black Panther</a>” is an important landmark. I’m not referring to its deserved critical and box office success worldwide, the many awards it has won, or the fact that it is the first film in the superhero genre to be <a href="https://oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/2019">nominated for best picture at the Academy Awards</a>.</p>
<p>Instead, I’m focusing on a key aspect of its cultural impact that is less frequently discussed. Finally a feature film starring a black superhero character became part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe – a successful run of intertwined movies that began with “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0371746/">Iron Man</a>” in 2008. While there have been other superhero movies with a black lead character – “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0448157/">Hancock</a>” (2008), “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120611/">Blade</a>” (1998), “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120177/">Spawn</a>” (1997) or even “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107563/">The Meteor Man</a>” (1993) – this film is significant because of the <a href="https://www.nyfa.edu/student-resources/the-rise-of-superhero-films/">recent remarkable rise of the superhero film</a> from the nerdish fringe to part of mainstream culture.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=marvel2017b.htm">Huge audiences</a> saw a black lead character – not a sidekick or part of a team – in a superhero movie by a major studio, with a black director (Ryan Coogler), black writers and a majority black cast. This is a significant step toward diversifying our culture by improving the <a href="http://annenberg.usc.edu/sites/default/files/Dr_Stacy_L_Smith-Inequality_in_900_Popular_Films.pdf">lackluster representation</a> of minorities in our major media. It’s also a <a href="http://annenberg.usc.edu/research/aii/research/raceethnicity">filmmaking landmark because black creators</a> have been given access to the resources and platforms needed to bring different storytelling perspectives into our mainstream culture.</p>
<p>2017’s “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0451279/">Wonder Woman</a>” forged a similar path. In that case, a major studio finally decided to commit resources to a superhero film headlined by a female character and directed by a woman, Patty Jenkins. Female directors are <a href="http://annenberg.usc.edu/inclusion-directors-chair">a minority in the movie industry</a>. Jenkins brought a new perspective to this kind of action movie, and there was a <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2017/05/31/why-women-are-crying-when-they-watch-wonder-woman-fight/102328772/">huge positive response from audiences</a> in theaters worldwide.</p>
<p>And beyond all this, “Black Panther” also broke additional ground in a way most people may not realize: In the comics, the character is actually a scientist and engineer. Moreover, in the inevitable (and somewhat ridiculous) ranking of scientific prowess that happens in the comic book world, he’s been portrayed as at least the equal of the two most famous “top scientists” in the Marvel universe: Tony Stark (Iron Man) and Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic). A black headlining superhero character written and directed by black artists is rare enough from a major studio. But making him – and his sister Shuri – successful scientists and engineers as well is another level of rarity.</p>
<h2>Scientists on screen</h2>
<p>I’m a scientist who cares about increased engagement with science by the general public. I’ve worked as <a href="http://www.laweekly.com/film/physicist-dr-clifford-v-johnson-is-a-consultant-on-superhero-movies-8232890">a science adviser on many film and TV projects</a> (though not “Black Panther”). When the opportunity arises, I’ve <a href="https://creativefuture.org/science-advisor-conversation-dr-clifford-johnson/">helped broaden the diversity of scientist characters</a> portrayed onscreen.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205377/original/file-20180207-74512-hw1u6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205377/original/file-20180207-74512-hw1u6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205377/original/file-20180207-74512-hw1u6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205377/original/file-20180207-74512-hw1u6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205377/original/file-20180207-74512-hw1u6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205377/original/file-20180207-74512-hw1u6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205377/original/file-20180207-74512-hw1u6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205377/original/file-20180207-74512-hw1u6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jason Wilkes is a black scientist on ‘Agent Carter,’ whose character emerged from the author’s talks with the show’s writers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ABC Television</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205375/original/file-20180207-74512-zdpjdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205375/original/file-20180207-74512-zdpjdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205375/original/file-20180207-74512-zdpjdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205375/original/file-20180207-74512-zdpjdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205375/original/file-20180207-74512-zdpjdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205375/original/file-20180207-74512-zdpjdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205375/original/file-20180207-74512-zdpjdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205375/original/file-20180207-74512-zdpjdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Panels from ‘The Dialogues,’ including a black female scientist.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">'The Dialogues,' by Clifford V. Johnson (MIT Press 2017)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I’ve also recently published a <a href="http://thedialoguesbook.com/">nonfiction graphic book</a> for general audiences called “<a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/dialogues-0">The Dialogues: Conversations about the Nature of the Universe</a>.” Its characters include male and female black scientists, discussing aspects of my own field of theoretical physics – where black scientists are <a href="https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/2017/nsf17310/data.cfm">unfortunately very rare</a>. So the opportunity that the “Black Panther” movie presents to inform and inspire vast audiences is of great interest to me.</p>
<p>The history and evolution of the Black Panther character and his scientific back story is a fascinating example of turning a problematic past into a positive opportunity.</p>
<p>Created in 1966 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, he’s the first black superhero character in mainstream comics, <a href="https://comicvine.gamespot.com/fantastic-four-52-introducing-the-sensational-blac/4000-8666/">originally appearing as a guest</a> in a “Fantastic Four” Marvel comic. As a black character created and initially written by nonblack authors, guest-starring in the pages of a book headlined by white characters, he had many of the classic attributes of what is now sometimes controversially known as the “<a href="https://www.salon.com/2010/09/14/magical_negro_trope/">magical negro</a>” in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0021934707307831">American cultural criticism</a>: He ranked extremely highly in every sphere that mattered, to the point of being almost too unreal even for the comics of the time.</p>
<p>Black Panther is T’Challa, king of the fictional African country Wakanda, which is fathomlessly wealthy and remarkably advanced, scientifically and technologically. Even Marvel’s legendary master scientist – Reed Richards of the superhero team Fantastic Four – is befuddled by and full of admiration for Wakanda’s scientific capabilities. T’Challa himself is portrayed as an extraordinary “genius” in physics and other scientific fields, a peerless tactician, a remarkable athlete and a master of numerous forms of martial arts. And he is noble to a fault. Of course, he grows to become a powerful ally of the Fantastic Four and other Marvel superheroes over many adventures.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205406/original/file-20180207-74473-hjn59z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205406/original/file-20180207-74473-hjn59z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205406/original/file-20180207-74473-hjn59z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205406/original/file-20180207-74473-hjn59z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205406/original/file-20180207-74473-hjn59z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205406/original/file-20180207-74473-hjn59z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205406/original/file-20180207-74473-hjn59z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205406/original/file-20180207-74473-hjn59z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">While likening Black Panther to a ‘refugee from a Tarzan movie,’ the Fantastic Four marveled at his technological innovations in ‘Introducing the Sensational Black Panther.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Fantastic Four #52 (July 1966). [Marvel Comics]</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The key point here is that the superlative scientific ability of our hero, and that of his country, has its origins in the well-meaning, but problematic, practice of inventing near or beyond perfect black characters to support stories starring primarily white protagonists. But this is a lemons-to-lemonade story.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205407/original/file-20180207-74476-yuoi9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205407/original/file-20180207-74476-yuoi9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205407/original/file-20180207-74476-yuoi9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=280&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205407/original/file-20180207-74476-yuoi9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=280&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205407/original/file-20180207-74476-yuoi9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=280&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205407/original/file-20180207-74476-yuoi9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205407/original/file-20180207-74476-yuoi9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205407/original/file-20180207-74476-yuoi9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Fantastic Four were amazed by the scientific ingenuity of Wakanda in ‘Whosoever Finds The Evil Eye.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Fantastic Four #54 (September 1966). [Marvel Comics]</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Black Panther eventually got to star in his own series of comics. He was turned into a nuanced and complex character, moving well away from the tropes of his beginnings. Writer Don McGregor’s work started this development as early as 1973, but Black Panther’s journey to the multilayered character you see on screen was greatly advanced by the efforts of several writers with diverse perspectives. Perhaps most notably, in the context of the film, these include Christopher Priest (late 1990s) and Ta-Nehisi Coates (starting in 2016), along with Roxane Gay and Yona Harvey, writing in “World of Wakanda” (2016). Coates and Gay, already best-selling literary writers before coming to the character, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/23/books/black-panther-marvel-comics-roxane-gay-ta-nehisi-coates-wakanda.html?_r=0">helped bring him to wider attention</a> beyond normal comic book fandom, partly paving the way for the movie.</p>
<p>Through all of the improved writing of T'Challa and his world, his spectacular scientific ability has remained prominent. Wakanda continues to be a successful African nation with astonishing science and technology. Furthermore, and very importantly, T'Challa is not portrayed as an anomaly among his people in this regard. There are many great scientists and engineers in the Wakanda of the comics, including his sister Shuri. In some accounts, she (in the continued scientist-ranking business of comics) is an even greater intellect than he is. In the movie, T’Challa’s science and engineering abilities are referred to, but it is his sister Shuri who takes center stage in this role, having taken over to design the new tools and weapons he uses in the field. She also uses Wakandan science to heal wounds that would have been fatal elsewhere in the world.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205385/original/file-20180207-74506-voxz8z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205385/original/file-20180207-74506-voxz8z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205385/original/file-20180207-74506-voxz8z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205385/original/file-20180207-74506-voxz8z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205385/original/file-20180207-74506-voxz8z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205385/original/file-20180207-74506-voxz8z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205385/original/file-20180207-74506-voxz8z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205385/original/file-20180207-74506-voxz8z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Black Panther isn’t an isolated genius – his half-sister Shuri is a technological wiz herself.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://collider.com/black-panther-things-to-know/">Marvel Studios</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>If they can do it, then why not me?</h2>
<p>As a scientist who cares about inspiring more people – including underrepresented minorities and women – <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-ways-scientists-can-help-put-science-back-into-popular-culture-84955">to engage with science</a>, I think that showing a little of this scientific landscape in “Black Panther” potentially amplifies the movie’s cultural impact.</p>
<p>Vast audiences see black heroes – both men and women – using their scientific ability to solve problems and make their way in the world, at an unrivaled level. <a href="https://dornsife.usc.edu/daphna-oyserman/identity/">Research has shown</a> that such representation can have a positive effect on the interests, outlook and career trajectories of viewers.</p>
<p>Improving science education for all is a core endeavor in a nation’s competitiveness and overall health, but outcomes are limited if people aren’t inspired to take an interest in science in the first place. There simply are <a href="http://annenberg.usc.edu/research/aii/research/raceethnicity">not enough images of black scientists</a> – male or female – in our media and entertainment to help inspire. Many people from underrepresented groups end up genuinely believing that scientific investigation is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1949-8594.2002.tb18217.x">not a career path open to them</a>.</p>
<p>Moreover, many people still see the dedication and study needed to excel in science as “nerdy.” A cultural injection of Black Panther heroics helps continue to erode the crumbling tropes that science is <a href="https://theconversation.com/most-people-think-man-when-they-think-scientist-how-can-we-kill-the-stereotype-42393">only for white men</a> or reserved for <a href="https://theconversation.com/beliefs-about-innate-talent-may-dissuade-students-from-stem-42967">people with a special “science gene.”</a></p>
<p>The huge widespread success of the “Black Panther” movie, showcasing T'Challa, Shuri and other Wakandans as highly accomplished scientists, remains one of the most significant boosts for science engagement in recent times.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This is an updated version of <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-hidden-superpower-of-black-panther-scientist-role-models-91042">an article originally published</a> on Feb. 8, 2018.</em></p>
<p>
<section class="inline-content">
<img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248895/original/file-20181204-133100-t34yqm.png?w=128&h=128">
<div>
<header>Clifford V. Johnson is the author of:</header>
<p><a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/dialogues-1">The Dialogues: Conversations about the Nature of the Universe</a></p>
<footer>MIT Press provides funding as a member of The Conversation US.</footer>
</div>
</section>
</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112268/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>MIT Press provides funding as a member of The Conversation US.</span></em></p>
The film wowed critics and fans. But its hidden power may be black lead characters who are accomplished scientists – just the thing to help inspire future generations to follow in their footsteps.
Clifford Johnson, Professor of Physics and Astronomy, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/104557
2018-10-08T19:10:16Z
2018-10-08T19:10:16Z
Venom: an excellent superhero film, perhaps best not experienced in 4DX
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239604/original/file-20181007-72106-1aankod.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tom Hardy in Venom: the intense action sequences are balanced by disarming humour.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Avi Arad Productions, Columbia Pictures Corporation,Marvel Entertainment.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The history of Hollywood is, in many ways, the history of cinematic gimmicks appearing at times when its media dominance was perceived as being under threat. </p>
<p>Take 3D, for example. Its key periods of popularity coincided with three of the most significant threats to Hollywood’s screen domination: the 1950s, after the emergence of television, the 1980s, after home video appeared, and the 2000s, in the wake of quick and cheap (or free) Internet streaming. Accompanying each of these periods have been prognostications of the disappearance of cinema as we know it, and certainty that 3D would come to permanently replace the old technology. </p>
<p>The latest gimmick is “4DX” – basically a 3D film with moving chairs and water spraying on you. It fits into a long continuum of attempts to extend the cinematic narrative into the space of the theatre by synchronising physical effects occurring in it with events depicted onscreen. (One of the most delightful examples of this accompanied the 1959 Vincent Price vehicle, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053363/">The Tingler</a>, when mechanisms were installed in select cinema seats that would “tingle” the viewer during periods of particular suspense and terror!)</p>
<p>I was fortunate, in that my 4DX experience involved an excellent film – Marvel’s latest, Venom – with the banality of the 4DX in many ways mitigated by the superiority of the film itself. Venom is one of the best I’ve seen this year: a tightly made, engrossing science-fiction film that, whilst set in the universe of Marvel, is effective as a stand alone work.</p>
<p>Tom Hardy, as the eponymous character, is compellingly hard-boiled, and Riz Ahmed is equally terrific as Carlton Drake, a villain with a touch of Elon Musk, who wants to cure the problems of Earth by escaping into space. The narrative, involving the fusing of human and alien organisms and the anthropologically threatening ramifications of this, has become a science-fiction staple. Venom - which at under two hours is not, as is the case with so many recent Marvel films, grossly overlong - has fun with the story’s generic qualities. </p>
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<span class="caption">Tom Hardy and Riz Ahmed in Venom (2018).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Avi Arad Productions, Columbia Pictures Corporation,Marvel Entertainment.</span></span>
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<p>The intense action sequences are balanced by disarming humour; and the light touch of Michelle Williams, as Anne Weying, the ex-fiance of Venom who becomes his co-combatant in battle against Drake, neatly balances Hardy’s typically overbearing qualities.</p>
<p>Venom is the perfect vehicle for showcasing 4DX – short, sharp and violent. The most impressive aspect was the range (and violence) of motion of the seats, and, in a film replete with car chases, crashes, and several muscular fight sequences, there was ample opportunity for this to be demonstrated.</p>
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<p>The experience was fun enough, akin to a theme park ride. (It reminded me of the Batman ride from Movie World in the 1990s). But I can’t really imagine this catching on as a popular way of watching films, even though the experiment of 4DX in Melbourne must have been successful enough to warrant giving it a run in Sydney.</p>
<p>The key reason for its basic ineffectiveness concerns a mistaken analogy on the part of its designers – the idea that including action in the physical realm of the theatre will somehow make the experience of watching the film more affective.</p>
<p>The opposite is, in fact, the case. The darkness of the movie cinema allows us to completely concentrate on the unfolding of the images on the screen, and their accompanying audio, without being distracted by our own corporeality. But our proximity to ourselves, our awareness of our own bodies, serves to sever the illusion that allows us to suspend our disbelief – that we are observers of a different, imaginary world. </p>
<p>Being reminded of our physical bodies in this world draws our attention to the technical apparatus that is usually so well concealed in the mass movie experience, and this demarcates a clear separation between the world of the theatre, as a physical space, and the world of illusion on the screen. Every time our chair violently thrusts from one side to the other, we become aware of our physical bodies and stop concentrating on Venom.</p>
<p>There is an even more basic reason why these attempts to connect the physical space of the theatre with the world of the screen have never superseded the basic pleasure of watching moving images – our own vision is in no way analogous to the vision of a camera. The way a camera looks at the world does not resemble the way a human does so, and film techniques like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point-of-view_shot%E2%80%8B">first person point of view shot</a> have thus never really worked in their attempt to directly reproduce, on screen, the visual perspective of a human character. </p>
<p>Watching Venom in 4DX was at times, therefore, a little irritating. I wanted to concentrate on a (very good) movie, but was instead forced to concentrate on the act of watching itself, as I was sprayed with water and shaken around. Coupled with the odd effect of watching the film in 3D, the whole thing really just created a context in which it was harder to become absorbed in the narrative of the film than would usually be the case.</p>
<p>Still, the whole thing was kind of fun – like the ritual of donning 3D glasses – and it’s the kind of thing lots of people will probably try once, before the next gimmick replaces 4DX. It is good to know, in any case, that lean, mean action films like Venom can still be experienced in the most affectively immersive way possible - in a dark theatre seated in a comfortable chair without glasses blocking the screen from the viewer.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104557/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ari Mattes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Venom is an engrossing science fiction film, which balances intense action sequences with disarming humour. Viewing it in 4DX, however, did not add to the experience.
Ari Mattes, Lecturer in Media Studies, University of Notre Dame Australia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.