The Philosophical Significance of Superhero Movies

Death in Classic and Contemporary Film, 2013

Inks, 2020

Also available for review at https://tinyurl.com/StrangeVisitor. We recognize myths for what they indicate about the values and beliefs of the cultures who were the authors and audiences of those myths; many of the earliest communicators of myth were telling stories about subjects they counted as people (somewhat) like themselves. Yet, despite our modern sophistication, today’s consumers of narrative still often treat fictions as though they are real, thinking and feeling people. We are introduced to Superman, for instance, as a fiction, but circumstance often leads consumers to discursively treat that invented hero as a human subject. Now, though, we verge on a technological future in which just such sympathies might become functionally useful. In our modern science fiction like Star Trek: The Next Generation and Westworld, we have already begun to imagine how we will come to treat our narrative inventions of tomorrow. Strange Visitor: Subjectivity, Simulation, and the Future of the First Superhero begins to ask what our actual responsibilities will become when fictions can be rendered with volition. In its opening chapters, the text studies how we humanize a figure like Superman in our own perceptions, and how that treatment--along with his continuing narrative development--makes him a prime candidate for an experiment in complex, highly verisimilitudinous simulation. Superman is a central point of consideration here simply because there is so much of him to consider. He may be the most content-dense fiction ever created, but the innumerable opportunities consumers have had to get to know the character mean that he is also eminently familiar. Superman has maintained his presence in our media and discourses, across the decades, as consumer populations have continued to grow and our communications structures have commensurately evolved and expanded. Superman is the subject of this study not because he has become so popular, but because he has managed to stay that way at a particularly sharp inflection point in the history of human communications. But, the Man of Steel is often generalized as infallible and, therefore, rather dull. The first part of this work--an expansive psychological assessment--troubles such a presumption, though, by examining the complex mind that has accrued within decades of narrative, across media, and which must be carefully navigated in any exhaustive analysis. This first section also considers Superman’s relationship with his media consumers: from how we use him to form childhood bonds with one another, to how we respond to his continuing humanization. For, Superman is powerfully determined by how audiences actually treat any given instance of the figure as Superman. Today, we find that we can engage with particularly realistic media, encouraging us even more urgently to invest in the verisimilitude and humanity of the characters and places being presented, and doing so often makes a narrative more appealing. Accordingly, Superman’s relationship with his own media is particularly convenient to an examination of the intersection between fictional narrative, high technology, and identity negotiation. To understand Superman's potent humanization, the first half of this text presents an assessment of his identity from multiple essential perspectives, including those of his content creators and consumers, as well as the complex judgments of himself and his fictional society as they have been presented in his narratives. Diegetic evidence is considered in historical and psychological capacities in order to assess how Superman’s media has been constructed--practically from the beginning--to encourage consumers to invest themselves in the figure’s humanity and relatability. In its second part, Strange Visitor moves from relevant questions of identity into a more practical application of those insights to current and emerging technologies. We already enjoy vastly interactive ways of engaging with our fictions, and we can anticipate continuing advancements in the verisimilitude, interactability, and spontaneity of artificial intelligences. Accordingly, fewer and fewer holes in the experiential tapestry of narrative will have to be ignored as both storytelling techniques and rendering technologies continue to evolve. Soon, what we practically treat as a ‘human’ subject may have more to do with that figure’s specific engageability than with its biology or physical consistency. Given the view of the detailed project proposal that constitutes the second part of this work, spontaneous, humanlike, autonomous simulations culled from fictional worlds could very well become reality within the foreseeable future. Emerging from our science fiction dreams, several considerable, real-world technological initiatives would see us reconstruct the intellects of great thinkers, such as Gandhi, Curie, or Hawking. But, reconstructing and functionalizing the consciousness of a real person--living or dead--is an ethically dubious proposition from the start. Instead of an original personality, though--seemingly ‘complete’ at first, but limited in contextual understanding--what if researchers built a simulated subject from the material of a robustly developed fiction? If the first of our deep, humanlike engagements with such technology will be the most important, Superman seems a fitting choice, given how we have already embraced him on personal and cultural levels. But, as real technologies advance toward that imagined outcome, we must also ask how the practical, livable terms of fictionality would change. How would our own responsibilities evolve as we produced and engaged with such personalities? The prototypical solution I propose here--referred to as the Metropolis Simulation System--could be considered one of Andrew M. Butler’s necessary explorations into the role of the simulacrum (“Postmodernism and Science Fiction” 147). Whatever of these speculations does or does not bear out, it is my hope with this text to show the reader that we must pay substantial attention to our future relationships with our media and computing technologies. Such a situation need not be feared, though, if we approach with the optimistic combination of thoughtfulness and adventurousness that a character like Superman can inspire. Strange Visitor is intended for any who might have the interest and/or resources to help realize the rendering of a densely-developed fiction as an exemplary representative of humanlike, fully-engageable general artificial intelligence, including the developers of the many technologies referenced. Portions of the work might also be used as an introduction into the complexities of mediated identity construction, while the critical questions presented could be utilized in advanced media studies courses, or as portions of a forward-thinking philosophy curriculum. Other segments may benefit discussions on popular fictions generally, the ethics of narrative, or psychological and identiary dynamics.

People in ancient Greece and Rome created their own heroes as leaders and believed in them. These stories passed on by word of mouth, and thanks to Iliad and Odessa by Homer, they were then written down. Even planets and star clusters are named after the gods of Rome, and even words we use regularly, such as “echo,” “erotic,” “chaos”, and “volcano” originate from Greek myths. Mythology is an abstract power that ties people and cultures. Our understanding of 'hero' also comes from Greeks and Romes. As a result of globalization, the world gets more complex and stories change form and content to keep up with their complexity. Today’s brilliant concept is to replace those myths and call them “super heroes”. These heroes first appeared in comic strips by Marvel Comics and then they were presented as films. Thus, super heroes became worldwide known.The aim of this study is to find out common points of worldwide famous super heroes and their roots in ancients myths. The Avengers film series of Marvel Comics is to be analyzed via content analysis method. There are two ways of applying myths to cinema. First method is to make a film out of a myth directly and the second method is to incorporate ancient myths in contemporary films. Since The Avengers film series uses both of these methods, it seems to be able to represent the myths very strongly. To strengthen the evaluations, Captain America, Hulk, Iron Man, and Thor film series are also analyzed as these characters are part of The Avengers. At first, mythology and its relation with popular culture is mentioned and secondly The Avengers film series is examined in a detailed way

Journal of Student Research

A wide variety of studies has identified a significant correlation between the income of a film and its genre. Unveiling that with newer genres and new audiences, certain movies experience more success than others. Here the researcher institutes a content analysis in which 12 live-action ‘superhero’ films are viewed and evaluated based on a sophisticated code. The films are viewed multiple times and other ‘outside’ codes are also recorded by the researcher. The research results in a found correlation between economic success and the superhero genre is identified along with a greater understanding of the impact that the films have on audiences. Not only is the impact revealed, but also some methods are evaluated along with their effectiveness on the amount of income generated.

2014

2004

This paper deals with the "why" regarding our collective desire for superhero narratives. My goal is to build on the many definitions of a superhero and find a framework that we as scholars can use to evaluate how superhero films present inspirational moral virtue and not zealous nationalism of any kind. In the process I want to address the problems with some of the scholarly work done on the connection to superheroes and heroism both historically and immediately after 9/11, particularly those who have argued that American superheroism is a fascist myth, and show how the recent evolution of the superhero genre in film gives us much to learn from. Therefore, superheroes do not create a fascist national complex but are instead popular because they create and revolve around inspirational virtue, such as those Mark White used to describe Captain America. All superheroes are inspirational because of these moral virtues: courage, humility, righteous indignation, sacrifice and responsibility, and perseverance. These virtues may be applied differently, but their role in defining superheroes transcends individual characters. Therefore, regardless of who we side with in Captain America: Civil War and Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice, we do so because we see these virtues realized within the world of superheroes.

Science Fiction Film and Television

The recent glut of superhero blockbusters and indie films in Hollywood highlights the persistent influence of high modernism/mass culture distinctions on how we talk about culture, a conversation that too often takes the form of ethical oppositions. Alejandro González Iñárritu’s indie portrait of the artist as a superhero, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), prompts a rethinking of such entrenched binaries in film criticism as a symptom of Hollywood in economic and aesthetic crisis after 2008. Using Birdman to diagnose this situation, the article explores the utopian prospects available in the web streaming medium in general and the superhero subgenre of sf in particular. The article argues that Netflix’s Marvel series – Daredevil, Jessica Jones and Luke Cage – reinvent the superhero genre (at the levels of aesthetics, ideology, politics and production), and urge us collectively to imagine and enact new utopian world-building projects. These series, moreover, are redefining not just the superhero genre, but how we understand the artwork itself in the contemporary moment.

2017

AbstrAct this article explores the question of evil and its metaphysical and moral implications in a series of animated movie adaptations of the Dc Universe produced since 2006. the contemporary evolution of the medium, called the " Iron Age of comics " , has seen the auto-reflexive nature of comics produce problems and themes related to the main question discussed in Christian theodicy: how can we perceive and define the possibility of evil in a world where God's omnipotence should have eliminated such a possibility? Moreover, why does evil seem to spread indefinitely in spite of all the efforts deployed by superheroes to stop evil? We will discuss the problem of evil as a natural narrative topic in light of comics' mythological and religious roots and with a particular study case: DC Comics Multiverse as an illustration of Leibniz's " best of all possible worlds " argument.