Superhero Films Research Articles

Teaching quantum mechanics using Ant–Man

Abstract The integration of popular culture, particularly superhero films, into physics education has gained traction as a means to enhance student engagement and comprehension. In this paper, we present a pedagogical approach aimed at introducing quantum mechanics concepts to high school students using the superhero paradigm, focusing on Ant–Man. Our approach addresses the lack of resources utilizing quantum physics in superhero films by outlining a sequence of activities centred around the Uncertainty Principle, position, momentum, superposition of states, and the Planck scale. Through a series of classroom activities, students were encouraged to reflect on quantum mechanical concepts, propose solutions to fictional scenarios inspired by superhero narratives, and apply their understanding to new problem–solving situations. Analysis of student responses indicates that the activities effectively stimulated introductory discussions and curiosity about quantum mechanics, suggesting potential for further exploration and adaptation in physics education.

Through superheroes, America spreading religious propaganda

This article explores the role of propaganda in shaping religious narratives through the lens of superhero films. Propaganda's ability to frame narratives and influence how individuals interpret historical events is crucial in determining whether an event or history is perceived as good or bad. By selectively highlighting aspects that serve specific agendas, propaganda integrates its messages into our daily lives almost unnoticed. Various mediums, particularly film, serve as effective tools for disseminating propaganda, with superhero films like "Captain America: The First Avenger" (2011) exemplifying how entertainment intertwines with ideological messages. These films offer heroic narratives that entertain audiences while subtly promoting underlying agendas that reflect nationalistic or religious values. The study emphasizes the need for critical engagement with media beyond entertainment, recognizing that films are not just escapism but convey influential ideologies needing scrutiny. By examining the intersection of propaganda and superhero narratives, this article aims to enhance understanding of how media influences our perceptions of history and religion, encouraging a more critical approach to interpreting these narratives.

Moral Disengagements on Iconography of Superhero Films: Black Adam, Captain America: The First Avenger, and Man of Steel

Moral Disengagements on Iconography of Superhero Films: Black Adam, Captain America: The First Avenger, and Man of Steel

Superhero Films’ Impacts on Prosocial Behavior: The Mediating Role of State-Empathy and Violence Justification

The present research aimed to observe superhero films’ impacts on prosocial behavior, mediated by state-empathy (cognitive, affective and associative empathy) and moral justification. To achieve this goal, two online experiments were conducted, each with 200 Brazilian volunteers (Study 1: 70.5% women, mean age = 28.82, SD = 9.22. Study 2: 52.5% men, mean age = 27.63, SD = 9.25). We used a scene from Batman v Superman as the stimulus in the experimental groups. Prosocial behavior was measured using a food allocation task. Data from both studies showed that even when featuring violent elements, superhero films positively impacted prosocial behavior. These effects were indirect, mediated by associative empathy in Study 1 and moral justification in Study 2. Results highlight the complex relationship between prosocial violent media (aggressive content with prosocial goals) and behavior. We also emphasize the research’s novelty, as studies that investigate media content that is both negative and positive are still scarce.

Portrayals of the Shero: a critical discourse analysis on the representation of Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel

ABSTRACT Superhero films are currently the most commercially successful action films. They long relied on classical gender role divisions, representing physically strong male heroes. However, especially films published in the second decade of the 21st century have also shown women in more active roles. Wonder Woman (2017) and Captain Marvel (2019) were the first superhero films in which superheroines saved the world as protagonists. In this paper, I apply critical discourse analysis to investigate the contemporary film representations of Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel. My results suggest that both films depict female empowerment and address their superheroines’ struggles in rejecting women’s social roles and focusing on the pursuit of activities traditionally perceived as masculine. Both films also emphasize their superheroines’ womanhood; however, they represent these characters differently. Wonder Woman strongly emphasizes its superheroine’s feminine traits and shows her engaging in a heterosexual romantic relationship. Conversely, Captain Marvel depicts an obstinate woman whose psychological strength derives from her perseverance and support from a close female friend. I discuss my results with reference to the contemporary feminist movements postfeminism, neoliberal feminism and popular feminism.

The Reimagining of The Western-Centric Savior Myth As A Superhero: The Use Of Masks In The Dark Knight Film

Masks have been used throughout human history as objects with significant symbolic value, despite their simple materials such as fabric or wood. Masks have the ability to convey meanings beyond what is visible, allowing the wearer to assume a second identity represented by the mask, which can be independent from their own human identity and even drastically different. In ancient cultures, masks emerged in ritualistic practices in the form of animal figures, serving a similar purpose. In more recent times, mask usage appeared in theater and later in cinema, particularly in genres like horror, where masks are commonly employed. However, the most prevalent use of masks is found in superhero films, where each superhero wears a mask that is attributed with unique powers, symbolizing a certain authority and superiority. This study examines the use of masks as a means of expression, focusing on the superhero film The Dark Knight (2008), using a mixed methodology approach. As evident from the article, the film features three primary masks: Batman's mask representing global power and authority employed by capitalism, Joker's mask representing chaos and anarchy, and Dent's mask symbolizing the ordinary human. While the first two mask uses are elevated in the film's language, the utilization of the mask representing the human face is portrayed as insignificant. Consequently, the film implies that to be accepted as a savior, one must transcend their humanity and assume a transhuman form.

CHALLENGING CONVENTIONAL HEROISM: REDEFINING HEROISM THROUGH THE REPRESENTATION OF DISABLED SUPERHEROES IN DAREDEVIL AND X-MEN

Disability representation in films is often viewed as a means of inspiring and evoking emotions from able-bodied audiences. Disability activists have long challenged these ableist norms and called for greater recognition of the diversity of human experience. The representation of characters like Matt Murdock and Charles Xavier from the American superhero films Daredevil (2003) directed by Mark Steven Johnson and X-Men (2000) by Bryan Singer has evolved to offer audiences more thought-provoking narratives that transcend simplistic notions of good versus evil. By portraying Matt and Charles Xavier as disabled superheroes, these stories challenge traditional conventions of heroism. This study analyzes how Matt and Charles Xavier disrupt the perception of heroism, particularly in the science fiction genre, thereby examining how their representation emphasises that disability does not hinder heroism or the ability to make a difference. This study combines the fields of disability studies and science fiction to challenge and showcase how the science fiction world is an inviting home for disabled characters and fans. This paper highlights how these characters, despite their physical disabilities, are depicted as powerful, determined, and capable of performing incredible feats and challenge conventional ideas about non-normative bodies in the science fiction genre. This paper concludes that such portrayals can provide disabled audiences with a sense of connection and validation through characters who share similar experiences. Seeing themselves positively reflected in fictional narratives can contribute to a stronger and more positive self-identity. Such characteristics can be included in the world of literature and movies as protagonists with persistence and resilience.

The Influence of the Style of Superhero Film Series on Its Development --- Taking the Batman Series as an Example

Superhero-themed films have exploded in popularity in the film business in the year 2023. Superheroes are the primary subject of American comic books and the protagonists of fantasy works. Many comic book heroes have been adapted for the big screen, and different characters require varying degrees of adaptation of their source material in order to be presented to the public on the big screen. In the process of adaptation, the decision to adapt their style impacts the tone and direction of the film, as well as the plot. This research will examine the relationship between the style of each film in the Batman series, box office performance, and word-of-mouth to determine the effect of the style of different superhero films on their own evolution.

Medijske pripovijedi o superherojima kao potencijalni kontekst za istraživanje dječjega razumijevanja moralno relevantnih događaja

Currently, superhero films are one of the more popular film genres, and the genre does not appear to be slowing down anytime soon. In addition, the lives and exploits of superheroes are told through other forms of media such as animated films and television series targeted towards children. However, these narratives are also violent. If older children (i.e., approximately 7–11) engage with superhero media, then it is important to understand the ways they attempt to make sense of this genre. To this end, the essay examines how superhero media may serve as a potential context for older children’s understanding of morally relevant events. This potential—based on three broad areas of scholarship on children’s capacities for understanding others and their morally relevant acts—is explored along two dimensions. The first is through common narrative features of the genre, and the second is through research implications. It is suggested that a research program utilizing the genre’s narrative features as a part of a methodology to investigate older children’s understanding of morally relevant acts affords unique opportunities to build upon existing scholarship on the relationship between media content and children’s moral understanding.

Shakespeare and the Popular Film Industry

Shakespeare’s popularity on the big screen increased exponentially in the 1990s, largely thanks to Kenneth Branagh’s and Baz Luhrmann’s films and Shakespeare in Love (1998), co-written by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard, which became the highest grossing Shakespeare film. In the recent two decades, the popular movie industry has also rediscovered the marketing value and crowd-tickling element in Shakespeare allusions, and several box office success genres, like superhero films, relied on “Easter egg” inclusion of well-known Shakespearean quotes or motifs. This paper offers a bird’s eye view of several tendencies characterising the attitude of the popular film industry to Shakespeare in the last 30 years. It also presents brief case studies with a focus on what makes or unmakes a “Shakespeare film” at the box office and in critical opinion, arguing that success relies on some form of a crossover effect. The films in focus are Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo+Juliet, Shakespeare in Love, Joss Whedon’s film noiresque, Much Ado About Nothing (2012), and Richard Eyre’s King Lear (2018).

Storying species extinction in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame

This article places two Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) films, Avengers: Infinity War () and Avengers: Endgame (), in dialogue with the Marvel comic books on which they are based. As this article demonstrates, in their depiction of Thanos and the partial species extinction event, the films deviate substantially from their source material to reflect a contemporary cultural interest and growing anxiety over the real-world threat of species extinction. However, as this article argues, Avengers: Infinity War’s and Avengers: Endgame’s ecocritical potential are limited, owing partly to the villain’s role in superhero films and comic books more broadly. Limits also owe to the anthropocentric viewpoint that underwrites much of superhero fiction. Superheroes may serve a conservative function as an upholder of the social order, but, as this article shows, in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, as well as films and television series in the MCU set thereafter, this function often comes at the detriment of the conservation of nature and species-other-than-human.

“Why is your body a different shape?” fatness and masculinity in the superhero film

ABSTRACT In recent decades, American superhero films, and with them often very traditional constructs of masculinity, have become omnipresent in cinemas worldwide. This article examines a specific type of male representation, male fatness, in two examples of the genre, Spiderman: Into the Spider-verse (2018) and Avengers: Endgame (2019). The author argues that in both films the fat male character is depicted as demasculinized, thereby standing in a tradition of male fatness stereotyped as outside of normative masculinity. In the superhero genre the body plays a particularly relevant role in signifying a hegemonic masculinity, which is highlighted by the way the two films position the characters’ fatness, or also behaviors associated with fatness, in contrast to the expectations of superhero masculinity.

The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Voice-Based Systems: A Comparative Analysis of SAARUSH

In today’s market, AI is taking place globally in the world. The AI and voice system are published multiple times in various movies like IRON-MAN, SKYSCRAPER, etc. Unlike the original origin, artificial intelligence was developed as a system that can think like a human or better than a human and can help directly or indirectly to develop, learn, and perform system-oriented operations like in the movie of Iron-Man is a version of the AI called Jarvis which is an intelligent computer that can perform the system-oriented operations that converses in a large scale with the humans, the AI monitors his lifestyle and helps to build its computer program for his superhero suit. The SAARUSH AI system was inspired by the Jarvis AI system. Saarush is a digital life assistant that primarily leverages human communication methods which establish two-way contact with humans and aid them with chores such as cooking, facebook alerts, and many more. Because we mostly communicate by voice in our project, Saarush is essentially a speech recognition program. The term "speech technology" refers to two technologies: synthesizers and recognizers. The human voice is a signal that contains an endless quantity of data. Jarvis is the name of Tony Stark's assistant in the Superhero films. This one is frequently the result of multiple contributors' overcontribution, such as the usability but also the capability of AIML dynamic merging with portals such as Python [pyttsx] but instead gTTS, which results in the same JARVIS standard, structure with general reusability but little or no maintainability.

Justification of panopticon in superhero movies: The Batman Movie

The French Philosopher Michel Foucault argues that power extends to all areas at the micro level in Bentham's Panopticon theory, which was inspired by the architectural design of the Panopticon. He extends this metaphor to speak of Panoptisism as a social phenomenon used to discipline workforces through implicit strategies. Like Bentham, he does not limit his panoptic rhetoric to a mere prison setting, but instead applies it to schools, mental hospitals, hospitals and factories. The panopticon basically ensures the ubiquity of power by seeing it unseen. This article aims to reveal how panoptiism, a particular mode of disciplinary power used by Foucault, is normalized in superhero films. When surveillance and gaze practices are approached from the point of view of cinema; the question of how the gaze is positioned through the camera, where and through whose eyes the audience is looking, arises. The narrator of The Batman (2022) is Batman, and the narrative begins with the superhero reading his diary. In the film, it is determined that Gotham city has been transformed into a panoptic universe and Batman, who watches over this universe, is in the position of a guard.

How does Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) imply the counseling practice?

The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is a major franchise in the Hollywood film industry that tells the story of various superheroes in one story continuity. The popularity of the MCU has skyrocketed in society for 14 years ago and has influenced the development of popular culture today. This paper aims to review the potential of the MCU as one of the big trends in the millennial era in the practice of cinema counseling. The review method used is a literature study, the author reviews various related literature to present a comprehensive discussion. The results of the review suggest that the MCU has great potential to be utilized in cinema counseling, especially for millennial children and teenagers. This is because in essence film is a medium that has been tested to be effectively used to shape, reconstruct, and change the mindset of individuals. In addition, the MCU as a group of superhero films also inserts various moral messages and life lessons that can be abstracted, and used as a metaphor by counselors in the practice of cinema counseling. However, more research is still needed regarding the use of MCU in cinema counseling to become a solid foundation for counselors to practice it.

When “meaningless” means more: biographic resonance and audience appreciation of popular entertainment

Abstract Integrating predictions derived from the self-memory system and biographic resonance theory, the current project investigated the relationship between media-induced reminiscence and appreciation. In two experiments, undergraduates consumed popular entertainment from either their early adolescence or the present day. Study 1 (N = 406) featured music, and Study 2 (N = 405) featured movies. Both studies found that memory recall was more common in response to older (vs. recent) entertainment, and the memories activated by older entertainment were happier and produced more temporal comparisons. Although appreciation was higher for older entertainment in Study 1, this effect did not replicate in Study 2. However, both studies found that appreciation was higher for content that activated memories, especially memories that were more emotional and immersive. These patterns emerged regardless of when the content was released. These findings clarify why audiences sometimes perceive meaning in lighthearted entertainment, such as pop music or superhero films.

COUNTER DISCOURSE OF MACULINITY IN AVENGER: END GAME MOVIE

AbstractMasculinity in mass communication always attracts attention and is a hot topic of discussion. The masculinity of men who are always juxtaposed with women is a power struggle on two sides: men as men themselves and men compared to women. The study aims to counter the dominant masculinity issue in Avenger: The End Game (2018) movie. This study sheds light on the position of men in superhero films who are always dominant in masculinity. However, this film also shows declining male masculinity where men show their powerless side. This study was conducted with a descriptive qualitative method. Stuart Hall's representation theory and Chafetz's masculinity are the main theories to dissect male masculinity. Secondary data from other journals and books also supported the analysis. Finding and analysis finally show that men's powerless and men's emotions become male declining masculinity in this film.Keywords: communication, declining, domination, male, masculinity

Religion and Myth in the Marvel Cinematic Universe

Religion and Myth in the Marvel Cinematic Universe

“No, I Am the Man”: Hierarchical Male Homosociality in The Avengers (2012)

The manuscript is an analysis of homosociality among the male Avengers in the first film depicting the unification of the superhero team. It argues that The Avengers replicates and valorizes hierarchical homosociality as the preferred method of communication and unifying force among the male Avengers, thereby maintaining hegemonic masculinity and the gender hegemony in the superhero franchise. This article’s focus on homosociality takes on a different approach to analyzing gender in superhero films as it takes an in-depth look at same-sex interactions in a group setting, as opposed to the individual gender identities of the characters.

The Universe-al Storytelling. Towards A ‘Spatial’ Narrative Model in Modern Comic Book Cinema

The aim of the article is to analyze modern superhero films through the specifics of superhero narratives in comics. By referring to the ‘organic’ elements of graphic super-storytelling – like retcon or crossover – the author tries to explain the main shift within comic book adaptations heading towards a ‘universe-al’ mode of narration. By doing so the analysis concentrates on the most succesful recent cases of superhero films as attempts to achieve a narrative ‘remediation’ of comic books’ spatial organization that requires reconsideration of the status of an individual superheroic franchise (or sub-franchise) within the larger universe of pre-existing, future and even alternate texts.