I’ve been looking at the types of film in production recently, and there seems to be a distinct trend towards the fantasy and superhero genres. This interests me, as it may reveal things about the collective western mindset.

The two most obvious examples of recent fantasy films are the Harry Potter (HP) Series and the Lord of the rings (LOTR) trilogy. Both have strong central characters trying to save the world from a force of evil, but in this there is nothing special – the good versus evil theme is centuries old. What is interesting to me, however, is that they reveal a desire to break into a fantasy world where things like good and evil are well defined, and can be fought for or against. The division is Nott so clear cut here, and, as SLS points out, the lines between good and evil are blurred; a man seen as evil can be a force for good.

As the books upon which they are based, and the films themselves, were created and were in creation before 9/11, I doubt that HP and LOTR can be seen as truly reflecting of the current social mood. However, the current wave of ‘superhero’ films can be seen as reflecting of the status quo as they were created after 9/11. they too paint a world where there is a battle between good and evil, but unlike Frodo and Harry, their main protagonists have overt superhuman powers, or at least powers which excel their peers’.

The recent superhero films such as Spiderman are all about people with extra powers coming to vanquish the force of evil. We can read into this a desperate need in popular culture for such people, which reflects a certain nervousness about ourselves. Yet, in post-9/11 culture, if we read the forces of evil to be terrorists, we can see almost the exact opposite: we, or rather America, now sees itself as a force of good, and one with superhuman powers at that. Moreover, it now sees good and evil as two absolute extremes, rather than taking the more liberal stance that they are blurred, and this I find disturbing.

We have already heard bush refer to ‘’Evil’ in his speeches. This is juvenile: while someone may be misguided, he or she will always act for what they see as good. Hence, outside of fiction, the idea of evil is subjective. But bush is fuelling the idea by using such language that America is a force of innate good fighting the evildoers.

We’re living in an action movie! Aaaaaaargh!