"Tone Down the Boobs, Please!" Reading the Special Effect Body in Superhero Movies (1)
2009; Issue: 77 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2562-2528
Autores Tópico(s)Leadership, Courage, and Heroism Studies
ResumoSuperheroes have overcome their lowly pulp comic book beginnings to become an intrinsic part of North American pop culture. They have become iconic symbols to be reiterated and recycled in popular culture to mobilize and reflect themes, tensions, and anxieties of American ideology in terms of genre, gender, sexuality, class, politics, science and culture. Part of nature of superhero stories has become movement between mediums and across genres. Superheroes are constantly being re-embodied through different generations of comic books, TV serials, and films, not to mention never-ending barrage of toys, candy, underpants, video games and other marketing products. As well, part of history of comic book superhero is that he or she is product of many artists and writers who, over years, subtly change and rework that persona. Scott Bukatman traces history of superhero body in his book, Matters of Gravity. With industrialism, railway and industrial accidents made human body seem breakable. (2) It was after horrors of World War I that Superman, the Man of Steel, emerged. (3) In this incarnation he could not fly nor did he have an aversion to kryptonite but he could withstand rigours of Machine Age. In 1960s and 1970s with new Marvel superheroes like Spider-Man and Hulk, science fiction and superhero weaknesses were injected into superhero narrative. Superhero narratives re-imagine limits of human body - imagining them mixed with other species, crossed by science, and above all, imbued with superhuman god-like heroism. The year 2000 marked release of a frenzy of superhero movies more in keeping with traditional superhero story. Beginning with X-Men (2000), and including X2 (2003), X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), Spider-Man (2002), Spider-Man 2 (2004), Spider-Man 3 (2007), Hulk (2003), The Incredible Hulk (2008), Fantastic Four (2005), Catwoman (2004), and Superman Returns (2006), these films use big budget special effects, such as Computer Generated Imagery (CGI or CG) technology, to embody powers of superhero and heroine. What becomes obvious in watching these films is that they are not only traditional in terms of superhero narrative but they are positively regressive in terms of their portrayal of male and female bodies, and gender relations. Despite varied creative re-workings of superhero mentioned above, hypersexualized bodies remain an intrinsic part of superhero and comic book legacy. Scott Bukatman says that in comics like X-Menand W.I.L.D.C.A.T.S., hypermasculine fantasy is also revealed, with unabashed obviousness, in approach to female superheroes. The spectacle of female body in these titles is so insistent, and fetishism of breasts, thigh, and hair is so complete, that comics seem to dare you to say anything about them that isn't just redundant. Of course, female form has absurdly exaggerated sexual characteristics; of course, costumes are skimpier than one could (or should) imagine; of course, there's no visible way that these costumes could stay in place; of course, these women represent simple adolescent masturbatory fantasies (with a healthy taste of dominatrix). (4) Included as part of this fantasy is, of course, invincible and muscle bound male counterpart and his gear. As any feminist knows, watching mainstream Hollywood movies, especially big budget action movies, is contradictory. It requires an ambiguous viewing position, what feminists term pleasures of watching blockbuster movies that are politically conflicted. As a feminist reading strategy, guilty pleasure acknowledges ideological contradictions present in mass texts like Hollywood blockbusters. This strategy assumes that signification is contested and recognizes negotiations that consumer-spectator engages in while viewing such texts. Although blockbuster, action, and scifi movies are often racist, classist, sexist, and homophobic, these readings do not always capture complexities of anxieties about body, gender, science, and status quo that are being played out. …
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