Heroes & Heroines

This article looks into how the society of today want a superhero that is not seen as boring but rather has a 'gritty' background. In order to modernize and feel relate-able the character must be darker and the story-line must fit into today's world, for example the dark knight fighting police corruption and urban terrorism.

Agreed. People don't like a superhero as much if they obey all the rules all the time and are a law abiding citizen because it's boring. It's more appealing to people to watch them take the law into their own hands. Captain America is a perfect example and the opening line: "Captain America is only interesting if he's a prick."

I definitely like the idea that superhero's are just as dark and as tortured as villains are. Everyone has a different background story, and they are not perfect, but it is what you do about your situation, and how you learn to grow from it. It makes it much more realistic for us to look at them and say "okay, they have their problems too"

This article is going to be extremely helpful in answering one of my subquestions: Do superheroes have good morals? The way this article breaks down moral values by different categories and even different superheroes will be a great resource for more information that goes beyond the statistics we gathered.

Very cool article. I love how it goes in to and explains the moral values of different superheroes. It shows that not all super heroes have the same set of moral values.

In this article the author talks about how when she was growing up she didn't expect people of different races to be in superhero movies nor did she expect women to play a big role in the movies. However now in this day in age she expects more from the comic companies.

Do you think a movie would still be successful if there wasn't hardship for the hero? What if there was no challenge? What if they were not tested? Would we love them as much? I think you have to watch them struggle before you can be happy for their success.

I liked this article because it reminds us the importance of the sequences we see in the movies. Watching a character overcome a hardship is much more captivating when you respect the character. To catch the watchers attention, tragedy is included from the beginning. It helps you better connect and understand the character, so I agree in that tragedy is necessary to create a good superhero movie.

I believe that no matter what genre a movie is the audience always roots for the underdog. Therefore I think it is important to show a hardship for the hero and how the hero overcomes it. I think overcoming the obstacle in their life makes them a hero in a sense.

The American Psychological Association says that superhero movies today are only giving boys two options for what they can be: a superhero or a slacker. This didn't use to be the case, however. Looking back at old comic books superheros were portrayed with vulnerabilities therefore making them more relateable and better role models for young men.

This article was written by a credible and reliable source. It discusses what seems to be an upcoming bright spot for minorities in superhero films.

This article discusses the lack of minorities, both in race and gender, in superhero films. It then goes on to show why the movie industry is reluctant to change the current era of white male superheros. Based on past failures of films that portrayed minorities, filmmakers don't want to take a risk making a movie that stars a minority.

This article expands on military in superhero movies. It discusses the militarization of the heroes in these films and how the violence and weaponry have shifted from fantasy to hyper-realism. I think it raises some interesting points.

It also shows the impact of society and recent events and their affect on how our own superheroes are then portrayed to its audience. Our superheroes have to be continually updated, and in this instance, in terms of weaponry to (in a sense) stay relevant to the audience.

This article explains the more violence portrayed to be "good" is having adverse affects on the behaviour of children.

This article exemplifies the idea that superheroes, even the female superheroes have a very masculine make-up. When children watch these movies, they believe that they are supposed to follow suit in terms of build and how they are supposed to act. Is this the right image we should be giving to our children?

This article is about superheroes promoting the wrong message to young children, especially boys. It goes on to say that in order to promote less stereotypical male behaviour in our society we must address the issue of role models and find lies in the images we are sold.

Links exposure effect with gender roles in superhero movies

I found this article very interesting because I myself found an article about early childhood development and how it helps the children. It is very interesting to read other articles that go against what we read. This article explains how superheros have a negative impact on young kids.

And for those of you not keeping count, Wonder Woman still remains at 1 feature-length film, which was an animated direct-to-video movie in 2009. Now, I'm no math major, but something seems off here. Where are all the female superheroes?

This is a very interesting article about how female superheroes are very underestimated. I think this would be a good article for anyone looking at gender. It is interesting because our data supports thus theory. Only one of the superhero movies in the data we have had a female as the superhero.

I really enjoyed this article and it would be great for my research paper because I would like to talk about female vs. male superheros. Very good article.

This is an article explaining how Superheros can help with childhood development.

This article has exposure effect in it. The more superhero hero movies that come out the more we like them. Since 2000 the box office has made much more money on superhero movies than they have in the past.

To say the comic book industry has a slight gender skew is like saying Superman is kind of strong. Comic books - much like the film industry they now fuel - vastly under-represent women. The people who write comic books, particularly for major publishers, are overwhelmingly men.

This article focuses on comic books as a male dominated industry. The problem that fighting for equality and more women in lead roles is that the industry will not change unless they all change. Meaning that why would they change from a male lead to a female lead, if they can make more money with the male superhero. The sad truth is that this will always be a problem within the superhero world. And this article talks exactly about that.

I really liked this article because this issue is a hot topic in the media today. Whether boys should play with dolls and girls be policemen-- I think this article says it perfectly when we assume boys should like superheroes and want to be masculine like they are. I also agree that parents should talk with their kids about the different stereotyping but allow them to make their own choice.

This article is fitting with a key debate in today's society over the influences that children have within their lives. Boys should like blue, girls should like pink. It fit's into everyday life as women are portrayed through media as damsels in distress and that men are the knights in shining armour. Stereotyping is slowly becoming an issue that more and more parents are dealing with when bringing children up.

(2007). Equally Super?: Gender-Role Stereotyping of Superheroes in Children's Animated Programs. Mass Communication and Society: Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 25-41. doi: 10.1080/15205430709337003

This article explains a study done on female and male superheroes in children's cartoons. Specifically, this study investigated whether or not animated superheroes were portrayed in gender-role stereotypical ways. I think this is a good article for anyone focusing on gender or stereotyping.

Really good article about gender stereotypes in superhero cartoons for children. Looks at how genders are stereotyped and its possible effect on children.

Interesting take on men only being able to be superheroes and how their merchandise feeds into the stereotype

Good article for anyone focusing on gender, looks at how superheroes are stereotyped even in fashion and how boys are always the hero's and girls on "date" the heroes.

Interesting article on superhero merchandise for females. Different approach and view on superheroes and the role they play with gender.

This site will lead you to some understandable (not highly academic) information about the use and psychology of color in movies.