I should stop coming to these threads. At the end of the day, Batman is rich by day and personally fights crime at night. Everything else is just added on to make that premise work. It feels like a bit of a Thermian argument (“she’s naked because she breathes through her skin”)
Edit: there’s also something interesting to say about why “comic book” means “superheroes” in the US but “Donald Duck/Tintin/Astérix” in Western Europe
True. That is indeed very interesting. Although not limited to comic books. You can spot a similar pattern in movies too. Somehow, in America, the films to become the most popular (or most successful) mostly featured themes portraying powerful people in a positive light, directly or indirectly. While in Europe this trend never really took root.
In a classic, underdeveloped autocracy, the answer would surely be blatant censorship and prosecution of authors portraying different views. However, the American mechanisms for accomplishing the same goals are considerably more complex and intricate. That is, assuming there was or still is such a mechanism, as I’m not sure we can say that definitely. Perhaps it was all just a natural process of people preferring the easier, more convenient narratives?
I should stop coming to these threads. At the end of the day, Batman is rich by day and personally fights crime at night. Everything else is just added on to make that premise work. It feels like a bit of a Thermian argument (“she’s naked because she breathes through her skin”)
Edit: there’s also something interesting to say about why “comic book” means “superheroes” in the US but “Donald Duck/Tintin/Astérix” in Western Europe
True. That is indeed very interesting. Although not limited to comic books. You can spot a similar pattern in movies too. Somehow, in America, the films to become the most popular (or most successful) mostly featured themes portraying powerful people in a positive light, directly or indirectly. While in Europe this trend never really took root.
In a classic, underdeveloped autocracy, the answer would surely be blatant censorship and prosecution of authors portraying different views. However, the American mechanisms for accomplishing the same goals are considerably more complex and intricate. That is, assuming there was or still is such a mechanism, as I’m not sure we can say that definitely. Perhaps it was all just a natural process of people preferring the easier, more convenient narratives?