Ask any group of Aragon students to list what movies they saw this summer, and there is a good chance that at least one of the superhero features will be on that list. This summer, superhero movies seemed to fill theaters—from Marvel’s “The Avengers” to DC’s “The Dark Knight Rises.” These films have not only dominated theaters, but the box office as well. According to boxoffice.com, “The Avengers” was the highest grossing movie in May, while “The Dark Knight Rises” topped charts in both July and August—leaving June as the only summer month that wasn’t dominated by films featuring caped crusaders.
But why are people so drawn to these movies? Even the highly anticipated, action-filled “Hunger Games” failed to achieve the same box office earnings in both March and April that “The Avengers” did in July alone. Senior Olivia Simon claims that superhero movies are “more appealing because there’s more action.”
There is also an element of escapism to our interest in superhero movies. Many students claim that during the summer months, one of their main goals is to not think about school and instead to focus on things that they enjoy. Senior Ranier Plantinos says, “[Students] want to do things they can’t normally do during the summer.” Superhero movies provide an ideal method of escape from mundane, everyday life, since they show extraordinary people doing extraordinary things that the students can only dream of doing.
Despite the peril presented by villains like Bane from Batman, the adventures that these fictional heroes go on are undeniably exciting and entertaining. Sitting in the theater of a superhero movie allows us to temporarily be transported to a world where it is possible for gods to fall from the sky, radioactive spiders to grant fantastic powers, and average men and women to become supernaturally powerful and capable of defeating tremendously evil and impressively strong monsters. Just as we escape our lives as students during the summer in order to go off adventuring in the world, these films allow people to escape from their regular lives.
Though the action and escapism of superhero movies does draw many moviegoers to theaters, the adventure that this genre is synonymous with does not come without a cost. In many cases, these movies focus heavily on simple action, and must turn to secondary plot devices in order to gain emotional depth. One common device used for this is a hero’s romantic pursuits, which frequently place a non-hero in the relationship in a position of dependence. “There’s always the damsel in distress and I hate that!” says junior Monica Klein. These “damsels in distress” and the potential for sexism that they present are merely one casualty of the thrills that superhero movies depend on—others include violence to entertain, excessive nationalism (especially in cases of heroes such as Marvel’s Captain America), and holes in plots to accommodate the movie’s story. After all, does anyone truly believe that a change of clothes and a partial mask can conceal someone’s identity?
In spite of their flaws, though, the thrill of superhero movies has drawn thousands of viewers to theaters, and will surely continue to do so in the coming years as movies such as “Iron Man 3”, “Thor 2”, “Superman”, and “Justice League” are released.
