Article

I. The birth of Iron Man — a product of the war or a new faith? 

     Iron Man was born in a war and an explosion. In 1963, Iron Man debuted in comic book Tales of Suspense # 39. The beginning and background of the comic book version are similar to the movie version, starting with a war background. Matthew Costello described the original Iron Man, as “Marvel’s coldest soldier”, is a symbolic figures as the product and icon of the Cold War II (Hogan, 2009). The comic book is based on the Vietnam War, but the Marvel movie version of Iron Man incorporates the modern war, that is, the 911 event. This is an improvement in the era and media form crossing of Iron Man 50 years later.

 

    The birth of Iron Man is placed at the border between justice and injustice, and at the edge of the violence and peace. When it first appeared and was created, Iron Man was closely related to the initiation of war, described as “terrorist”in the Marvel Movie World Guide(O'Sullivan, 2015). Iron Man is not regarded as an optimistic image because the first-generatin Iron Man suit was created in a military camp in Afghanistan in which Americans believe is the birthplace of terrorists. Moreover, when it does not initially made public, the US military regarded Iron Man as an unknown object and invades US territory and commands troops to repel it. This shows that Americans are wary about the birth of Iron Man. Additionally, the creator and controller of Iron Man, Tony Stark, does not consider himself is a "real patriot." When Stane is presenting a patriotic award to Tony, he is still gambling with beauty in the casino. Tony Stark created so many advanced weapons just for make money, who is not an image described by media who dedicates to national security and safety of American.

 

So what is the birth of Iron Man represent?

    Although initial birth of Iron Man was a panic for the American people, it is a turning point for personal growth of Tony. From he toasted to celebrate "To peace" to get in trouble with an explosion trapped, this ironic experience made Tony completely awakened. The Yinsen who saved him in that explosion also make Tony realize that what he always believe the weapons he made were used by the United States for the goodwill is a lie, which the fact it was really used for violence and war. It awakens him immediately who decides to help Yinsen and his hometown Gulmira at that moment. But it cannot be said that Tony has become a responsible and positive image, because the main reason for his helping is take revenge. But revenge becomes an important cause for him to make Iron Man, which has also become a tag and symbol, representing freedom, and breaking the stereotyped black and white (ROBINSON, 2018). As a superhero, instead of having the calmness and justice characteristic of Captain America, Iron Man is a little bit boisterous and unruly. But it is puzzling that this superhero image of bohemian character has been crazy sought after. As Ashley mentioned in a comparative analysis of Iron Man and Captain America, Iron Man ’s distinctive character is challenging the American audience ’s impression of traditional superheroes.

 

    Iron Man is Tony Stark's ego, an indispensable character that makes Tony grows. The relationship between Iron Man and Tony can be seen as two separate and independent individuals, but they are inseparable somehow. On the one hand, Iron Man is a non-human machine. ‘He’ always uses the voice of a robot to remind Tony's dangerous behavior in a calm way. At this moment, Iron Man and Tony seem to be two individuals. ‘He’ usually acts as a calm partner. On the other hand, when Tony put on the Iron Man suit, they could be regarded as inseparable entirety fighting together. Tony is selfish, bohemian, and irresponsible who doesn't look like the characteristics that a superhero should have. But when he wears the Iron Man Suit, we have to admit that he seems to have changed. He would rather hide his superhero identity to save some people who seem to have no related with him——the women and children in the small town Gulmira, the innocent presidential team involved on the plane accident, or he is willing to trust with and teach the little boy in Iron Man 3. Iron Man is changing Tony, even if Tony causes trouble many times, but we cannot deniable that Tony wearing Iron Man suit is becoming more and more responsible. The so called justice he pursues is not the right or wrong of ordinary people, but the right and wrong what Tony believes, even you sometimes feel very ridiculous and crazy about him. But it does madness that allowed the American people who had been suppressed for a long time to enjoy “liberation”. People begin to think about whether they already numb themselves who always lived under the system and had always believed in the government. And what does the new superhero who has been challenging the system and norms represent? We have to say that although Iron Man was born in war, he also opened a new era that American residents are more daring to pursuit skepticism, who has also opened up a wave of Americans pursuit of freedom.

 

 

 

 

II. Gender issues and Patriarchal society

    From another perspective, the new era he opened has a close relationship with Iron Man's social background and character characteristics. Iron Man not only encourages the female audiences being more courageous and confident, but also contributes to the social discussion of equality between male and female.

 

• Masculinity, the opening of new ideology

    Distinctive masculinity of Iron Man is attractive. Many scholars believe that masculinity and femininity can be compared. Both are concepts of gender identification and identification, which can be defined as a collection of physical, psychological, emotional, and social traits (Connell, 2005). As a male character, it is obvious that Tony shows the wild characteristics, confidence and courage of nature of man. But even more fascinating is his unexpected lifestyle and unrestrained behavior. Tom Hart wrote in New Statesman in 2015, commented Tony is an arms dealer, narcissist, billionaire who is irresponsible and vain, but his attractiveness depends to a large extent on his rebellious attitude, extraordinary charm and his genius with great wealth. Many people are eager for charm and pleasure lifestyle (McSweeney, 2018). Iron Man artist and illustrator Paul Ryan also categorizes this fulfillment as one of the core reason of character charm. The coolness and life values ​​of Tony Stark also make people adore and envy. His masculinity is mainly reflected in his style of daring to love and hate. Unlike other superheroes, purpose of Iron Man is mostly in revenge, which challenged the judging standard of a superhero. Is superhero the only one who must go through the flames for the people, the government, and the country? In Iron Man, there seems to be controversy. Just like in the Avengers, Rogers and Stark have always had contradictions, and their images also represent the attitude of Americans in the two eras around the 20th century. One is to stick to conventions, and the other is to yearn for freedom. Therefore, the unusual characters and characters of Iron Man are the representatives and models of new ideas and new pursuits. 

 

• Patriarchal society and masculinity in United State

   Jessica Birthisel divided masculinity into bodily masculinity, social masculinity, and sexual masculinity(Birthisel, 2014). The expressions of bodily masculinity and sexual masculinity in Iron Man are similar to other superhero movies with normal and ordinary characters and plots settings. If the above briefly summarizes how bodily masculinity is reflected in Iron Man, the following arguments are focusing on analyzing how to reflect masculinity from the perspective of social environment and social background. Without exception, every movie in the MCU summarizes the reconstruction of male authority and patriarchy (McSweeney, 2018). The patriarchal society is most vividly reflected in Iron Man as well, which obviously embodied in the relationship between Tony and father.

 

     His father creates the most powerful weapon industry and technology in the United States. Tony inherited his father's talents and developed Stark industry stronger and stronger to become a strong backing for the United States. However, Tony loses himself at the beginning who has a misunderstanding with his father. He has no intimate communication with his father. His father always regard him as a naive kid, who did not allow him to deal with his work. He has not been recognized by his father. That is why when others compare him with his father that he will be sensitive and will have resistance.

 

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    Many of the relationship in the Iron Man films are related to men and men, aside from the construction of the relationship between father and son. Iron Man and Tony's other machines act as a non-human role, but they form a brotherly relationship with Tony, a humorous relationship of teasing, working, cherishing and helping each other. The relationship between Tony and Rhodey, or Tony and the young boy are based on 'loyalty', 'manliness' and ‘team members’. It conveys that although Iron Man challenges the inherent concept of superheroes, it has not completely divorced from the real society, that is, a patriarchal society.

 

• Female characters in Iron Man

    Although Iron Man is a special presence in MCU hero movies, it also has the stereotype of MCU or most hero movies. Jon Hogan mentioned that female characters rarely occupy the privileged and dynamic space of the series in the MCU hero movie who are often marginalized and transparent.(McSWEENEY, 2018) In other words, female characters rarely occupy as main character in the main plot, particularly in fighting scene. There are common feature in the Iron Man movie: 

 

1. There is a large gap between the proportions of female roles and male roles, not only in the number of characters, but also in the percentage of how much time female characters spend on screen. A study undertaken by Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media showed that, only eight female characters are arranged dialogues, five of them are nominated: Pepper Potts, Maya Hansen, Ellen Brandt, Christine Everhart, and Ramirez. 

Showing in the data from Netflix, in Iron Man1 (2:06:00), female characters play only 27 minutes, accounting for 27%. Similarly, female in Iron Man2 occupies 35.03% of the whole film duration, which is the highest rate than other two. Additionally, there are many superhero team covered in MCU movie. 30% of teams have no women participated, and only 12% teams have more female members than male(Shendruk, 2020). From above datas, unfair treatment between gender groups of female and male is a common phenomenon in Marvel movie.

 

2. The differences of male and female characters are mainly reflected on the differences of bodily characteristics, physical signs and personality. The male images like Tony, Rhodey, Stane, usually have deeper voice, perfect muscular shape, who are stronger and taller. They are looks more ‘natural’ and ‘original’ state, without certain traits of female. But female characters often has heavily make-up, styled hair. they would wear accessories and clothing to avoid exposed breasts or their body. 

 

Female characters play a role as an assistance in superhero movies. Even if there are female heroines, at the beginning of film, the movie plot will reflect that the male expects the female should be work behind them instead of fighting to the front line. For example, in The Incredibles and Jack-Jack’s Attack produced by Disney, there is a plot in which Bob expects that the Elastigirl will take care of the children at home. Later, he gradually agrees that they can fight for the family together. There is a similar plot in Iron Man 3, Aldrich Killian hope Pepper and Maya help him and support his work as a lady stand behind the man. Additionally, first appearing in Iron Man, Pepper is Tony's assistant who need to remember Tony’s password and schedule. She always show an unconfident image to audiences at first. The MCU also distributes secondary female characteristics who are treated even worse. Pepper refers to Christine Everheart in Iron Man and Iron Man 2 as “garbage." Maya Hansen was abandoned and killed easily by Aldrich Killian.

 

Although there are changing that giving women higher positions, it is not difficult to find that before the changing occurs, a characteristic of female characters is lack of confident. There is a plot in Iron Man 1, Pepper feel embarrassed and inappropriate when she is dancing with Tony(her boss) with backless dress, because she does not let other think she is to do his assistant through dishonest way.

 

3. But we have to say that the changes at the gender in Iron Man have changed during three series. That is, above two points are the common conclusion and comparison of the female and male in Iron Man, but there are also changes among them. Tony is the core figure for   changing the inherent image and thinking of female. Although Tony often shows a courageous image protecting girlfriend, such as rescuing Pepper. He also regarded her as a teammate, encouraging her try to touch something disgusting, dangerous, and unknown. So at the end of Iron Man3, Pepper survived in adversity, subverting the weak image of women. Even if she was injected with drugs, she saved tony at the most critical time and even defeated the bad guys. In this situation, female character reflects how masculine can lead to greater influence for female and superheroine(Goodrum et al., 2018). It is unclear whether the MCU has changed the setting of female characters on purpose, but at least it can be seen that Iron Man has made women stand up. This is also a reason why the new concept started by Iron Man has made many female audiences cheer for it.

 

 

Conclusion

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References

1. Birthisel, J. (2014). How Body, Heterosexuality and Patriarchal Entanglements Mark Non-Human Characters as Male in CGI-Animated Children's Films. Journal Of Children And Media, 8(4), 341-347. https://doi.org/10.1080/17482798.2014.960435

 

2. Connell, R. W. (2005). Masculinities (2nd ed.). Berkeley: University of California Press

 

3. Goodrum, M., Prescott, T., & Smith, P. (2018). Gender and the superhero narrative (pp. 144-180). The University Press of Mississippi.

 

4. Hogan, J. (2009). THE COMIC BOOK AS SYMBOLIC ENVIRONMENT: THE CASE OF IRON MAN. A Review Of General Semantics, Vol.66, No. 2 (April 2009), 199-214. Retrieved 26 April 2020, from https://www.jstor.org/stable/42578930.

 

5. McSWEENEY, T. (2018).‘That’s how Dad did it, that’s how America does it … and it’s worked outpretty well so far’: The Stark Doctrine in Iron Man and Iron Man 2. In Avengers Assemble! Critical Perspectives on the Marvel Cinematic Universe (pp. 46-47). Columbia University Press, Wallflower Press.

 

6. McSWEENEY, T. (2018).‘That’s how Dad did it, that’s how America does it … and it’s worked outpretty well so far’: The Stark Doctrine in Iron Man and Iron Man 2. In Avengers Assemble! Critical Perspectives on the Marvel Cinematic Universe (pp. 63-64). Columbia University Press, Wallflower Press.

 

7. McSWEENEY, T. (2018). 'Nothing's been the same since New York': Ideological Continuity and Change in Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World. In Avengers Assemble! Critical Perspectives on the Marvel Cinematic Universe (pp. 137-138). Columbia University Press, Wallflower Press.

 

8. O’Sullivan, M. (2015). Guidebook to the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Marvel’s Iron Man. Hachette Book Group.

 

9. ROBINSON, A. (2018). We Are Iron Man: Tony Stark, Iron Man, and American Identity in the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Phase One Films. The Journal Of Popular Culture, Vol.51(No.4), 832-836.

 

10. Shendruk, A. (2020). Analyzing the Gender Representation of 34,476 Comic Book Characters. from https://pudding.cool/2017/07/comics/.