Description
Hollywood has a long tradition of shaping and co-producing the discursive material that feeds into broader discourses of security and foreign policy. In the years since ‘9/11’ it has been the superhero genre and the cinematic universes of DC and Marvel that have re-negotiated collective crisis and trauma, and developed fantasies of protection, safety, and resurrection against the backdrop of the ‘War on Terror’ and more and more overlapping crises in international politics.
Especially during the Trump era, superhero narratives in film have started to introduce more “diverse” texts and characters such as Black Panther, Captain Marvel, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Black Widow, Shang-Chi, or The Eternals all of which seemingly help to develop a liberal counter-narrative to Trumpism, perceived positively by progressive and conservative viewers alike. However, the paper argues that rather than shaping progressive discourses on race, migration and gender the superhero genre produces a neo-liberal and violent vision of the world while carefully maintaining the status quo. Understanding the connection between the Trump administration’s policies and the liberal, mythologised visions superhero films are developing can help us understand the importance of cultural artefacts the production of world politics.
