Here's an idea.
The recent flood of superhero films has to do with a lot more
than movie studios that are out of ideas.
[THEME MUSIC]
For as long as people have told stories,
those stories have involved the feats
of great and powerful characters-- Gilgamesh, Athena,
Moses, Beowulf, Paul Bunyan, Dolly Parton.
But only since the early 20th century have we
had superheroes.
In just a short time, they've become an inextricable part
of the cultural landscape-- especially in Hollywood.
Superman, Thor, Captain America, Spider-Man, Batman--
if you don't draw a distinction between highly-trained
masked vigilante and superhero, which who knows,
maybe you do-- they are-- ready--
huge, seemingly-permanent features of modern media.
And here we'll pause to repeat a major sentiment from our "Ms.
Marvel" video, which is that whoa!
the world of superheroes is a full of white dudes.
Yes, there are female super heroes and superheroes
of color.
Blade, Captain Marvel, Falcon, the Invisible Woman, Luke Cage,
Miss America, Ms. Marvel, Spawn, the Simon Baz, Wonder Woman,
Storm, and War Machine, just to name a few.
It mutantness and a giant metal suit
don't also exclude super heroism,
which for you, maybe they do.
But you could very fairly argue, I think,
that of the above, only Wonder Woman
is anywhere near as prevalent as the other most well-known
superheroes.
And she doesn't even have her own movie yet.
So I just didn't want to leave this point unmade--
that the popular construction of both history and superheroes
in the west-- lots of white dudes.
And that's probably not a coincidence.
And now anyone who wants to accuse me
of being a social justice warrior
can spend the rest of the video formulating their petulant
comment.
Just trying to make your lives easier.
Here for you.
Anyway, it's no wonder that people love superheroes.
Here are these great people awarded
with incredible abilities, able to take matters
into their own hands.
Woo-hoo!
Fighting the good fight, dealing
with power and responsibility-- as we all
do-- making sacrifices, trying to do the right thing
and succeeding, occasionally, on a grand scale.
They sometimes struggle with their authority.
But ultimately-- in our most popular conceptions
and expressions-- they have it and do amazing things with it.
Looks like you're giving the orders now, Captain.
Damn right.
As Noah Berlatsky wrote for "The Atlantic"
by reading comic books and going to see superhero films,
we get to see, "An authority put everything in order."
This, incidentally, is also one way
to view the progression of history-- authority figures
putting everything in order.
In keeping with the dude-centric nature of so many things,
it's called the Great Man Theory of History.
In "On Heroes and Hero Worship and the Heroic in History",
Thomas Carlyle describes this idea,
saying that it's only through the actions of great men--
people like Napoleon, William the Conqueror, or Alexander
the Great-- but progress is ever achieved.
He calls these people heroes.
Carlyle was quickly challenged.
Because his idea is complete rubbish.
Herbert Spencer rightly pointed out
that heroes are the products are so many things--
race, class, labor, gender, social and political standing,
luck-- that it is ridiculous to give them
all of the credit for progress.
And just on a personal note, a lot
of the people that history has deemed heroic
were deemed so only because of the number
of people that they killed or countries that they invaded.
So that, also, a troubling rubric for heroism.
The main idea being that history makes people just as much
as people make history.
But that doesn't mean that Carlyle's Great Man
Theory or great person theory suddenly
lost all of its meaning.
Our collective love of narrative and our tendency
to view history through its lens means that we also
tend to privilege the accomplishments of characters,
or powerful leaders.
It's easy to view history as a parade of characters,
reconfiguring the world using the power that they've
been granted, cultivated, or fought for.
Steve Jobs, Joan of Arc, Einstein, Nelson Mandela,
Elvis, Marie Curie, Maya Angelou, they all
left their own indelible marks on the world.
These people changed the world.
But that they could change the world
means that the world was in need of and able to change.
Looks at me.
I designed coastlines.
Great people change history.
But their presence indicates that science, technology, art,
politics, economics, are all capable of and have, in fact,
changed.
[MUSIC - DAVID BOWIE, "CHANGES"]
And often-- as I think all of these people
would admit-- with the hard work and equal sacrifice
of countless people alongside them.
Einstein did not singlehandedly change science,
nor Elvis, music.
Batman will never singlehandedly change Gotham,
nor Superman, Metropolis.
Which-- and maybe this goes without saying.
But I'll say it anyway-- means that locally concentrated
groups of great figures throughout history--
Greece in ancient times, Florence
during the Renaissance, Paris in the '20s, New York,
basically, whenever-- hey.
Hey!
[TAXI HONKS HORN]
I'm walking here!
We're in New York-- Indicates a preexisting
willing or readiness for change at that time,
in those places, marked by the attitudes of not
just one person, but many.
And maybe we ask with a knowing wink and nod
if the same is not true for the growing
concentration of superheroes.
Since "X-Men" in 2000, there have been an average of six
superhero films every year.
Ricky Anderson ran the numbers and let
me know there have been 64 major American superhero
films in the last 10 years.
That's more superhero films than the 26 years previous to that.
So an uptick, you could say?
Or you could just look at this infographic
that Doug Dooling sent me.
It's pretty ace.
Now, it's easy to see all of this as some kind of adventure
in late capitalism.
Movie studios are lazy, out of ideas, or both.
And so they recycle all of the stuff that
already has the following and hope
that it doesn't tank too hard.
And maybe that's exactly right.
But maybe, like all great figures and concentrations
of great figures, this says something
about our moment in history.
A culture's myths always indicate
what they hope and fear.
And if superheroes aren't our myths, I don't know what is.
Maybe Bill Murray?
For instance, in the "Studies in Comics" journal,
Chris Murray writes about how our superheroes reflect
changing attitudes about liberty.
First, Murray describes the difference
between positive and negative liberty, first developed
by political theorist Isaiah Berlin.
In "Two Concepts of Liberty", Berlin
describes Negative Liberty as the area
within which "The subject is left
to do or be what he is able to do or be without interference
by other persons."
Positive Liberty is "The source of control or interference
that can determine someone to do or be this rather than that."
It "comes to light if we try to answer the question,
'By whom am I ruled?"
Murray writes that superheroes used
to be "Champions of the Oppressed".
They were expressions of positive liberty.
They were all of the good parts of Carlyle's great men.
But after the start of World War II, they started to change.
"The superhero," he writes, "went
from being an icon of positive liberty,
reflecting the frontier myth and rebellious spirit that
marked American political thinking
to a policemen for negative liberty,
suspicious of difference or change,
and fundamentally invested in the maintenance of the status
quo."
Where their powers once meant that superheroes were free
from societal conventions and could act as revolutionaries,
their powers would eventually be used
to reinforce those conventions, especially as they were written
during American war times.
Our blockbuster superheroes specifically
seem to exhibit both liberties.
They are authorities.
But they also question the effectiveness of authority.
Sometimes they question the effectiveness
of their own authority.
I-- I'm just not the hero type.
Clearly.
They sometimes fight the status quo in their world.
Like in "V for Vendetta", "Batman Begins",
or "Days of Future Past"-- if you consider those character
superheroes.
And they sometimes fight the status quo in our world,
as is the case with Michael B. Jordan being
cast as The Human Torch.
But mostly they seem content to maintain or simply ignore it,
swooping in to eradicate some sudden external threat
and then returning to their superhero perches
until they're needed again, or are themselves, somehow
threatened.
What all this says about us and our time-- probably a lot.
And maybe someday we'll really upset the status quo
and make a good Hulk movie.
We can only hope.
Hulk Smash!
What do you guys think?
What does the current resurgence of superhero films
say about our moment in history-- related to liberty,
or otherwise?
Let us know in the comments.
And I'm sorry, but it would be super if you subscribed.
Let's see what you guys had to say about Ee-kay-eh.
I don't know, it just sounds so weird to me, Ee-kay-eh.
Let's also see what you had to say about IKEA.
First and, of course, foremost, I
had an amazing timeout last week at the Phoenix Comic Con.
Thanks to everybody who came up and said hi, who I met,
who came to the panels that I sat on.
It was awesome to meet you.
I had a great time.
It was my first Comic Con.
Y'all are so nice.
Everybody was just so nice.
And Phoenix was cool.
I had a great time.
The end.
Maymaylingling says that "Marx would have loved the episode."
Because IKEA furniture allows people
to work on something from start to finish,
something that industrialization took away from the worker.
And I don't know, that means you have
to look at start as picking something off the shelf,
and finish as building it in your living room.
But I will say, he probably would appreciate
the creativity of IKEA.
He said that capitalism is a very creative system.
And IKEA has effectively figured out
how to make its customers work for them.
So very creative.
Good problem solving, IKEA.
Ee-kay-eh.
InMaTeoDeath and a bunch of other people
asked about my pronouncement, that you
must respect all ideas, even the ones that
are stupid and dangerous, and challenged it.
And rightfully so.
Thank you for challenging.
MIRobin22 actually writes something remarkably
close to how I feel, that the "Respect of an idea
has to be independent of your agreement or emotional reaction
to it."
And that getting those ideas to change, especially the ones
that you don't like, respect is the first step
towards changing them.
You respect some ideas the way that you respect your parents.
But you respect other ideas the way that you respect weapons.
They are dangerous things that are deserving
of your respect because of the danger and the harm
that they can do.
So applying this to things that Ian Petrie brings up,
these are things that are wrong.
But I think disregarding them can be just as dangerous
as allowing them to happen.
And I think that is what I mean by respect.
I will agree that maybe my use of dogmatism
was unnuanced or unsubstantiated.
So fair.
Fair criticism there.
And that being said, Thomas Stalten
writes a really good kind of meditation
on the idea of dogmatism.
You should check it out.
Thanks for writing this, Thomas.
David Salazar brings up the famous example of the one egg
you need to add to Betty Crocker cake mix
to make people feel as though they have a competence.
This is one of my favorite things.
They could make the Betty Crocker cake mix
so that you didn't have to add an egg.
But it didn't sell as well, I think is the story.
And because people felt like it was too easy.
I only say that anecdotally.
I've never actually looked that up.
But I'm going to keep telling that story because I like it.
jkabab1 applies theories of alienation
and social stratification to the IKEA instruction manuals
that come with your furniture.
It's very funny.
Nice work, jkabab1.
Jennyburger07 has some stern words of criticism
for the IKEA effect paper.
And says that the overall human condition
is affected by IKEA's constant suggestion
that we just need more IKEA.
More IKEA.
Now that I'm thinking about it, I think I need more IKEA.
Ee-kay-eh.
Logical Phallacies provides a breakdown of all of the ways
the human condition is sated in IKEA, using
Maslow's Hierarchy of Need.
This is a very good comment.
A link to this and all of the others in the doobly-doo.
And finally, this is a thing that happened.
This week's episode was brought to you
by the hard work of these caped crusaders.
We have a Facebook, an IRC and a Subreddit.
Links in the doobly-doo.
And the tweet of two the come from Jonathan Ore, who
points out that the Character Select music in "Street Fighter
3 Alpha" is called "Who Will be Your Double?"
[THEME MUSIC]
[BELL]
And for this week's record swap, we
will be replacing Arcade Fire with Wendy Carlos's "Sonic
Seasonings"
[MUSIC PLAYING]
All right.
So adios, Arcade Fire.
And welcome, Wendy Carlos.