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.
During the Trump era, superheroes have been appearing all over the place in resistance to Trumpism and the MAGA movement. This can be seen films 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, or TV shows from She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, or Ms. Marvel. Importantly, after the 2020 US presidential election was called for Joe Biden, Van Jones reiterated his previously mentioned comparison live on CNN, likening the battle of the liberal side of America against Trump to “Thanos vs The Avengers.” This paper argues that it is important to look at these popular cultural artefacts to make sense of the Trump presidency that found its preliminary end in the January 6 riots.
