The many many spells of the Avengers

Reviewing The Endgame ?

Well, for one thing, a review without a spoiler is a Herculean task and for the other, this is not the space. This is just about how the more-than-a-decade-old flagship franchise from Marvel Studios has influenced our many worlds.

Ah, am curious!

Since Iron Man hit screens in 2008, 21 films, a dozen television shows and many of their clones, comics and games and merchandising goods came from Marvel, making the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) an $18-billion enterprise today. In 2017 alone when Marvel pushed three films, the studio raked in some $2.5 billion.

Whoa!

And the phenomenal success of the Avengers franchise has redefined the way studios plan, produce and market movies and their heroes. Even though there had been superheroes and franchises in Hollywood the way Marvel’s heroes captured imagination, partly due to the meticulous way they were created and the swashbuckling marketing campaigns, has forced Hollywood to rethink its business models.

Like?

One example is the focal shift from stars to franchises, as DigitalSpy has noted. The film industry has always had stars but the way it was able to capitalise on the value of the stars was very limited and depended on the success of their individual films. And the ultimate beneficiary was not necessarily the producer studios but the star. Hollywood analysts say the Marvel Cinematic Universe was able to break this jinx.

Interesting!

The Marvel Cinematic Universe too boasts of many big stars. But the difference here is the franchise stays above the star and all the add-on products, from brand endorsements to merchandise goods are anchored on the franchise and analysts say that’s a much safer game when it comes to monetising the content.

Cool!

What makes Avengers more interesting as a cinematic phenomenon is the fact that its success influenced several other sectors as well. From economics to leadership to politics, the MCU has cast its spell on everything, making Iron Man, The Hulk, Thor, Captain America, Black Widow, Hawkeye and even the ace villain Thanos enter boardrooms, school texts, college lecture halls and even into political speeches.

That’s fun!

In their interesting paper, ‘Fighting the Battles We Never Could: “The Avengers” and Post-September 11 American Political Identities’, published in American Political Science Association , academics Annika Hagley and Michael Harrison say that the MCU heroes reflect a “well-designed expression of American political identity in the post September 11 era.” They observe that each character represents a distinct identity or kind of behaviour with which the US has been struggling to reconcile itself while collectively representing the reactions of a nation to direct, domestic attack.

Insightful, I’d say.

The interesting paper dissects the psyche and social representation of most Avengers, especially the Iron Man, who many think represents the military industrial complex, shows a new found capacity to “depersonalise” war. In fact, this character is placed in counterpoint to Captain America, who represents “traditional notions of patriotism and acceptance of authority”.

Can’t agree more.

That said, there is also criticism that the MCU plays to the gallery with its formulaic treatment of plots and actions, cementing many existing stereotypes (it took a long time for a female to play lead in an MCU film; Captain Marvel, which was released during this year’s International Women’s Day, (on March 8) and the the heroes’ incessant fights against galactic fail to add any value to the larger genre of science fiction. Still, the MCU march is likely to continue despite the fact that Avengers: Endgame will mark the end of the current franchise.

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