Report - Superheroes, Politics and Terrorism

This essay will be focusing on the influence that the aftermath of the September 11^th attacks has had on superhero movies. As well as looking at the possible affects it has had, there will be focuses on discovering whether of not the genre has become more politically and socially accurate in the 21^st century, and it will also explore the possible changes in how the comic book genre is perceived.

When viewing potential sources that could be used to support and give evidence, the three that stood out as useful in both contexts are the three Batman films directed by Christopher Nolan; Batman Begins (2005), The Dark Knight (2008), The Dark Knight Rises (2012). This trilogy has been chosen because it offers effective comparisons of the Nolan films of post 9/11 to those made pre 21^st century. Additionally, there are four key topics in the films that can be concentrated on; setting, which looks at how the directors perception of Gotham City has changed. Characters, which focuses on how the main protagonist has developed and how the villains are influenced by the idea of terror. Marketing, which looks at how the films posters have changed the way audiences perceive them and the films themselves. Finally, film analysis, which pinpoints how the films are presented and how audiences’ perceptions have changed.

In Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies, Gotham City is seen to be much more classical and realistic in comparison to he impression of Gotham given in Tim Burton’s Batman (1989). This is because Nolan used real locations for the films instead of a studio set, which was the path Tim Burton followed. Burton also used a gothic painting to set the scene in his movie, which gave the impression of a traditional, gothic style, where as Nolan used a landscape shot of Chicago to set the scene in Batman Begins (2005). He did not just use Chicago, as he also used elements of New York and Tokyo for the elevated freeways and monorails. Hassler-Forest (2012, p.141) states that ‘The Dark Knight (2008) use of real locations… connects the films familiar superhero paradigm to a different form of visual realism’ which suggests that Nolan has really taken into consideration how society developed and he has attempted to avoid adding nostalgia and instead he is ‘…drawing on images and themes associated with 9/11 and its aftermath’ (p.87) Moreover, the use of real locations and drawing on such themes creates an environment that seems realistic, threatening and constantly plagued by civil unrest and terror.

The main protagonist in the trilogy is of course, that of Batman/Bruce Wayne. Since the 1960s, this character has transformed from a spandex wearing comic book hero to a heavy armoured hero. This transformation from man to machine does give the suggestion that a hero surrounded by weapons is a metaphor for a super power, USA, at war. However, Di Paolo (2011 p.56-57) states ‘the restraint with which Batman uses his weapons of war is striking, giving the suggestion that one day America might be able to do the same’. By this he is implying that the protagonist is not a metaphor of war, but that of a peacekeeper who is looking to protect, not fight.

In Batman Begins (2005), the villain placed as opposition to our protagonist is Ra’s al Ghul, noted to be Batman’s first arch nemesis. C, Collins (“30 Superhero Movies You Didn’t Realise Were Political”, 2013) proposes that the character of al Ghul has ‘an apocalyptic aim, supposedly similar to organisations such as Al Qaeda… and he echoes extremist views that western society has become corrupted.’ Di Paolo (2011, p.53) also views the character in a parallel way to Collins and he states that ‘Nolan chose to muddy the ethnic background of al Ghul to underscore potential similarities between Muslim and Christian fundamentalists.’

In The Dark Knight (2008) Heath Ledger gives an Academy Award winning performance as The Joker. Christopher Nolan has based his interpretation of The Joker on the foundations of torment, as well as terror. Every time torture is employed in the film, it fails, howbeit there are a number of times where The Joker looks to antagonise Batman into killing him. He does this not to just prove the protagonist is a hypocrite, but to also end his own torment. In The Dark Knight, The Joker himself says ‘Terrorism works only when we let it make monsters of us’, this clearly reiterates that his own torment and insanity has driven him to become a terrorist.

‘There is a key link between themes in The Dark Knight Rises (2012) and Batman Begins (2005)… that being once again a villain is introduced to terrorise Gotham, because Gotham is a metaphor for USA’. C, Collins (“30 Superhero Movies You Didn’t Realise Were Political”, 2013). The Villain introduced in The Dark Knight Rises (2012) is Bane, who is used by Christopher Nolan as a representation of class war. A key scene from the film is the attack on Wall Street, which gives the interpretation of how the American banking system is failing. In conjunction with that particular scene, the football stadium explosion scene is also key because it shows Bane as not just an enemy of Gotham City, but instead an enemy who looks to terrorise the whole country.

The posters used in marketing the films are key in showing audiences what to expect from a film. In the poster for Christopher Nolan’s trilogy, different elements have been used to describe and explain the movies. Firstly, the costume used in the posters is very dark in tone, which gives emphasis towards both physical and emotional characteristics of the protagonist. They emphasize the mysterious emotion of Batman and the muscular outline of his suit gives the suggestion of strength and superiority. Furthermore, the overall setting of the poster is very dark in tone and is based on destruction. The falling buildings in the background are used as a metaphor for breakdowns in society and attitudes. Also, the use of only one character, the protagonist proposes that he is a lone ranger fighting against a crumbling society.

Throughout the Nolan trilogy there is a recurring them of torment and struggle to stop the threat of terrorism. In Batman Begins (2005) the protagonist is tormented by his desire to rebuild Gotham City, in The Dark Knight (2008) he is tormented by the villain and the wrong choices that he makes and finally in The Dark Knight Rises (2012) he is tormented by the biggest terror threat he has faced and his struggle to eradicate the villain. It is quite clear that Nolan has attempted to show the protagonist as a character that the audience can easily sympathise with and relate to, as Di Paolo (2011, p.51) states ‘… obviously rooted firmly in the present and clearly reflects contemporary anxieties about the destruction of the World Trade Centre and the “war on terror”.’

In conclusion, the aftermath of the September 11^th attacks have caused innovations into how superhero films are made. As quoted by Johnson (2012, p.188) ‘Many stories from the first decade of the 21^st century mirrored the fear and isolation that flourished in American society’. Johnson’s statement gives the injunction that many superhero movies have been influenced by social events. He also goes on to say that ‘Superheroes have become a product of society… that present a mirror for all Americans to view themselves as heroes’ (p.188)

Audience perception has also transformed, Hassler-Forest (2012, p.87) states ‘The most popular post 9/11 superhero movies have tended to add psychological depth to their protagonists’. The addition of this psychological depth has bolstered the genre to become more accessible to different audiences. Hassler-Forest finally states that ‘The September 11^th attacks are metaphorically re-staged in superhero movies…’ (p.99) Which gives the unclouded perception that the comic book genre has become far more realistic and accurate in comparison to the more fantasy based superhero movies created pre 21^st century.

Star Wars Fans & LEGO Collecting

Audiences are no longer seen as passive as fans that are engaged in a dialogue have helped replace the once common notion of the mass audience with that of the active audience. As John Fiske noted in 1992, fans are now giving more subversive and oppositional readings of media texts. Now fandom is very much a participatory culture, fans of different media texts, whether it be films, comic books, video games, music or sports have been resisting the dominant ideologies of their chosen texts and recycling elements of them to create their own, new material.

What Henry Jenkins is attempting to state in his definition is that a fan culture is where fans and amateurs create new and recycled texts and media that draw much of their content from mass-produced and mass consumed media. The text and media produced by fans are then sold and made available to fans in an unrecorded economy that is more often than not filled with fans of the same or similar texts and those of a niche audience. Now there are some pros and cons to Jenkins’ definition, if the fan community in question was based around a text that was part of the mass culture, then it can clearly be argued that they would draw their content from commercial culture. LEGO, for example, is a prime example of a community that draws much of its content from commercial culture and also makes their produce available through an underground economy. It can, and should be argued that Jenkins’ definition ignores fan practices such as fan fiction and cosplay, that only draws its content from the source material, not commercial culture. Also, the majority of fan practices, including fan fiction and cosplay don’t produce texts for mass culture, but produces new, diverse texts for those of a niche audience.

Fans find their identities wrapped up with the pleasures connected popular culture. Fans therefore inhibit social roles marked out as fandom, and fandom can therefore be seen as a form of cultural creativity. The work of fandom includes the way it can ‘heighten our sense of excitement, prompt our self-reflexivity, encourage us to discuss shared values and ethics, and supply us with a significant source of meaning that extends into our daily lives (Duffett, 2013, p.18). In his 2002 text Fan Cultures, Hills claims that practices of fandom are not too dissimilar to academic practices. He notes that fans, like academics create a sense of imagined subjectivity around a particular text or subject, with fans also both consuming and critiquing media texts, in similar ways to academics. Unlike Jenkins, Hills’ definition of fan culture does not omit the social and political issues regarding fandom and he argues that not all fan cultures produce texts for underground economies. Hills suggests that fans create and critique texts as a form of self-reflexivity and claims that such ‘mutual marginalisation’ between fans and academia ‘would suggest that fandom and academia are co-produced as exclusive social and cultural positions’. (2002, p.19)

In his 2005 text, Sandvoss states that fan culture is a form of self-reflexivity and completely disregards Jenkins’ definition of fan culture being dependent on fan texts being made for an underground economy. He also claims that the relationships between fans and objects of fandom are ‘based on self-reflective reading and narcissism’ (2005, p.121). Now as the majority of film practices; fan fiction, cosplay, fan film are often regarded as an extension of the self, rather that something produced for an audience, a fans chosen media text gives them the ability to extend themselves past everyday surroundings. It also enables fans to project an image of oneself within a different medium, not for profit, production or consumption, just simply for self-reflexivity.

In his text Cult Collectors (2014), Geraghty gives both acknowledgement and supporting evidence to Henry Jenkins’ definition of fan culture. He suggests that fan practices aside from fan fiction and cosplay, for example, collecting, is a fan practice that very much draws from commercial culture. Collecting action figures and LEGO are just two examples that represent an underground economy, which gives new meanings to fan texts and media. Geraghty also suggests that fans are personalised by commercial culture and gives examples through Star Wars fandom.

‘The LEGO Brick is a cultural object with its own history’ declares Lars Konzack in LEGO Studies (2014, p.1).  LEGO is a line of plastic construction toys that have been manufactured since 1949. Since then, a global LEGO subculture has developed. Supporting movies, games, competitions, and six Legoland amusement parks have been developed under the brand. As of July 2015, 600 billion Lego parts had been produced.

In February 2015, Lego replaced Ferrari as Brand Finance's "world's most powerful brand". Since the 1950s, the Lego Group has released thousands of sets with a variety of themes and has licensed numerous cartoon, video game and film franchises. Although some of the licensed themes, LEGO Star Wars for example had highly successful sales (making up 10 out of the 20 most expensive sets), LEGO has expressed a desire to rely upon their own themes, and over the past 15 years investors in LEGO have secured a better return buying LEGO sets than from the stock market, gold or bank accounts.

LEGO isn’t just transmedial, it is also ‘transfranchisal’ (Wolf, 2014, p.xxiii) which is where many different characters from different franchises come together in one text. It is transmedia in both its themes and its representation. LEGO’s popularity with fans is demonstrated by its wide spread representation and usage in many forms of fan and popular culture, including books, films, art, clothing and video games. The LEGO group aim to intrigue their mass culture into becoming creative for the self, rather than for a secondary audience or economy, by aiming for their users to generate ideas and artifacts that combine existing themes, to expand an understanding.

As Susan Pearce wrote in 1995, there are three approaches to collecting. Souvenir collecting, which creates a romanticized life history for each object, these objects being used as an autobiography for the collector. Fetish collecting, where the object dominates and collectors gather as much as possible to create a sense of self and systematic collecting, which works on a completest method, where having the complete set is the aim and that achieves a full understanding of the fan text. As Geraghty states, collecting ‘represents a new form of “cultural capital” as fans collect in order to possess and gain special access to the movies and texts, making claims of ownership’ (2014, p.8). Collecting is ultimately based on a hierarchal system of whoever has the most collectibles, or the ‘ultimate collectors’ items and who has the most pristine collection.

Collectors can also be a part of what Jeremy Beckett coins ‘Peter Pan Syndrome’, where they attempt to recapture their youth through collecting toys from their childhoods to gain a sense of appropriation, cultural relevance and resistance to normality. Statistics show that the majority of Star Wars LEGO collectors are in there 30s and 40s, and even have their own name ‘Adult Fans of LEGO’. Geraghty supports the idea of collecting for memory by stating those who collect the merchandise today do so because the act of collecting, playing, and recapturing one’s youth is bound up in the modern desire to define oneself through symbolic possessions rather than through shared national beliefs’ (2006, p.220). Collecting has become a fan community in itself through its vast popularity and its secondary economy of underground buying and selling.

Star Wars has ‘morphed into something much more tangible, something much more real’ (Elovaara, 2013, p.8). It has blossomed into a phenomenon that exerts influence over fans in their daily lives and dominates pop culture, and is clearly evident in our society and global culture as a whole. All to similar to that of LEGO, which is made for the mainstream audience and its purpose is to be bought and sold to the everyday consumer. What makes LEGO into an underground community is the fact that people buy certain LEGO sets as investments, which they later sell on for in some cases, ridiculous profit. LEGO sets kept in pristine condition consistently increase in value every year and the second-hand prices of items sold on sites like eBay also increase, the ‘ultimate collectors edition’ of the Millennium Falcon retailed at £342.49 in 2007, almost 10 years on and is can be purchased for £2,712 on the second hand market.

Collecting the complete range of toys and figures has become an important part of the competitive struggle that can be seen in Star Wars fandom, and it is sites such as eBay that have ‘revolutionized collecting and made the physical objects of popular media culture all the more available’ (Geraghty, 2014, p.2). As soon as Star Wars minifigures became available, fans started to customise existing characters and creating their own completely new characters using official LEGO parts, but customising with their own paints, stickers and handmade accessories. Over the years MOCs (My Own Creations) have become a vital part of the LEGO fan experience and they give new use to old objects, subverting the narrative and making it something fresh and more self-reflective. It is through underground economy that MOCs become available and the buying and selling of second-hand merchandise circulates, this second economy makes merchandise once only available in the country of production, now available to audience across all borders.

Collecting is important to fan culture, but it tends to be inclusive rather than exclusive, the emphasis is not so much upon acquiring a few good objects as upon accumulating as many as possible. Individual items are often cheap and devalued by official culture and mass-produced and the ‘distinctiveness lies in the extent of the collection, rather than in their uniqueness or authenticity as cultural objects’ (Fiske, 1992, p.44).

Hierarchies within fandom are based on distinction, taste, value and productivity. There comes a sense of ownership, being the ‘best’ fan is based on what you own and your accumulation of knowledge. All of this creates a ground for movement; it causes a certain group of fans to be subversive from establishment, as they have come outside of the hierarchy to the top of a hierarchy based on their knowledge and collection. In terms of fan hierarchies, cultural capital is very much valued and is subsequently turned into economic capital.  

Knowledge is power and ‘social hierarchy is evident where ‘fans share common interests whilst also competing over fan knowledge, access to the object and status’ (Hills, 2002, p.60). Star Wars provides fans with a culture and devoutness outside of the mainstream. Symbolic capital suggests that the apprised audience poses a specific cultural capital when set against the commonly devalued mass audiences. Star Wars is one of the key texts in which fans make evident their subcultural capital through their knowledge of the text, which is more often than not unfamiliar to mainstream audiences.

In terms of Star Wars LEGO collecting, Henry Jenkins’ definition of a fan culture is accurate because collecting as a fan practice draws from commercial culture and collectible items represent an underground economy due to the buying, selling and modification of LEGO products. In terms of wider fan practices, this is not the case, fanfiction, cosplay and fan film are often created as a medium of self-reflexivity, not for the consumption of an audience and market. As a fan community, elements of Star Wars Fandom and fan practices show elements of what Jenkins is suggesting and other elements he has ignored. The fan practices involved in a community like Star Wars fans ranges from the aforementioned fanfiction and cosplay, which has no economical capital, to merchandise and pilgrimage, which does involve a certain level of economic capital.

When defining fan culture it is crucial that you do not define it as one individual practice. We must follow the likes of Matt Hills who argues that fan cultures cannot be constricted through one singular theoretical approach or definition. Fandom and fan culture does not simply have one definition. It is crucial that when attempting to define fan culture you are broad-minded in discussing the several different fan cultures that exist in fan communities, and not just those that develop on the idea of making new texts available for niche audiences aside from the masses.