Introduction: Dying Or More Alive Than Ever?

Superheroes. Nowadays you can't go into a cinema without catching a glimpse of one - the poster for this year's Justice League or an up and coming entry to the Marvel franchise, or perhaps... is that another Spiderman reboot on the horizon? Moreover the spandex-wearing vigilantes are now dominating television (and computer or portable device) screens also, with The CW's The Flash (2014-) ranked 7th most popular series of the year and Netflix's roster of Marvel shows rapidly expanding. To date, the genre has produced six movies that have earned over $1 billion at the box office. 'How has this phenomenon come about?', you ask. And more to the point, 'why start a blog that analyses the current state of the genre?' At least, 'why now?'

To answer these questions, we must first look back to the events of September 11 2001 – ‘9/11’. The western world was shocked when two hijacked planes flew into the World Trade Centre, demolishing the Twin Towers and killing thousands of American citizens. Panic, fear, anger and helplessness engulfed the nation. The Bush Administration wasted no time in responding to the attacks and in October the same year invaded Afghanistan with the aim of obliterating Al Qaeda – those believed to be the perpetrators – and their leader Osama Bin Laden. Yet the US forces had mixed results, failing time after time to capture Bin Laden, while taking heavy casualties and significant losses. Back home people were not happy… and out of this emerged the most commercially successful film genre of the twenty-first century.

How do the two things link? Well for a start, the strike on the World Trade Centre was heavily televised and remains the most videoed national tragedy to date, resembling to many something "they had see in a movie" (Dittmer, 2011). The superhero movie, whether intentional at first or not (Spiderman (2002) had already been filmed and was set for release the following year regardless), exploited this, being "exactly the kind of place in which to witness a supervillain plotting mass murder in an urban setting and the emergence of a superhero determined to foil any further fiendish plots" (Dittmer, 2011). How many times have we seen New York defended against attackers in these films? Avengers Assemble (2012), Man of Steel (2013) and Spiderman 3 (2007) are just a few examples. They offer comparisons to 9/11 and the ‘war on terror’ but with conclusions that satisfy people. Iron Man (2008), for instance, had protagonist Tony Stark initially build his weaponised suit to combat Islamic militants had who attacked and captured him. The images here strongly resembled both footage released by Al Qaeda onto the internet (see image below) and that of combat from the western forces. These films acted as fantasies of triumph against the threats of Al Qaeda and Islamic extremism, and this played a huge factor in their appeal.

Tony Stark imprisoned in Afghanistan (Iron Man, 2008). Look familiar? 

But now the 'war on terror' is over. Bin Laden is dead and the post-9/11 era (as it came to be known) is coming to an end. The Bush Administration is long gone and America seems to want to distance itself from it. Attitudes are changing, and this is dangerous for genres. Enter a cinema in the 1930s-1960s and you’d do well to avoid a cowboy staring back at you, six-shooter in hand. The Western genre dominated the box office in this period. But then the 1970s came, and brought with it a new generation of audiences who preferred to spend their money on science-fiction or gangster films. The failures of the Vietnam War, atrocities of police brutality and effects of the Watergate scandal (among other factors) meant people no longer wanted to watch an all-American hero defend a small town in the desert. Rather, they wished to examine dark and tragic characters such as Michael Corleone in The Godfather (1972's highest grossing film), whom reflected the lust for power and corruption in modern America, or escape to far away galaxies where morality was much more black and white (Star Wars dominated the 1977 box office). And so Hollywood slowly decreased their production of Westerns. Now we're lucky to see major studios produce one or two a year (2016 only saw MGM/Columbia Pictures' The Magnificent Seven; none from Universal, Warner Bros., Paramount or 20th Century Fox). Clearly, they've lost much of their appeal.

Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid was 1969's highest grossing film,

 yet marked the end of an era.

Steven Spielberg, one of the pioneers of 1970s Hollywood, said in 2015 "...the Western died and there will be a time when the superhero movie goes the way of the Western". This may not be right around the corner, but it’s fair to say that, with the changing times, the genre is vulnerable. Today I focused on relevancy, but there are numerous factors at play that threaten the superhero genre - all growing concerns for studios and fans alike. That’s why now is the perfect time to study it; to examine what current and upcoming films and series do to tackle these issues, and maintain appeal for the genre as well commercial success. Or, conversely, how they fail to, and send the it down the same path the Western trod those many years ago, all but vanishing from cinema and television.