iii. Comparing Media Images to Criminological Research
The superhero genre is so popular and influential that many studies have been done on its depictions of the groups and the impact it has on a large part of society how it has “become a staple on film, television, and in video games” (http://salempress.com/pdf/cigraphicnovel_samplepgs.pdf). The genre is so influential in fact, that it dates back all the way to the Ancient Greeks, and possibly even further (http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20150819-before-marvel-and-dc-superheroes-of-the-ancient-world). Every group in history has had their mythologies and epic tales of crime fighters, they just did not call them superheroes. For example, Achilles only had one weakness (his heel) and was
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The show Luke Cage shows this in the episode where he is being hunted down by the police force. These shows have almost turned police into the bad guys in some cases where the hero/lead is just trying to help people and the law gets in the way to stop them because they are vigilantes. Which yes technically the police are just doing their jobs and trying to get someone off the streets who is in some cases hurting other people. Some of the shows, especially in the DC comics universe as well as in Marvel, show the police as an ineffective figurehead who is more concerned with bad PR from vigilante justice than they are with actually fighting crime.
This is significantly different from the way crime was portrayed in the earliest comic books. The Comic Code, which did not fully disappear until 2011, had very strict guidelines on how to portray crime, which were quite similar to the production codes for films and TV shows at the time (http://cbldf.org/comics-code-history-the-seal-of-approval/). The code was as
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When looking at Lisa Kort-Butler’s study on children’s superhero cartoons, it is not surprising that many people now a days are challenging the media’s depictions of certain groups and the effectiveness of the police force. There is still a lot of pressure though from the older generations and certain countries for the status quo to remain the same and in the film market that can be a huge hurdle to jump over. Sometimes if certain risks are taken a film can be banned in China, and if it loses the Chinese market that is a lot of money to lose and that can be difficult to come back from. The media challenged the comic book world to change their views though, so why shouldn’t they challenge the film world as
However, after reading the article the author noted that police are mandated to enforce civilian law and order, investigate crimes, and strictly follow legal procedures even when in pursuit of chronic and dangerous criminals (Kagoro, 2014). Ideally, it has been argued, there should be strict dividing lines between the police and the military; the former for domestic purposes with the latter protecting citizens from external threats (Kagoro, 2014). In his article on the anti-militarization of the police in the United States, Kurt Andrew Schlichter aptly put it that the military is designed, organized, and equipped to execute rapid, violent and efficient obliteration of the “enemy”-whoever the enemy may be ( Kagoro, 2014). However, the law enforcement is usually modeled after the military and in fact there a large number of police officers who are former military personnel. This was a new criticism of police that was unfamiliar to me in the study of criminal justice but, I found it to be a valid point. The idea of changing the focus of policing to be less of a battlefield and more of a community may be a compelling approach to make interaction with citizens less
Batman and Superman are superheroes whose qualities are exaggerated in a way that is reminiscent of the gods and heroes in The Odyssey. In Fact, the superheroes from comic books emerge from the epic tradition. Epics, as you know, celebrate the great deeds of one or more legendary heroes. This epic hero is generally involved with a quest to overcome hardship, and he (and it usually is a "he") succeeds. The hero performs superhuman exploits in battle, often saving or founding a nation or the human race itself. Sound familiar? And even in terms of the superhero's body, with his bulging muscles and larger‐than‐life qualities, such figures evoke the images of Baroque masculinity. What Becomes important in these retellings, then, is how the hero makes the journey, how he faces his obstacles, and what he learns in the process.
We are currently living in the Golden Age of Superheroes. They dominate our cultural life, and have become seemingly permanent fixtures in modern media. Since X-Men burst onto the screen fifteen years ago, we have witnessed the release of over forty superhero movies. By 2020 we will have seen the release of more than twenty-five more. Today, the much anticipated film Superman vs. Batman has come to theaters. Though a plethora of superhero movies have been released, it is to the dissatisfaction of many, having long been exhausted by the stories of the Hulk, Batman, and Spider-man. Although I must agree that it is quite easy to get bored with the constant action, and flashing colors of these films, if one looks deep enough into the story they will discover universal themes and metaphors. Though they may be fighting off alien invasions, these heroes are also battling with their personal challenges, challenges which we can
American policing originated from early English law and is profoundly influenced by its history. Early law enforcement in England took on two forms of policing, one of which heavily influenced modern policing and it is known as the watch (Potter, 2013). The watch consisted, at first, of volunteers which had to patrol the streets for any kind of disorder including crime and fire. After men attempted to get out of volunteering by paying others, it became a paid professional position (Walker & Katz, 2012). The three eras of policing in America are shaped by these early ideas and practices of law enforcement. Throughout time, sufficient improvements and advancements have been made from the political era to the professional era and finally the community era which attempts to eliminate corruption, hire qualified officers and create an overall effective law enforcement system.
The collective image is built from us, integrating all the characteristics into our behavior, personalities and ethics. So simply to say, we like them because they inspire us to do greater things. Of course it has been very less time to consider this genre as significant as Greek mythology, but it may turn out that next generations pose their own mythology, with superheroes becoming the legends, same like Heracles and Theseus, similar like now we are drawing our inspiration from them. And who knows, maybe someday we will have an event with the same scope as Olympic Games, which came from festivals in honor of Zeus and Olympic Gods, that captures the world every four years. After all the discussion it turned out that there is not such a big difference between three thousand years old Geek boy and modern kid enjoying the next movie about Iron Man, we still need things to be explained in the simplest way, that is why we came back to the most efficient method, proven by hundreds of centuries ago, mythology just changed its appearance, but still remains a very important aspect of our
There have been major changes to the superhero archetype in comics in these recent years as compared to the past. Along with that arises controversy on the subjects like the new female Thor or a black kid as Spiderman. Many are zealously against such changes for reasons like sexism or racism. While many others are fervently behind such changes because they use it to empower their own political views on today’s topics. These topics are important to today’s society however they should not be so important in comic books because comic books should be value-neutral and gender, ethnicity, sexuality and things of this nature should not matter.
Perceptions of the superhero and supervillain are mainly based on subjective definitions of each concept. These observations often lead to a definitive dichotomy that precisely splits characters into two impermeable divisions. However, this stringent separation is unable to account for the characters that are not at the extreme ends of their respective side. Neither is this rift capable of classifying characters that flirt with both sides of the superhero-supervillain dichotomy. Therefore it is imperative to analyze the established criteria for both superhero and supervillain to derive a more adequate explanation. Most superheroes are not easily characterized, but rather fall somewhere between Superman, the bastion of moral purity, and Doctor Doom, the display of indubitable corruption. This solicits genesis of an entirely new notion about the differences between superheroes and supervillains. A more precise idea is that superheroes and supervillains are lined on a spectrum that spans from pure good to pure evil. Disparities between superheroes and supervillains are not black and white, but rather these characters are on a spectrum that radically changes based on individual cases.
When we become part of the fictional world of comics, either through the mediums of comic books/graphic novels, movies or television, our first thoughts do not go to the injustices we see before us. Instead of “Hm, that criminal is not being given his proper rights due to him”, we think, “Holy shit, Superman just punched that guy through a building” and enjoy the thrill of the story. We don’t pay attention to the forms and importance of justice, or better yet the lack of traditional justice we have come to know and respect in our world. We see flashy heroes in colorful spandex race through the sky or on the land to the next big criminal act to halt it in its tracks and deliver them to law enforcement, wrapped in a bow. However,
Crime is a part of society encompases the news and the public. A variety of studies of media content have estimated that as much as 25 percent of the daily news is devoted to crime (Surette 1992) and that crime is the largest major category of stories in the print and electronic media (Chermak 1994, 103). (Lawrence 18). With crime at an all time high, police are constantly having to deal with more and more issues. This can lead to stressed out and fed up officers, which can lead to poor decisions by an officer. The use of force by police is a highly controversial topic as it raises questions about a government’s ability to use force against its citizens (Lawrence 19). Today’s society is caught up on the ideals of civility and equality before the law, making police use of force a touchy
Why Superheroes? “The answer is pretty simple: because superheroes show us who we are and what we are capable of achieving (O’Connor, 2013).” Dr. Patrick O’Connor is a clinical psychologist that has mastered the art of psychotherapy through comic books and superheroes. He has managed to use the hobbies and childhood heroes of many of his clients to help them overcome mental health problems as well as childhood traumas. Dr. O’ Connor’s form of therapy has been so successful among his clients, that he currently teaches others how to help their patients in a course at The Chicago School of Professional Psychotherapy: “Geek Culture in Therapy”. In an attempt to help those who are not able to access “Geek Therapy” Dr. O’Connor also started an online database, Comicspedia, which describes hundreds of comic book storylines and matches them to themes which include being different, losing a loved one, family relationships, difficult decisions, and facing fears to name a few.
When you think of a superhero one normally thinks of Spiderman, Batman, or Superman, but there were superheroes long before these characters were created. First one must understand that the basis of this name is hero. What is a hero? A hero is a person who does something special or out of the ordinary in order to help others. It could also be someone who is admired for a characteristic about them, be it physical or mental. They are individuals that normal everyday people can look up to. This being the case, a superhero is nothing more then someone who is a hero, but not just that once and for that one person, but someone who helps many people, or leads them. As time went by the number of people who were true heroes diminished and just doing something for someone was no longer big news. There had to be something more to make them stand out. The American culture needed someone or something to admire and that is where our common day superheroes come into play. It gave them a goal which could never be reached in hopes that people would never stop trying.
Across America, police have been involved in scandals and drugs. They are abusing the power that they have been given. The communities have begun not to trust the police because of their conduct toward the citizens. People have been beaten and harassed by the guys in blue. People in the communities have seen the police push individuals around and take things from individuals for no reason. People receive the wrong message. The public no longer can see a difference between the police and criminals.
news and internet makes it look as if police are the bad guys which in some situations they are,
The police back then much like now were held as heroes and that they were protecting the rest of us from the bad people. However as time has passed there has always been the question on how much power the police can have, how much force is necessary for the police to use. “The use of force to effect an arrest was as conservational in the 1840s and 1840s as it is today” . From the 1840’s till now there have been little to no actual improvements made. The police have continued to become even more powerful, when the police department was created the people questioned on whether
The Lone Ranger, Zorro, Batman, Superman are some of the characters that we stereotypically constitute as heroes. They are known to fight with courage without fear of death. They destroy the enemy within a blink of an eye. They fight using their own body strength, superpower, or some kind of weapon. They come to the rescue miraculously and leave without a trace. They are mysterious. We are unable to identify who they are underneath the masks and disguises. Yet, we praise them and ignore the real heroes that surround us regularly, ordinarily. “All of us …like to believe that in a moral emergency we will behave like the heroes of our youth, bravely and forthrightly, without thought of personal loss or discredit” (O’Brien 39). In other words, we are quite oblivious to the ordinary people of the world that are, in fact, the true heroes.