Dan Hassler-Forest - Capitalist Superheroes: Caped Crusaders in the Neoliberal Age

Capitalist Superheroes peels back the glamorous faade and shows us what fantasy characters like Batman, Superman and Iron Man truly are: the horrific embodiments of neoliberal capitalism. By making us sympathize with powerful but all-too-human billionaires, these films legitimize the power of the Berlusconis and Rupert Murdochs of the world. Dan Hassler-Forest strips down the superhero fantasy to show us that this new emperor is wearing no clothes or rather: that what is hidden behind the superheros colorful costume is in fact the true power of Capital.

Slavoj iek, personal e-mail to author

This brilliant and lively book shows that the superhero films so familiar to us as Hollywood blockbusters are by no means just innocent entertainment; on the contrary, they engage, in quite malign ways, some of the fundamental political and socio-economic issues of our time. Superheroes of one sort or another are as old as literature itself, but no one has done more than Dan Hassler-Forest to help us understand the pre-eminent modern versions of the type: Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, and the like. Though his book will immediately find readers among everyone with a particular interest in superhero film and fiction, it deserves a much wider audience as well.

Carl Freedman, personal e-mail to author

Stylish, perceptive, and engaging, Hassler-Forests Capitalist Superheroes reminds us that even in the glimmer and glow of new technologies and special effects, movies are still permeated with politics and ideologies.

Timothy Corrigan, personal e-mail to author

FIRST PUBLISHED BY ZERO BOOKS, 2012

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Text copyright: Dan Hassler-Forest 2011

ISBN: 978 1 78099 179 5

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publishers.

The rights of Dan Hassler-Forest as author have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Design: Stuart Davies

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This book constitutes the end product of period of research and development, in which I was fortunate enough to benefit from the knowledge, insight, and feedback from a variety of friends, colleagues, and students who either shared an interest in my field, or who were kind enough to let me impose upon them with endless questions and opinions. I feel compelled to single out a few of them for special mention.

The graduate conference The Politics of Superheroes: Renegotiating the Superhero in Post 9/11 Hollywood Cinema, organized at Yale University in January 2009 by Jeremi Szaniawski and Victor Fan, was an invaluable source of new ideas related to my topic, in large part because it introduced me to a number of brilliant people from around the globe who have become highly valued contacts. For their stimulating conversations, blog articles, and Facebook chat sessions, I wish to thank Jeremi, Jean-Guy Ducreux, Ryan Vu, and Gerry Canavan for their generous feedback and insights.

While working on this book, I have been fortunate to be surrounded by a network of smart and interesting people in Amsterdam to whom I am grateful for their support and feedback. Although there are far too many to list each name individually, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to the following people: David Nieborg, Ren Glas, Thijs van den Berg, Paulina Aroch, Ernesto Illescas-Pellaez, Jaap Kooijman, Jan Teurlings, and Johan Hartle.

For helping to proof-read sections of this book as it came close to its final stages, my thanks goes those who were kind enough not only to devote precious time to these chapters, but for adding generous ideas of their own as well: Jefferson Robbins, Matthew Barron, Melinda Jacobs, Sarah Faict, Ryan Aston, and Pier van Loon. Special thanks as well to Joyce Goggin, Jason Dittmer, Thomas Elsaesser, Bill Chambers, Walter Chaw, Carl Freedman, Timothy Corrigan, Slavoj iek, and extra special thanks to Darko trajn.

Above all, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to Christoph Lindner, my colleague and former PhD supervisor who has always been extremely supportive, forthcoming, and practical while the project took initial form as my doctoral dissertation. I have learned more from this process than from anything else, and much of it from Christoph.

Finally, my love and thanks to my family, who have been nothing but encouraging and surprisingly interested in my work; to Noah and Joshua, my two boys who both love superheroes in their own way; to my cat Boris, for providing a reliable source of distraction by tossing items off my desk while I was writing; and to Mariecke, who has stood by me throughout the writing process with warmth, affection, a healthy dose of skepticism, and a bottle of champagne on hand for every milestone along the way.

On 18 February 2002, German weekly news magazine Der Spiegel ran a cover featuring American president George W. Bush and four of his most prominent cabinet members depicted as comic book superheroes and action movie icons like Batman, Rambo, and Conan the Barbarian. The headline read: Die Bush Krieger: Amerikas Feldzug Gegen das Bse (The Bush Warriors: Americas Crusade Against Evil). As the Bush administration was at the time attempting to generate European sympathy for its plans to invade Iraq, the editors of Der Spiegel expected a response from the White House. The message they received, however, was hardly the outraged indictment they had expected. Instead, the U.S. ambassador visited the editorial office to report that the President was flattered, and subsequently requested thirty-three poster-sized enlargements of the cover for the White House (Lawrence and Jewett 2003: 43). Apparently, the notion that there was anything offensive about the depiction of American heads of state as bloodthirsty action movie icons and vindictive superheroes was completely alien to the Bush administration, nor was the ironic headline Americas crusade against evil perceived as derogatory or sarcastic.

The Bush administration in the guise of Hollywood action men and super-heroes (18-02-2002).

This should have come as no surprise. If the cartoonish image on the German magazine cover is an exaggeration of the way American neoliberal politicians have tended to present themselves on the global stage, it is only a slight one. The notion of the United States as a heroic and benevolent world police has intensified incrementally from the 1980s onward, with a new form of American global hegemony emerging as the center that supports the globalization of productive networks and casts its widely inclusive net to try to envelop all power relations within its world order (Hardt and Negri 20). This shift from 20thcentury nation-state imperialism to global Empire has been accompanied by a growing conflation of politics with entertainment and celebrity culture. Increasingly, American political figures have associated themselves with film stars and fictional characters, from Reagans frequent references to Rambo and the Terminator to George W. Bushs Top Gun-inspired appearance on the deck of an aircraft carrier in premature celebration of the end of the War in Iraq.