Supermen and Superwomen: U.S. History Through Popular Fantasy

Catalog description

This course will examine how heroic popular culture (as presented in newspaper comics, comic books, animation, radio, television, and motion pictures) reflected the anxieties and aspirations of the American public throughout United States history, focusing on the 20th and 21st centuries. The political and cultural topics include (but are not restricted to) such topics as: isolationism between the two World Wars (and how that was reflected in Little Orphan Annie and Superman), the treatment of various ethnic and racial groups in the context of wars, conflicts over civil rights, and conflicts over immigration (as reflected in the animated films of Walt Disney, the Warner Brothers, and other studios), the empowerment of women (as reflected in the characterizations of Lois Lane, Wonder Woman, and the X-Men characters Storm and Phoenix). Juvenile delinquency (as reflected in Dick Tracy's "Crimestoppers" in the 1940s and the creation of the Comics Code Authority in the 1950s), atomic energy (as it played into the creation of classic Marvel superheroes as the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, and Spider-Man), criminal justice from the Prohibition era to the modern issues surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement (as it played out in such classic strips and characters ranging from Dick Tracy and Batman to the comics and new television show hero, Black Lightning), the liberty vs. security conflict of the post-9/11 era (as reflected in such comic-book based feature films as "Civil War" and "Suicide Squad").