{"id":9201,"date":"2011-01-05T19:57:48","date_gmt":"2011-01-05T19:57:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/59.6386"},"modified":"2011-01-05T19:57:48","modified_gmt":"2011-01-05T19:57:48","slug":"psychologist-claims-todays-superheroes-are-bad-influences-on-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/2011\/01\/05\/psychologist-claims-todays-superheroes-are-bad-influences-on-children\/","title":{"rendered":"Psychologist Claims Today\u2019s Superheroes Are Bad Influences On Children"},"content":{"rendered":"

Originally posted: http:\/\/www.geekosystem.com\/sharon-lamb-superheroes\/<\/a>
\nby Susana Polo<\/strong> | 4:48 pm, August 19th, 2010
\nPsychologist Sharon Lamb thinks that todays superheroes send the wrong messages to young boys<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There is a big difference in the movie superhero of today and the comic book superhero of yesterday\u2026 Today\u2019s superhero is too much like an action hero who participates in non-stop violence; he\u2019s aggressive, sarcastic and rarely speaks to the virtue of doing good for humanity. When not in superhero costume, these men, like Ironman[sic], exploit women, flaunt bling and convey their manhood with high-powered guns.
\nThe comic book heroes of the past did fight criminals, she said, \u201cbut these were heroes boys could look up to and learn from because outside of their costumes, they were real people with real problems and many vulnerabilities,\u201d she said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In response to her statement, you could ask \u201cHave superheroes really changed over time?\u201d (Yes, everything does.) \u201cIs there something about movies that requires superheroes to become more violent?\u201d (No, they\u2019re just as violent if not more in current comics.) and even \u201cWhy is it a problem that superheroes are no longer clear cut examples of heroism?\u201d (Who knows.)
\nBut all of those questions allow Dr. Lamb to stand unopposed on one fundamental assertion: that all superheroes are for children.
\nBut first, a tangent: \u201creal people with real problems and many vulnerabilities,\u201d who speak \u201cto the virtue of doing good for humanity.\u201d\u00a0 Has anyone seen Batman Begins <\/em>or The Dark Knight<\/em>?\u00a0 The first two X-Men <\/em>movies?\u00a0 Spider-Man<\/em>?\u00a0 Hancock<\/em>? Even Iron Man 2<\/em>, the only<\/em> superhero movie that fits her description, does a pretty good job of showing that Tony Stark is a man with a serious problem, and not a hero we should take a face value.
\nBack To My Point<\/strong>
\nWhile the superhero genre has well established tropes and rules, any genre can accommodate tonal shifts.\u00a0 No one would imply that Animal Farm <\/em>represents a corruption of the talking animal genre of children\u2019s literature.\u00a0 Fantasy doesn\u2019t get called out for telling morally ambiguous stories.
\nThere are comic book superheroes for kids, yes.\u00a0 Captain Marvel has had a kid oriented series lately, and then there\u2019s Batman: The Brave and the Bold<\/em>, and others.\u00a0 But the majority of comic book superheroes haven\u2019t been written for small children for twenty years now.
\nWhen good, they are full of morally ambiguous heroes and <\/em>villains, tricky ethical situations, and hot button issues like gay rights and global politics; when bad, they\u2019re still full of violence and questionable depictions of both sexes. Today\u2019s movie superhero is something decidedly different from today\u2019s comic book superhero, which makes comparing comics of the past to movies of today particularly fruitless.
\nTo Sum Up<\/strong>
\nAnyone who still thinks that our depiction of superheroes in the mainstream adult <\/em>media (like Iron Man<\/em>) should be held to the same standards of unobjectionable content as superheroes in children<\/em>\u2019s movies (like The Incredibles<\/em>) doesn\u2019t really understand what it is they are talking about.
\nIn the interest of full disclosure, it seems like Dr. Lamb does have some legitimate things to say about how we market products to young boys and what that does to them<\/a>.\u00a0 I just can\u2019t get past her assertions about a single genre of storytelling.
\n(via Wired<\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Captain Black posts an article about the dangers of comic book superheroes in the movies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9243,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[163,205,594,691,774,1262,1297,2477,2548,2555,2998],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9201"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rlsh.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}