Capstone Weekly Reflection 7- 1/11/2019

This week was slow in terms of productivity due to the struggle of easing into a return from fall break but there were still several important discoveries for the development of this project. Firstly, in reviewing bell hooks’ The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity and Love, I was able to zero in more specifically on a framework with which to view masculinity in terms of my understanding of superhero comics as a genre. The main ideas I took away were the ways in which patriarchal masculinity informs the production of a specific kind of male subject that is isolated, disconnected and emotionally and psychologically scarred due to their separation from sources of love in their parents in order to be produced as figures of male authority and dominance under the system of patriarchy. Masculinity thus formulates itself constantly in relation to the potential for violence as anger becomes the only recognizable and acceptable expression of emotional under patriarchal culture. Hooks then moves to a different understanding of masculinity and male being that is not informed by the scriptedness of male social roles under patriarchal dominant culture but rather seeks authentic, whole being and views connection, healthy self- understanding and compassion as essential ways for men to free themselves from the system of patriarchal masculinity. This idea of male wholeness as interbeing and integrity becomes what hooks articulates as ‘the heroic journey’ of men in patriarchal culture, which subverts the dominant discourse and view of the heroic journey as outline by Joseph Campbell in his text ‘The Hero with a Thousand Faces.’ Campbell’s text proposes the idea that all cultural myths are connected by a shared understanding of specific themes and ideas that allow for the production of a map of mythology that is cross cultural. Outlined as the ‘monomyth,’ Campbell’s ideas are often used as a framework for storytelling in most forms of popculture genres, particularly fantasy, such as Star Wars and the superhero story. Chris Gavaler’s Superhero comics for instance dedicates a significant portion of his second chapter to understanding Campbells monomyth in relation to the superhero. Gavaler points out the specific stages of the monomyth, crossing the threshold and return to the ordinary world, as a means of understanding the ways in which superheroes navigate their dual identities. This kind of psychic split is, for hooks, the potentially most sinister and damaging way in which men are socialized under patriarchy as they are constantly performing a ‘mask’ of masculine identity that negates and subverts their authentic selves. The superhero thus, keeping with Gavaler’s understanding of Campbell’s monomyth, is a kind of storytelling that socializes men into becoming patriarchal subjects, who wield power as a means of dominance and violence, negate social formations and connections as a means of fostering their own morality and ideology as articulated by themselves individually and exists outside of the framework of social relations, as highlighted by Gavaler in his text. The idea of pursuing wholeness and interbeing, connection and compassion as the challenge and ‘heroic story’ of men under patriarchal society is thus a central means for my understanding my project, in thinking of the kinds of superhero stories/ vignettes I am now intending to portray, rather than simply engaging with the superhero genre to repeat the same patterns, ideas and mouthpiece for patriarchal culture.

In reading Max Reuben’s Trojans and Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s Amazing Fantasy Issue #15, my understanding and view of the superhero story and genre now presents itself very differently. These kinds of isolated subjects who wield power and authority for themselves in the name of a self- proposed morality are, for my own part, not stories but to be celebrated but function as a kind of cultural horror story. To quickly summarize the origin story of the Amazing Spider- Man character, by the end of the story, Peter Parker has lost his uncle, chosen the pursuit of vengeance as opposed to supporting his aunt after the loss of her husband and continues to perform a symbol of his trauma, his superhero identity, that simultaneously allows him to perform his authentic self but continues to negate his identity as Peter Parker. Perhaps the possibility for subversion through the superhero story lies in the ways in which the masked persona allows for male subjects to exists as their authentic selves through the mask in patriarchy society so as to preserve their whole being. However, this is problematized given that many superhero personas, specifically Spider- Man, are often connected to moments of violence or trauma that become played out repeatedly over history and are never redressed and allow for a full wholeness and healing of the male spirit.