"Moral Economy" and the Contemporary American Superhero: Analyzing the Summer Blockbuster :: Robert Peaslee

To use a classic cinematic example, imagine the scene in the original Superman (1978). Lois Lane, played by Margot Kidder, is plummeting several stories toward the Metropolis streets. Meanwhile, a number of ubiquitous "innocent bystanders" find themselves in an equally dire situation. Superman (Christopher Reeve) must decide who he will save - the woman he loves, or the people to whom he has dedicated his extraordinary power. It is a choice faced by nearly every superhero, one often enacted intentionally by the scheming villain. In many examples of this film genre, it is the ultimate moment of reckoning for the hero.

This paper uses the concept of a “moral economy,” as established by E.P. Thompson (1971), to understand the construction, maintenance, and evolution of the moral character of contemporary American superheroes. Through textual analysis which borrows from the field of computer programming theory known as belief-desire-intention (BDI) architectures, the investigation charts the decisions made by superheroes in three films from the summer blockbuster season of 2004 – Spider-Man 2, Hellboy, and Catwoman – to determine to what degree, if any, the cinematic superhero represents a subversion of dominant, codified law and a return to, in Thompson’s phrase, a “legitimizing notion” of “traditional rights and customs” (78). The paper will examine trends which may shed light not only on the moral nature of the contemporary American superhero, but, since these heroes are crafted according to perceived consumer demand, the nature of morality in the eyes of the American cinema audience.

Integral to this paper will be Thompson’s understanding of the concept of a moral economy as put forth in his description and analysis of the behavior of 18th century English crowds during food shortages. In Thompson's view, rather than animalistic responses to extreme need, the decisions made by those who participated in these insurrections were made according to "a consistent traditional view of social norms and obligations, of the proper economic functions of several parties within the community, which, taken together, can be said to constitute the moral economy of the poor" (79). Looked at in this way, the ambiguous actions of the English "crowd" continue to be of great importance in the analysis of contemporary "social norms and obligations," especially when one questions how these norms and traditions might be shared, at least in part, through media texts.

At the center of this study, then, will be the moral economy not of the poor, but of the archetypal characters which form a crucial part of American cinematic entertainment. The study will engage with other thinkers who have taken on the concept so masterfully introduced by Thompson. From there, the study will look at previous scholarship concerning the cinematic superhero and will culminate in an exploration of the moral economy(ies) in play in the aforementioned specific examples of contemporary American media. Through textual analysis, my paper will investigate the ways in which traditional power relations are either countervailed or reinforced through appeals to a moral economy. The nature of these codes will be dissected in such a way as to explore the subconscious assumptions that may be behind their construction.

Bio Note :: Doctoral Student, School of Journalism and Mass Communications University of Colorado, Boulder
Email :: robert.peaslee@colorado.edu

Men of Muscle Mystery: Superhero Slugfests versus Postmodern Angst! :: Martyn Pedler

It is telling that superhero slugfests were once interrupted for popular ads that promised to "Make A Man Out Of Mac" with Atlas bodybuilding. This paper will to explore the surreal site of the superhero body in all of power, anxiety, and status as ultimate source of authority. As depicted in titles written by comics auteur Grant Morrison - Doom Patrol, New X-Men, and the Justice League of America - can even all this musclemass compete with the postmodernism of comic book science?

The long-standing tradition that only a superhero fight scene is capable of resolving any kind of conflict means that becoming as a 'man of steel' is the only guaranteed source of narrative agency. These bodies are bullet-proof, impossible, and constantly on display in costumes that are, after all, more than just spandex. They act as 'containment suits' that bind tight concerns of mutant bodies as they stretch, burst into flames, or turn to pure energy. and must be monitored closely for potential betrayal.

Once the science-fiction staples of parallel worlds, antimatter twins, and alternate realities intersects with postmodern notions of reality and identity, however, it produces a seemingly unstoppable foe. What good is being able to lift a jet-liner over your head against the terrible threat of ontological shock? In the hands of Morrison, these heroes are trapped in their own imaginary worlds, find fictional storybooks supplanting their reality, and best of all - the Brotherhood of Evil renaming themselves the Brotherhood of Dada.

These threats can't be defeated with a solid left hook. Thrust into all kinds of hallucinatory and metafictional worlds, everyman hero Cliff 'Robotman' Steele demands: "I just want to know.is this real or isn't it?" When it's impossible to tell, he wishes for a simpler time when he knew exactly what to hit. If whole issues can be spent inside the heads of these heroes, while their bodies lie dormant - if there are multiple spaces, dimensions, and meanings, all equally 'real' - then these men are made heroically. impotent.

The body reasserts itself, however, through typically fantastic means. Watch as pure physical prowess begins to take on conceptual effects! Run fast enough and pass between dimensions, or witness Superman actually "punch through time." And if whole new paraspaces exist outside of the physical, their dangers can be battled by the way the visual language of comic books translates everything into action - allowing the heroes to literally wrestle their personal demons.

This paper would be structured as a helpful guide to avoiding the heroic pitfalls of postmodern angst, with an eye for comic book's unique, fantastic and bizarre conventions. We would end where we began, using Grant Morrison's ultimate superhero creation, Flex Mentallo, as example. Here the physicality of the bodybuilding tradition reaches its heroic (and ironic) peak as the star of those old "Man Out Of Mac!" Atlas ads in the back of comic books is reappropriated to grow up into the 'Hero of the Beach'. who, by simply striking a muscle-pose, he can magically transform the world around him.



Bio Note :: Martyn Pedler is a Fitzroy writer of all kinds of pop- and pulp- fiction. He completed his Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Melbourne with a novella about how disappointed we all were when the world failed to end on New Year’s Eve 1999. His fairly terrifying comic book collection is stored safely in long, white boxes under his bed, and no, you can’t touch them.

Email :: makingbombs@pacific.net.au

How Real is the Supervillain? A Lacanian Look at the Symbolic Nature of Evil :: Erma Petrova

Using Lacan's basic notions of the Imaginary, Symbolic, and Real, we can analyze the dynamics between superhero and supervillain, to find out not only how their roles are structured relative to each other, but also why the superhero always defeats the supervillain. The villain (the "other") can exist only in the Symbolic realm, whereas the hero (us, or the self) exists both in the Real and as a symbolic projection (projected as a superhero). The villain is always evil because he or she threatens the hero in a way that is precisely inverse to the beliefs that the hero is projected as upholding. Therefore the threat is always only symbolic, and the conflict represents not a true discourse with the other, but a tension within the projecting subject itself. In the realm of the Real, we remain unthreatened, autonomous, and sovereign to ourselves, since we only know our own ontological reality, and no one else's. We allow ourselves to be threatened only in the Symbolic, where the balance of power depends on our own preferences, and making the villain a supervillain only means that we give ourselves more credit in defeating him-we become superheroes. But supervillains do not exist in the Real, and that is why they are necessary-we compensate for the lack of "other" in the Real (as far as we are concerned, it's just us who exist for real) by magnifying the threat of the other in the Symbolic (positing a supervillain). Ultimately, however, the superhero must defeat the supervillain, which means that the Real (in which, from our point of view, we are grounded) is stronger than the Symbolic (the Symbolic being all the reality we are prepared to give the villain). The two "sides" do not exist equally in the Symbolic, but are split between the Symbolic (villain) and the Real (hero), so that the villain can be either real or evil, but not both, and the Real is seen to win over a Symbolic of its own creation.

Bio Note :: Department of English, University of Ottawa
Email :: e_petrova@hotmail.com

God Mode On - Digital Killing Fields and the Unheimlich Architecture of FPS and Adventure Games :: Sean Pickersgill

Every now and then Superman feels a need to be alone with his memories, and he flies off to an inaccessible mountain range where, in the heart of the rock, protected by a huge steel door, is the Fortress of Solitude. Here Superman keeps his robots, completely faithful copies of himself, miracles of technology, which from time to time he sends out into the world to fulfill a pardonable desire for ubiquity. And the robots are incredible, because their resemblance to reality is absolute; they are not mechanical men, all cogs and beeps, but perfect ‘copies’ of human beings, with skin, voice, movements, and the ability to make decisions. For Superman the fortress is a museum of memories: Everything that has happened in his adventurous life is recorded here in perfect copies or preserved in miniatuarized form of the original. Thus he keeps the city of Kandor, a survival from the destruction of the planet Krypton, under a glass bell of the sort familiar from your great-aunt’s Victorian parlour. Here, on a reduced scale, are Kandor’s buildings, highways, men and women. Superman’s scrupulousness in preserving all mementoes of his past recalls thos eprivate museums, or Wunderkammern, so frequent in German baroque civilization, which originated in the treasure chambers of medieval lords and perhaps, before that, with Roman and Hellenistic collections. Umberto Eco, Travels in Hyperreality, pp.4-5

The place for architecture is the site where technology may be cracked open by the imagination. These may be the marginal and liminal spaces in our post-industrial culture, places where humanity may become aware of its capacity for true understanding in the dark and silent space of metaphor, yet also spaces within technology, revealing the actual presence of mortality, the immanence of Being. Alberto Pérez-Gómez & Louise Pelletier, Architectural Representation and the Perspective Hinge, MIT Press, Cambridge Mass., p.395.

Beyond the proscenium of the monitor, there exists within the PC game universe a vast array of virtual cities, suburbs, castles, research facilities, villages, factories, apartments and the like. These places simultaneously structure game-play and are reflective of the ludic aspects of the experience. The player, uniquely in first person games, has the task of exploring their relationship to the environment, recognising its beneficial and hostile qualities. The claustrophobia inherent in FPS games relies upon the relationship between complex architectural environments and the potential for these places to be the home to pathologically hostile entities. The player is constantly in a state of jeopardy, leaving (a) home to enter a built environment that both houses information necessary for the redemptive tasks set the player and the prospect of an untimely death in attempting this quest. Game environments are singularly different from both print and film worlds as their properties are immediately sensuous and synchronic with the player.

These environments reflect a number of aspects of the game universe, from the technical fashion in which game levels are designed and created with 3D editing software, to issues of file-size economy for online-play and video performance, to theoretical issues regarding the role of dystopic universes in popular culture and the ontology of experiencing the digital. A key aspect of this is the architecture. The game-player interacts with their environment in a manner that hybridizes both the detective and the super-hero genres –they become coeval with their knowledge of the city (or research facility, etc - though all game environments are metaphorically urban and constructed) without transcending it to some other place. There is no opportunity to escape from the bell-jar Superman keeps over Kandor, no opportunity to investigate the pre-condition of the simulacra since the game environment is without an ‘ouside’ condition, physically or philosophically. This paper will investigate the narrative and ludic strategies involved in creating a digital game environment and the consequences for re-theorizing the convergence of critical architectural and game studies.

Bio Note::

Sean Pickersgill teaches design, history and theory and digital design at the Louis Laybourne Smith School of Architecture and Design, University of South Australia. He has also taught and researched at the University of Western Australia, Curtin University and Kasetsart University, Thailand. He has published widely on theoretical issues in architectural historiography, and is currently indulging an obsession with games and film by introducing this content into architectural design studies. Sean is currently completing a PhD by artefact and thesis within the School of Architecture at RMIT.

Email:: sean.pickersgill@unisa.edu.au

Recruiting an Amazon :: Clare Pitkethly

This paper will explore how the figure of the Amazon has been represented as both an oppositional figure and an ally in relation to the dominant patriarchal culture, over time. Whereas once the Amazon was an opponent, she has become an ally.

The role of the Amazon has been redefined over time. Originally the defeated opponents of the Athenians, in the romantic literature of the English renaissance, Amazons gained entry into the culture of their former opponents through marriage. In Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Theseus, a former opponent of the Amazons, marries, and consequently assimilates, Hippolyte the Amazon Queen. In the comic series Wonder Woman, Hippolyta sacrifices her life in defense of Athens , as her daughter, Wonder Woman, joins the world of men in the battle for justice.

In the Iliad, the Amazon was introduced as an opposing force, to be defeated, and was identified as "the equal of man". As an ally, Wonder Woman, the Amazon Princess, has become a more powerful force. She is not just the equal of man, but the equal of Superman, as she fights "the battle against tyranny", alongside the world's greatest superheroes in The Justice League of America .

While the Amazon Princess retains original enemies including Heracles, in the comic book series Wonder Woman, she has discovered new enemies and joins America in the fight against communist China and Nazi Germany. While, Wonder Woman, the Amazon Princess, has been recruited by the dominant culture to fight America 's ideological battles, the figure of the Amazon has also been recruited by non-dominant cultures including feminists, lesbians and bodybuilders, in order to legitimate different ideologies.

Despite fighting America 's battles, Wonder Woman does not, however, completely assimilate into American society. Rather, she merges American and Amazonian culture by creating her own army of "one hundred beautiful, athletic" American college girls dressed in red shorts and white sweaters, the Holliday girls.

While, it has been argued that the Amazons existed only to be defeated by the Greeks, Wonder Woman, the Amazon Princess, illustrates that 'if you can't beat them, join them.'



Bio Note :: I am a PhD media studies candidate with Dr Susan Turnbull as my Supervisor. My research topic is "Reinventing the Amazon". In this paper I will focus on Wonder Woman, the Amazon Princess, in the comic book series Wonder Woman, and explore the Amazon's transition from opponent to ally.

Email :: pitk@alphalink.com.au

Whose Queer Hero? –An intertexual reading of Doctor Who, Queer as Folk and Russell T Davies :: Patrick Porter

This paper explores the relationships forged between Doctor Who and Queer as Folk by one significant figure: Russell T Davies. The creator of QAF, and the producer of the new series of Doctor Who, Davies’ is already an important figure for many Who fans. For queer Who fans in particular, Davies is already a figure of renown, having previously penned a queer themed novel in Virgin Books’ Doctor Who New Adventures series, entitled Damaged Goods.

Davies’ original British production of Queer as Folk also had as its central character a queer Doctor Who fan. The subject of Doctor Who plays a small but important role in the emotional climax of QAFs first season. These queer Doctor Who moments and their sibling Who Queer as Folk moments trace a series of linked intertextual bonds. These bonds resonate for many Doctor Who fans who have often expressed an affinity between their sexuality and the series – that is, there’s something queer about the show.

Through an examination of various fan-based, academic and ‘official’ interpretations this paper asks why the links between these shows are important. It also poses the following questions:

  • Can Doctor Who be described as a text that is ‘open’ to a queer reading?
  • In the mutation of Queer as Folk to a North American production, how does the replacement of Doctor Who’s by a generic Comic Book fandom alter our understanding of the central character’s queerness and/or fandom?
  • Is it enough that Davies is now producing Doctor Who? – will this actually change anything?
  • And finally – do Doctor Who fans really need a queer hero, either living (in the form of Davies) or fictional?

Bio Note :: Patrick Porter is a postgraduate student in Cinema at the Univerity of Melbourne where he also teaches. He is writing a Masters Thesis on retrospection, anticipation and the cult following of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. He is happy to admit he loves Doctor Who, and especially those episodes featuring cardboard monsters and wobbly sets.

Email:: p.porter@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au

Harry Potter and Oedipus: Marked Men with Strong Characters :: Babette Pütz

This paper examines the similarities of Harry Potter and Oedipus. Oracles exist about both, which have life-long consequences, starting in infancy: Harry survives Voldemort's attack and receives a scar which marks him out and makes him famous. Oedipus is left to die, yet survives, his feet are scarred from piercing (O.R. 717-719), and through marriage to Jocasta he gains the pre-eminent position of king. Each hero is brought to foster parents by a rustic character who re-appears at a decisive point in his life: Hagrid guides Harry re-entering the wizarding world (vol. 1) and a shepherd helps reveal Oedipus' true identity (O.R. 1022-1030).

Both heroes victoriously meet their enemies again after their survival as infants. Harry keeps encountering Voldemort; Oedipus overcomes his father at the crossroads. Moreover, both have a certain connection with their opponents. Voldemort has unwittingly transferred some powers to Harry and can show him visions. Oedipus marries Laius' wife and takes his position.

Both heroes face dilemmas regarding death, as determined by the oracles. Harry must kill or be murdered by Voldemort (vol. 5). (Since the final two volumes in the series are not yet published, it is unclear, how the oracle will be fulfilled.) Oedipus tries to avoid killing his father and murders him unwittingly (O.R. 800-813). Here the theme of love is important for both heroes: Oedipus leaves Corinth to avoid killing those he loves (O.R. 794-797). It is explicitly pointed out that Harry's capacity for love makes him different from the murderer Voldemort (vol. 5). Furthermore, he is protected through his mother's love (vol. 1). Out of this care for others, both feel compelled to help people. Harry rushes to Sirius' help whom he believes to be in danger (vol. 5). Oedipus is clearly concerned about his people (O.R. 1-8, 93-94). Sometimes these good intentions backfire: Harry goes into Voldemort's trap (vol. 5); Oedipus feels he has to exile himself (O.R. 1518).

It takes Oedipus until the end of O.R. to find out whom he has killed (O.R. 1182-1185). Similarly, Harry fails to recognise certain characters' true dentities until the very end of the books, being too trusting or distrustful, just as Oedipus unfairly distrusts Creon (O.R. 387, 532-576).

Both heroes tend to take the initiative: Harry enquires about everything unusual; Oedipus has already sent Creon to the oracle before he addresses the people (O.R. 69-72). Both are intelligent but tend to endanger themselves through their inquisitiveness. Harry is frequently called brave; Oedipus also shows bravery in his readiness to face the truth about himself (O.R. 1065). Both also have an insecure side. Harry is e.g. worried he may not fit in at Hogwarts (vol. 1), while Oedipus fears treason (O.R. 139-140, 378). Finally, both display rashness and a temper. Harry generally takes many risks and e.g. yells at dangerous Professor Umbridge (vol. 5). Oedipus kills his father out of temper and acts rashly when scolding Teiresias (O.R. 807, 354-446). These similarities with Oedipus help one understand better Harry Potter's side as a tragic hero: a marked man, who signifies hope, but is not flaw-less and suffers.


Bio Note :: Babette Pütz is in the Department of Classics, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand
Email :: babette_puetz@yahoo.com
I Outwit Your Outwit: Heroclix, Fans, and the Politics of the Collectible Superhero Tabletop Combat Game :: Michael G. Robinson

This cultural analysis describes and explores the Heroclix phenomenon.  The Wizkids company, through its three tabletop combat game variations (Marvel Heroclix, DC Heroclix, and Indy Heroclix), has brought a new source of needed revenue to comic book stores and another collectible hobby to fans of superhero comics.  Players purchase booster packs, random assortments of plastic figures molded after licensed superhero characters.  Through a system of rules, combat dials on the base of each figure allow superhero fans to construct and then pit teams of superheroes and supervillains in battle in a structured tournament.  The unified rule system attempts to simulate the superpowers used by those characters in comic books (such as super strength, invulnerability, and outwit).  Players of the Heroclix system often find themselves negotiating between two modes, competitive and thematic play. 

By varying the frequency with which figures are randomly available in normal purchase and by offering special limited edition prizes, Wizkids stimulates a collector's market, what John Fiske has called a shadow economy.  This encourages players to develop highly competitive teams of figures that will maximize a player's ability to win the rare figures. Since the root of the popularity of the Heroclix system stems from players' own superhero fandom, there is also a competing mode in which players attempt to play thematically.  In this mode, players develop teams of characters that represent particular moments from comic book stories or utilize their favorite characters in creative ways.  John Tulloch has characterized fans as a powerless elite.  However, in the thematic mode of play, players are granted some control over the characters that they have only been able to read in the past.  Since the rules for all three variations are the same, players are also given the additional pleasure of mixing together their favorite superhero characters from different companies.  Some players have even taken the additional step of developing their own figures.  Textual poachers in the truest sense of the term developed by Henry Jenkins, players construct these "repaints" by disassembling or remodeling existing figures and matching them to existing combat dials that their own sense of fandom deems appropriate.


Bio Note :: Michael G. Robinson is an assistant professor of Communication Studies at Lynchburg College, Bowling Green State University. Mike received his PhD in American Culture Studies from Bowling Green State University in 2000. He enjoys teaching and studying many aspects of popular culture-- particularly media criticism, media history, genre, and audience studies. In the spring of 2004 he taught a special topics class called "The Superhero: Genre, Media, and American Culture." His research has been published in Studies in Popular Culture and Popular Music & Society. If you're reading this on a Wednesday, then chances are right now he's reading a big stack of comic books.

Email :: robinson.m@lynchburg.edu

“A Different Sort of Time” - Time of the Human and Superhuman in Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon’s Watchmen :: Mark Rosenthal

For the most part humans conceive of time as a function of space, or tied to a centre. For Deleuze and Guattari this temporal rhythm, Chronos, responds to the utilitarian demands of a situated human consciousness for regularity, predictability and order. As essential as this time is - individuated life would be impossible without it - Chronos occludes another time, an impersonal, inhuman time; time unhinged. This is the time of the event, the pursuit of which is an essentially ethical project, because in its pure state time is revolutionary and creative, going beyond the given, gesturing towards a people who do not yet exist.

In this paper I will argue that Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon’s seminal graphic novel, Watchmen (1987) is more than a revisionist superhero comic; it is an attempt to become worthy of the event. To this end, Moore and Gibbons do not simply engage in an ideological or thematic critique of the genre, content to parody its conventions, expose its clichés, and denounce its violence, all of which are sensory-motor (concerned with the extrinsic orientation of bodies in space). I will argue that for Moore and Gibbons, as long as our conception of the superhuman remains sensory-motor, the genre’s aspiration to go beyond the human is doomed because the problem is not a question of space, but of time. What is more, trapped within the time of the human, the quest for the superhuman is destined to end in violence and death. I will conclude by suggesting that Watchmen affirms the creative and generative powers of time, and Life, by enacting rather than simply depicting their critique and making visible a little bit of time in its pure state.

Bio Note :: Department of Criminology, University of Melbourne.

Email :: Rosenthal.mark.a@edumail.vic.gov.au

The Mild -mannered Reporter: How Clark Kent Surpassed Superman :: Vanessa Russell

Superheroes thrive in times of war. Superheroes spectacularly fight the supervillains created by war propaganda, where ambiguity is put aside as nations are categorised as good or evil. During World War II, superheroes such as Superman and Captain America were used as morale boosters for both troops and civilians, but their participation in the war involved an intricate balance between intervention and diversion.

In 1941, Superman was humiliated: Captain America had slugged Hitler in the face while Superman was stuck throwing punches at ambiguously-labelled warplanes and saving civilians from dictators in fictional European countries. Superman's publisher, DC Comics, was hesitant to overtly enlist their star superhero in a war that America was not yet involved in.

In December 1941, Pearl Harbor was bombed and America was at war. Superman came under increasing pressure to enlist and fight with Allied soldiers in Europe and Japan . But Superman could not go to war: his instant victory would undermine the nation and its troops, not to mention his own credibility. Clark Kent was made to take the blame and was declared 4-F, unfit for service, so that Superman could be spared further embarrassment.

When World War II ended, superhero comics sales took a sharp downturn because of the lack of a clear enemy. Captain America ailed until he was eventually euthanised in 1957, while Superman was given extra powers that made him near-invincible. It was not enough to protect comic sales.

By the late 1960s, a Vietnam-era America was changing. Alternative comix denied the need for superheroes and placed the individual at their centre. Autobiographical comics focused on observing and reporting the world and its effects upon the individual and society.

In 1986, Art Spiegelman published Maus I: A Survivor's Tale in which he drew himself as Artie, a mouse-cartoonist, who interviewed his Holocaust survivor father and recorded the difficulties of their relationship. Spiegelman disguised himself and his father in mice masks that allowed Spiegelman the freedom to take on a persona-a (not-so) secret identity-to explore the effects of the Holocaust.

Joe Sacco first published Palestine in 1993 after spending two months in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank interviewing Palestinians about their experiences under Israeli occupation. A qualified journalist, Sacco then returned home and transcribed his interviews into comic books and included himself as a comic-book character caught in the act of interviewing. A new term, comics journalism, was coined and it seemed that the reversal of comic-book authority from Superman to Clark Kent was complete.

With the rise of the reporter as both subject and object in comic books, the superheroes' stranglehold over comic-book subjects has been broken. The surpassing of Superman by Clark Kent has enabled both Spiegelman and Sacco to use their comic books to record the extraordinary and ordinary effects of life under war.

Bio Note :: Vanessa Russell is studying towards a Ph.D in the Department of English with Cultural Studies at the University of Melbourne. Her research interests range from the comic books of Joe Sacco, Chris Ware and Art Spiegelman to literary deconversion narratives.

Email :: v.russell@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au