Comic book movies are pretty big these days. Of special note is the theme that is being brought up in these new movies. The recent Batman versus Superman movie, and the upcoming Captain America movie, both address a very interesting sociological idea that , to me, seems to be one that comes up every so often and needs to be put down like a rabid skunk.
Over 30 years ago, a ‘groundbreaking’ graphic novel came out – The Dark Knight Returns. Succinctly, it was about an aged and retired Batman who throws off retirement, squeezes back into the tights, and takes up the mantle once more for a final showdown. Large parts of the fight from the book are replayed in the recent movie. But what is interesting is that in the book the various superheroes are gone. Government decided they were too ‘uncontrolled’ and forced them to retire or leave the planet…or else. Superman remains as a ‘licensed superhero’ and agent of the government, secretly using his powers as ordered by the government.
Fast forward a couple years and ‘Watchmen’ hits the screens. Same underlying sinister theme – superheroes are loose cannons. Operating independently, without government control, they are too dangerous to be allowed to continue. They are forced to retire, go rogue, or work for the government.
Move ahead another ten years and you have ‘Iron Man 2’, where the government demands that ‘the Iron Man weapon” be turned over to the government for the benefit of ‘the American people’.
In the most recent Superman movie the question is raised – if Superman is so all-powerful, what prevents him from becoming a threat to the rest of the world? He can do things no one else can, and has amazing powers..doesn’t he therefore have a responsibility to the world to selflessly, tirelessly, save it from itself?
This is coming to a head in the new Captain America movie where various superheroes have to pick sides (the ‘Civil War’ storyline). When the .gov demands that superheroes be under .gov authority and control some agree that they need to be regulated, and some wish to remain independent. Naturally, this leads to massive CGI battles between the two sides.
See the new Deadpool movie? Colossus, the big shiny X-Man, has a minor role in the movie. In his first appearance in the comics, way back when, he was approached by Professor X at his Soviet collective farm. Xavier asks him to join the X-Men because of his newly manifested powers. Colossus, being a good Soviet, was dubious..believing his powers belonged to the State. Xavier, of course, tells him that his powers are his but that he has a duty to mankind as a whole.
The common (or is it communist?) theme is that if you have some sort of special ability, talent, or resource, you have a moral responsibility to use it for the greater good.
What’s this got to do with you, you ask? Well, you could argue that this decades long theme of self-sacrifice, obligation to ‘the greater good’, and social responsibility is part of a larger indoctrination process. But..I don’t believe that. What I do believe, and I think you should too, is that more and more people are growing up in their impressionable years with the idea being pushed at them constantly that you have a duty to others, they have a right to demand of you, and that any resistance to that notion is selfish, anti-establishment (or anti-government), or just plain misanthropic.
We see it from time to time when someone says that you have to help..after all, you have so much and they have nothing. We’ve all heard stories about how in times of crisis the governments (local ones, usually) will seize someones resources to be used to alleviate others suffering. Sometimes the police and city government commandeer your four-wheel drive vehicle after a major blizzard, and sometimes they help themselves to your surplus store inventory because they need it and you have it.
When the power goes out, and you have your generator humming away, it’ll be unsurprising how many people will ‘demand’ that you accommodate them because ‘you have it and I dont’. You have a responsibility, you see, to the less prepared and less fortunate. (And, yes, the less intelligent.)
The last couple decades of movies have brought this notion of social obligation and social responsibility to the point where the word ‘individualist’ is seen as a pejorative term. There have been a few attempts to spread a better message…Joss Whedon’s Serenity movie (and Firefly series) was an excellent message of individual-resisting-overreaching-government. (And was, in fact, basically a retelling of post Civil War Reconstruction society.) To a lesser degree, shows like The Walking Dead demonstrate agency rather than passive ‘governemnt will save us’ attitudes. The exceptionally (so far) lame ‘Fear The Walking Dead’ companion series had some ‘government is not always the answer’ moments in there as well.
I love comic book movies. I thought Deadpool was the best one in years (because, hey, rated R), and the Captain America movie will be one of the best, I think. But be careful not to fall into the trap of ignoring the underlying message that is sometimes there…the notion that anyone ‘better’ than the rest must be reined in and controlled for the benefit of the ‘greater good’, that the ‘haves’ have a duty to sacrifice for the ‘have nots’ (or ‘will nots’), and that regulation and government oversight is a benevolent and just form of ‘justice’. Whether youre wearing tights with a big ‘S’ on the chest, or wearing 5.11 pants and a Leatherman tool, someone is thinking that you ‘have to’ because ‘you can’…and if you won’t, they’ll use the power of law and .gov to make you live up to ‘your responsibility’.
