Beyond the Edges of the Frame

With a year full of superhero action, what is actually going on?

Films are products of our society and, therefore, express the views and concerns that are prevalent in our society. Due to this cultural and social attachment, genres are cyclic, as various genres are able to express certain anxieties and opinions in a more inadvertently direct way than others. Thus, when a particular cycle of genre raises its head, one has to wonder why?

We are all eagerly awaiting the release of The Avengers Assemble, The Amazing Spider-man and The Dark Knight Rises, therefore, this year is proving to be a big year for the superhero genre and will definitely go down in history.

However, I can’t help but think that there is more at play here. The superhero genre is a breeding ground for adolescent anxiety as the main characters are often teenagers, dealing with the coming of age and in most cases the lack of a father figure, which is considered to be the reason as to why these teenagers decide to work on the edges of society.

This adolescent theme seems to be prevalent in this year’s films, as The Hunger Games dealt with a dystopian society in which the adolescents where having to change the way in which society is being run. Other films, such as Mirror Mirror, which is out know, and Snow white and the Huntsman, also deal with adolescents and their journey towards adulthood. But why the focus on adolescents? It will be interesting to see what these films suggest about our society today.

However, this is not the only theme that the superhero genre takes into account. This particular genre, with its costumes, is able to playfully negotiate gender identities. Therefore, I am eagerly awaiting the release of these films in order to establish how much things have changed since the last cycle, in particular of the Batman films from the early 1990’s, and what is being suggested in these films of today.