Last week, Warner Bros Pictures released a new reboot of the Superman Film series. The film entered the top of the box office and earned an estimated $ 122 million in the United States on its early weekend. Although this industry is celebrating the sum of the early box office of the film, they are below the earlier blockbuster earnings of decades ago. For example, on its opening weekend in 2016, Warner Bros’s Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice’s healthy $ 166m (2224m when adjusted for inflation).
Indeed, in the last few years, the revenue in such films has gradually diminished and the new superman movie is no exception. In the sixties, superhero films regularly harvested more than 500m in the world of M500m in the world of box office. In recent years, they have reached high watermarks – which causes discomfort in the industry. Last year, the Hollywood Trade Magazine Verite warned that this style has a “unprecedented box office drought”.
What did the superhero films fall? According to Hollywood Bigwings, Superman’s director James Gun said that “superhero fatigue” is the reason. Disney Chief Executive Bob Igar said that the abundant production of superhero films was “thin (audience) attention and attention”.
But their statement – consumer style is just “fatigue” – less. Like all artistic styles, there are some reasons why some people grow or fall in popularity. These reasons are closely linked to politics.
Superhero boom and rejection
Superhero Fiction is a unique American style, which was found in 1938 with the publication of the first Superman Comic Book in 1938. The first superhero comic conversion was released in 1941 under the heading of the Adventure of Captain Marwal. This style was popular among Americans for decades, but after the 9/11 attacks in 2001, it was really closed.
The attacks caused the relative peace (in the United States, at least) in the aftermath of the Cold War, and placed the US propaganda machine in the override. The American people were given a cartoon portrait of what “supervilin” looks, which is easily fitted with the story of the Superhero film. These supervilins – like the imaginary enemies of the United States, oppose world domination and oppose liberalism and the domination of the United States.
Pentagon played a leading role in creating a propagandist legend in the popular culture. As a long -term partner of Hollywood, the Defense Department has long taken the practice of lending military equipment to filmmakers in exchange for the claim of script approval. // ‘In the latter later, it was stated in the script of several superhero blockbusters, including Iron Man and Captain America. The US Air Force had also used Captain Marvel as a recruitment tool for airliners.
As a result, in many superhero films, the superheroes working in hand to defeat the US military and supervilane, are jointly pushing Pax in the eyes of the United States: a world where strong global power is America.
The heroes are often shown as the defenders of the “American ideal” such as democracy, consensus and justice. Take someone like Captain America, which originated as a literal tangible form of US cultural victory over fascism. Other popular superheroes in the past 20 years, the multicultural, multi -cultural, the ideal tangible of a liberal American, such as Black Panther.
But in recent years, the political reality has begun to be fractured to maintain those heroes. In the September 224 survey asked the American people asked the statement that “the leader of my country should have the total, unchecked right”? 57.4 per cent of the US people agreed.
Another survey conducted a year ago has found that 45 percent of the American people suggest “ethnic discrimination peoples where it does not really exist as a big issue”.
It seems that America is a liberal, multi -faceted society – the way it is depicted in superhero films – no more universal aspirations for many Americans.
Suspicion of the ethnic officer of the United States and the permanent place in the world is also increasing.
A survey of Fox News 224 has been found that Percent 5 percent of American voters described the United States. Only 26 percent of the people thought it was growing. In a survey of Puti Research 223 a year ago, Donald Trump has reportedly reported that 58 per cent of people said, “Life in the United States is worse than 50 years ago”.
Social solidarity is collapsing
As the public understanding of 9/11 was gradually changing, there was an event that accelerated this shift.
In 2020, a sharp drop of the berries of the Superhero Movie Box Office began. Why that year? When the disease of COVID -19 companion already increased, social division increased.
With the onset of this unprecedented public health emergency, the feeling of the national acquaintance was completely disrupted. Widespread distrust about the government’s ability to manage this crisis – social responsibilities with a serious personality in the American people.
The single vision of the liberal American righteousness suggested by superhero films cannot echo the political landscape of this bore.
A year later, the United States withdrew from Afghanistan. The decision to take out led to the US “hero” intervention – a kind of global superman – 9/11. On the contrary of Iraq, Afghanistan was long-known as a possible “success story”, or the New York Times said in 2005: “Intervention in American-leadership that makes people’s lives better”.
Of course, we all know how this happened: the United States entered Afghanistan in 2001 and left in 2021 and killed more than 100,000 people and spent $ 2.3 trillion to pause the Taliban rules for 20 years.
As his military force failed abroad and tensions in the house, the United States was believed to be a superhero or a destiny. Essentially, home -grown illnesses have come to the fore. The actual salary was reduced by 30 years, while income disparity was increasing and infrastructure – decay.
The Americans left and right began to question the fitness of the US political system, which has been shown as the best in the world.
On the left, many believe that corporate interests have caught the Democratic Party so thoroughly that they have stopped fighting for real wealth redistribution or social events and conspired against progressive candidates who believe in these things. In the meantime, American rights have increased more crazy, racist and dictatorship – the result of failing to understand the true causes behind the social -economic crisis in the country.
While describing the United States, as a power for the good, the superhero movie style does not talk to none of these political lines. However, Hollywood Elite did not understand this.
Gun directed by the new Superman Movie described this feature as a metaphor of American values. “Superman is the story of the United States,” Gan said in an interview to the Times of London. “Coming from other places and coming from abroad to the country with a population
His words caused a sharp reaction to the American right. “We do not go to lectures in theaters and someone is going to put their thinking on us,” Kelin Conway, former president of President Trump, said on Fox News.
Recent American tendencies do not work well for this type of tentpol blockbuster in the recent “awake” or all films, or all films, or “Anti-Wake” categories, which will attract the audience of all political stripes in a few days.
The superhero movie is also an optimistic and a nationalist style – their primary message is that the US and in general is beneficial to the defense of liberal order. But the Americans are no longer optimistic about the future or are not particularly linked to these conceptual values. Even less American people seem to believe in liberal pillars such as democracy and multiculturalism – the types of superheroes are usually fighting for.
If you do not agree on what American values are, it is understandable that you do not agree on what kind of hero will tangle the national spirit. Considering this frustrating political situation, it is not very exciting that Americans are not going to the superhero style.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and it is not necessary to reflect al -Jazir’s editorial role.
