Are Superheroes Fascist By Modern Standards?

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I see superheroes as more fascist when they work for the government like cops (not firefighters or emts, which are more health system workers). So, I think you have that backwards.

On the same note.

Stuff glorifying police or army have historically figured far more in authoritarian and totalitarian imagery, and those narratives glorify the brave human risking life and limb for victory and stress their vulnerability and mortality.

So I think the main reasons superheroes eschew that baggage is...they don't exist and can't exist for the most part. We aren't in danger of someone getting powers from yellow sun radiation, a radioactive spider, a Green Lantern ring. That stuff can't happen in the real world.

When Spider-Man failed to save Gwen Stacy...it was done in a way that was over-the-top, a goblin drops a blonde by ramming her off the bridge with his glider. That's not the same thing as say if Goblin killed Gwen, and others, by wearing a mask and taking guns and walking into a cafeteria and gunning up everyone. The former is a death staged in the comic book imagery and landscape, the latter has a visceral familarity to us that hits close to home.



That said, there are superheroes who are problematic. The Punisher has been co-opted by real world "thin blue line" type cops. In the case of Batman and Iron Man, their civilian alter-egos billionaire playboys both of them are essentially propaganda for untaxed inherited wealth and accumulation. Tony Stark is virtually a one-man military-industrial complex and his entire narrative in the comics and MCU is a way to limbo under the implications of such a character as a moral icon.

[Agent Z]

I see superheroes as more fascist when they work for the government like cops (not firefighters or emts, which are more health system workers). So, I think you have that backwards.

You don't need to be a cop or government worker to act like a fascist.

[Agent Z]

On the same note.

Stuff glorifying police or army have historically figured far more in authoritarian and totalitarian imagery, and those narratives glorify the brave human risking life and limb for victory and stress their vulnerability and mortality.

So I think the main reasons superheroes eschew that baggage is...they don't exist and can't exist for the most part. We aren't in danger of someone getting powers from yellow sun radiation, a radioactive spider, a Green Lantern ring. That stuff can't happen in the real world.

When Spider-Man failed to save Gwen Stacy...it was done in a way that was over-the-top, a goblin drops a blonde by ramming her off the bridge with his glider. That's not the same thing as say if Goblin killed Gwen, and others, by wearing a mask and taking guns and walking into a cafeteria and gunning up everyone. The former is a death staged in the comic book imagery and landscape, the latter has a visceral familarity to us that hits close to home.



That said, there are superheroes who are problematic. The Punisher has been co-opted by real world "thin blue line" type cops. In the case of Batman and Iron Man, their civilian alter-egos billionaire playboys both of them are essentially propaganda for untaxed inherited wealth and accumulation. Tony Stark is virtually a one-man military-industrial complex and his entire narrative in the comics and MCU is a way to limbo under the implications of such a character as a moral icon.

Vulnerability and morality are the last things fascism would ever glorify.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Vulnerability and morality are the last things fascism would ever glorify.

You need to look up the kind of art fascists liked, or claimed to have liked, and used in their propaganda.

That includes motifs from history like "Heroic last stands" i.e. 300 Spartans at Thermopylae. In terms of authoritarian and crypto-fascist sentiments, Frank Miller's 300 has had a bigger impact than his The Dark Knight Returns, which has led to it being incorporated and used in a lot of right wing imagery and references. Fascists kept invoking the death of the hero Siegfried in the German Epic Die Nibelungen which featured in the Wagner opera. Siegfried's Funeral March was a big motif for them.

The fascist idea was that man is mortal but culture and nation is immortal and unchanging and so on. So the individual must be prepared to sacrifice for the state and the state will honor and glorify that sacrifice.

In the superhero genre as it most familiarly exists, you don't have quite the same thing because comic books are fictional and fantastic. The 300 Spartans that actually happened in history (however exaggerated and blown out of context). The Nibelungen is an actual medieval myth and oral epic.

So on that level, stuff glorifying the "real heroes" i.e. cops,soldiers and so on, which stress their vulnerability and courage, are more susceptible to a kind of fascist takeover.

At the end of the day, Superheroes as a genre are only problematic because they uphold and glorify and express in turn corporate power and corporate dominance, and the ownership and exploitation of the Intellectual Property at the cost of crediting the creators, artists, and also the fans. It's asserting that the IP of Mickey Mouse is more important than the human animators who put in the work to define Mickey.

If these characters were public domain or entered public domain, these issues would be significantly lessened.

[Agent Z]

You need to look up the kind of art fascists liked, or claimed to have liked, and used in their propaganda.

That includes motifs from history like "Heroic last stands" i.e. 300 Spartans at Thermopylae. In terms of authoritarian and crypto-fascist sentiments, Frank Miller's 300 has had a bigger impact than his The Dark Knight Returns, which has led to it being incorporated and used in a lot of right wing imagery and references. Fascists kept invoking the death of the hero Siegfried in the German Epic Die Nibelungen which featured in the Wagner opera. Siegfried's Funeral March was a big motif for them.

The fascist idea was that man is mortal but culture and nation is immortal and unchanging and so on. So the individual must be prepared to sacrifice for the state and the state will honor and glorify that sacrifice.

In the superhero genre as it most familiarly exists, you don't have quite the same thing because comic books are fictional and fantastic. The 300 Spartans that actually happened in history (however exaggerated and blown out of context). The Nibelungen is an actual medieval myth and oral epic.

So on that level, stuff glorifying the "real heroes" i.e. cops,soldiers and so on, which stress their vulnerability and courage, are more susceptible to a kind of fascist takeover.

At the end of the day, Superheroes as a genre are only problematic because they uphold and glorify and express in turn corporate power and corporate dominance, and the ownership and exploitation of the Intellectual Property at the cost of crediting the creators, artists, and also the fans. It's asserting that the IP of Mickey Mouse is more important than the human animators who put in the work to define Mickey.

If these characters were public domain or entered public domain, these issues would be significantly lessened.

The only thing fascism cares about is strength. When it does highlight vulnerability it is only so it can demonize what it deems acceptable targets or to emphasize why it's actions are necessary. And considering how much superhero comics (at least the ones by the Big 2) are resistant to change, there's even more evidence of the genre leaning towards fascism.

Fascism glorifies the strongman, the undisputed, invincible savior whose wisdom, power and knowledge are without peer and serves as the moral center the society revolves around. In other words, this is what Captain America, Superman, Batman and hell even Wonder Woman are often like. And tellingly, when any writer dares to suggest characters like these are not impeachable paragons they are, there is significant backlash from the fandom. By contrast characters like the Doom Patrol, Iron Man and Spider-Man aren't depicted as infallible gods but people just as capable of making mistakes as anyone else and whose flaws are frequently front and center in their stories.

Discourse about what is and isn't fascist-leaning media has been severely hurt by how fans often project their own values onto the characters and stories while ignoring what actually happens in them and bases what counts as fascist on which character they don't like. Which is how we get people claiming Tony would have voted for Trump despite Trump being anti-science and Tony being nowhere near the sexist, racist pig Trump is. Or how comic fans unironically quote Steve's idiotic "no you move" speech without realizing the implications of what Steve is saying and how it could easily come from the lips of a villain like the Red Skull or Dr Doom (the poster boy for comic book draco in leather pants if one ever existed) without a single word being changed.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

The only thing fascism cares about is strength. When it does highlight vulnerability it is only so it can demonize what it deems acceptable targets or to emphasize why it's actions are necessary. And considering how much superhero comics (at least the ones by the Big 2) are resistant to change, there's even more evidence of the genre leaning towards fascism.

You are conflating two things that aren't related.
-- Fascism cares about use of violent force to maintain order.
-- Comics are committed to serial storytelling and endless recycling of tropes.

Those aren't the same thing. I don't care for either but even I know that you can't morally equate these two things. That's gross, unfair, stupid, and very much "breaking a butterfly on a wheel".

Fascism glorifies the strongman, the undisputed, invincible savior whose wisdom, power and knowledge are without peer and serves as the moral center the society revolves around. In other words, this is what Captain America, Superman, Batman and hell even Wonder Woman are often like.

With fascism, the strongman is often an actual person, an actual political candidate running for office or dictatorship. Fascism begins with the strongman with Mussolini and Hitler arriving on stage and then they tailor and distort history to fit their size. Neither Captain America, nor Superman are running for actual political office in the real world.

These are corporately owned Intellectual Property.

Which is how we get people claiming Tony would have voted for Trump despite Trump being anti-science and Tony being nowhere near the sexist, racist pig Trump is.

The fact is that Tony Stark's real world inspiration in the MCU, Elon Musk (openly confirmed as such by RDJ and Favreau and who cameo'd in the IM-2 movie) is an oligarch who donates to both parties and said that he would vote for Trump despite the threat to the planet because he doesn't like the lockdown and so on. The 2016 election didn't happen in Marvel 616 or the MCU...and were it to be referred it would be on the sliding timescale in a decade or so when the rocket-flight with the FF happened after 2020 or so.

But the fact is materially, Tony Stark belongs to the class of people who materially benefit from a Trump presidency, as does Bruce Wayne. So it's quite right to be suspicious of them for what both characters represent. They aren't underdogs or plucky people who can be you.

Or how comic fans unironically quote Steve's idiotic "no you move" speech without realizing the implications of what Steve is saying and how it could easily come from the lips of a villain like the Red Skull or Dr Doom (the poster boy for comic book draco in leather pants if one ever existed) without a single word being changed.

Steve Rogers' is quoting Mark Twain, a noted liberal satirist who was critical of US policies domestically and abroad. It was written in the pages of ASM by J. Michael Straczynski, a vocal opponent of the Iraq War.

[Agent Z]

You are conflating two things that aren't related.
-- Fascism cares about use of violent force to maintain order.
-- Comics are committed to serial storytelling and endless recycling of tropes.

Those aren't the same thing. I don't care for either but even I know that you can't morally equate these two things. That's gross, unfair, stupid, and very much "breaking a butterfly on a wheel".

By this logic, your claim that Batman and Iron Man are problematic is equally nonsensical.

With fascism, the strongman is often an actual person, an actual political candidate running for office or dictatorship.

Your character does not have to be a real person to represent fascist ideals. This is a nothing argument.

The fact is that Tony Stark's real world inspiration in the MCU, Elon Musk (openly confirmed as such by RDJ and Favreau and who cameo'd in the IM-2 movie) is an oligarch who donates to both parties and said that he would vote for Trump despite the threat to the planet because he doesn't like the lockdown and so on.

The character of Tony Stark predates the 2016 election. There is a difference between being inspired by a real life person and a one-to-one depiction of what that person actually is. I'm pretty sure Feige would have been singing a different tune if the MCU was created after the 2016 election.

The 2016 election didn't happen in Marvel 616 or the MCU...and were it to be referred it would be on the sliding timescale in a decade or so when the rocket-flight with the FF happened after 2020 or so.

What does this have to do with what I said? I never claimed the election happened in the MCU or the MU.

But the fact is materially, Tony Stark belongs to the class of people who materially benefit from a Trump presidency, as does Bruce Wayne. So it's quite right to be suspicious of them for what both characters represent. They aren't underdogs or plucky people who can be you.

Nor are Superman, Steve Rogers and Wonder Woman.

And frankly, people could stand to be a lot less enamored of underdogs. They aren't anymore moral than those at the top as seen with the number of working class Americans who supported Trump despite his party's history of screwing them over.

Steve Rogers' is quoting Mark Twain, a noted liberal satirist who was critical of US policies domestically and abroad. It was written in the pages of ASM by J. Michael Straczynski, a vocal opponent of the Iraq War.

Doesn't make the speech any less stupid as this blog pointed out:

Here he is at his most idealistic, righteous, and pure. And yet, he’s 100% wrong: he goes after the press, the politicians, and the “mob”, dismissing the public, their representatives, and their voices with a simple assertion of his own moral views. The United States was not founded on a principle of individual defiance of the general will: rather, we were founded as a nation of laws, not men, of separated powers, of due process, and of representative government. Such scorn for media, politicians, and the electorate is more commonly reserved for repressive regimes.

If anything, the traditional version of Steve Rogers provides a more apt and chilling warning about the risk of an authoritarian America than any weak-sauce HYDRA parody of the man.

https://ladygeekgirl.wordpress.com/2...ays-a-fascist/

[Lightning Rider]

One big problem with "the Gotham police force is corrupt and so Batman's vigilantism is justified" is that he's best friends with Jim Gordon, Police Commissioner. Sure stories have presented Gordon as a reformist trying to fix a broken system but as time passes, the more corrupt cops on beat there are, the harder it gets to ignore the fact that Gordon is just not doing anything right. There's also the fact that the Batman franchise orbits around ARKHAM ASYLUM, which is essentially the poster-child for the idea that "mentally ill are violent malingering psychos and shrinks are morons and self-destructive fools". So a good part of Batman is tied to a certain authoritarianism, a certain old fashioned idea of mental health and reform.

Agreed that Batman is far more often portrayed as an accessory to law enforcement than their actual opponent. Arkham Origins and BvS portrayed him as more of an adversary to the institution, which I enjoyed.

On a basic genre sense, I don't really need complicated questions justifying Batman's vigilantism. I get that it's more interesting to see a scary dude in a boss costume beat up a bunch of guys using gadgets and fists than guns and riot gear. The other thing is also aesthetic...the thing about Batman is that while yes there's authoritarianism and other stuff there, it's also a fact that the Batman series' popularity rests largely on its rogues gallery. People read Batman to see the rogues in action as much as they do to see Batman doing his thing. The most recent JOKER 2019 movie made far more money than the Snyder Batman movies after all. The BTAS series ran on the idea of Batman villains being someone he relates to or sees as a cautionary tale for himself. Stuff like the Mr. Freeze "Heart of Ice" episode. More recently you have Harley Quinn becoming this anarchic breakout character.

So ultimately it's the villains who come to the rescue of Batman from being authoritarian and problematic. And historically...go back to the Adam West Batman Show. All the rogues were played by prominent celebrities of their day and were grand camp performances and cooler than square old Batman and Robin. The Batman'66 show ran on the popularity of the villains and not the heroes. The Dark Knight (the last Batman movie that's embraced across the board as an excellent movie) rests entirely on Ledger's performance.

Didn't think about that, interesting point.

[Scott Taylor]

"No you move" is an artifact of comics being a distinctly American and western thing. Only in the west would you get someone so freakin' stubborn and arrogant as to say that their "duty is to plant themselves like a tree" to the complete and deliberate ignorance of anything else.

So its not a fascist thing its an "I'm a big a-hole who takes no responsibility for his own actions because ... reasons" thing. Problem with much of our culture, right now, too.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

"No you move" is an artifact of comics being a distinctly American and western thing. Only in the west would you get someone so freakin' stubborn and arrogant as to say that their "duty is to plant themselves like a tree" to the complete and deliberate ignorance of anything else.

Not sure if it's western.

"Plant your feet firmly and the ground and say 'No, you move;" kind of describes this famous dude from China, doesn't it?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ianasquare.jpg

So its not a fascist thing its an "I'm a big a-hole who takes no responsibility for his own actions because ... reasons" thing. Problem with much of our culture, right now, too.

That's not at all the intent and context of that scene.

[Agent Z]

Not sure if it's western.

"Plant your feet firmly and the ground and say 'No, you move;" kind of describes this famous dude from China, doesn't it?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ianasquare.jpg



That's not at all the intent and context of that scene.

Intent and context are not magic words that immediately alter implications.

[PCN24454]

"No you move" is an artifact of comics being a distinctly American and western thing. Only in the west would you get someone so freakin' stubborn and arrogant as to say that their "duty is to plant themselves like a tree" to the complete and deliberate ignorance of anything else.

So its not a fascist thing its an "I'm a big a-hole who takes no responsibility for his own actions because ... reasons" thing. Problem with much of our culture, right now, too.

Which is why the Civil War movie made sure that it was used in the proper context.

[JackDaw]

Look at sorts of decisions characters like Mr Fantastic and Batman make without any democratic mandate..they do whatever they want to basically and continually make decisions that effect the lives of millions of people...it would be utterly, totally unacceptable in real life.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Look at sorts of decisions characters like Mr Fantastic and Batman make without any democratic mandate..they do whatever they want to basically and continually make decisions that effect the lives of millions of people...it would be utterly, totally unacceptable in real life.

In the case of Mr. Fantastic what are the real odds of a dude with stretchy powers living in the middle-of-manhattan working on stuff like a Negative Zone projector.

It's too wrapped in genre to be anything real.

Batman, though, a rich dude with a self-righteous streak...that's something to be concerned about, at least when he's being Bruce Wayne. When he wears the costume and dresses and glides around and uses martial arts to beat up crooks, that's wrapped in genre and non-realism.

[JackDaw]

In the case of Mr. Fantastic what are the real odds of a dude with stretchy powers living in the middle-of-manhattan working on stuff like a Negative Zone projector.

It's too wrapped in genre to be anything real.

Batman, though, a rich dude with a self-righteous streak...that's something to be concerned about, at least when he's being Bruce Wayne. When he wears the costume and dresses and glides around and uses martial arts to beat up crooks, that's wrapped in genre and non-realism.

That’s a good point...I think you’re right to say that I was wrong to lump them both together in this context.

Even when Bats is in the uniform he has much more potential for inspiring real life vigilantes than Mr Fantastic?