The Existential Superhero

COVID-19 has presented a unique challenge to entertainment. Usually we’d be well into Blockbuster Season by now, with the superhero movie as the big cash-cow. However, with a global pandemic keeping people inside, movie chains and movie production have both suffered. Movies have been forced to either delay their openings or release on streaming, and the big-tent superhero films have been halted altogether. It’s frustrating, to say the least.

Yet COVIDtine has given me time to ponder what I never thought of prior, including something I’ve been flirting with for a while now: why are superhero movies made the way they are?

Now, I’m not going to spend time dissecting the relevance of superheroes in 2020. Not only do these movies make tons of money at the box-office, but they don’t release nearly as frequently as detractors claim. For relative figures, we get about 10-12 superhero movies a year. There were more than double that number of musicals and Westerns yearly in the 50’s and 60’s. We’ll survive.

I’d like to, instead, shift the conversation to how these movies have changed, as well as what they’ve had to say about society as a whole. Because art doesn’t exist in a bubble, it’s always a response to what came before it. Movies, one of the most streamlined forms of art, are no different, catering to various groups’ fears, concerns and anxieties simultaneously. It only makes sense that the superhero movie, which gained its footing during the Carter presidency, would evolve to stay relevant.

I’ll start with 1978’s Superman: The Movie. Released in the years following The Vietnam War and President Nixon’s resignation, the movie is a response to American fatigue with its own exceptionalism. Comes Superman to remind people that Americans still have what it takes to be great. They can still be a nation of supermen, provided they adhere to a moral code. It’s cliché, and the film addresses that, but it has its cake while eating it too.

Superman: The Movie would spawn a franchise, including a sequel with two versions, but it’s a contrast to the 1989’s Batman. If Superman: The Movie was a response to the Carter years of post-Watergate distrust, then Batman was a response to the Reagan/Bush Sr. years of mass-privatization, Reaganomics, Cold War paranoia and staunch conservatism. If Superman: The Movie was a lighthearted fluff-piece, then Batman was its dark, heavy counterpart. If Superman: The Movie was silly, then Batman was serious. And while Batman might feel hokey by today’s standards, especially in light of the themes presented in modern superhero films, it successfully captured the paranoia and uncertainty of the late-80’s while being crowd-pleasing.

Like Superman: The Movie, Batman would see a slew of sequels that’d inevitably run the franchise into the ground. Unlike Superman: The Movie, the Batman IP would fall victim to the “late-90’s Blockbuster curse” that’d make Summer releases feel gluttonous and excessive. I feel bad for even slamming Batman & Robin openly, especially in-light of its director’s passing. Sure, it’s not “good” by any means, but it’s no more corporate and pandering than many of its contemporaries. It feels like a victim of 90’s excess, no doubt due to the economic boom and “first-world problems” brought on by Clinton’s presidency.

Nevertheless, the damage was done. And while 1998’s Blade would make a valiant effort to rehabilitate superheroes, it wasn’t until X-Men in 2000 and Spider-Man in 2002 that that’d be successful. Both films took their concepts in different directions, but they felt like direct responses to those superheroes that’d come before them. For the former, the movie was a response to the glut of the 90’s. It was a serious movie that dealt with serious themes, and it did so while catering to older fans. In contrast, Spider-Man would show the accessibility and everyman appeal of superheroes, all-the-while feeling like a response to post-9/11 disillusionment.

With this success came the inevitable reboot of Batman with 2005’s Batman Begins. A darker reimagining of Batman that’d spawn two equally-successful sequels, the film felt like a commentary on Bush Jr.’s neoliberalism, including its views on the uber-wealthy. These ideas would be expanded on in The Dark Knight, but the parallels remained. This movie could’ve only been made during the Bush Jr. years, it has his presidency’s fingerprints all-over it.

Which leads to Iron Man and The MCU, as well as the current superhero landscape. While Iron Man began as a commentary on late-American attitudes toward Bush Jr. and The Iraq War, especially in its discussion of WMDs, the franchise that’d spawn from its success would broaden its scope to include global ideas of how superheroes effect the public. Themes of superhero accountability, population density, isolationism and global unity, to name a few, would be tossed around frequently. While these themes would be tackled with varying degrees of success, they played to the public’s growing distrust of politicians and world governments.

And now we arrive at the current landscape of superheroes. It’s true that, on some level, the batting average of these films is far better than even a decade ago, thanks to actual fans of these properties helming them. But that doesn’t interest me as much. I’m more intrigued by what these superhero films have to say about society. Like the post-Nixonian Westerns of the mid/late-70’s, the superhero film’s in a state of self-reflection. 42 years after Superman: The Movie, the genre’s become contemplative.

Is this good or bad? I can’t say. There are pros and cons to having a genre be reflexive, and we’ve seen both with the superhero film. For every deconstruction ala The Incredibles or The Dark Knight, we’ve gotten entries like Man of Steel to balance them out. But that there can be room for these movies in an increasingly-populist genre impresses me. It shows how flexible the superhero is.

I know that superheroes require a huge suspension of disbelief. In the real world, a Batman-type character would be another shameless billionaire “fixing” the mistakes that he created. Even ignoring that, there are ethical and moral quandaries that arise from these movies. Some might even call them irresponsible, and there’d be due cause! After all, why watch something that promotes policing crime without accountability?

Still, while this is a valid question, it ignores what the superhero has demonstrated over the years: flexibility. Flexibility of concept, flexibility of themes and flexibility of ideology. Whether tackling Carterism or Reaganism, the superhero film has stayed relevant by appealing to what we expect from it in our day and age. And because it’s always been evolving, no doubt as a response to our ever-changing values, it’s clear it isn’t disappearing anytime soon. Unless Hollywood collapses, because you never know!