One would be hard pressed to find a more profitable or widespread pop cultural phenomenon in modern times than the Marvel Cinematic Universe – the series of interconnected superhero blockbuster films created by Marvel Studios (in conjunction with Walt Disney Studios) following the travails of the group of superheroes known as the Avengers. While it is often the case that people view these films as empty entertainment, all art is political in some way, and as such the politics of the MCU is important to understand. When viewed through a Marxist perspective, the Marvel Cinematic Universe to date is a shockingly pro-capitalist, pro-corporatist work of media, in which its primary protagonists are chiefly business tycoons and industrialists who possess the means of production and are seen as inherently deserving of that power due to their abilities.
The most prominent example of Marvel’s bourgeois characters is Tony “Iron Man” Stark, the central figure in the long-running franchise (Marx 71). A rich industrialist, Stark uses his substantial fortune for conspicuous consumption (he is often shown living an opulent lifestyle) and the construction of his Iron Man suits (Marx 147). While the plot of his origin story contains an anti-capitalist maneuver (he decides to stop his company making weapons despite that being his company’s primary purpose) this token gesture is nullified by the creation of the Iron Man suit, which is effectively just a weapon only he is allowed to handle. The plot of Iron Man 2 revolves around Stark refusing to hand the suit over to the government and the military, insisting that he should hold onto the means of production because he can use it more efficiently (Marx 71). In many ways, Stark is a clear example of the dreaded bourgeoisie, someone who directly and indirectly hurts the proletariat by possessing the wealth and tilting the division of labor heavily in his favor (Marx 71). The automation of much of his work (he is mostly aided by a series of automated robots and artificial-intelligence systems) also relates closely to Marx’s concept of the crisis of over-production.
A similar thing happens to the protagonists of the latest Marvel film, Ant-Man. In it, another rich industrialist, Hank Pym, solicits the help of a poor thief named Scott Lang to help stop another industrialist from making a shrinking suit similar to his. At its core, the plot of this film involves the solicitation of a member of the proletariat to maintain the dominant status of Hank Pym’s means of production by engaging in capitalist competition with his competitor (Marx 207). At all turns, the nature of the superhero places these individuals at a greater sense of power than the proletariat within the world of these films, painting them as innocent bystanders who must be saved and who have no agency of their own.
Interestingly, there are still many pro-Marxist themes and concepts to be found in many of the Marvel films. Captain America operates along themes of socialist brotherhood and fraternity more so than fealty to corporate interests. In The Winter Soldier, the Captain even engages in a revolutionary war against bourgeois-capitalist governmental entity SHIELD to seize the means of production and balance the division of labor (by destroying Project Insight, a program that would automatically annihilate the underclass of people who would get in their way). Many of the villains of these Marvel films are also capitalist bourgeois figures, usually arms dealers or mad governmental leaders (Iron Man’s Obadiah Stane, Iron Man 2’s Justin Hammer, Winter Soldier’s Alexander Pierce, Ant-Man’s Darren Cross) who want to steal technology or power for themselves; our heroes are ostensibly painted as the only people who can keep the public safe from them.
However, the overall thrust of most Marvel films is to maintain the status quo and to overturn revolution, presumably by an underclass against the interests that they are maintaining. Avengers: Age of Ultron sees the Avengers seeking to stop a disenfranchised robot of Stark’s own making (Ultron) who wants to reclaim ownership of the means of production for himself by revolting against humanity. In both Thor films, the character of Loki is a second-class citizen due to systemic racism, keeping him constantly from the means of production by his adoptive father Odin; the secondary villains of both films (the Frost Giants, the Dark Elves) are also a defeated underclass who develop the revolutionary consciousness to revolt and seize power from the Asgardians who hoard it, whom Marx would define as “a class, which till then has been in power” (Marx 193). As Winter Soldier villain Alexander Pierce says, “Sometimes building a new world means having to tear the old one down,” which is a succinct summation of Marx’s concept of class revolution: “the class overthrowing [the ruling class] can only in a revolution succeed in ridding itself of all the much of ages and become fitted to found society anew” (Marx 193).
When viewed through a Marxist perspective, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is, despite some token nods toward partnership and equality, extremely classist and pro-capitalist in its ultimate aims. The world of these films is populated by supermen who must be accepted as having power over the proletariat due to their innate superiority over them, and therefore the values they uphold must be maintained. In film after film, they work to maintain their own sense of power out of fear that taking the power out of their hands would mean the literal destruction of the world. Beleaguered underclasses who are alienated from the division of labor and wish to revolt are treated as alien villains who must be stopped (Marx 110). To that end, with some exceptions, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is an innately capitalistic story, which befits its own status as a money-making machine for Disney, Marvel and the other large corporations involved in its production.
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