Up, Up, and Away: The Boom of Superhero Culture Alongside Terrorism
As a child, I was completely enamored with superheroes. Though I never owned or religiously read comic books, I would consume the media whenever I could in whatever way possible — gorging on comic book encyclopedias and compendiums at public libraries and book stores. Nowadays that happens mostly through Wikipedia… and I am still drawn into that world.
Enthralled by their powers and adventures, I escaped into the dominion of superheroes as I yearned for my own superpowers. To me, these heroes represented a hope and strength against villainy, the evils of the world. Perhaps it is what drew me to a life of service, but to this day, I still watch superhero movies with wide-eyed wonder and amazement.
It is this same sense of escapism and desire for heroes in the face of evil that appears to have caused the boom of superhero media in today’s culture.
September 11th changed the game, reshaping our views of the world and introducing us to the threats of terrorism on a global scale. It created a fog of continuous fear and looming terror that we can never escape, even if we are not always aware of it. It’s this omnipresent fear that has contributed to the explosion of superhero movies and shows in modern pop culture — as if we are hiding under a blanket with our flashlights reading comics late into the night, escaping into our world of superheroes, battling the forces of evil.
Numerous articles, books, and academic publications address the links between growth of the superhero movie industry to the post-9/11 state of mind. A Google search of “superheroes and terrorism” shows dozens of analyses of superhero films against the perception of terrrorism threats on the American psyche. As current events continue to shape the American sentiment toward terrorism and the world, the relevance of superhero media and its subtle impact on American culture contiues to ring true. The superhero genre affects the population’s feelings regarding the terrorism threat and, in turn, real-world events affect the superhero genre, as if the two were locked in a dance of escapist dreams, fear of threatening actors, and the hope for someone to protect us from destruction.
The Dark Knight is a leading example of this. (Spoilers if you have, somehow, not yet seen the movie). In it, we see Batman emerge from Batman Begins as a pervasive and formidable hero protecting Gotham (Batman in this case is the U.S. government, Gotham being the U.S.). As the movie unfolds, the Joker emerges as a chaotic, anarchistic villain who seems to work outside of any semblance of traditional criminal behavior (the Joker here is, you guessed it, terrorists). Throughout the film we watch as Batman struggles to defeat the Joker, with the latter continuing to be one step ahead of Batman, regardless of all the skills, gadgets, and money Batman has at his disposal. It was not until the end, in an eerie foreshadowing of intelligence collection, when Batman utilizes technology to surveil Gotham’s people through their cell phones to find the Joker, that he is finally able to capture the Joker — realizing that, though he may have captured the Joker, he suffered the collateral damage (a friend becomes an enemy, the people and cops of Gotham hunt him, he loses a loved one).
As both audience and Batman fail to understand the Joker’s motive for destruction and chaos, the American public, too, fails to understand terrorist motives for the destruction of Western ideals. (The Dark Knight was released in 2008, just after the surge of troops into Iraq in 2007). Alfred vocalizes our fear when he says “Because some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.” Our belief is that terrorists just want to watch the world burn.
Compare this to the Golden Age of Comic Books, where comics were heavily influenced by the wars, primarily World War II and the Nazis, and provided outlets to help relieve fear and angst for American kids, facilitating their growth and success. Arguably, the same thing is happening today, but on a grander scale. Both children and adults today are fervently watching superhero media as a method to escape the fear and terror from attacks and threats through not only movies, but TV shows.
Now that the success of the superhero has permeated the big screen, that same phenomena is moving to the smaller screen — giving the public a more accessible, weekly avenue for their subconscious escapism. The increase and success of superhero shows, such as Arrow, Flash, Gotham, and Supergirl, in the past few years certainly is not a direct result of the rise of ISIS. But the panic following the Islamic State’s ascension in the media through their attacks and videos and the success of superhero shows mirror the initial boom and success of the superhero movies at the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Though the growth of one does not necessarily cause the success of the other, a correlation can be drawn between the two. For example, in the immediate aftermath of the Paris attacks in November, 2015, CBS pulled and swapped a terrorist-themed episode of Supergirl and replaced it with another. At this point, Supergirl was declining in ratings and viewership. Within two weeks, and the week after the terrorist-themed episode was aired, viewership started to climb.
So what? What is the relevance to homeland security? As we continue to face ever-changing and growing threats from terrorists at home and abroad, whether they are the Islamic States or homegrown terrorists of today, or the HYDRAs and League of Assassins of tomorrow, it is important that we evaluate beyond polling data and media coverage of the American sentiment toward terrorism. The tendency and eagerness of the American public to escape into fantasy worlds of heroes and villains as a mirror of the real world could help provide insight into the feelings and attitudes of insecurities toward American public policies (intelligence, foreign, etc.), foreign or domestic threats, and the government in general. Or, maybe that’s just an excuse for me to stare wide-eyed in wonderment at the screen…
As Jor-El says in Man of Steel, “You will give the people of Earth an ideal to strive towards. They will race behind you, they will stumble, they will fall. But in time, they will join you in the sun. In time, you will help them accomplish wonders.” Up, up, and away…
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