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| Japanese Flavor- Circa 1978 |
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| American Flavor- Circa 1960 |
Bruce Wayne. Anung un Rama. Minami Kotaro. Clark Kent. Kamina. Mindy MacReedy. Steve Rogers. **
If you've been living in a country that has television for more than a year, you recognize at least two of those names. If you're a geek like me, you probably recognized all of them. But weather or not you know who they are is irrelevant, what is is what they embody.
Superheroes have a bit of a strange relationship with the culture at large. Most people look at them as childish, cartoony, cliched. And yet, even the culture at large, who mocks them, puts them in SNL sketches and calls them fascistic masochists, keeps coming back to them for the most primal escapism.
You see, superheroes represent everything that we as human beings can ever hope to be. They are brave, selfless, noble, and willing to sacrifce themselves for something greater. All things I'm sure you've heard before and probably written off during more cynical stages of your life.
If you've been living in a country that has television for more than a year, you recognize at least two of those names. If you're a geek like me, you probably recognized all of them. But weather or not you know who they are is irrelevant, what is is what they embody.
Superheroes have a bit of a strange relationship with the culture at large. Most people look at them as childish, cartoony, cliched. And yet, even the culture at large, who mocks them, puts them in SNL sketches and calls them fascistic masochists, keeps coming back to them for the most primal escapism.
You see, superheroes represent everything that we as human beings can ever hope to be. They are brave, selfless, noble, and willing to sacrifce themselves for something greater. All things I'm sure you've heard before and probably written off during more cynical stages of your life.
And yet, especially when you're a geek, there is likely to come a time when you're at your most vulnerable, your most hopeless, and then you'll be exposed to something. A movie, a TV show, a comic, or even a novel, that, even if it's not about superheroes in the traditional sense, has characters that embody those ideals. That's when you realize how important those characters are. How much of a difference they can make. The hope they can give us in a bleak, hopeless world.
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| Now try and tell me that Superman is the worst superhero. Go on. I dare you. |
What first got me thinking about this is the end of a YouTube video series called "Hi, I'm a Marvel.... and I'm a DC: After Hours." It's a series that depicts a fourth-wall breaking crossover between characters from Marvel and DC comics, starting out as a parody of the way fans fight about their respective movies. Later on, it evolves into an actual crossover story, focusing on Superman and his personal struggle with feeling irrelevant, due to the abundance of more "relateable" superheroes. At the end, in the presence of Marvel co-creator Stan Lee (long story), he confesses this, and Stan Lee promptly responds (at the 7:17 mark):
"It's true that I gave Marvel characters imperfections to make them more releateable than DC's characters, but just because they're imperfect, doesn't mean they don't aspire to be the best they possibly can. Everyone, hero or not, would love to be able to do more, be better, to always know right from wrong, and to have the strength to make sure right always wins. You are that perfection, Superman. The reason my characters are so relateable is because they're all trying to be like you. Just like everyone else."
Since first watching that, I've come to realize that even that doesn't quite hit it. It's not just about being able to do great things, it's about being willing to do them, and being courageous (or perhaps foolish enough to attempt them despite all the odds stacked against you. Perhaps what made me realize this the most was the anime series Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. In that, the characters are humans. Ordinary humans who pilot giant robots powered by sheer guts.
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| That little kid right there? He took down an authoritarian regime. And an eldritch abomination. |
It's a show firmly rooted in the genre known as Super Robots. Now don't let their mechanical nature fool you; super robots are superheroes. They're just bigger and have more guns. And drills. And laser swords.
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| And axes. Glorious giant axes. |
In most super robot stories, the heroes are faced with a seemingly impossible challenge. How do they combat it? By punching it in the face until it dies, explodes, surrenders, or any combination of the three. They don't care how much the odds are stacked against them, they're gonna save the goddam world. Even if it kills them.
I don't think it's ever not worked, so perhaps that's a flaw in the genre as a whole, but we're not here to talk about that. We're here to talk about why we need them and their spandexed brethren.
It was not long ago that I slipped into a depression for the third time in my life. And do you know what snapped me out of it? What the final kicker was the got me to be myself again? Gurren Lagann. I talked about this in my memoir, but it bears repeating to help get my point across. About just how much influence this type of media has over us. The way we see the world, and the way we carry ourselves.
Even when it's not a personal struggle, we can't help but think of these heroes whenever something is wrong with the world. Why can't there be an Atom Eve to feed the starving people in Africa? Why can't there be a Captain America to remind this country of what it really stands for? Why can't there be a Getter Robo to take down the authoritarian regimes still all over the world right now?
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| QFT |
I think that middle example is a good one to go off of to relate this to something happening right now. There are two bills being debated in congress called Protect IP and Stop Online Piracy. Both of them are intended to, well, stop online piracy. Okay, how do they plan to do that?
By censoring the internet, taking down sites without any sort of due process, ignoring fair use, and giving the government the power to send people to jail for singing a pop song on YouTube.*
Now, I don't know about you, but that sounds pretty ridiculous to me. Like the government having no clue how technology works and thinking they control the world. It's something like this that makes you wish there was, again, a Captain America to speak out and stand up for our rights, for all of us who want this country to be as great as it can to get behind. Even if he doesn't fight physically, he can be the symbol we need so desparately.
Or hell, even if there was a Kamina, to give them all the punch in the face they so desperately deserve.
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| Try shoving bullshit down our throats with this coming at you, Congress |
But now, I'm getting into specific political examples, which is bound to piss someone off, so let's try to end this on a more universal note, shall we?
Everybody likes Spider-Man, right?
Think of a time you were angry. Like, really angry. Ready to explode with rage. In that moment, what did you wish you could do? Destroy everything in sight? Smash all the displeased you into atoms? Yeah, that sounds about right kinda like, like...
Yeah, like that guy. But we obviously can't throw tanks at bad doctors. Hell, we can't just act out violently at every little thing we don't like, but we need to purge those feelings somehow, so what do we do?
Why, we read about someone like the Hulk doing it, of course! And that's another thing, aside from giving us hope, from giving us an ideal to live up to, superheroes provide a catharsis. When we've done everything we can to better ourselves, the world we live in, the lives of those around us, but we're still frustrated, we want to do more, but we can't. So we turn to fantasy. We turn to it to distract ourselves, yes, but also to live vicariously through these characters that can accomplish so much more than we can. To make us feel like things we can't change are going to be alright, so we can focus on the things we can change, and simply live our lives. Our best lives.
And that, my friends, is why superheroes are important. Weather we realize it or not, they do all of these things for us. Even if not directly, then certainly in whatever media you consume to get these feelings, you owe a debt to the genre that started it in terms of our modern culture.
And so, I leave you with some music sure to make you feel like belting some bad guys.
*This is a bit of a simplification. Watch this video to get a much better explanation of what's wrong with Protect IP and SOPA. And if you're just as angry about it as I am, here's some links to help you find out even more and do something about it:
Seriously, just take a little time out of your day and look into this. It's bollocks.
**For those of you just dying to know:
Batman, Hellboy, Kamen Rider Black, Superman, One of the pilots of Gurren Lagann, Hit-Girl, and Captain America.
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