The Logic of the American Superhero behind ‘Transformers 4’

In only three days, “Transformers 4” has surpassed 600 million yuan at the box office in China, exceeding box office results in North America, and the film may break the previous record set by “Avatar.” Over the past few years, imported films, including “Iron Man,” “Spiderman,” “Captain America” and other action or sci-fi blockbuster movies with superheroes as protagonists have been extremely lucrative for Hollywood.

In the past, major Hollywood studios relied on the summer box office, which makes up 40 percent of their annual revenue. However, superhero movies are now available almost year-round. For example, “Captain America 2” premiered in the spring and pulled in over $200 million in the U.S. Production companies have made $6 billion from the nine films of this genre in the past six years. Their new production and distribution strategies incorporate cultural elements and target the first release on home soil. Hollywood then continues to globally market superhero movies to maximize profits. What a strategic move for “Transformers 4” to steadily incorporate Chinese elements (and introduce Chinese brands) to snowball profit.

Chinese distributors and theaters are also commanding the box office, organizing the timely release of many blockbuster films in this genre at opportune moments. However, these companies are ignoring or overlooking the negative impact the films have on Chinese audiences. Consequently, during Children’s Day on June 1, kids could be found playing with someone dressed as Spiderman. The movie trailer advertises this American hero with [the slogan], “A real hero is coming!” Some Chinese fans even went around the world imitating their heroes [in their quest] to save mankind. The Huading Awards, which recently moved to Hollywood, went so far as to present awards to “Pacific Rim,” a movie that advocates American and Japanese domination in the South China Sea.

During the half-century long Cold War era, Hollywood aligned with U.S. foreign policy and spared no effort in making many Cold War-themed movies. Even Alfred Hitchcock directed pieces such as “Torn Curtain,” creating a Cold War culture. Since the 1990s, the American ideology of hegemony seen in foreign and military policies has extended to its culture. Superhero movies ceaselessly broadcast this hegemonic culture, serving as a narrative or a paradigm continually advocating Americanism — including its political ideologies and values — in order to establish a cultural hegemony. This type of film typically costs over hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars to make, uses audiovisual effects and spectacular settings, and includes beautiful actors and actresses or famous celebrities. In such entertainingly colorful packaging, American superheroes have transformed into charismatic saviors of the Earth and mankind.

Although superheroes need to successfully pass through the more than a dozen stages that American scholars have identified as the “hero’s journey,” these stages consist of nothing more than defeating enemies, saving the world and living happily ever after. These heroes use violence as a tool to promote individualist heroism. A group of psychologists from the University of Massachusetts believe that these superheroes are fighting for justice against violence, with violence. They concluded from surveying 674 children and adolescents, aged 4 through 18, that superheroes in today’s movies and comic books are bellicose, dominant and vindictive, quite different from the benevolent heroes depicted in the past. They are sending a message of aggression and violence, and serve as poor role models for children. We have to be wary of American superheroes aestheticizing violent behaviors and making a dominant nature seem entertaining.