Political scientist and journalist Julio Embid has published the book Con capa y antifaz: La ideología de los superhéroes.
In it he performs a sociopolitical analysis of heroes such as Batman, Wonder Woman or Iron Man.
The superheroes have invaded us, they are everywhere, in the comics -where they were born-, in books, in videogames and, increasingly, in film and television, transmitting their values to millions of people around the globe .
However, behind their image as guardians of the good, they hide other details that are more or less unnoticed, political ideas, social backgrounds, ideological positions ... This is where Julio Embid, a graduate in Political Science and Journalism, and current director general of Institutional Relations of the Government of Aragon, has found a vein for his latest book, With cape and mask: The ideology of superheroes.
Among many other issues, Embid wonders who would have voted Superman, Batman, Iron Man or Captain America in the last general election in the US. The answer, to the scandal of some, is that in the majority I would have supported Donald Trump. In fact, they have not liked this statement to Superman fans. "They have attacked me a lot in the networks because of this, but I insist that being a rightist is not equivalent to being a bad person and you do not have to be a piscopath to vote for Trump," Embid tells 20 minutes.
And he says it, he declares himself on the left and, partly for that reason, a big fan of Daredevil. "He's a guy who suffers, who has problems getting to the end of the month, in that sense, for an urban left person like me it's easy to identify with him," he says.
But the truth is that "the US is conservative and its left is much more decaffeinated than the European left", so, since these characters were created there, it is normal that progressives are a minority. In fact, even "the most ideologically committed characters, like Wonder Woman, lose a bit of virulence and commitment in their jump to the cinema". As explained by Embid, the explanation is simple: "the studios want the film to be seen in their country but also in Dubai and in China, so they try to appeal to more or less common values such as the idea of good, of justice , of freedom and representative democracy ".
The success of the industry has been such that they have managed to "make us feel closer to the United States than to geographically closer countries such as Portugal or Morocco."
The heroes are created by one or two individuals, but then "many people take ownership of it in the process and everyone contributes something to it". "I do not think we can talk about a conspiracy to try to imbue ideologies but it is more a consequence of socio-political changes and the passage of time, almost a century in the case of some like Captain America or Superman."
Luke Cage is a symbol of racial struggle, Wonder Woman champion female sexual liberation, Captain America surprises by defending freedom above all by questioning the authorities ... but none will skip all the rules. They are children of the system and will never go against him. "It's very complicated, because the system itself absorbs the icons, and at the moment when everyone has a Che Guevara T-shirt, their iconic image loses value as something revolutionary."
Among the topics that have been left out of the book to the author are the X-Men and their relationship with the marginalized and some reflection on Black Panther, a film that confesses that he loved it. Perhaps they will serve as the basis for a new publication, one in which finally there is a Latin American or a Spanish hero, which according to Embid, should stand out for "what defines us the most, our solidarity".
"What defines us as Spaniards is not the left or the right or the unity of Spain or separatism, what you define for us is that we are a supportive, feminist, open and tolerant country, we defend taxes to finance public services, We turn to catastrophes when they happen, we are LGTB firendly ... ", reflects the author. That can be our Spanish superhero. Solidary Man maybe?
