GiacomoFilippo Fracanzani n.

12035494

Critical Perspectives [UA1APQ-15-1]: 2013-14

A DETAILED CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF CULTURAL TEXT:
HOW A SUPER-HERO CHANGES THROUGH AGES AND HOW IS USED FOR
PROPAGANDA
The narration through images has been existed since the prehistoric times being a part of
communication between humans, as can be seen from paints on walls of caves where prehistoric
people lived.

These images were always influenced by the people who lived in that specific period, as for
example in the ancient Egypt or Greek and Roman period. This illustrated narration had become
more specific with the term of comic-books or just comics in the early 20th century, used often as a
type of propaganda and evolving as just an entertainment lecture for people of every age.
However even in these comic-books we still can find in it a bit of propaganda, and one example are
the Marvel comics, with their first super-heroes, like Captain America who fought Nazi people
during the Second World War, a super-hero who still fight villains in modern age.
The art and the images change through ages, adapting to new viewer and readers, so can we be sure
that a character remains the same through ages? How much propaganda can be still found in
superheroes comic-books and other media like films? Does it influence people?
Writing about all comic-books characters of the Marvel comics can be really dispersive, so I will
take in exam just one, and he is one of the most famous superheroes, Iron Man.
Iron Man is a good example about how a character might change and how much he can change.

His debut is in March 1963 in Tales of the Suspense #39,

in that period there was the Vietnam War, so the origin of
Iron Man was set in Vietnam. Tony Stark, who is not yet
Iron Man, is a millionaire, play-boy inventor who develops
new weapons and sell them to his nation. However while
testing some experimental weapons in the jungles of
Vietnam, Stark is injured by a bomb and is captured by the
enemy. Fatally injured by a piece of shrapnel that is
working its way toward his heart, Stark is ordered to spend
his last days inventing new armaments for the Communists;
instead he constructs a suit of transistorized armour that
also serves as a pace-maker to keep his heart beating.
From this event Tony Stark became Iron Man a man who
has been given a second chance to do good helping people
but also doomed to remain partially encased in metal until the day he dies. Even if the first enemy
of Iron Man was a Chinese dictator, Stan Lee, one of the creator of Iron Man, has always said he did
not mean to treat in a simplistic way Chinese people, even if I would like to remind that one of the
most famous villain of Iron Man called The Mandarin was a Chinese man who wanted to rule China
with alien technology, and the stories were more about against the communism.
We can see how there was still a large animosity and fear about communism society in a lot of
comic-books and Iron Man makes no exception, even if the author said that: The only philosophies
that have no place at Marvel are those preaching war or bigotry (Lee et al. 1975, p. 45), and about
an hypothetical question about that a lot of villains in that time represents communism people Stan
Lee answer: this yarn was written in 1963, at a time when most of us genuinely felt that
conflict[...] was a simple matter of good versus evil.[...] (Stan Lee et al. 1975, p. 45) . Even if Lee
was honest saying that, he, however, had still a responsibility about what he was writing, people
who read these comic-books could be anyway influenced by these lectures especially kids who still
are learning and they don't really exactly know the difference between good and evil nore if a man
is really evil or forced by the situation being it.
The images have a strong power on influencing other people, they arouse specific emotions so even
the narration through images should be used with attention and responsibility. Stan Lee could have
thought he was doing with responsibility, but maybe him and the other writers were influenced by
other media like television and newspaper.
However Iron-Man as a character had other different enemies depending from the period of
publication, most of the times enemies who were somehow enemies or not well seen by the U.S.A. ,

we still have Russian enemies with their criminal empire using the technology of Tony Stark against
him, and even if it was a criminal faction and not a political army these type of enemies it included
inside them a sort of propaganda showing how the Russian nation it was not a good country where
the communism prevails. Other times the enemies were rich business men who tried to take control
of the Stark Industries, but I really doubt that Marvel wanted people thinking how the big
corporations could be dishonest with no concern about other people for having what they wanted.
Some times in Iron Man can be found other different themes that are not about some propaganda
but still very interesting and tied with modern society, as the alcoholism. In the comic-book
storyline called Demon in the bottle Tony Stark develops a serious dependency on alcohol,
showing how even a super-hero, a strong man who gives the example of justice and honour can be a
simple human like everyone, with his problems and his weakness.
However in the films of Iron-Man too
remain the propaganda.
In the first film Tony Stark is injured
by a terrorist attack, while he is in
Afghanistan selling new weapons to
the U.S.A. army against the
terrorism. Why is it set in
Afghanistan? Why couldn't it be set
in other places of the world?
American people are really sensible about the war in Afghanistan, especially after the accident with
the Twin Towers caused by Afghanistan terrorists. Even if it is just a film they still use propaganda,
showing at the beginning of the story how the U.S.A. army is fighting the people who have hurt
their nation and that these terrorists are still killing innocents people.
In conclusion I think that the propaganda is still used in every possible way, through comic-books
too, even if it can be used few and less it can be found, probably it is hard to not put some of
personal opinions and ideas about some arguments. A character of a comic-book can change
through ages being more likeable to new generations of readers and viewers, it can change the place
of his/her origins, the time but his/her persona, their values and morals will not change. They can
evolve but without a complete change, because if it would happen they would not be recognisable
anymore.

BOOKS:
Daniels, L., (1991) Marvel Five Fabulous Decades of the World's Greatest Comics. 1st Edition.
London: Virgin Books
Lee, S., (1975) Son of Origins of Marvel Comics. 10th Edition.
New York: Simon & Schuster A Gulf and Western Company
Curtis, G., (2006) The Cave Painters probing the mysteries of the world's first artists. 1st Edition.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf
Howe, S., (2012) MARVEL COMICS: THE UNTOLD STORY. 1st Edition.
New York: HarperCollins Publishers
Robert, G., (2000) The Man With The Movie Camera. 1st Edition.
New York: I.B. Tauris and Co Ltd
Dauenhauer, B.P., (1998) PAUL RICOEUR The Promise and Risk of Politics. 1st Edition.
Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Ricoeur, P., (1984) Time and Narrative Volume 2, Paul Ricoeur. 8th Edition.
Chicago: The University of Chicago Press
ELECTRONIC JOURNAL:
Hogan, J., (2009) THE COMIC BOOK AS SYMBOLIC ENVIRONMENT: THE CASE OE IRON
MAN. ETC.: A Review of General Semantics. 66, pp. 199-214
WEBPAGE:
Oddee (2008) 20 Most Fascinating Prehistoric Cave Paintings.
Available from: http://www.oddee.com/item_93915.aspx [Accessed 06/04/2014]
Glenn, J. (2008) BostonGlobe.com.
Available from: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2008/04/we_are_iron_man.html
[Accessed 06/04/2014]
Keyes, R. (2013) Screen Rant The #1 Independent Movie & TV News Website.
Available from: http://screenrant.com/robert-downey-jr-signs-avengers-2-3/tony-stark-robertdowney-jr-jericho-missile-iron-man-1/ [Accessed 06/04/2014]