Okay, so the energy I put into my recent tirade against Iron Man might have been better directed into... oh, say, passing the first year of my degree. But after having this particular rotten tomato hurled at me by Ronan, I felt some re-evaluation of my position was in order. It certainly wouldn't be the first time I've disagreed with Rotten Tomatoes – ever heard of a little gem called Romance and Cigarettes? This much-maligned musical actually scored much lower on the Tomatometer around the time of its release (I recall it was around 30%), but instantly became one of my favourite films. But I'm not going to talk about Romance and Cigarettes, much as I'd love another excuse to watch it. I'm going to talk about Iron Man, and why everyone else in the world (yes, it does seem like that many!) is wrong about it.
I've been accused of reading too much into it. It is, of course, just a film about a man in a high-tech suit. And from reading the swathes of reviews, that's as far as anyone thinks we should read into it. And yes, there was something to the humour and the fast-paced action sequences and the general charisma of Robert Downey Jr.... And yes, we could criticise Gwyneth Paltrow's acting, or the hit-and-miss nature of some of the improvised scenes, or whatever. But my argument is that there is something more sinister going on in the wings. I believe that this film comes very close to propaganda. At the very least, this film makes some claims at having a message beyond a simple story or uncomplicated moral truth, the only things that we tend (for some strange reason) to expect of the superhero genre.
In fact, let me address that before I make good on my wild allegations. Amid cries of, “It's just a superhero film!”, I have to throw in a protesting, “So?” If you believe that means it can't have a political message, then clearly you haven't read the original Iron Man comics; yes, on one level it was just a straightforward superhero story. But on another, he is a defender of American consumerism, whose enemies are Communists, the bane both of American values and Iron Man's own commercial interests. There was very clearly a propagandistic thread running through those stories.
Essentially, this movie was an update of those original Iron Man ideals. Tony Stark himself represents America – an affluent and powerful entity with a particular affinity for cheeseburgers, whose own reckless attitude towards the international arms trade ultimately brings it under fire itself... Is the analogy becoming clear now? Tony Stark, so moved by his own personal 9-11, vows to change his ways. And what is the solution? Iron Man, an almost invincible military force, takes unilateral action against the baddies, equipped with the latest high-tech weaponry – sparing with absolute precision the lives of the civilians, of course. Having saved the day (and received so little recognition for it! Poor Tony Stark is still alone in the world. Aside from his assistant, to whom they perhaps should have given a British accent.), Iron Man must then fight off a wicked businessman, who represents the evils of capitalism, evils which, of course, Iron Man (er, America) must regulate. Without any help. After all, Iron Man is the only one who can.
I'll leave you to flesh out the analogy further. Needless to say, it makes perfect sense that a message of this kind would be made using a superhero film, which aside from being a staple of American culture, is littered with themes of strength, dominance, independence, etc. This is why all the critics are off the mark – they were too busy looking at this film in the simplistic vein of a typical action-adventure, they didn't even think about it in the context I've sketched above, if only to dismiss it.
And ironically it's also why I'm off the wall. Am I so incapable of just sitting back and enjoying a movie that I have to find these oddball theories into why they were made? Am I crazy, or is there actually something to my ideas about Iron Man? Or can it be both?
Sunday, May 4, 2008
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