We know, however, that if if myth does have a conservative function, in that it is used to bind and regulate a community, myth has to be able to adapt to changes if it is to maintain equilibrium in that community. Both of them apply a concept of myth that is highly conservative and adds to the sense that the superhero genre is an inherently conservative, if not completely reactionary one, thereby hiding the role superheroes play in advocating social change. This is a little belated, but I’ve recently been trying to think about the relationship between superheroes and myth, having become troubled by analyses found in Umberto Eco’s 1962 essay “The Myth of Superman” and Richard Reynolds’s book Superheroes: A Modern Mythology from 1992 that seem to still dominate current thinking on the issue.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |