What makes a protagonist cool? When it comes to heroic narratives, there tends to be a binary; either our star character is tight-lipped and detached, or they are forthright and obvious. This dichotomy is probably best exemplified as the difference between DC’s Batman and Superman. Regardless of all the evidence to the contrary, our shared default notions of the two heroes come down to this: Batman is brooding, a man of few words, while Superman often smiles and is generally more chatty. The point is costumed superheroes by their very definition carry with them a slightly absurd, performative element but also a kind of duality of lightness and darkness. As Margaret Atwood pointed in her book In Other Worlds: “A comic-book character living a split life and engaged in a battle between Good and Evil might well be expected to show Jungian characteristics.” Batman tends to be the go-to character with his kind of analysis (the hero, the rebel, the orphan), but what about the sunnier guys? Don’t Mr. Fantastic and Superman have something to say about the human condition, too? This year, with two major movies — Superman and The Fantastic Four: First Steps — the world of cinematic superheroes answered that question with a big yes. Dark and gritty superheroes are out, and upbeat superheroes are in. But these films didn’t deliver the optimistic goods by simply having characters smile; instead, there’s another secret weapon going on here: a kind of rebellious goofiness. |
