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posted by martyb on Friday November 09 2018, @06:49PM   Printer-friendly
from the ends-justify-the-means? dept.

ArsTechnica:

It's superheroes and not their super-villain counterparts that we should really be afraid of. This idea has been explored in a number of superhero movies, including such diverse fare as The Incredibles, Watchmen, and the post-Sokovia adventures of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In each, lawmakers shackle our protagonists in response to the collateral damage caused when they step in to save the day.

But perhaps collateral damage is not what we should be worried about. According to a new study, the "good guys" are actually significantly more violent than the antagonists they're trying to stop. These findings were presented on Monday at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Pennsylvania pediatrician Robert Olympia and his colleagues sat through 10 superhero movies released in 2015 and 2016, cataloging each specific act of violence and noting whether it was committed by a protagonist or villain.

As anyone who has sat through a recent summer superhero tentpole can attest, there is a lot of violence to catalogue—on the order of 23 acts per hour for the good guys, with just 18 violent acts per hour for the bad guys. And it is mostly guys—male characters were five times more likely to engage in violence than female characters.

Well, it's edgier that way.

[For the sake of discussion, here's a 3-minute clip on YouTube: Incredibles 2 Fight Scene in Full: Jack-Jack vs. Raccoon (Exclusive). How many violent acts do you count? --Ed.]


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Friday November 09 2018, @08:11PM (1 child)

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday November 09 2018, @08:11PM (#760058) Journal

    I thought it was interesting as a discursive shift. Heroes have been twisted into anti-heroes. Not universally--Wonder Woman was refreshing because it hearkened back to concepts of duty and honor that used to be the meat of every superhero mythos. It used to be that even Batman was an upbeat character that believed in peace, justice, and the American way. Then he morphed into a dark character that you really couldn't root for. Everybody else followed that lead and now torture, murder, and mass destruction seem to be standard operating procedure.

    I think that says a lot about the state of humanity's dreams, which have been dark of late.

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.
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  • (Score: 2) by ilPapa on Saturday November 10 2018, @04:37PM

    by ilPapa (2366) on Saturday November 10 2018, @04:37PM (#760377) Journal

    Heroes have always been antiheroes. The ultimate outsiders.

    --
    You are still welcome on my lawn.