Blair Davis

In Comic Book Movies (part of Rutgers University Press’s “Quick Takes: Movies & Popular Culture” series), scholar Blair Davis examines the elements of one of the dominant film genres in American cinema of the last twenty years. He begins by questioning the way cultural critics, commentators, and others employ the term “comic book movie” as a genre label, arguing that the films – and especially their source material – run the gamut in genre from action to science fiction, horror to romance, autobiographical to comedy, and many more permutations in between. Davis writes, “Even after dominating the box office for over a decade, comic book movies – like comics themselves – are still regarded with dubious eyes by those who question their merit. But what many conceive of as a single genre is in fact composed of films representing a wide range of other genres” (pg. 17). Even in terms of style, modern comic book movies lack the experimentation and auteurs of films from the 1980s and 1990s, with the Marvel Cinematic Universe preferring a “house style” that forefronts the characters rather than the director or actors (pg. 100-102, 105).

Discussing the role of comic book movies, as well as comic book themselves, Davis writes, “Comic book movies… provide allegories for how we navigate our place in the world. They tell stories, for instance, about the roles played by science and technology in contemporary life, about the evolution of the human body and our cultural understanding thereof – all foundational parts of how we understand ourselves, our values, and our society” (pg. 47). He cautions against the tendency of some scholars to position the modern wave of comic book movies explicitly as a response to 9/11 much as early adaptations responded to World War II. According to Davis, “To offer up the comic book movie as a healing, cathartic force for a nation’s psychic damage is an oversimplification at best. Filmmakers (and, more importantly, film studios) usually don’t make movies for therapeutic purposes. When great art happens to coincide with profitable entertainment, audiences and executives alike rejoice. But arguing that a comic book movie like Spider-Man’s primary role is a cathartic one is absurd” (pg. 76). He continues, “Instead, comic book movies have used the ongoing public concerns surrounding terrorism to add the sense of social relevancy to their amazing and/or uncanny characters and fantastic stories” (pg. 79).

Davis’s work offers a synthesis of contemporary comic book and film scholarship as well as his own insights from the survey of scholarship and his own research. Comic Book Movies works well as a primer to the subject and would fit in well in a film studies or English course.… (plus d'informations)