Are superhero movies sending the wrong message to boys? Researchers who spoke at Sunday’s 118th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association think so. The Thompson on Hollywood blog points to a report from the gathering which found, “Watching superheroes beat up villains may not be the best image for boys to see if society wants to promote kinder, less stereotypical male behaviors.”
“There is a big difference in the movie superhero of today and the comic book superhero of yesterday,” said psychologist Sharon Lamb of the University of Massachusetts-Boston, according to a press release from the American Psychological Association. “Today’s superhero is too much like an action hero who participates in non-stop violence; he’s aggressive, sarcastic and rarely speaks to the virtue of doing good for humanity. When not in superhero costume, these men, like Iron Man, exploit women, flaunt bling and convey their manhood with high-powered guns.”
While comic book heroes of yesteryear fought criminals, their out-of-costume personae were “real people with real problems and many vulnerabilities,” Lamb said.
Lamb surveyed 674 boys age 4 to 18, visited malls and spoke to store clerks in order to reach findings that marketers “take advantage of boys’ need to forge their identity in adolescence and sell them a narrow version of masculinity.”
“In today’s media, superheroes and slackers are the only two options boys have,” the release quoted Lamb as saying. “Boys are told, if you can’t be a superhero, you can always be a slacker. Slackers are funny, but slackers are not what boys should strive to be; slackers don’t like school and they shirk responsibility. We wonder if the messages boys get about saving face through glorified slacking could be affecting their performance in school.”
Sources: http://power.networksolutions.com/index.html
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-08/apa-tss080510.php
http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/2010/08/16/daily_read_aug_16/
http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2010/08/macho-stereotype-unhealthy.aspx
