SOME THOUGHTS ON REINVENTING YOURSELF AS A MARKETABLE ICON
The phenomenon of ‘real
life superheroes’ is interesting on several levels for several
reasons. We could talk about the psychology of such people and why
they would want to put themselves in such high risk situations? Is it
the thrill of danger? A death wish? A genuine inability to see the
real world as more dangerous than the fictional worlds of comics and
movies? Or we could talk about the sociological conditions that have
led to these groups of people springing up now. Is it some increased
juvenilesation of culture that leads to grown adults playing
children’s games out in the streets of major cities? Why now and
not in the middle of the seventies? What differentiates these ‘real
life superheroes’ from standard vigilantes or neighbourhood watch
groups? They don’t actually, after all, really have superpowers.
But rather than pursuing
these kinds of cultural questions I want to look at the element of
this phenomenon that most strongly resonates with my personal
interests, and also speaks to something quite fundamental to the
phenomenon: the decision of ordinary people to do good deeds as
someone else. The fascination for me is how these people –
who I actually have the utmost respect for in terms of their
altruistic intentions – feel compelled to reinvent themselves as
marketable icons, as distinct entities that can be differentiated
from other ‘products on the shelf’ thanks to a specific look,
gimmick and name.
A 'marketable icon' is a
pretty vague category. I don’t mean it to be taken literally, as
something designed to be tied to particular advertising strategies,
but rather that it is some kind of individuated entity, distinct from
all others through a particular set of visual, and sometimes
conceptual, codings which are – it must be said – usually
enforced by copyright laws. Mickey Mouse is clearly a marketable
icon. But so too are the Universal Studio Monsters, though as
characters Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster are in the public
domain and exist in numerous instances, it is their 1930s and 40s
incarnations that remain the marketable icon. Would Kenneth Branagh’s
take on the monster really have made a particularly good action
figure?
This question is actually
quite important, because the benefit of a marketable icon is that it
can exist in a variety of media; movies, toys, posters, t-shirts,
video games, collectible cards, etc. We can probably all recognise
Robert DeNiro as a distinct individual, but he’s not a marketable
icon in that he cannot be successfully translated into other media in
the way that Frankenstein’s monster can. The simpler the figure,
the more easily translatable to different contexts it is. Cartoon
characters, monsters and superheroes are the most common kind of
marketable icons that we come across in our day to day lives, not
least of all because the genres that these types turn up in naturally
lend themselves to extending into franchises of various kinds. Few
superheroes only exist in one single issue of a comic.
Ownership of a marketable
icon is also important. Icons are designed to be easily read as
belonging to a particular company or group. Mickey Mouse does not
endorse Warner Brothers products; Spider-Man is not going to convince
you to eat Kellogg’s Frosties. DC and Marvel are the two biggest
owners of marketable iconic superheroes, indeed, they each make sure
to spread their characters across as many mediums as possible at any
given time. Whatever variations Spider-Man might take across films,
cartoons, video games or action figures, he is still recognisably the
same icon that appears in the original comic.
The common academic
cliché surrounding superheroes is that they are the myths of today,
the equivalent of Hercules’ adventures or the saga of Odysseus.
This is perfectly acceptable as an explanation, that superheroes feed
a basic need that we have and have had since our earliest ancestors
started telling each other stories. We like to invent people who are
more than human so that we can aspire to be them. But Hercules wasn’t
owned by a corporation. If an ancient Greek pre-school put on a play
of The Odyssey, they weren’t going to get sued by the estate of
Homer. The ownership issue surrounding superheroes is precisely what
defines them from previous generations of heroes. We like to think
that superheroes belong to us all, but they don’t, they belong to
Time-Warner and Disney.
In the HBO documentary
Superheroes (sometimes known as Real-Life Superheroes),
we are shown the lives of a selection of would-be heroes who don
costumes each night and set out into the city streets to fight evil
doers. Of course, the majority of these are slightly overweight well
meaning middle-aged men who are just comic book geeks living out
their dreams. The documentary draws attention to the fandom of these
men (and women occasionally) in a few ways. Self-proclaimed superhero
Mr. Xtreme spends his days watching episodes of Power Rangers
on TV. We are given the opinions of comics legend Stan Lee on the
phenomenon of real-life superheroes (he’s a little concerned,
obviously). During the interviews with Lee, Mr. Xtreme and another
hero, Master Legend, the camera pans across posters and action
figures of various Marvel superheroes. All of these associations
seem perfectly harmless, even commonsensical, until one realises that
HBO is owned by Time-Warner, who also own DC comics. The references
to DC heroes are surprisingly sparse. Practically non-existent, in
fact. The documentary functions as reverse-propaganda; Time-Warner
tells us that the phenomenon is the responsibility of Marvel – DC
comics don’t inspire such nutty behaviour, blame Disney (who also
owned Power Rangers when the documentary was filmed).
This continues through
what is not said by the documentary. Several of the heroes
during the documentary cite the rape and murder of Kitty Genovese as
a prime reason for their actions; the kind of apathy that led to her
death, when there were dozens of people who could have helped her, is
exactly what they’re fighting against. It seems highly unlikely
that any of these people knew about this 1964 event through any means
other than Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ graphic novel Watchmen.
In that work, the somewhat imbalanced but highly morally indignant
vigilante Rorschach is inspired to become an ultra-violent
crime-fighter because of the Genovese murder. Though the heroes of
the documentary claim to be inspired by the real life event, they are
actually replicating Rorschach’s actions, recasting themselves as
the character. Their inspiration for becoming real life vigilantes is
not a 1964 stabbing, but a seminal comic published by DC and owned by
Time-Warner.
So why reinvent yourself
as Rorschach? Why decide to put on a mask, kit yourself out with a
variety of home-made gadgets, call yourself an odd name and fight the
good fight? Why not simply do good as yourself? It seems to me that
there are two answers. Firstly, there’s the desire to transcend the
boundaries of your own identity and become the heroic figures of
myth, to stop being Joe Nobody and become Hercules. These actions of
vigilantism and charity are not about ego (well… mostly), or about
making sure that your neighbours know all about the good deeds that
you do. They are about the actions themselves, doing good for good’s
sake and separating it from an individual person. But there’s also
a more culturally specific reasoning behind it. As has already been
said, nearly all of the known superheroes are owned by major
corporations. The people don’t really own these heroes, the
money-men do. But by becoming the next generation of heroes, equally
distinct, equally iconic, equally ‘marketable’ (not literally,
but I’d be happy to own a Black Monday Society action figure set),
but not owned by any of the major corporate power brokers that
dictate the majority of our day to day lives. Becoming your own
marketable icon allows you to distinguish yourself from the rest of
society, to be an individual in the crowd, to become that
transcendent icon that Spider-Man is without having to put money into
Sony Pictures’ pocket.
There is a third reason,
of course, one voiced by another of the documentary’s subjects:
“It’s hella cool!”
- P.S.
