06-01-2018, 03:06 AM
I've no idea how many reading this are spanning their attention to popular cinema. But Marvel is pumping out archetypes with great precision. Captain America is a G.I. Hero coming from the WWII era. Born in 1918, he's the epitome of the G.I. Hero archetype. He just wants to do the right thing. Denied service due to poor health, he is imbued with a secret serum making him a powerful soldier. If you saw Captain America: The First Avenger we get a really good look at that generation. They attend the Stark Expo where the future is within the grasp of the ordinary American through the power of technology. This is the generation that solved the great crises of their time and the sky was the limit.
At the end of the war, Cap goes down in a plane and is frozen in ice for about 70 years, discovered in our modern era. A man out of time.
As with most Marvel characters, the film score assigns little bits of of musical theme which offers the different heroes their unique spot on the team. I noticed in the film Avengers: Infinity War they gave a brief moment of Cap's theme to SPIDER-MAN! It didn't strike me at first. But after following that thread, it became apparent to me Spidey is the new Captain America. He's the new Hero archetype - a Millennial to Cap's G.I.. Then I followed that into Spider-Man: Homecoming and noticed even more superlatives concerning the world of Spider-Man. Peter's school is brand new. All the kids in the school are so far beyond well-behaved and straight-edged. None of them are drinking or doing drugs, they are not on inner quests of self discovery, Spidey swings through neighborhoods that are reminiscent of the G.I. homefronts with their postage-stamp lawns (albeit larger and more opulent) and there is a general optimism not seen in today's plethora of dystopia.
The fact Spidey becomes an Avenger is no small thing. He is LITERALLY christened shoulder-to-shoulder by resident Boomer Iron Man. In any other world or circumstance but quasi science fiction, we could never have two residual Hero archetypes existing at the same time. Steve Rogers and that 'greatest generation' is returning right before our eyes with the preeminent Millenial/Artist Peter Parker. The christening of Spider-Man could be a fictional symbol that the Hero has, in fact, returned and with the same M.O. as the WWII generation.
Peter gets out of school and rushes out to get his suit on to go web slinging. I was shocked when I actually paid attention the ALLEY where he changes into his uniform is pretty much a clean space - no drunks or druggies, no sludge on the ground or walls.... and this hearkens back to Steve fighting the bully in THAT alley........ same cleanliness. Not like we picture an ALLEY in NYC today. The streets of Steve Rogers in the 1940s are clean and swept by business owners, people are dressed in good clothes to go out on those streets, and the same is true in the Queens we see in Homecoming. The pattern is beginning to repeat. This does not mean there are not filthy alleys (lol) only that the same collective unconscious is swinging around again: a desire for order, cleanliness, purity, heroism at cost of self, a time when institutions are becoming positive arbiters of the future, when community is coalescing again, et al.
I'm a strong believer we see things in popular media far before we see it in real life. I just thought it was a great parallel between Steve and Peter as portrayed in the films. Not to mention Steve is probably gonna die soon which leaves Peter to pick up that clean-cut positivity and good-natured spirit we all need and know arrives with the new Hero archetype.
At the end of the war, Cap goes down in a plane and is frozen in ice for about 70 years, discovered in our modern era. A man out of time.
As with most Marvel characters, the film score assigns little bits of of musical theme which offers the different heroes their unique spot on the team. I noticed in the film Avengers: Infinity War they gave a brief moment of Cap's theme to SPIDER-MAN! It didn't strike me at first. But after following that thread, it became apparent to me Spidey is the new Captain America. He's the new Hero archetype - a Millennial to Cap's G.I.. Then I followed that into Spider-Man: Homecoming and noticed even more superlatives concerning the world of Spider-Man. Peter's school is brand new. All the kids in the school are so far beyond well-behaved and straight-edged. None of them are drinking or doing drugs, they are not on inner quests of self discovery, Spidey swings through neighborhoods that are reminiscent of the G.I. homefronts with their postage-stamp lawns (albeit larger and more opulent) and there is a general optimism not seen in today's plethora of dystopia.
The fact Spidey becomes an Avenger is no small thing. He is LITERALLY christened shoulder-to-shoulder by resident Boomer Iron Man. In any other world or circumstance but quasi science fiction, we could never have two residual Hero archetypes existing at the same time. Steve Rogers and that 'greatest generation' is returning right before our eyes with the preeminent Millenial/Artist Peter Parker. The christening of Spider-Man could be a fictional symbol that the Hero has, in fact, returned and with the same M.O. as the WWII generation.
Peter gets out of school and rushes out to get his suit on to go web slinging. I was shocked when I actually paid attention the ALLEY where he changes into his uniform is pretty much a clean space - no drunks or druggies, no sludge on the ground or walls.... and this hearkens back to Steve fighting the bully in THAT alley........ same cleanliness. Not like we picture an ALLEY in NYC today. The streets of Steve Rogers in the 1940s are clean and swept by business owners, people are dressed in good clothes to go out on those streets, and the same is true in the Queens we see in Homecoming. The pattern is beginning to repeat. This does not mean there are not filthy alleys (lol) only that the same collective unconscious is swinging around again: a desire for order, cleanliness, purity, heroism at cost of self, a time when institutions are becoming positive arbiters of the future, when community is coalescing again, et al.
I'm a strong believer we see things in popular media far before we see it in real life. I just thought it was a great parallel between Steve and Peter as portrayed in the films. Not to mention Steve is probably gonna die soon which leaves Peter to pick up that clean-cut positivity and good-natured spirit we all need and know arrives with the new Hero archetype.