preview

The Best And Worst Parts Of Society

Decent Essays

Comic book characters represent the best and worst parts of society as seen through the eyes of the writers. Heroes emanate what the writers perceive as the ideal human, someone attractive with a strong moral code and a high tolerance for pain. Villains represent what the writers perceive as problematic, people who are overly ambitious, immoral and represent the “other”, both in appearance and beliefs. These characterisations reflect the views of society’s majority, white men, essentially the creators and controllers of pop culture. Captain America was a hero, the epitome of American Patriotism. He was strong, smart and morally sound and he fought American enemies, the Nazis and communism. Magneto, from the same comic universe as Captain America, was a villain aiming for the eradication of all non-mutants. The interesting thing about his evil acts is that they’re almost justified by his previous experiences with oppression, he’s the comic book representation of a victim fighting back and he’s represented as villainous for that.

Disabilities are represented atrociously in comic books because they’re represented atrociously in pop culture. Steve Rogers was useless to the army until he was injected with an untested serum and was no longer frail. Superman used glasses to imply vision impairment, because, no superhero could be physically inadequate in any way, so his secret was safe. In Steve’s case, his diagnoses are represented as things that need fixing before he can be

Get Access