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Weak State, Strongman
How the GOP created the conditions for Trump’s illiberalism
For a while there, it seemed like the only kind of movie that Hollywood wanted to make — and maybe the only kind of movie Americans wanted to watch — featured muscled crusaders in tight costumes battling evil.
The superhero movie — which wasn’t much of a thing a couple of decades ago — came to dominate entertainment in the last 20 years. In 2001, superhero movies made only .06% of Hollywood’s total box office revenues. By 2021, the men in capes and tights brought in 32% of the industry’s money. The list of history’s biggest opening weekends is filled with names like Spider-Man, Black Panther, and the Avengers. The superheroes have branched out to TV, as well — Disney seems determined to turn every minor character that ever appeared in a comic book into the star of a streaming show.
Why did Americans become so enamored with superhero movies over the last 20 years? There are probably a lot of reasons. They feature attractive actors in skintight costumes fighting and blowing stuff up. They don’t require a lot of thought from the audience and encourage us to sit back and enjoy the chaotic spectacle. Comic books provide movie studios with a giant reserve of intellectual property that they can mine, recycling characters and plots until the cows come home.
But I wonder if some of the reason superheroes conquered American entertainment is the worldview they present. As Mark Bowden wrote a few years ago,
They celebrate exceptionalism and vigilantism. The old American ideal of succeeding through cleverness, virtue and grit is absent, as is the notion of ordinary folk banding together to overcome a threat — think of “It’s a Wonderful Life” or the original “The Magnificent Seven” or any of a dozen World War II-era films. Gone is respect for the rule of law and the importance of tradition and community. Institutions and human knowledge are useless. Religion is irrelevant. Governments are corrupt and/or inept, when not downright evil. The empowered individual is all.
Bowden’s on to something here. Superheroes are only needed in a world where society is broken, the government can’t solve people’s problems, and the world faces an apocalyptic threat. Nobody would need Batman if…
