Image Credit — Eric Mesa / ComicWOW! / This work is licensed to the public under the Creative Commons

Hollywood’s (and Our) Superhero Fetish

And how we’re all rooting for the Good Guys now

What we seem to have here, Uncle Sigmund, is a nation still under the impression that everything that happens in the world can be broken down into the simple Good Guys vs Bad Guys narrative they’ve been indoctrinated in since they were little kids.

Certainly, the past twenty-some years of non-stop Marvel superheroes in our movie houses have marinated another generation in the most simplistic understanding of narratives but let’s not forget that mine is the generation getting our after-school yucks with Rocky and Bullwinkle. Before I was ten years old I had all the information I needed to form a rock-solid opinion about the USSR thanks to Boris and Natasha. Between their shenanigans and our duck & cover drills at school, I was already well-prepped to be a cold warrior.

I credit hearing nightly body counts from Vietnam on the news for yanking my cranky, defiant, overly anxious head out of my red, white, and blue backside. Whatever opinions I may have formed at age ten were rapidly being deconstructed before I turned sixteen.

However, because we live in a world where the narrative gets pulled out from under us regularly, it’s tempting — even necessary — to pick your lane and stick to it.