Superheroes Research Paper

The parent genre of the superhero subgenre is the action genre. Most of the movies in the superhero subgenre started from comic books and/or novels and then moved to television serials and then eventually to the big screen.

The first hero that made the transition from comics to movies was the caped hero Zorro. Zorro's first movie was the silent film titled The Mark of Zorro, which was released in 1920. In this movie the caped and masked hero Zorro, fights for the rights of the common people against the corrupt Sergeant Gonzalez, who has been soaking the people with exorbitant taxes[1]. This movie started the initial craze for a hero who would fight for justice and later paved the way for the creation of superheroes as we know them today.

Perhaps the most famous of superheroes was Superman and he was created in June of 1938 by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster and started to appear in comics of the time. The Superman comic was later transferred into a theatrical serial, in 1948 and then in 1951 the first superman movie Superman and the Mole Men was released on the big screen. In this movie Superman has to help return the Mole Men, who came from the bottom of the earth, and stop the hysteria caused by the presence of the Mole Men[2].

The creation of Superman in the late 1930s was marked by a number of significant historical events that changed and shaped the world as we know it today. It was during this time period that the United States and other modern industrialized countries of the time, namely European countries, were in the final stages of the recovery from the Great Depression of the 1930s[3]. It was during the Great Depression that at one point more that fifteen million or about twenty five percent of the workforce of the US was unemployed, people during this time period were losing their homes, savings and many depended on charity for their survival[3].

The Depression also produced lasting effects on the United States that are still apparent more than half a century after it ended. It led to the election of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who created the programs known as the New Deal to overcome the effects of the Great Depression[3]. These programs expanded government intervention into new areas of social and economic concerns and created social-assistance measures on the national level. The Great Depression essentially changed the relationship between the government and the people[3]. The people after the Depression came to expect and accept a larger government role in their lives and the economy.

The programs of the New Deal also brought together a new, liberal political alliance in the United States. President Roosevelt’s policies won the support of labor unions, black communities, people who received government relief, ethnic and religious minorities, intellectuals, and some farmers, forming a coalition that would be the backbone of the Democratic Party for decades to come[3].

On a personal level, the hardships suffered during the Depression affected many Americans’ attitudes toward life, work, and their community. Many people who survived the depression wanted to protect themselves from ever again going hungry or lacking necessities[3]. Some developed habits of frugality and careful saving for the rest of their lives, and many focused on accumulating material possessions to create a comfortable life, one far different from that which they experienced in the depression years[3].

The Depression also played a major role in world events. In Germany, the economic collapse opened the way for the dictator Adolf Hitler to come to power, which in turn led to World War II, which engulfed all the nations of the world and at the end left the United Stated and the USSR as the two dominant nations[3], and started the Cold War between the US and its allies and USSR and its allies. It was during the Cold War that a number of new superheroes and old superheroes such as Captain America started to appear again in comic books, cartoons and TV serials after a break of few years. These new and old heroes came to “fight the communists.”  

After the initial start of this subgenre with the Superman comic other heroes started to appear who fought evil and worked on the side of good. As World War II ended and the Cold War started more heroes who would battle the communists started to emerge. But, with the start of the Vietnam War this subgenre fell into a recession, until the late 70s, with the revival of Superman in his second movie. This movie was made with the hopes that the audience would be distracted from the current world problems of the time and embrace a new hero that would fight justice for the people.

Over the years this subgenre has had many goals, but the main goal of this subgenre has been to portray the battle between good and evil in such a way that people are attracted to it. In these movies the good always prevails over the evil, even though at first good, symbolized by the hero, will have some setbacks, but by the end of the movie the hero always prevail. This genre fulfills a number of needs of its audience: it gives the audience a reason to support the forces of good over evil, it fulfills the fantasy of the audience to posses some sort of superhuman powers, and finally it gives the audience the feel of security. By seeing superhero movies the audience is given reason to support good and eventually adopt the values possessed by the hero.

The villain in this type of movies is made so obviously evil that the common audience has to take the side of the superhero, and as a result they’re forced to take the side of good. By providing the hero with super human powers these films evoke the audiences, predominantly males, passion for possessing similar powers. For example in the Superman saga the audience is left amazed by the powers that Superman possesses, such as his ability to fly, x-ray vision and etc. While watching the hero use these super powers the audience visualizes themselves also possessing and using the same powers to fight the evil in their lives. By giving the superhero powers to beat evil the audience gets a feel of security and comfort from what he/she sees as a savior of them from the evils of time. This is why these movies usually are very successful during times of war as they tend to divert the attention of the audience from the ongoing events in their lives to the fantasy world where good, which they see as themselves, always prevails.

The superhero subgenre has been a subgenre that has been motivated and defined by conventions that seem to be part of every movie of this category. These movies always have a hero, a damsel who always seems to be in trouble, and a villain who is plotting some sort of world domination. The hero of this movie always has some sort of super power, which he or she either has gotten innately or gets by an experiment gone wrong. The hero also always tries to conceal their true identity from others, this is why most of these heroes wear some sort of mask or disguise to conceal their true identity. In a way the hero lives two separate lives as evidenced by the Incredible Hulk in which Dr. Banner lives as a regular man and as the powerful beast the Incredible Hulk[4].

Most of these movies take place in big ugly cities that are filled with criminals and gangs, whose sole purpose is to cause havoc in society. These criminals and gangs are cannot be policed by the common law enforcement of the city and this in turn creates the need for some sort of crime fighter for the city who can match and win against these criminals, and thus the superhero enters the city to fulfill this need of the city. Once the superhero arrives in the city it is their job to rid the city of the criminals and by the end of the movie the superhero also has to stop the main villain from executing their plans off great evil. An example of this is seen in the movie Spiderman, when Spiderman stops the Green Goblin from executing his plan to destroy his enemies’ companies for the sole purpose of gaining more profit for his company.

In the movie, when the superhero is in the city, the arch nemesis of the superhero always tries to entice him/her to join the side of evil and leave the path of good. The villain will always point out to the superhero that he/she will gain a lot of wealth, power, and will not have to serve the “ungrateful” common people. Throughout the movie the hero fights the urge to join the side of evil, but right before the end the hero remembers an event from the past that reinforces his/her decision to stay with the side of the good. Spiderman is a typical example of this phenomenon. In the movie Spiderman is enticed by the Green Goblin to join him, but Spiderman /  Peter Parker, remembers the words from his late Uncle Ben that “with great power comes great responsibility” and that solidifies his reason to stick with the side of the good.

One of the interesting things about this subgenre is the cast selection for the movies. The hero almost always is white in these movies and the villain is also white, but lately there has been an increase in black villains in these movies, but still black heroes are sparse. In most movies blacks and other minorities are only shown in minor roles either as petty criminals or in some other insignificant roles which don’t have any bearing to the main plot of the movie. I guess the film producers use white superheroes exclusively because they don’t want to experiment and lose the already established audience of the subgenre, and therefore risk their profits, or maybe there is some other reason in Hollywood to only have white superheroes? We may never know until we start seeing minority superheroes.

Over the years this subgenre has also had a number of big names involved with it. In the early thirties Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the creators of superman, came to be known as revolutionaries as they changed the image of action comics in the eyes of the reader. Another dominant name of the past from this genre is Adam West, who we all remember as the original Batman from the 60s TV series. Today dominant names in this subgenre include Christopher Reeves, who we all remember as Superman, Stan Lee, the revolutionary editor and director of Marvel comics, which produced heroes like Spiderman, X-men and the Incredible Hulk, and Tim Burton, the director of the Batman movies.

After the initial successful creation of Superman a number of other superheroes such as Batman, Captain America, and Captain Marvel were also created. All of these characters were all later put in theatrical serials in the 1940s, which flourished in the 1940s and 1950s. In the 1960s and early 1970s there was a decline in the superheroes, but the release of the most famous superhero movie Superman, in 1978 changed the fate of superheroes as a number of new heroes and old heroes made their return to television serials and the big screen. Since the release of the Superman movie this genre has been on an upward trend. Even today we are seeing this genre gaining momentum with successful recent movies such as Spiderman, X-men and Daredevil. At this point the future of this genre seems to be very secure as a number of high profile movies, such as The Hulk, Spiderman 2, Superman, and Superman vs. Batman[5] are in the works to be released in the next few years. As this genre progresses the movies will tend to include more complex plots and will rely more heavily on computer technology to create special effects for battle scenes between the hero and the villain.