Holy Men in Tights! Academic Superhero Conference

Malfourmed writes "The University of Melbourne's Cinema Studies Program, School of Art History, Cinema, Classics & Archaeology is hosting a four day conference (and fancy dress ball and movie programme) on superhoeroes and supervillains. The interdisciplinary conference will address the varying roles, identities, and social functions that these superheroes serve. Topics include censorship; industry and franchise differentiation (eg DC vs Marvel); mythology; the female superhero ("It has been a very much male-centred universe," co-convener Saige Walton said. "They need some more chicks."); ethnicity, class and race; diverse media formats (cinema, comics, computer games, television) ; the resurgence in the cult of superpowers in recent cinema; super-auteurs (eg Frank Miller, Alan Moore, Tezuka Osamu, Grant Morrison); fan culture; the science and physics of the superhero; ancient superheroes; and the 'hero' who isn't 'super'."

Comments

Re:Women in comic books

[Dancin_Santa]

Yes, but the authors are also males and are projecting their conception of a "strong male" into their artwork. It means rugged looks, broad shoulders, muscular physique.

When they project their impression of "strong female", we get diminutive height, waspy waist, large breasts, well-shaped vulva, and perfect skin. They have confused (or purposefully replaced) strong with sexy.

So only sexy female superheroes exist. Unsexy females can't possibly exist because it would shatter the geek audience's preconceived notions of what a strong female looks like.

They celebrate the male characters by drawing them in that way, yet they demean the female characters by the same drawing techniques. It's not something that can be cured overnight, but it is something that ought to be taken note of and resisted.

Radiation and the superhero

[BlightThePower]

...its to do with time when most of the famous characters were created I think, there was a great deal of interest, and post 1945, collosal anxiety about radiation. I expect to see more modern creations having something to do with genetic modification and perhaps nanotechnology in their origin stories. These things don't necessarily happen by accident, I understand Stan Lee was thinking of issues of race and prejudice when he came up with idea of the X-men as being mutants persecuted for being who and what they were born as. Professor Xavier can be seen as a sort of Martin Luther King to Mangento's Malcolm X. In more recent times I've had the suspicion that this form has been reworked slightly to have more resonances with regard to society's treatment of homosexuality (I definitely got that feeling in the second film in the scene where, was it Iceman(?), goes home and his parents get upset when they find out what he is. Would appear to mirror many a "coming out" story).

This reflection of anxieties in popular art forms as a way of exploring or dealing with them is fairly well noted; for example, Bram Stoker's Dracula has an underlying theme of fear of supressed female sexuality, whereas Frankenstein is clearly all about fear of science. Its all the same thing really.

As an aside another reason Batman wins over his only DC rival, Superman, for readers internationally is that Superman is a little overly wrapped in the stars and stripes (of course "Red Son" had much fun playing with that aspect the strip) to the extent where his popularity waxes and wanes with regard to how people feel about the USA. He was big in the 1980s when American culture was at its zenith of being "cool" in Europe. Right now nobody wants to know really. He's always been and still is popular in countries that target the USA as a migration destination.

On closer examination though I think Superman is very symbolic but I think that Bruce Wayne/Batman is probably nearer the American dream ultimately. By day he's an enlightened capitalist in the modern American mould (rigorous businessman but very charitable etc) who still finds time to be a 'self made man' and act in a sort of "Wild West" state of mind by night.

Hang on, inherited wealth, wild west mentality, hangs out in a technologically advanced underground bunker...Batman=GWB? Holy known unknowns and unknown unknowns Batman! Makes you wonder if Wayne Industries had the contract for repairing the damage to Gotham done by the Batmobile and the Joker blowing stuff up. Meh, politics.

For you maybe

[hey!]

Ok, for some people mindlessly devouring puerile comic book entertainment appeals to the immature eleven year old in them.

But for some of us, devouring puerile comic book entertainment and debating it as if they were something worthy of serious analysis appeals to the immature smart aleck eleven year old in us.

[disclaimer: the following was written by my inner child]

Now, for a demonstration of black belt level irony: those of you say we shouldn't talk about comic books actually hold the same opinions and have the same attitudes as those who say we shouldn't read them at all. Opinion: You both agree that the idea that comic books are anything based on them could have any literary value is absurd. You only differ in that you find comic books entertaining and they do not; they find pretentious intellectual blather entertaining and you do not. Some of us like both. Attitude: Both the literary stuffed shirts and the literary know-nothings share the attitude that people who don't like the same things as them need to be corrected. In short, you are both prigs. But I mean that in a nice way.

[/disclaimer]

Now, for you pleasure (or mortification (or both)), I will repost my K5 diary in which I analyze Spider-Man 2 on a level that would probably get me beaten up if I did it in my high school English class. By my teacher.

I finally saw Spider-Man 2 last night

I was trying to see I Robot but it apparently has disappeared from the local cineplex, so I settled for Spider-Man 2. But I enjoyed the movie. I thought the movie was not only very well done, it was very sly. After I got home, I went on the Internet to see what the critics had caught and what they'd missed. It turned out they missed a lot.

I should say that if you haven't seen the movie and want to figure it out for yourself, you shouldn't read any further.

There are three major story lines: Peter Parker's relationship problems with MJ, Spider-man's conflict with Doctor Octavius, and Spider-man's conflict with his own powers. These are resolved in reverse order.

I want to focus on the resolution of Spider-man's conflict with his own powers. This is resolved in the scene where he rescues the passengers on a runaway train. My jaw absolutely dropped when I saw this scene, because it has to be the most blatant crucifixion scene I've seen in any film since the end of Blade Runner.

Not only that, it is concluded with a bald-faced rebirth and resurrection scene. You could say the subsequent bit where Spidey is passed hand to hand over the heads of the passengers resembled a kind of baptism. And it does resemble baptism in this respect: it's was a kind of symbolic embrace of the new person by his community. However, I think perhaps this might take the Christian iconography a bit far -- I think that the filmmakers might have been reaching for a more universal pre-Christian symbolism. The ceremony reminded me of new age "re-birthing" rites. Of course it should be noted that Christian baptism by immersion also echos this: the new person emerges from water, the archetypal feminine element.

The fact that Tobey Maguire also plays this scene unmasked is very interesting. I think the primary reason for this is that such a symbolically pregnant scene wouldn't work if played by an animated doll -- it requires an actor to energize it. But it works on other levels too. For the superhero, being unmasked is a kind of nakedness (which one or two critics did pick up on). Just as at birth one is physically naked, and at death psychically naked.

I almost laughed when the crowd lays Spidey down gently, and somebody says "My God, he's just a kid! About the same age as my son." This is only one or two steps removed from "Isn't he cute! He's got Grandpa's eyes."

Re:Batman is the best superhero AND comic.

[MilenCent]

Bruce Wayne is a normal guy that everybody can relate to. He has no special powers to rely on; only the technology that his wealth affords him.

Riddle on this a bit: Not to intentionally drag issues of class struggle into the whole thing, but it *is* a fact that Bruce Wayne's extreme maxi-mega-wealth is almost as unreachable, to the average Joe-crimefighter-wannabe, as actual super powers are. He didn't earn it; he was born into riches. Extremely deep pockets is about the closest thing to an actual super power, more than great martial arts ability, more than inventing skill, more than being a supertaster, that exists in this world.

Further: what's the difference between a young Bruce Wayne growing up to become: a crime fighter, the world's greatest detective, and an ultimately good guy, and a young Bruce Wayne growing up to become: yet another idle playboy with way too much money (with all the society-warping power that provides), maybe not explictly bad, but not over concerned with other people?

Often it takes something seriously bad to happen to a person to break him out of his limited perspective and into a large view of the world. Which isn't to say that it is right that those things happen, nor that it always works that way. But often it's unavoidable, and often it does.

Specious Darwinian reasoning

[MisterSquid]

Actually 'sexy' means 'biologically strong'. A female is perceived as sexy because her body shape 'promises' healthy children, and thus survival of the genes. The same goes for men.

This line of Darwinian rationalism is so flawed that I'm surprised many intelligent people even proffer it. Humans do not select mates based on phenotypical signals of reproductive fitness. Period. What you argue about body shape "promising" healthy children is ludicrous. China and India both come to mind. Furthermore, even a cursory survey of sexual icons and fetishes over the last 500 years reveals enough of a range--fat, thin, black, white, tall, short, disabled, herculean--that any argument about sexiness being a biological predisposition to reproductive capability is just plain wrong.