Every year, the box office is ruled by one genre in particular- the superhero movie. The Marvel cinematic universe, and even the DC universe now, has been the center of our attention for years now, and we can’t get enough of it. Yet, there was quite a large gap between the inception of these superheros and them hitting the silver screen, why is that? Some, like Captain America, date all the way back to the 1940’s, and it wasn’t until fairly recently that he had his own movie. Other franchises have been popular for decades, but why did it take until now?
Like any time period, art mimics society. At the time of the “Superhero Boom,” which I would say was in 2002, with the release of Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man, Society could be summed up into two words: American Exceptionalism. It was a directly post-9/11 world, and we as Americans had a lot of anger towards this ideology that managed attacked us on our own soil, and nowhere to direct it. In our eyes, we saw it as one country, versus this evil idea that we had to eradicate. We were going to war with this villain that wronged us, which in this case, of course, was Al-Qaeda.
The superhero genre was a perfect place to direct these feelings, as a parallel could be drawn between the actions and intents of the hero, and the intent of America, as a superhero would similarly wage a one man war on evil. We channeled our patriotic sentiments into a medium universally understood, even if not yet exactly mainstream. As stated before, Spider-man started this trend, so let’s use that as an example. Peter Parker was a normal kid. Bullied a bit, sure, but he was “blessed” by that spider that gave him these incredible abilities. The spider could symbolize a lot of things, but for the sake of ease, let’s assume this is symbolic of the idea that the United states is blessed by God, and thus its will is at the top, so to speak. Now, when the Green Goblin enters the scene, that's when the symbolism truly starts to show, because what is he? Essentially a terrorist, as seen with his bombing and attack of the parade. Spider-man takes it upon himself to stop him, similar to the way we took it upon ourselves to stop terror. The lines could be drawn even deeper than that, however, as the Green Goblin’s son takes up the mantle in the third movie, similar to how the terror group in charge changes every so often. What we see in Spider-man is a very subtle, but very symbolic representation of America’s war on terror. And this trend continues, as Iron-Man in 2008 outright started out by being captured by actual terrorists.
However, what if I told you that this trend happened before? It did- and it was all the way back in the 50’s. Of course, the superheroes they watched back then weren’t the same as the ones we have today, as many of them hadn’t even been created at this point. The heroes they watched back then were Cowboys, and the similarities that that period had compared to today are very, very striking.
The 1950’s were a golden age for America. It had risen out of World War 2 as a major superpower, and boy did we flaunt it. So, obviously there was a sense of American exceptionalism here too-- albeit in a different way. Americans felt invincible, and the old Western movies mirrored this mentality-- our indomitable, saint of a man comes in and rescues a town from bandits, or defends it from Indians. In this case, the evils fought by the Cowboy were representative of cultural dangers, rather than physical-- such as rock music, civil rights movements, sexual freedom, LGBT rights, the list goes on.
Superhero movies borrow core themes from these old westerns, like the lone hero, or sometimes the hero having a sidekick, fighting an evil symbolic of the evils society fears, saving a town (or world) from destruction or domination. The western heroes of old and the superheroes of today both had one common goal-- to protect society from what is deemed dangerous. Essentially, what I’m saying, is that Superhero movies are an evolution of the western genre, in core themes and values.
However, the western genre died out, and very quickly as the Vietnam war rolled around. American sentiment shifted, and very, very quickly. The exceptionalist attitude that had defined the decade prior had all but died as the war rolled around, and once it ended, the opposite had taken root in American culture. The Western genre was at first twisted, focusing instead on the villains it portrayed, like in Bonnie and Clyde (1967), or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). As the 70’s rolled around, however, the genre had lost much of its popularity.
This brings us to another parallel-- Vietnam, and the current political climate. Much like as it was at the time of the war, the country is very divided. It was this same kind of division that killed off the Western Genre, but not before it twisted in on itself. Compared to the Superhero movies of the 2000’s decade, the ones as of recent have grown progressively, and progressively darker. Take Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy-- the kind of grittiness seen in those was unprecedented as of the last Batman movie to be produced. Captain America: Civil War symbolized perfectly the dis-unity we’re feeling right now. If this is similar to the shift in themes with the Western movies, we may be nearing the end of the box office reign of Marvel and DC.
But of course, what more is this than speculation? Nobody knows when, or even if, the genre will die out. The source material is near endless, and for sure, many people would go see them. What is certain, though, is that the current Superhero formula will have to adapt as sentiment changes, and trust me, I want them to succeed just as much as you do.
