Legendary comic book creator and author Alan Moore has spent at least 15 years expressing concern about our culture’s obsession with superhero films, suggesting a correlation between superheroes and fascism.
The relationship between heroes and authoritarian regimes is complex. Authoritarian regimes have often used heroic figures in their propaganda to cultivate a sense of national unity and obedience to the regime. However, heroes can also be figures of resistance against authoritarian rule, symbolizing the fight for freedom and justice. The interpretation and use of heroic figures depend on the specific context and the ideology of the regime in question.
Yes, Captain America never struck me as Fascist—in fact, Steve Rogers's Captain America created the character of "Nomad" that he used when he felt the U.S. Government betrayed what he considered to be "American". While yes, there was a "Captain America" who was a Commie-hunter in the late 1940s, Marvel later retconned him into USAgent to highlight how toxic blind patriotism is (he's the character Wyatt Russell's playing in the Marvel movie THUNDERBOLTS, and no—he's NOT meant to be a hero, but some guy who needs to redeem himself).
I also remember Green Arrow literally shoving George H.W. Bush (while they never named him other than "Mr. President", we was drawn to explicitly look like Bush!) out of his chair and tossing the American flag on top of him because he was so disgusted at what the Bush Regime was pulling in...Latin America, I think? DC also has the character of Peacemaker, a hyperviolent satire of "'MURIKA!" who, in the HBO Max miniseries we discover was abused as a child by his jingoistic father.
Comic book heroes are content-neutral, and while they may show Right Wing tendencies when written by Right Wing writers like ZackSnyder! (or to a lesser extent Christopher Nolan), usually lean towards liberal and pluralistic agendas...which is what toxic comic fandom tends to hate, because THEIR power fantasies are too often Fascistic. They're the same kind of DudeBros who hate Science Fiction written by minorities, women, LGBTQ writers (the ones who desperately tried to get "the right kind" of Straight White Male Macho SF novels a Hugo, and failed consistently), and hate female videogamers.
If you want to crush Trans/Homophobic Fascism, you'd be better employed NOT going after popular culture and going after these kids' fucking parents, preachers and teachers who instill this hate in them long before comic books do instead. Well, except for J.K. Rowling, who really needs to learn to keep her opinions about transpersons to herself....
NO, it has NOT! Superheroes were created in part as enemies and opponents of fascism, and in their narratives they largely remain such still. Even if flawed, they represent a virtuous sort of behavior and sacrifice that is absent elsewhere in fiction and fact.
Their concern is not with fascism, but with freedom.
I do not think that superheroes are solely responsible for this. Maybe some installments in the genre, yes, but that more depends on the film itself. The comics tend to be much more varied and often depict saving the day as a team effort.
The ones that could encourage fascism are the ones aligned with the American obsession with a singular "great man" who saves the day. Iron Man being the smartest man in the room and Captain America being the one to singlehandedly win World War II, or the Avengers going to various countries to beat people up isn't inherent to superhero comics but to a lot of Western genre films. It isn't any different from James Bond going to various beautiful landmarks to extrajudicially murder people, or all the times Arnold Schwarzenegger has thrown an unarmed man to his doom while making a cheesy quip, or the times Detective Clint Eastwood has ignored due process to go murder some people.
It's even how we mythologize history. In the US, there's always one man responsible for change. In my classes up to high school, we always learned that Abraham Lincoln was single-handedly responsible for ending slavery. No mention of all the work put in by others or anyone who helped him. And now, the narrative about technology for laymen such as myself is that Steve Jobs was a super-genius who invented cell phones and iPads without mentioning the teams of people who did it. It's just a weird focal point of US culture and makes us susceptible to the idea of one-man juggernauts who will change everything.
Yes, but more a reflective metaphor than source/force.
Heroes & villans
Superpowers/eugenic "survival of the fittest" themes
Vigilantism/private armies
Billionaire saviors
Violence/domination as cure
Though the phenomena has become more diverse and nuanced in the past 20 years. Some of it is being used to criticize and illuminate the trend. Subversion finds a way.
Superheroes are an effect as much as a cause--just another mirror-facet of our civilization's guiding principles of superiority, force, and domination. The pursuit of power is the through line. Those whose awkward and isolated childhoods were immersed in superhero myth who then attained positions of power in adulthood within media and tech are the ones on the front line pushing their childhood dreamworld sanctuaries into reality.
It's a problem. We are in trouble. We need new stories of what it means to be alive.
Traditionally, I seem to remember the solitary superhero generally always fought fascism, but in a modern context, it appears that ties them to the whole "I, alone, can fix it" mentality. I'm not surprised people look to people rather than the collective government to solve problems.
I do think it's at least partially because government has failed to solve so many issues. That's not because government is inept, it's because government has been corrupted by special interests - the oligarchy.
I think in the coming years, if we don't all collapse as a society due to income inequality and/or climate instability, we will see a movement like we did with the robber barons. I just wonder if they haven't collected enough power to make any pushback impossible.
I'm not sure if it's because of the more simplistic storylines, but I never cared for superhero films. I tried with the "Guardians of the Galaxy" because people said it was "one of the best" of the Marvel universe, and the most accessible. I just didn't get it, I guess. The villain at the end gets distracted by the protagonist dancing? Yeah, just not for me. Then it was suggested I should watch the Captain America films and the first Ironman. I have so many films and TV shows to get to, I just haven't given them a chance yet. I love Robert Downey Jr. in just about anything (just re-watched Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang for the first time in years and fell in love with him all over again), so maybe I'll try that one first.
That said, I did love the first Wonder Woman film (not sure why), and I love The Boys. I find it kind of telling that it wasn't until this last season that the most toxic fans of that show realized their hero was the villain. Really?
I think that's a fair point, but the notion that superheroes were created as enemies and opponents of fascism isn't strictly correct; they weren't created for anything in particular, they developed gradually as an internalised aspiration for adolescents to combat bullying and marginalisation. The simple-minded depiction of the powerful individual who is somehow morally incorruptible, grew hand in hand with a simple-minded depiction of evil, (helped by the onset of war) until they became the yin to syndicated cartoon evil's yang. Total nonsense of course; they oversimplify the polarisation, but where you may have a point is precisely in that facile identification of evil... and the subsequent conclusion-jumping that seems to go on (and be encouraged) about what exactly IS evil - because that has turned cultures against themselves...
I love the Magus, but I think the superhero is too big an archetype to be reduced to any single idea. It's a Rorschach test of sorts: you see in it either your fears or your hopes. For Moore, deeply disturbed by Thatcher's Britain, superheroes portend fascist fantasies. For Grant Morrison, they present an idea that can save us from our fears (as in the nuclear apocalypse he feared as a kid; read his Supergods book for more). For the Jungian psychologist James Hillman, superheroic figures like Hercules represent the archetype of the Ego, which can run roughshod over the rest of the Psyche and its unconscious contents that need equal expression. Me? I think the recent popularity of superhero movies -- besides being a series of just really good cinematic yarns -- speaks not so much to power fantasies as to fantasies about agency: the power to actually do anything at all in a neoliberal society. Although tech-overlord Tony Stark is the spark that lit the MCU, its heart was always Captain America, Jack Kirby's common man called up to fight Nazis.
Alan Moore is a brilliant man, but is also an irredeemable cynic. His most famous works - WATCHMEN and MIRACLEMAN - deal with the harms that superheroes could do to the psyche of ordinary people, but he gives no credit to the ordinary man for his ability to be inspired by heroic legends.
Moore has always been very worried about fascism, but tends to see it everywhere. He’s a truly amazing writer, but his politics have always been extremely reductive. Even when writing about morally grey situations, worlds and characters, Moore has always been black and white.
Superheroes are simply the modern equivalent of history’s tales of gods and monsters, stories that we’ve been telling ourselves for thousands of years.
Unfortunately, I think that he’s reached the “old man shouts at clouds” stage, allowing his bitterness about his well-publicised (and almost entirely self-inflicted) feuds with Marvel and DC to wash over his views of all comics. He’s admitted that he doesn’t read current comics and hasn’t for years. He doesn’t watch superhero movies either, yet somehow feels qualified to critique the genre as it is today.
Alan Moore revolutionised comics 40 years ago; let’s not forget that. But it was 40 years ago. The industry has moved on since then. Moore has not.
"Alan Moore is a brilliant man, but is also an irredeemable cynic."
"Moore has always been very worried about fascism, but tends to see it everywhere."
... can you blame him? is it not everywhere these days? It's certainly making inroads all over the globe.
As someone who also does not watch superhero films (for the most part), I'm curious - you say "he doesn't read current comics and hasn't for years." What is different about comics today? It's been a long time since I read them as well. I grew up on my uncle's Eisner "The Spirit" comics, and never really got into anything else hero-related.
I'm sure like any medium, the comic superhero genre has evolved, but I'm just curious how much a genre like that can evolve? I'm sure I'm being simple-minded about it, so I'd love any links to resources that might analyze this (if you know of any good ones).
Well, I agree with some of your points, but most superhero comics that I’ve read - the good ones - take a tone similar to James Gunn movies. Weird, wacky, and often really sad stuff about teams and found families. At least the ones I’ve read, and tend to seek out
sure, super heroes can be co-opted to support pretty much any political position, but i don’t think they’re innately fascist
that said, i do try to avoid “chosen one” narratives, where one special person swoops in and fixes all the problems – because i do worry about giving ourselves permission to be bystanders, rather than active participants, in forming our joint future
so, wherever possible, i try to make the victories (such as they are) the result of multiple individuals all working toward the same end – of course it doesn’t have the simplicity of The Hero’s Journey™, but then, neither do the times we live in
scrolled through the comments and was surprised that no one touched upon Moore's *V of Vendetta* – in which the superhero inspires the masses to rise up against fascism
What a question, I’ve not thought to ask this before! Hot take, but I have a secret soft spot for Snyder’s take on DC 🙈 I felt like it was ever so slightly a little bit less infantalizing/“black-and-white”.
The superhero genre has done the exact opposite. It gives people hope for a better tomorrow; free from the likes of *any* 'Lex Luthors' out there. Good will triumph over evil.
I mean, I'm not going to argue with Alan Moore, lol.
I do think superhero stuff can contribute to learned helplesness though; over and over we see a Special Person who just fixes things that regular people cannot deal with, and while that's true of alien invasions I think people have really taken that helplessness very much too literally.
The relationship between heroes and authoritarian regimes is complex. Authoritarian regimes have often used heroic figures in their propaganda to cultivate a sense of national unity and obedience to the regime. However, heroes can also be figures of resistance against authoritarian rule, symbolizing the fight for freedom and justice. The interpretation and use of heroic figures depend on the specific context and the ideology of the regime in question.
Yes, Captain America never struck me as Fascist—in fact, Steve Rogers's Captain America created the character of "Nomad" that he used when he felt the U.S. Government betrayed what he considered to be "American". While yes, there was a "Captain America" who was a Commie-hunter in the late 1940s, Marvel later retconned him into USAgent to highlight how toxic blind patriotism is (he's the character Wyatt Russell's playing in the Marvel movie THUNDERBOLTS, and no—he's NOT meant to be a hero, but some guy who needs to redeem himself).
I also remember Green Arrow literally shoving George H.W. Bush (while they never named him other than "Mr. President", we was drawn to explicitly look like Bush!) out of his chair and tossing the American flag on top of him because he was so disgusted at what the Bush Regime was pulling in...Latin America, I think? DC also has the character of Peacemaker, a hyperviolent satire of "'MURIKA!" who, in the HBO Max miniseries we discover was abused as a child by his jingoistic father.
Comic book heroes are content-neutral, and while they may show Right Wing tendencies when written by Right Wing writers like ZackSnyder! (or to a lesser extent Christopher Nolan), usually lean towards liberal and pluralistic agendas...which is what toxic comic fandom tends to hate, because THEIR power fantasies are too often Fascistic. They're the same kind of DudeBros who hate Science Fiction written by minorities, women, LGBTQ writers (the ones who desperately tried to get "the right kind" of Straight White Male Macho SF novels a Hugo, and failed consistently), and hate female videogamers.
If you want to crush Trans/Homophobic Fascism, you'd be better employed NOT going after popular culture and going after these kids' fucking parents, preachers and teachers who instill this hate in them long before comic books do instead. Well, except for J.K. Rowling, who really needs to learn to keep her opinions about transpersons to herself....
NO, it has NOT! Superheroes were created in part as enemies and opponents of fascism, and in their narratives they largely remain such still. Even if flawed, they represent a virtuous sort of behavior and sacrifice that is absent elsewhere in fiction and fact.
Their concern is not with fascism, but with freedom.
I do not think that superheroes are solely responsible for this. Maybe some installments in the genre, yes, but that more depends on the film itself. The comics tend to be much more varied and often depict saving the day as a team effort.
The ones that could encourage fascism are the ones aligned with the American obsession with a singular "great man" who saves the day. Iron Man being the smartest man in the room and Captain America being the one to singlehandedly win World War II, or the Avengers going to various countries to beat people up isn't inherent to superhero comics but to a lot of Western genre films. It isn't any different from James Bond going to various beautiful landmarks to extrajudicially murder people, or all the times Arnold Schwarzenegger has thrown an unarmed man to his doom while making a cheesy quip, or the times Detective Clint Eastwood has ignored due process to go murder some people.
It's even how we mythologize history. In the US, there's always one man responsible for change. In my classes up to high school, we always learned that Abraham Lincoln was single-handedly responsible for ending slavery. No mention of all the work put in by others or anyone who helped him. And now, the narrative about technology for laymen such as myself is that Steve Jobs was a super-genius who invented cell phones and iPads without mentioning the teams of people who did it. It's just a weird focal point of US culture and makes us susceptible to the idea of one-man juggernauts who will change everything.
Yes, but more a reflective metaphor than source/force.
Heroes & villans
Superpowers/eugenic "survival of the fittest" themes
Vigilantism/private armies
Billionaire saviors
Violence/domination as cure
Though the phenomena has become more diverse and nuanced in the past 20 years. Some of it is being used to criticize and illuminate the trend. Subversion finds a way.
Superheroes are an effect as much as a cause--just another mirror-facet of our civilization's guiding principles of superiority, force, and domination. The pursuit of power is the through line. Those whose awkward and isolated childhoods were immersed in superhero myth who then attained positions of power in adulthood within media and tech are the ones on the front line pushing their childhood dreamworld sanctuaries into reality.
It's a problem. We are in trouble. We need new stories of what it means to be alive.
Traditionally, I seem to remember the solitary superhero generally always fought fascism, but in a modern context, it appears that ties them to the whole "I, alone, can fix it" mentality. I'm not surprised people look to people rather than the collective government to solve problems.
I do think it's at least partially because government has failed to solve so many issues. That's not because government is inept, it's because government has been corrupted by special interests - the oligarchy.
I think in the coming years, if we don't all collapse as a society due to income inequality and/or climate instability, we will see a movement like we did with the robber barons. I just wonder if they haven't collected enough power to make any pushback impossible.
I'm not sure if it's because of the more simplistic storylines, but I never cared for superhero films. I tried with the "Guardians of the Galaxy" because people said it was "one of the best" of the Marvel universe, and the most accessible. I just didn't get it, I guess. The villain at the end gets distracted by the protagonist dancing? Yeah, just not for me. Then it was suggested I should watch the Captain America films and the first Ironman. I have so many films and TV shows to get to, I just haven't given them a chance yet. I love Robert Downey Jr. in just about anything (just re-watched Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang for the first time in years and fell in love with him all over again), so maybe I'll try that one first.
That said, I did love the first Wonder Woman film (not sure why), and I love The Boys. I find it kind of telling that it wasn't until this last season that the most toxic fans of that show realized their hero was the villain. Really?
I think that's a fair point, but the notion that superheroes were created as enemies and opponents of fascism isn't strictly correct; they weren't created for anything in particular, they developed gradually as an internalised aspiration for adolescents to combat bullying and marginalisation. The simple-minded depiction of the powerful individual who is somehow morally incorruptible, grew hand in hand with a simple-minded depiction of evil, (helped by the onset of war) until they became the yin to syndicated cartoon evil's yang. Total nonsense of course; they oversimplify the polarisation, but where you may have a point is precisely in that facile identification of evil... and the subsequent conclusion-jumping that seems to go on (and be encouraged) about what exactly IS evil - because that has turned cultures against themselves...
Yes. Partly. Maybe. When you see authoritarian “fan art” of their leader dressed as a super hero or a god (or with god), you have to wonder.
I love the Magus, but I think the superhero is too big an archetype to be reduced to any single idea. It's a Rorschach test of sorts: you see in it either your fears or your hopes. For Moore, deeply disturbed by Thatcher's Britain, superheroes portend fascist fantasies. For Grant Morrison, they present an idea that can save us from our fears (as in the nuclear apocalypse he feared as a kid; read his Supergods book for more). For the Jungian psychologist James Hillman, superheroic figures like Hercules represent the archetype of the Ego, which can run roughshod over the rest of the Psyche and its unconscious contents that need equal expression. Me? I think the recent popularity of superhero movies -- besides being a series of just really good cinematic yarns -- speaks not so much to power fantasies as to fantasies about agency: the power to actually do anything at all in a neoliberal society. Although tech-overlord Tony Stark is the spark that lit the MCU, its heart was always Captain America, Jack Kirby's common man called up to fight Nazis.
Alan Moore is a brilliant man, but is also an irredeemable cynic. His most famous works - WATCHMEN and MIRACLEMAN - deal with the harms that superheroes could do to the psyche of ordinary people, but he gives no credit to the ordinary man for his ability to be inspired by heroic legends.
Moore has always been very worried about fascism, but tends to see it everywhere. He’s a truly amazing writer, but his politics have always been extremely reductive. Even when writing about morally grey situations, worlds and characters, Moore has always been black and white.
Superheroes are simply the modern equivalent of history’s tales of gods and monsters, stories that we’ve been telling ourselves for thousands of years.
Unfortunately, I think that he’s reached the “old man shouts at clouds” stage, allowing his bitterness about his well-publicised (and almost entirely self-inflicted) feuds with Marvel and DC to wash over his views of all comics. He’s admitted that he doesn’t read current comics and hasn’t for years. He doesn’t watch superhero movies either, yet somehow feels qualified to critique the genre as it is today.
Alan Moore revolutionised comics 40 years ago; let’s not forget that. But it was 40 years ago. The industry has moved on since then. Moore has not.
"Alan Moore is a brilliant man, but is also an irredeemable cynic."
"Moore has always been very worried about fascism, but tends to see it everywhere."
... can you blame him? is it not everywhere these days? It's certainly making inroads all over the globe.
As someone who also does not watch superhero films (for the most part), I'm curious - you say "he doesn't read current comics and hasn't for years." What is different about comics today? It's been a long time since I read them as well. I grew up on my uncle's Eisner "The Spirit" comics, and never really got into anything else hero-related.
I'm sure like any medium, the comic superhero genre has evolved, but I'm just curious how much a genre like that can evolve? I'm sure I'm being simple-minded about it, so I'd love any links to resources that might analyze this (if you know of any good ones).
Cheers.
Well, I agree with some of your points, but most superhero comics that I’ve read - the good ones - take a tone similar to James Gunn movies. Weird, wacky, and often really sad stuff about teams and found families. At least the ones I’ve read, and tend to seek out
sure, super heroes can be co-opted to support pretty much any political position, but i don’t think they’re innately fascist
that said, i do try to avoid “chosen one” narratives, where one special person swoops in and fixes all the problems – because i do worry about giving ourselves permission to be bystanders, rather than active participants, in forming our joint future
so, wherever possible, i try to make the victories (such as they are) the result of multiple individuals all working toward the same end – of course it doesn’t have the simplicity of The Hero’s Journey™, but then, neither do the times we live in
scrolled through the comments and was surprised that no one touched upon Moore's *V of Vendetta* – in which the superhero inspires the masses to rise up against fascism
The over-simplification of evil into a boolean state has addled America from recognizing the complex threats we face in the modern age.
What a question, I’ve not thought to ask this before! Hot take, but I have a secret soft spot for Snyder’s take on DC 🙈 I felt like it was ever so slightly a little bit less infantalizing/“black-and-white”.
The superhero genre has done the exact opposite. It gives people hope for a better tomorrow; free from the likes of *any* 'Lex Luthors' out there. Good will triumph over evil.
I mean, I'm not going to argue with Alan Moore, lol.
I do think superhero stuff can contribute to learned helplesness though; over and over we see a Special Person who just fixes things that regular people cannot deal with, and while that's true of alien invasions I think people have really taken that helplessness very much too literally.