superhero movie research paper

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• v.12(2); 2020 Feb

Violence Depicted in Superhero-Based Films Stratified by Protagonist/Antagonist and Gender

John n muller.

1 Emergency Medicine, Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, USA

Annie Moroco

Justin loloi.

2 Internal Medicine, Penn State Hershey Medical Center, Hershey, USA

Austin Portolese

Bryan h wakefield.

3 Chemistry, Coastal Carolina University, Myrtle Beach, USA

Tonya S King

4 Epidemiology and Public Health, Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, USA

Robert Olympia

5 Emergency Medicine and Pediatrics, Penn State Hershey Medical Center, Hershey, USA

The objective of this study was to describe and quantify acts of violence depicted in a select number of superhero-based films, further stratified by protagonist/antagonist characters and gender. A total of 10 superhero-based films released in 2015-2016 were analyzed by five independent reviewers. The average number of acts of violence associated with protagonist and antagonist characters for all included films was 22.7 and 17.5 mean events per hour, respectively (p=0.019). The average number of acts of violence associated with male and female characters for all included films was 33.4 and 6.5 mean events per hour, respectively (p<0.001). The most common acts of violence for all major characters were “fighting”, “use of a lethal weapon”, “bullying/intimidation/torture”, “destruction of property”, and “murder” (14.9, 11.4, 3.5, 3.4, and 2.4 mean events per hour, respectively). Based on our sample of superhero-based films, acts of violence were associated more with protagonist characters and male characters.

Introduction

Superhero-based films have become incredibly popular with both children and adults. Since 2000, there have been more than 100 films with superheroes depicted, grossing more than 23 billion dollars worldwide [ 1 ]. Despite this increase in popularity, superhero-based films represent a genre that frequently portrays violence. Published studies examining the effect of violence in the media has led the American Academy of Pediatrics to issue a policy statement, concluding that exposure to violence in the media offers a significant health risk to children that may result in aggression, bullying, antisocial attitudes, and sleep disturbances [ 2 - 6 ]. Furthermore, the Motion Picture Association of America’s film rating system ( www.mpaa.org ) does not accurately predict the frequency of violence in each rating category, and parents often find the various media rating systems difficult to use [ 7 ]. Therefore, children and adolescents may be viewing films deemed inappropriate for them based on their age.

Conversely, superheroes themselves are typically viewed as good and altruistic people that serve as role models for many children. Their origin stories often depict disadvantaged and humble beginnings, making them likable and relatable characters. In an analysis of 20 superheroes’ origin stories, 86% were orphaned or abandoned, 49% had at least one parent murdered, and 29% were bullied; this may promote resilience in vulnerable children [ 8 ]. Additional research has shown that superhero storylines may promote prosocial behavior in autistic children and encourage healthy eating habits [ 9 - 10 ].

In a recently published study examining positive and negative themes depicted in a selected number of superhero-based films, the authors concluded that the prevalence of negative themes, especially acts of violence, outweighed positive themes [ 11 ]. These acts of violence often included physical altercations, use of guns/knives/lethal weapons, bullying/intimidation/torture, murder, and demonstrating excessive anger. However, to the authors’ knowledge, there have been no published studies examining whether violence depicted in a superhero-based film was associated with protagonist or antagonist characters, or associated with male or female characters. Superheroes depicted in film may be viewed by children and adolescents as “the good guy”, and therefore these viewers may be influenced by their portrayal of risk-taking behaviors and acts of violence. Similarly, young girls, in particular, may be influenced by the behaviors of female superhero characters depicted in the film. The objective of this study was to describe and quantify acts of violence depicted in a selected number of superhero-based films, further stratified by protagonist/antagonist characters and gender.

Materials and methods

We conducted a content analysis study examining acts of violence depicted in superhero-based films released during 2015 and 2016, further stratified by major protagonist/antagonist and male/female characters. Ten films included in the analysis were identified on a popular online comprehensive film database ( boxofficemojo.com ), limited by genre (“superhero”) and date of release (“2015” or “2016”), and chosen based on the highest lifetime gross profit as listed on July 1, 2017 (Table ​ (Table1). 1 ). Films were excluded if they were not super-hero based. The exclusion was not based on assigned film rating by the Motion Picture Association of American film rating system ( www.mpaa.org ), and thus included films assigned a PG-13 (parents strongly cautioned, some material may be inappropriate for children under 13) and R (restricted - under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian) rating. 

USD: United States dollar; TMNT: teenage mutant Ninja turtles; PG-13: Parents strongly cautioned, some material may be inappropriate for children under 13; R: restricted - under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian

Each of ten included films was viewed in its entirety by the study investigators prior to data collection. Consensus was implemented to determine which protagonist and antagonist characters played a significant role in the storyline of the film, and thus would be considered a major protagonist and antagonist character. Data analysis was performed on 66 major protagonist and 44 major antagonist characters, and 88 male and 22 female major characters. Definitions for acts of violence were created by the study investigators prior to data collection (Table ​ (Table2 2 ).

A data collection instrument, developed by the study investigators, allowed the five viewers (John Muller, Annie Moroco, Justin Loloi, Austin Portolese, Bryan Wakefield) to document acts of violence performed by major protagonist and antagonist characters. Each of the five viewers watched and coded every film independently. Certain coding guidelines were decided prior to viewing the study films. For example, when coding an extended fight sequence with several major characters involved simultaneously, each contained battle involving at least two opponents was coded as one act of violence event (“fighting”), while each use of a lethal weapon (“Use of lethal weapon”) or each death (“Murder” or “Mass murder”, depending on number of deaths) was coded individually per event and per character during that given fight sequence. Acts of violence performed in the film and then later referenced were coded only at the initial encounter.

After coding, data collection instruments were collected by the primary investigator (John Muller) and the data were entered into Excel. Repeated measures Poisson regression was used to determine the overall rates of acts of violence per hour for major protagonist and antagonist characters, as well as male and female characters. These event rates were reported with corresponding 95% confidence intervals and compared between rating types with adjustment for variability among reviewers. Individual types of violence were also evaluated for protagonists, antagonists, males, and females in the same type of repeated measures Poisson regression models. The most common acts of violence were identified for each of the films separately.

The Institutional Review Board at the Pennsylvania State Hershey Medical Center deemed the study exempt.

Table ​ Table3 3 describes acts of violence for all included films, as well as stratified by major protagonist/antagonist and male/female (Table ​ (Table3). 3 ). The overall rate of acts of violence performed by protagonist characters was 22.7 (95% CI 16.8-30.7) mean events per hour. The overall rate of acts of violence performed by antagonist characters was 17.5 (95% CI 13.9-21.9) mean events per hour. With adjustment for significant reviewer variability, there was a statistically significant difference between the overall rates of acts of violence performed by protagonist vs. antagonist characters (p=0.019). The rates of both protagonist and antagonist violence were not found to significantly differ (p=0.16 and p=0.25, respectively) between the two types of film ratings.

The frequency of “fighting” events was found to significantly differ between protagonist and antagonist characters [9.4 (95% CI 6.9-13.0) vs. 5.5 (95% CI 3.8-8.1), p<0.001]. No other acts of violence showed a statistically significant difference between protagonist and antagonist.

The overall rate of acts of violence performed by male characters significantly differed [33.4 (95% CI 26.3-40.8) mean events per hour] compared with the overall rate of acts of violence performed by female characters [6.5 (95% CI 3.7-10.9) mean events per hour], p<0.001 with adjustment for significant variability among reviewers.

Moderate to good agreement among the reviewers was found using the intraclass correlation coefficient. Among the five reviewers, agreement among the frequency of acts of violence by the protagonist was 0.73, by the antagonist was 0.60, by the males was 0.57, and by the females was 0.82. Poisson regression models did indicate significant variability among the reviewers for each of the types of acts of violence (p<0.001).

Based on our sample of superhero-based films, protagonist characters performed significantly more acts of violence compared to antagonist characters. This contradicts the common assumption that protagonists are the “good guys,” and therefore perform lesser acts of violence compared with their “evil” counterparts. Furthermore, we found statistically significantly more acts of violence performed by male characters compared with female characters. This discrepancy may be due to the predominance of male leading characters in superhero-based films. Over time, the number of female characters in superhero-based films appears to be increasing, with more female characters present in such films as Wonder Woman (2017) and Captain Marvel (2019). Future studies may be necessary to determine whether acts of violence performed by male and female characters differ with the increasing popularity and portrayal of female superhero and villains, potentially affecting the image adopted by pediatric viewers.

Although the Motion Picture Association of America provides a rating system to guide appropriate film viewing, this system does not accurately stratify the frequency of violent acts [ 7 ]. Our findings support the discrepancy present in the rating system, as we observed no statistically significant difference in the rate of violent acts performed by protagonist and antagonist characters between PG-13 and R-rated films. Thus, the number and type of acts of violence should be considered when applying the rating system to films.

The association between physical aggression and exposure to violent media has been previously published [ 12 - 16 ]. The amount of violence present in films has doubled since 1950, and gun violence present in PG-13 rated films has tripled since 1985 [ 17 ]. Children are known to learn from the observation of others’ behavior. Further, after observing that a behavior leads to a desired outcome, children often then try that behavior themselves. As superheroes are typically depicted in the media as “good”, children may view protagonist characters as role models. Therefore, children may interpret the behavior of a superhero to be acceptable, even when they are committing severely violent acts, such as “use of a lethal weapon”, “murder”, and “mass murder”. This relationship between violence depicted in the media and more frequent aggressive behavior has been found in several published studies [ 3 , 18 - 20 ]. Furthermore, McCrary suggested that television superheroes may influence the development of moral values in kindergarten-aged children, and Martin found that the feelings children have towards superheroes are related to the way in which they feel about themselves [ 21 - 22 ].

Exposure to violence depicted in superhero-based films may also affect older children and adolescents. Violent acts performed by adolescent and young adults, such as physical fighting, use of a lethal weapon, mass murder, and suicide, has been prevalent in our society. In 2015, 23% of high school students in the United States reported being involved in a physical fight and 16% of high school students in the United States reported carrying a weapon [ 23 ]. A recently published study has shown that 60% of mass school shootings in the United States in the 20th century were perpetrated by adolescents, aged 11-18, and so far this century, 77 % of the mass school shootings have been carried out by adolescents [ 24 ]. Furthermore, there has been an increase in self-harm performed by children, with the rate of suicide in preteens, aged 10-14 years doubling between 2007 and 2014 [ 25 ]. It has been shown that early exposure to violence confers a risk for suicide attempt and particularly suicide death in youth [ 26 ]. While there have been no published studies examining the exposure to violence depicted in superhero-based films and violent acts performed by adolescents and young adults, future studies should focus on this potential correlation. 

The rate of bullying and cyberbullying has significantly increased over the past 10 years. In fact, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (2016), 20.8% of students in the United States reported being bullied, and of those students, 13% were made fun of, called names, or insulted; 12% were the subject of rumors; 5% were pushed, shoved, tripped, or spit on; and 5% were excluded from activities on purpose [ 27 ]. Bullying has been linked to increases in violent behavior [ 28 ]. Furthermore, an increase in exposure to antisocial media content is related to an increase in cyberbullying [ 29 ]. Based on our sample of superhero-based films, bullying/intimidation/torture is prevalent by both protagonists and antagonists, and therefore it is important to consider that children and adolescents may be learning these behaviors from the heroes and villains they see in superhero-based films.

An antidote to the increased violence depicted in superhero-based films involves co-viewing these movies as a family. Children, particularly aged 8 to 12 years, desire conversations with parents about violence. In passive co-viewing of media, there is an implicit message sent to the children that the parents approve of the content being viewed and a corresponding increase in aggressive behavior can be seen. However, if parents take an active role in their children’s media consumption via active mediation, changes are found in media-influenced behavior [ 30 ]. Active mediation occurs when parents discuss what it is being watched. This method encourages the development of critical thinking and internally regulated values. With regard to violence depicted in superhero-based films, we recommend that emphasis be placed on conflict resolution and respecting other's individuality.

There are several limitations to our study, primarily related to the selection and coding of films. We chose the 10 highest grossing superhero-based films released in 2015 and 2016 based on a popular film website. Thus, our results may not be generalizable to superhero-based films released before and since our chosen time period. Furthermore, since our selection was based on total box office gross profit, our sample of films may not represent the most popular or most watched films by children and adolescents during that time period, and pediatric viewers may access films online via streaming services that may not be reflected in the box office revenue. Lastly, we did not include any PG films in the analysis and therefore biases the results towards the more graphic violent films.

The coding of the films also represents a limitation. We found some variability in the number of events coded by each reviewer. Although coding guidelines were decided prior to our viewing of the study films, each reviewer may have interpreted scenarios, dialogue, and fighting sequences in the study films differently. Furthermore, all the reviewers were adults, who may interpret acts of violence differently than children and adolescents. Nevertheless, although our objective was to quantify acts of violence depicted in a select number of superhero-based films, the actual number of events may not be as important as the frequency in the depiction of acts of violence stratified by protagonist/antagonist and gender. Lastly, we neither did determine and quantify the intention by the major character in performing the depicted act of violence, nor did we consider the graphic nature of the violence. For example, the intention of a protagonist character in fighting or using a lethal weapon against an antagonist or causing destruction of property to protect a family or save a city would be different than the intention of an antagonist character in using a lethal weapon causing murder or mass murder, depicting massive hemorrhage, decapitations, or extremity amputations, to seek revenge against the protagonist. Although this distinction in the intention of a major character to perform an act of violence might be common sense to adolescents and adults, it may be less clear for children, and thus children may view what a superhero does as being acceptable even if the act is violent or graphic by nature.

Conclusions

Based on our sample of superhero-based films, acts of violence were associated with protagonist characters and male characters. Therefore, pediatric health care providers should educate families on the violence depicted in this genre of film and the potential dangers that may occur when children attempt to emulate these perceived heroes. To combat the inevitable inclusion of violence in superhero-based films, the authors suggest co-viewing via active mediation, emphasizing effective communication, identification of points of agreement and disagreement, and peaceful conflict resolution in dealing with disputes or dissension instead of resorting to acts of violence.

The content published in Cureus is the result of clinical experience and/or research by independent individuals or organizations. Cureus is not responsible for the scientific accuracy or reliability of data or conclusions published herein. All content published within Cureus is intended only for educational, research and reference purposes. Additionally, articles published within Cureus should not be deemed a suitable substitute for the advice of a qualified health care professional. Do not disregard or avoid professional medical advice due to content published within Cureus.

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Human Ethics

Consent was obtained by all participants in this study

Animal Ethics

Animal subjects: All authors have confirmed that this study did not involve animal subjects or tissue.

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'Why Superheroes?' Explaining a Pop Cultural Phenomenon

12 Pages Posted: 29 Sep 2022 Last revised: 27 Dec 2022

Nader Elhefnawy

Independent

Date Written: August 21, 2022

This working paper considers the popularity of the superhero theme in contemporary film and argues that it is a function of the superhero story's particular usefulness to makers of science-fiction action-adventure spectacles because of 1. Its presenting such spectacle while minimizing the "intellection" and "alienation effects" to which the audience is subject in the process (as against science fiction where exploration of an intellectual "What if?" is important, or more elaborate world-building is involved); 2. The flexibility of the superhero format where the relevant material is concerned, permitting it to easily accommodate virtually the full range of "sci-fi spectacle" (disasters, outer-space adventures, etc.), enabling great variety and the maximum of scale in the presentation of the adventure, and a convenient narrative bases for sequels; and 3. The way the DC and Marvel universes afford vast collections of loosely linked characters and narratives which individually and collectively have a relatively large built-in audience, yet again permitting great flexibility in franchise-building (films about single heroes who can then be grouped together in the manner of the Avengers, etc.). The paper also acknowledges the possible appeal of the superhero as an image of power and transcendence, particularly within the cultural context created by neoliberalism.

Keywords: Superheroes, Superhero Fiction, Film, Film Industry, Film History, Popular Culture, Neoliberalism

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

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Comic book movies can’t decide whether superheroes are human or posthuman, but either way they have reached a dead end.

How to Cite

Biskind, P., (2022) “Superheroes: The Endgame - Review of Superhero Movies”, Global Storytelling: Journal of Digital and Moving Images 1(2). doi: https://doi.org/10.3998/gs.1708

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For years we’ve been throwing our box office dollars at beefy men in tights (aka superheroes) who promise to protect us from a laundry list of dangers after the imbecile authorities have failed yet again to do so. And it’s not only the cops and politicians who are largely absent from the comic book blockbusters, or, if present, they are part of the problem, but it’s us, humans, who just aren’t up to doing the job themselves. And now we see that the superheroes don’t seem to be much good at it either. In the Russo brothers’ Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and Avengers: Endgame (2019), they allow melancholy Thanos, the big, bad ender-of-worlds in the two most recent Avenger movies, to turn them and half of humanity into ash by snapping his fingers. It takes them five and a half hours spread over two movies, not to mention the waste of a considerable amount of acting talent, to repair the damage. What is it with these costumed freaks? The problem seems to be that they are, when all is said and done, too much like us, too human.

This was never the case in the past, when Superman and Batman dispatched our enemies with ease. The splashy costumes they favored worked to emphasize the differences that distinguish them from mere mortals. Reflecting on his outfit in one of the Dark Knight movies, Batman says, “A man, however strong, however skilled, is just flesh and blood. I need to be more than a man. I need to be a symbol.” 1 As he puts it, by transforming himself into a symbol, he dehumanizes himself.

Discarding the human, and favored with extraordinary powers, superheroes are by definition posthuman . (In Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice [2016], they’re called “metahumans” and elsewhere “transhumans.”) Posthuman, an imprecise, omnibus term that describes real-world human upgrades facilitated by advances in AI, nanotechnology, genetic engineering, and prosthetics along with, in the unreal world of these narratives, a grab bag of transformations caused by encounters with aliens, radiation, and so on.

Posthumanism has been theorized in many ways, but generally speaking, it is a species of antihumanism . One thread that runs through its iterations is that of decentering humans, elbowing them out of their place at the center of the universe where humanism had placed them, discarding the notion of human autonomy and exceptionalism, and reembedding them in the social and/or evolutionary pudding from which they emerged. Posthumanists would probably agree with Stephen Hawking’s famous characterization of his species, when he called it “an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star.” 2

Thus minimized, humans have nearly disappeared from the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe). The few who appear are usually those useless authority figures, the senators, generals, and presidents. With few exceptions, every one of them is small-minded, stupid, and/or corrupt. In most of these shows, our superheroes are at war with external enemies, aliens of one sort or another, but in a real sense, they’re just a pretext. The real enemies are at home, in our government and among our “friends.” In Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), they want to send Black Widow to prison for dumping compromising files onto the Internet, Snowden-style, and the movie sides with her, not them. In Iron Man 2 (2010), actor Garry Shandling’s generic senator tries to claim Tony Stark’s Iron Man super suit for the US government. Tony refuses, and the movie sides with him, not the government.

Samuel L. Jackson, who is (or was) a bigger star than most of the interchangeable ingénues of both genders behind those kitschy masks and hoods, plays Nick Fury, a mere mortal at one time and a mainstay of the MCU, but he’s largely disappeared from the movies. Jackson’s problem isn’t that he’s black—there are plenty of people of color in these films—it’s that he’s human and has therefore been marginalized. Explaining his absence from Avengers : Age of Ultron (2013), Jackson observed, “It’s another one of those ‘people who have powers fighting people who have powers’ [movies]. There’s not a lot I could do except shoot a gun,” 3 and guns, by this time, are little better than tomahawks or slingshots. The same holds true for Captain America: Civil War . In Infinity War , the darkest-before-the-dawn first installment of the recent two-parter, Fury has a cameo in the obligatory buried-in-the-credits Easter egg, but no sooner does he appear than he disappears, turned to ash by the Thanos before he can even finish a phone call.

Absent in Infinity War and Endgame is the issue of collateral damage that preoccupied the two films, Civil War and Ultron , that preceded them. Concern for the welfare of the human bystanders who were casualties of the conflicts that consume these shows became irrelevant when there are virtually no bystanders—that is, humans, in either of the latter. Like our superheroes, they’re presumably turned to ash, but we rarely see it. Moreover, it’s the remnant of humanity in superheroes that gets them into trouble.

Superheroes have always shown emotions, however attenuated, but now, when they express their feelings, it’s their undoing, like Dr. Strange who has to hand over the Time Stone to Thanos to save Tony’s life. Scarlet Witch refuses to deny Thanos the Mind Stone by destroying it, because it’s embedded in Vision’s forehead. Thanos, unimpeded by human emotion, gets it anyway, by tearing it out of his head, and in the process kills Vision.

It is precisely Thanos’s inability to experience emotion that gives him the advantage over the Avengers. He professes to feel for his daughter Gamora, but he hurls her to her death anyway, so he can secure the Soul Stone, the last of the six stones that will give him infinite power. Before she disappears into the void, she tells him that he “loves no one,” and she’s right, sort of. It’s not Gamora he loves but himself. As he puts it, “I ignored my destiny once. I cannot do that again.” We know from Game of Thrones that destiny lovers are tyrants waiting to happen.

The triangular relationship between Clark Kent, Lois Lane, and Superman varies from film to film depending on who’s writing, directing, and producing, but initially, at any rate, Clark loves Lois who loves Superman; its only human Lois and faux-human Clark who are allowed feelings. When Superman finally comes around and decides to marry her, he has to shed his super powers. Later, Lois becomes his Achilles heel, used against him by Lex Luthor, just as Thanos manipulates the Avengers into giving up the stones by threatening their friends and loved ones.

Secret identities like Clark Kent were the last outposts of the human in these stories, but with the exception of Peter Parker (aka Spider-Man), most of Marvel’s superheroes have lost interest in them, another indication of the marginalization of humans. First to go was the “secret.” Today’s superheroes, Marvel’s in particular, are well out of the closet. No more darting into phone booths for a quick costume change. (No more phone booths!) Everybody knows that Iron Man is Tony Stark, that Captain America is Steve Rogers, and DC’s Wonder Woman is Diana Prince. The secret identities of some superheroes, like Thor, have disappeared into the mists of time. They no longer need to fly false flags and elude their human charades in order to come into their own, because they no longer yearn to live “normal” lives. Their superhero identities have cannibalized their workaday human identities.

The original rationales for secret identities—protecting loved ones from bad guys and the superheroes themselves from the cops who don’t take kindly to DIY justice—have evaporated, perhaps as a result of the decay of the rule of law and the consequent relaxation of the taboo against vigilantism.

To some extent, the characters in the most recent Avengers movies face the same problem as the characters in Game of Thrones : What is the best way to organize human society so that it will survive? It’s a political problem, and both shows, despite the royals in Game of Thrones and the superheroes in the Avengers films, unsurprisingly come down on the side of democracy as opposed to tyranny. They endorse inclusion and consensus rather than exclusion and coercion. In Game of Thrones , the characters need to put aside the dynastic feuds with which they amuse themselves in favor of alliances that will enable them to defeat the army of the undead White Walkers. As Jon Snow tells Queen Cersei, trying to persuade her to join his coalition of the flesh and blood, “This isn’t about noble houses, this is about the living and the dead.” Likewise, in Infinity War , when Tony tells Bruce Banner that he can’t enlist Cap in the struggle against Thanos because they’re not on speaking terms, Bruce retorts, “Thanos is coming. It doesn’t matter who you’re talking to or not.” 4 On the other hand, it doesn’t matter whether the superheroes fight Thanos individually or in groups. They lose either way.

Superhero movies, on the whole, are darker than Game of Thrones . The message of the HBO series, “Win together, lose alone,” is lost in the mayhem. In the Avengers and X-Men franchises, the issue is not so much political as ontological. Game of Thrones may ask the question, Of what sort of stuff is society made? The superhero movies, on the other hand, ask, Of what sort of stuff are humans made? In X-Men: First Class (2011), standing on a beach facing US and Soviet warships in the film’s version of the Cuban Missile Crisis, mutant Erik/Magneto gets to the heart of the matter when he observes that the hostile forces arrayed against them, albeit themselves mortal enemies, are basically identical: “humans.” 5

Where does this jaundiced view of human nature come from? Its roots can be traced back to the origins of both Marvel and DC Comics in the run-up to World War II. Superman first appeared in Action Comics #1, published in 1938. With Germany on the march across Europe, the United States was still officially neutral when, on December 20, 1940, almost a full year before Pearl Harbor, Captain America appeared on the cover of Timely Comics, which eventually evolved into Marvel, socking Hitler in the jaw. He represented writer Joe Simon’s and artist Jack Kirby’s contribution to the propaganda effort on behalf of America’s entry into the war.

Marvel never outgrew its antifascist antecedents. World War II has always served as something of a touchstone for its family of superheroes. Two X-Men movies open in Nazi death camps, and as the MCU expands, we see that all those vile authority figures are actually Nazis, agents of Hydra, a secret society organized by the Waffen SS just prior to World War II, that has managed to penetrate every nook and cranny of America’s government. Marvel’s long, albeit waning obsession, with Hitler, combined with concern that posthumans may turn against us, eventually undermines its attempts to achieve the posthuman. The kind of dehumanization of superheroes expressed by Batman is equated with fascism. In Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), it’s Herr Schmidt, speaking for the rest of the Nazi ubermenschen , who tells Cap, “I am proud to say that we have left humanity behind.” 6

Once superheroes succeed in breaking free from the human, most of them shrink from the result and make their way back to it, as if its pull is so strong they can’t escape it. When the posthumans in these shows look into the mirror, they don’t like what they see. The truth is that the best superheroes are the least super, and the best posthumans are the least post—and the most human. The failure of these shows and movies to dramatize the posthuman suggests that despite their insistence that humanism is bankrupt, they are unable to move beyond it. There is no way out. They’re trapped. The desire to break with the human has so far outpaced the ability of humans to imagine what a posthuman future might be like or what kind of creatures posthumans might be. No matter how much people long to escape the constraints of the human, they fall back to Earth. Which is one of the reasons the original Planet of the Apes , released in 1968, is one of the most prescient movies ever made.

The rehumanization of superheroes began in earnest with Peter Parker in 1962, when Marvel writer and editor Stan Lee decided they should be more relatable. He wanted the young Spider-Man to suffer from adolescent anxieties: acne, insecurity, girl trouble, and so on. He recalled, “My publisher said, in his ultimate wisdom, ‘Stan, that is the worst idea I have ever heard… He can’t have personal problems if he’s supposed to be a superhero—don’t you know who a superhero is?’ ” The rest, as they say, is history. Not only did Peter Parker come into his own, but Superman spun off the TV series, Smallville , that ran for a decade (2001–11) and chronicled the adventures of a teenage Clark Kent. Fox launched its Batman origins series, Gotham , which dramatizes the lives of the youthful Bruce Wayne and his young-adult super villains.

Marvel’s humanization of superheroes has gone so far that the Avengers are portrayed as a quarrelsome, jealous, and petty bunch who spend more time squabbling among themselves than they do battling their enemies, a side effect, no doubt, of the steroid smoothies they’ve been drinking and the testosterone patches hidden beneath their spandex suits. They have to be constantly reminded that they are in fact on the same side.

Tony Stark had been dipping his iron toes into the tepid waters of the mainstream for some time. He is torn between human and superhuman, confused about who and what he is. And like Spider-Man, he is a first-class neurotic. Indeed, director Jon Favreau explained that he wanted to make Iron Man vulnerable—that is, more human. In an early script draft of Iron Man 3 , Tony even confides to his girl Friday and eventual partner, Pepper Potts, that ever since the Chitauri had their way with Grand Central Station in the original Avengers (2012), he has felt vulnerable, and he actually starts to weep, behavior so unbecoming a superhero that the scene was wisely omitted from the movie. Still, he may not have needed a Kleenex, but he does need a therapist. He suffers from anxiety attacks. Anxiety attacks? The series also features homelessness and even alcoholism—alluding to Robert Downey Jr.’s then personal problems.

Whereas Tony once considered the Iron Man suit—that is, his superhero, posthuman alter ego—an asset, he now experiences it as a liability, a prison, even an adversary. Instead of clumsily climbing into it, as he once did, he devises a way of summoning the suit to him from afar. It soars through the air in pieces—a gauntlet here, a breastplate there—assembling itself around his body. Well enough and good, but just as often the pieces bang into him or, worse, refuse to coalesce and therefore fail him entirely. With an outfit like that, it’s no wonder he spends most of Iron Man 3 as Tony—minus his suit and superpowers. In Civil War , Tony doesn’t become Iron Man until two-thirds of the way through, and then he’s often without his helmet, reminding us that for all Iron Man’s superpowers he is, as Tony once put it, no more than a “man in a can.”

Tony’s flop sweats are by no means unique. By the time Logan was released in 2017, four years after Wolverine , the X-Men, including the lupine superhero played by Hugh Jackman, are in decline. The one super villain that can’t be denied is time, although our friends do manage to pull off a “time heist” in Endgame . As Logan puts it, “Nature made me a freak. Man made me a weapon. And God made it last too long. The world is not the same as it was. Mutants … they’re gone now.” 7 Shaggy, scarred, and haggard, he looks half dead and actually dies at the end, mourning the human feelings that he long ago sacrificed for his superpowers.

Logan has plenty of company. In Infinity War , the entire MCU implodes. Twelve superheroes, including Black Panther, Spidey, and Doctor Strange, apparently breathe their last, as well as Loki who dies for the third time, all victims of Thanos. We won’t forget the day that the invulnerable became vulnerable, just like humans. Thanks to quantum physics and especially multiverses that go all the way back to 1944’s Mister Mxyzptik, a Superman character apparently from the fifth dimension, none of the Marvel superheroes, including those in the recent streaming hit WandaVision , really die; they all come back in one way or another. Kellyanne Conway, with her “alternative facts,” was clearly a comic book fan.

True, Thanos seems to be culling the first-generation Avengers, preparing the way for a new crop coming up behind them, but who knew superheroes grew old and died or were just conveniently whisked off-stage when their contracts expired.

Even Batman has had enough. He may once have wanted to hollow himself of human emotion so that he might became a symbol, but by the time of The Dark Knight Rises (2012), he is so eager to get out of those spandex tights that he fakes his own death so that Bruce Wayne can sip cappuccinos at a sidewalk cafe in Florence with Catwoman, Selina Kyle, like a normal person—that is, a human. Can marriage and family be far off? In Endgame , Cap is sent back in time to the 1950s, settles down with Peggy Carter, and stays there. Black Widow sacrifices herself so Hawkeye can seize the Soul Stone and his family, dissolved by Thanos, can be restored to him. Could it be that all that sturm und drang was just about restoring family? We learned from Game of Thrones that family is a double-edged sword, at the heart of the conflicts that rend the Seven Kingdoms. Loyalty to family is overrated. Maybe the Russos weren’t watching.

Not only do individual posthuman heroes drift back to the human, but humanity itself, after being savaged in show after show, movie after movie, makes a comeback. Pace Erik/Magneto and his ilk, it’s not a cesspool of depravity after all. We come to suspect that its tawdry reputation is unfounded because the accusations against it are put in the mouths of villains. In Wonder Woman , it’s Ares who tries to convince the Amazonian warrior to join him in exterminating humans because “they are ugly, filled with hatred, weak.” 8 Ares, however, is a bad guy, the god of war, so we can discount his words. On the contrary, humanity needs to be saved.

Thanos is just one more in a long line of super villains who refuses to rehumanize dehumanized humanity. He’s another version of Ultron, an AI created by Tony Stark to protect humanity from any and all threats. Ultron concludes, however, that humans themselves are the biggest danger to humanity and decides to exterminate them. Using similar logic, Thanos, cloaked with the mantle of an eco-warrior, says, “This universe is finite. Its resources are finite. If life is left unchecked, life will cease to exist.” He goes on, “It needs correction … but random, dispassionate, fair to rich and poor alike. I call that mercy.”

There’s a Green Lantern comic in which a young woman is killed and crammed into a refrigerator. Comics writer Gail Simone coined the term “fridging” to refer to a common trope where women are harmed for the express purpose of motivating men to take action. If “humans” are substituted for “women,” we have a key to unlocking Endgame .

Thanos’s eco-argument may be no more than a rationalization for bad behavior, but he has a point. As the reality of human-caused climate change—extreme weather, rising seas, and the extinction of countless animal and plant species—becomes inarguable, we have come to understand that humans are the biggest threat to humanity and our planet. For all that the MCU nods in the direction of racial and gender equality, Endgame locks humans in a refrigerator, as it were, to motivate the Avengers to get off their butts for round two against Thanos. Antman and Hawkeye rouse the farflung superheroes who are feeling sorry for themselves, indulging the senses, or lolling about in domestic bliss, to do what they’re supposed to be good at: avenging. This is all well and good, but by casting Thanos as an eco-warrior and then shrugging off his argument, Endgame implicitly sides with the climate-change deniers. Watching Marvel’s two-parter, it would be easy to conclude that those who concern themselves with the health of our planet must be fought tooth and nail. The effect of humanizing superheroes, abandoning posthumanism, and sentimentalizing the family is paradoxically to move a historically left-leaning franchise to the right.

Black Widow , one of the latest off the Marvel assembly line, jumping back in time, sentimentalizes the family as well, at first by negation—the family Natasha Romanoff and her sister Yelena Belova thought they had but didn’t. Initially, the picture seems like it could have been directed by Paige Jennings, the daughter who breaks with the family in The Americans , until Romanoff realizes that her real family is the Avengers. Little does she know what lies in wait.

• Batman Begins , directed by Christopher Nolan (Los Angeles: Warner Bros., 2005). ⮭
• Jane Onyanga-Omara, “Stephen Hawking’s Memorable Quotes: ‘We Are Just an Advanced Breed of Monkeys,’ ” USA Today, March 14, 2018, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/03/14/stephen-hawking-quotations/423145002/ . ⮭
• Graeme McMillan, “Samuel L. Jackson on ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’ Role: ‘I’m Not Doing So Much,’ ” Hollywood Reporter, March 26, 2014, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/samuel-l-jackson-avengers-age-691388/ ⮭
• Avengers: Infinity War , directed by Anthony and Joe Russo (New York: Marvel Studios, April 23, 2018). ⮭
• X-Men: First Class , directed by Matthew Vaughn (New York: Marvel Entertainment, May 25, 2011). ⮭
• Captain America: The First Avenger , directed by Joe Johnston (New York: Marvel Studios, 2011). ⮭
• Avengers Endgame , directed by Anthony and Joe Russo (New York: Marvel Studios, 2019). ⮭
• Wonder Woman, directed by Patty Jenkins (Los Angeles: Warner Bros., 2017). ⮭

Author Biography

Peter Biskind is the author of Easy Riders, Raging Bulls , Down and Dirty Pictures , The Sky Is Falling , several other books, and innumerable articles. He was the editor of American Film Magazine and Executive Editor of Premiere magazine. He is currently writing a book about television called Anything Goes: How Cable and Streaming Revolutionized TV .

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Short- and Long-Term Effects of Superhero Media on Young Children’s Risk-Taking Behaviors

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Casie H Morgan, Barbara A Morrongiello, David C Schwebel, Short- and Long-Term Effects of Superhero Media on Young Children’s Risk-Taking Behaviors, Journal of Pediatric Psychology , Volume 46, Issue 7, August 2021, Pages 779–789, https://doi.org/10.1093/jpepsy/jsaa133

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Unintentional injuries, the leading cause of death for American children, are caused by a range of psychosocial factors, including risk behavior. One factor that may impact child risk-taking is modeling of superhuman risk-taking from superhero media, both immediately following superhero exposure and based on lifetime exposure and engagement.

Fifty-nine 5-year-olds were randomly assigned to view either a 13-min age-appropriate superhero television show or a comparable nonsuperhero show. After the viewing, children engaged in three risk-taking measures: (a) activity room, unsupervised play for 5 min with assortment of apparently dangerous items that might encourage child risk-taking; (b) picture sort, 10 illustrations of children in risk situations, with participant response concerning intended risk-taking in that situation; and (c) vignettes, 10 stories presenting situations with varying degrees of risk, with participant response on intended choice. Parents completed questionnaires concerning children’s long-term superhero media exposure and individual superhero engagement (e.g., if child’s most recent Halloween costume was of a superhero). Correlations and regressions evaluated effects of immediate superhero exposure, lifetime superhero exposure, and lifetime superhero engagement on children’s risk-taking.

Mixed results emerged. Lifetime superhero exposure was significantly related to children’s risk-taking outcomes in two bivariate (vignettes and picture sort) and one multivariate (picture sort) model. Neither immediate superhero exposure nor lifetime superhero engagement was strongly related to risk-taking.

Children’s lifetime superhero exposure may influence children’s risk-taking. Given American children’s substantial media exposure, research should continue to unpack the role of superhero media on children’s unintentional injury and other health risk behaviors.

Unintentional injuries are the leading cause of death for American children between the ages of 1–5 ( National Center for Injury Prevention and Control [NCIPC], 2020 ). Each year, ∼1,400 children within this age group die from an unintentional injury, while an additional 1.7 million suffer from a serious nonfatal injury ( NCIPC, 2020 ). A key factor that predicts child injury is children’s physical risk-taking tendencies. Children between 1 and 5 years are particularly susceptible to these tendencies because they are rapidly developing motor control and coordination (Agran et al., 2003; Morrongiello et al., 2010 ). Emergent mobility promotes exploration of the immediate environment as the child becomes more physically capable and cognitively curious to explore and understand the world ( Cole et al., 2016 ; Gibson & Schmuckler, 1989 ). Additionally, in individualistic cultures like the United States, young children develop a growing desire for independence from parents ( Greenfield et al., 2003 ), creating a situation where parents may feel comfortable or obligated to reduce the intensity of supervision ( Greenfield et al., 2003 ; Keller et al., 2006 ). Not surprisingly, some of the most common unintentional injuries among children ages 1–5 years reflect consequences of physical and motor activities that are exploratory and unsupervised; examples include falls after climbing on furniture, swallowing poisonous substances, and falling or crashing into surface-level objects ( NCIPC, 2020 ).

Beyond basic child development, a multitude of psychosocial factors increase or decrease the likelihood young children will engage in risk-taking behaviors. These include child traits, family demographic characteristics, parent attributes, and environmental cues from peers and the media. As examples, certain temperament traits such as impulsivity increase risk-taking and injury risk ( Schwebel, 2004 ); boys demonstrate more risk-taking and experience more injuries than girls (e.g., Matheny, 1991 ); permissive parenting is associated with risk-taking and increased injury risk ( Morrongiello et al., 2006 ); and children are often persuaded by friends, siblings, and classmates to participate in risky activities (e.g., Christensen & Morrongiello, 1997 ; Potts et al., 1995 ).

Media is also likely to influence children’s risk-taking but this is less well understood. Early research suggests exposure to television media can help children identify hazards and safety behaviors ( Potts & Swisher, 1998 ), but it is unclear how both short-term and long-term media influences may impact children’s modeling of and engagement in risk behaviors. We know that young children in the United States and other countries are typically exposed to extraordinarily high levels of media, various mediums of media consumption (e.g., television, videogames, tablets, cellphones), and wide varieties of media content ( Kabali et al., 2015 ; Rideout et al., 2014 ; Vandewater et al., 2005 ). One study of American children under 6 years found 35% of the sample lived in a household where the television was “always” or “most of the time” on, even if no one was actively watching it ( Vandewater et al., 2005 ). A separate study reported that 97% of children under the age of 4 in a low-income, urban US community had consistent access to a cellphone, with 75% of the 4-year-old children owning their own cellphone ( Kabali et al., 2015 ). The Common Sense Media (2017) consensus, a project following the patterns of media use among American children under age 8, reported that children between the ages of 2 and 4 watch an average of 1 hr and 9 min of television daily, significantly greater than those under 2 (average of 29 min) and about equal to children ages 5–8 (1 hr and 4 min). These findings highlight children under 6 as a critical age group to study media consumption and its impact on health-related behavior.

Both immediate and long-term media exposure are well documented to influence children’s aggression ( Bandura et al., 1963 ; Ostrov et al., 2006 , 2013 ), and most scholars in the aggression literature cite social learning theory and modeling as the likely causal mechanism linking media exposure to child behavior ( Bandura, 1971 ). Children model the aggressive behavior they witness in the media during their real-life activities. In fact, media-based modeling is demonstrated to be as influential as real-life modeling ( Bandura et al., 1963 ).

Amidst the substantial media exposure children witness in contemporary culture, a large portion falls within the superhero genre ( Dix-Kessler, 2019 ). This motivates our present focus in children’s risk-taking and injury given the superhuman risk-taking that superhero media characters demonstrate. Young children between the ages of 1 and 5 are exposed to superhero media content through at least three pathways. First, superhero-themed media content is developed and marketed specifically for children as young as 3 through prosocial educational television shows like Super Why and PJ Masks . Second, published research indicates a few adult- and adolescent-oriented superhero series are particularly popular among preschool populations (e.g., Ultimate Spider-Man, Young Justice, Green Lantern ; Coyne et al., 2017 ). In fact, many parents report regularly taking their young children to see superhero movies designed for adult audiences ( Common Sense Media, 2020 ). Third, anecdotal evidence from parenting blogs, clinical and research observations, and community forums suggests preschoolers and kindergarteners are exposed to superhero themes ubiquitously in their daily lives. As one example of this, Statista data report 4 of the 10 top choices for children’s Halloween costumes in the United States in 2019 were superhero characters ( O’Connel, 2019 ).

Despite the substantial exposure to superhero media among children, research on its influence on children’s behavior is limited. In the most extensive previous research, preschoolers’ engagement with superheroes was related to increased physical and relational aggression ( Coyne et al., 2017 ) due to two hypothesized factors: (a) children’s recognition and modeling of the implicit and explicit rewards depicted in superhero scripts following violent and aggressive behavior by characters ( Bauer & Dettore, 1997 ; McCrary, 1999 ), and (b) children’s response to the salient, repetitive, justified and romanticized nature of superhero aggression ( Coyne et al., 2017 ). Interestingly, risk-taking by superheroes is portrayed similarly in the media; some scholars describe the superhero genre as “risk-glorifying” media ( Fischer et al., 2011 ). Characters in superhero movies frequently engage in risky, super-human behavior such as jumping on top of moving vehicles, spider-like climbing, and rope- or web-swinging. The risk-taking leads to rewards and is portrayed in a justified and romanticized fashion and with no negative impact on the hero’s physical well-being. One might presume children exposed to such risk-taking behaviors, both acutely and chronically, might emulate them.

A second unanswered question is whether media influences might be stronger after immediate, acute exposure compared with long-term, chronic exposure. Research within the adolescent sexual health literature suggests that while exposure to sexual media is related to risky sexual behavior in adolescence, a range of biopsychosocial factors (e.g., parent–child relationships and conflicts, age and timing of adolescent development, sexually active peers) may predispose adolescents to experience more or less degrees of media exposure ( Steinberg & Monahan, 2011 ). This finding introduces a complex bidirectional relationship between the viewer and media and implies the need to examine media exposure both through acute experimental exposure and through lifetime exposure history.

This study was designed to examine the influence of superhero media on young children’s risk-taking behavior. We incorporated both immediate superhero media exposure and measures of long-term superhero media exposure into the research design, studying both their influences on child risk-taking. We proposed three hypotheses: (a) 5-year-old children exposed to an age-appropriate superhero media show will take more risks afterwards than those exposed to a non-superhero media show; (b) children with higher lifetime superhero exposure will exhibit more risk-taking behaviors than those with lower lifetime exposure; and (c) children who engage most often with superhero characters and media will exhibit more risk-taking behaviors than those who do not.

Participants

Fifty-nine 5-year-old children participated (mean age = 5.49 years, SD = 0.43; range = 4 years, 10 months to 6 years, 1 month). As shown in Table I , children were 51% female; 56% non-Hispanic Caucasian, 3.2% Hispanic Caucasian, and 44% African-American; and lived with parents who were mostly middle to upper income level (median income range = $80,000–$99,000) and well educated (median maternal and paternal education = Bachelor’s Degree). Participants were recruited through a database of local families interested in participating in research, plus word-of-mouth. The only exclusion criteria were mental or physical disabilities that prohibited valid engagement in the experimental protocol (e.g., blindness or serious vision impairment, cognitive impairment, broken leg). During the screening process, parents were informed of the cognitive and physical capacities required to engage in the study. Two participants were excluded due to disabilities disclosed by the parents during screening. An additional participant withdrew due to discomfort related to viewing the superhero television episode. All participants’ parents/guardians provided written informed consent and all children provided verbal assent. The protocol was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board at University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Differences in Immediate Superhero Media Conditions and Full Sample Summary for Demographics, Risk-Taking Behaviors, and Lifetime Superhero Media

Note . M = Mean; SD = standard deviation.

N = 58 due to 1 missing value.

Overview of Procedures

Families completed a single 75-min laboratory visit. Following consent processes, children were randomly assigned to one of two conditions, superhero or neutral. Children assigned to the superhero condition viewed a 13-min episode of a popular children’s superhero show, PJ Masks ; children assigned to the neutral condition viewed a 13-min episode of Caillou , a popular children’s show without superhero content. Following the media exposure viewing, each child completed a short questionnaire to verify understanding of the plot and then engaged in the activity room task, detailed below. After the activity room task, each child’s protocol was administered using a 5 × 5 Latin Square design. Position effect analyses yielded no influence of protocol order, so order was not considered further in data analyses. Although children engaged in the experimental tasks, parents completed questionnaires regarding family demographics and the child’s superhero media exposure. At the end of the laboratory visit, families were reimbursed for their time and children chose a toy prize.

Immediate Media Exposure

The PJ Masks and Caillou television shows and episodes were selected through a lengthy and rigorous process of expert consideration and review. They were matched based on length of the episode; comparable use of music, children’s voices, and narrators in the episode; and use of visually appealing and engaging plots with child characters. Given the complexity of identifying an appropriate matched control, we did not attempt to match episodes based on presence of problem-solving in the plots; instead, we prioritized the above criteria plus presence and absence of risk-taking behaviors in the superhero and control television episodes, respectively. Both episodes were age-appropriate and neither contained any physical aggression or violence.

PJ Masks features three 6-year-old protagonists, one girl and two boys. The characters are “normal” during the day and transition to superheroes at night. In the episode selected for this study, Owlette of a Kind , Owlette’s powers get copied and transferred to Gecko and Cat Boy by the “night villain” Romeo. Although Owlette is initially angry that the boys have her powers too, the three cooperate, master their new shared powers, and together defeat Romeo to return Owlette’s powers back from Gecko and Cat Boy.

Caillou features a 4-year-old boy Caillou, his younger sister Rosie, and their parents. The episode selected for this study was a 13-min segment from Caillou’s Holiday Movie. It contained no superhero content or fantastical behaviors. In the episode, it is the winter holiday season. Caillou plays in the snow with his friends, cares for his cat, writes and decorates holiday cards, and hears the story of the first Christmas tree from his father.

Demographics

Child and family demographics were assessed through parent report.

Television Show Comprehension

Two plot questionnaires were developed specifically for the present study to assess children’s attention to and comprehension of the television show’s plot. First, the plot questionnaire for each condition included four basic factual questions about the plot. All questions were developmentally appropriate and addressed significant plot points in the episodes. For example, one question to assess comprehension for PJ Masks asked: “What does Romeo’s evil machine do?” If the child was attending to the plot, they would be able to respond easily with the correct answer (i.e., steal/take/copy the PJ Masks’ powers). The questionnaire was administered orally by a research assistant. Second, a picture questionnaire, presented as flashcards, included eight pictures of scenes from each show. The pictures included four scenes present in the observed episode and four scenes from a different episode of the same television show. Children looked at each photo and reported whether that scene appeared in the episode they viewed or not. An overall plot comprehension score was computed based on children’s responses to the verbal and picture questionnaires, yielding a number of correct responses out of 12, with higher scores indicating greater comprehension.

Lifetime Superhero Media Exposure and Engagement

Parents completed written questionnaires to assess children’s superhero media exposure and engagement. Questionnaire items were adapted from the Media Use Scale ( Fobian et al., 2016 ) and the Annenberg Public Policy Center national survey ( Woodard & Gridina, 2000 ) to fit the research questions of this study. Two subscales were derived.

First, we assessed each child’s superhero exposure through items assessing children’s superhero viewing habits across six mediums: (a) television; (b) movies; (c) YouTube; (d) videogames; (e) computer games; and (f) tablet/smartphone games. Parents reported their children’s exposure to superhero media on each platform using a 5-point scale. The television platform question read, for example, “On a typical day, your child watches a superhero-themed television show (Examples: Teen Titans Go!, Henry Danger, Ultimate Spiderman, PJ Masks).” A composite Lifetime Superhero Exposure score was created by summing the two maximum scores across the six items. Internal validity was strong (Cronbach’s alpha = .78 across the six items).

Second, we assessed superhero engagement through items assessing children’s interactions with superhero paraphernalia within two categories: apparel (clothing, dolls, action figures, blankets, pillowcases, and towels) and the child’s most recent Halloween costume. Binary (yes/no) answer options were provided for each of the six apparel items. The most-recent Halloween costume was an open-ended question and subsequently coded as 1 for a superhero costume or 0 for a nonsuperhero costume. Interrater coding agreement was computed for the open-ended Halloween costume item and was strong (kappa = .96); the few coder disagreements were resolved through discussion. A composite Lifetime Superhero Engagement score was created by averaging all binary scores answered by the parent plus the Halloween costume coding (each range = 0–1) and multiplying by seven to adjust for any missingness at the item level. Higher scores indicated greater engagement. Internal validity was strong (KR-20 = .85).

Risk Behavior

Three measures of risk-taking were administered, each adopted from previous research (e.g., Morrongiello & Matheis, 2004 ; Schwebel et al., 2012) .

First, in the Picture Sorting Task children were shown 10 illustrations of risky situations, one at a time. This measure was adapted from previous research ( Morrongiello & Bradley, 1997 ) to meet the specific interests of the present study. Pictures were illustrated by a professional illustrator and matched to depict written descriptions read aloud by the research assistant. Examples include a child standing on the edge of a bathtub and two children jumping on a bed. As children viewed each situation, the researcher offered a brief explanation, such as, “You are getting ready to take a bath but then remember your bath toy is on the shelf above the bathtub.” The selected scenes captured both creative and physical or outdoor play (e.g., hide and seek, building forts, riding on swings) and routine activities (e.g., taking a bath, having a playdate); they also captured children engaging in common risk-taking behaviors applicable to each setting (e.g., jumping off the swings or playground, climbing on top of a dresser during hide and seek, jumping on the bed). Each scene ended with a prompt beginning with “Would you…” and then a description of the risky behavior in the situation. For example, “Would you stand on the edge of the bathtub so that you can reach the toy?” The child was then instructed to place the illustrated picture in either a red box labeled “NO” or a green box labeled “YES.” Children’s decisions were coded dichotomously as safe (“No”) or unsafe (“Yes”), and scores across the 10 primary scenarios were summed into a single score, with higher scores indicating greater intended risk-taking. Internal reliability of responses was adequate (KR-20 = .68).

Second, in the Vignette Task , an experimenter described 10 scenes of indoor and outdoor child behavior one at a time. This task was adapted from previous research using short vignettes, storytelling, or doll house simulations to assess intended risk-taking in children (e.g., Morrongiello & Rennie, 1998 ; Schwebel et al., 2012 ; Shen et al., 2016 ). Each of the stories was written specifically for this study. Similar to the picture sort task, the described scenes included creative and outdoor play settings (e.g., playing tag during recess, playing in a bouncy castle at a birthday party, riding a scooter at the park), as well as more common activities occurring in the home (e.g., snack time, arriving to the table for dinner). Each short vignette was designed to depict a scene that could end in various ways, ranging from safe to risky. As an example, the researcher described the following scene to the child:

You and your friends like to play tag during recess. One day your friend gets really close to catching you. You don’t like to be “it,” so you REALLY want to get away. What would you do to get away from your friend? You have three choices. You could continue running even though you probably will get tagged, OR you could run up the slide to avoid getting tagged, OR you could stop running and just let your friend tag you. Would you…

Each scene ended with a prompt for the child to choose between three answer choices indicating the decision he or she would make. The child’s decision was subsequently coded on an ordinal scale as either safe (0), unsafe (2), or in-between (1); classification was verified by asking two researchers with relevant content expertise to independently classify the answer choices. Agreement between the raters was excellent (kappa = .95). Scores across the 10 scenarios were averaged to produce a single score of intended physical risk-taking behavior, with higher scores indicating more intended risk-taking. Internal reliability was poor (Cronbach’s alpha =.43), perhaps partly because of restricted range and non-normality in the 3-point ordinal outcome scales.

Third, children engaged in the Activity Room Task , a behavioral measure designed for this study ( Morgan et al., in press) . A laboratory room was arranged with an assortment of items that appeared dangerous and might encourage child risk-taking similar to superhero risk-taking. It also included common pieces of furniture (e.g., couch) and a few toys that do not promote risk-taking (e.g., puzzle, coloring books). The following items were present in the room: Hopper Ball (45-cm diameter bouncy ball with a handle); plastic slide (99-cm high, with a 97-cm long slide length); 1.83-m long balance beam (5.08-cm high); ball pit (summer wading pool, 1.14-m diameter, 20.1-cm high, and filled with colorful plastic balls); soft football, basketball, and soccer ball; a hula hoop; and a ball on an elastic string attached to a wrist strap. The selection of these items was based on stimuli used in previous research ( Morrongiello et al., 2010 ), a pilot study with same-aged children, online parenting forums on common child toys and play behaviors for this age group, and consultation with experts. The floor was padded with rugs and gymnastic mats. At the start of the task, children were told by the researcher, “ I have to go talk with your mom. You can stay in this room and play with whatever you want. I’ll be back soon.” The child was continuously monitored through a one-way mirror for 5 min, and activity was videotaped.

The child’s participation in the activity room was subsequently coded. Risk-taking behavior was coded when the child engaged in gross motor movement that involved at least some small risk of physical injury to the self. It was based on the child’s approach and engagement with an object (e.g., speed, recklessness). Examples included jumping off the top of the slide and running across the balance beam (defined as moving at a speed faster than a walk and having both feet off the beam simultaneously). This contrasted with safe play behavior , defined as play that is highly unlikely to be dangerous or cause injury. Examples of behaviors that were coded as safe behaviors included going down the slide with feet forward and hands by the child’s sides, stepping into the ball pit, and walking slowly across the balance beam.

Coding of the activity room involved four steps. First, a comprehensive coding guide was adapted from previous research (e.g., Morrongiello & Dawber, 1998   Morrongiello et al., 2010 ; Schwebel et al., 2006 ). A time-sampling approach was conducted rather than an event-sampling approach in order to avoid over-counting of behaviors. The 5 min in the activity room, therefore, were broken into ten 30-s time samples and presence or absence of the behavior within each sample was coded. The percentage of segments in which risk-taking occurred was calculated. Second, the research team participated in joint viewing of the tapes to refine and finalize the coding scheme. Third, interrater reliability was completed by two independent raters, with each coder examining a randomly selected 15% of the videos. Agreement between the independent raters was strong (kappa = .92). Last, once interrater reliability was established, the primary rater coded the full sample of videos.

We considered the role of gender, age, and SES as covariates. According to the social cognitive theory of gender development ( Bussey & Bandura, 1999 ), media effects are stronger when characters are the same gender as the observer and if the child identifies closely with the character. Both our immediate media exposure (which has one female and two male protagonists) and the majority of superheroes children are exposed to during long-term interaction with superhero media are male ( Baker & Raney, 2007 ), so we predicted that boys may have higher superhero exposure and engagement scores. Additionally, superhero engagement necessitates resources to purchase superhero-themed merchandise. Therefore, we hypothesized that higher SES children (as measured by averaging standardized scores of maternal education, paternal education, and the household income multiplied by two) may have higher superhero engagement scores.

Data Analysis

We conducted our analyses in two steps. First, we computed bivariate correlations to identify relationships between immediate and lifetime superhero exposure, risk behavior outcomes, and potential demographic covariates. Second, we conducted regression analyses to examine the combined effect of the three superhero exposure variables on child risk-taking behaviors; covariates were entered when appropriate. Prior to conducting each regression analysis, relevant assumptions were tested (e.g., screening for outliers, examining for distribution normality). During assumption testing, we discovered the activity room outcome had a nonnormal distribution, so negative binomial regression modeling was used for that outcome. Linear regression was used for the vignettes and picture sort outcomes. All other statistical assumptions were met.

Descriptive statistics of the primary variables for the overall sample and the two randomized groups of immediate media exposure are presented in Table I . Results from the television comprehension measures suggest both randomly assigned sub-samples comprehended the overall plots of the television shows (overall M  =   11.55, SD = 0.74; superhero group M  =   11.47, SD = 0.82; control group M =  11.64, SD = 0.64; t  =   0.86, ns).

Bivariate correlations were conducted next between covariates, primary predictor variables, and risk behavior outcomes ( Table II ). As hypothesized, gender was significantly related to lifetime superhero engagement ( r = −.29, p < .05) and risk-taking intent during the vignettes ( r = −.26, p < .05), with boys engaging more with superheroes and reporting more risks. Family socioeconomic status was positively associated with lifetime superhero engagement ( r = .27, p < .05), reflecting higher superhero engagement for families of higher socioeconomic status. Age was not related to any primary variable or risk outcome. Due to the significant association between gender and a risk behavior outcome measure, gender was controlled for in subsequent regression analyses.

Correlation Matrix: Demographics, Risk-Taking Behaviors, Immediate Superhero Media, and Lifetime Superhero Media (N = 59)

Male = 0; Female = 1.

Neutral = 0; Superhero = 1.

p < .05 and

p < .01.

Immediate media exposure, assessed through the randomly assigned condition, was not closely correlated to any of the risk behavior outcomes. Children in the superhero group took just slightly and not significantly more risks than those in the control group in the activity room ( M superhero = 0.31 vs. M control = 0.29) and vignettes ( M superhero = 1.00 vs. M control = 0.88) tasks; children in the control group endorsed slightly more risk-taking than those in the superhero group in the picture sort task ( M superhero = 4.09 vs. M control = 4.30).

Lifetime exposure to superhero media was related to two risk behavior outcomes. Greater superhero exposure was significantly associated with higher levels of risk-taking during the vignettes ( r = .27, p < .05) and picture sort ( r = .32, p < .05), but only trended toward statistical significance for the activity room measure ( r = .24, p = .07). Contrary to our hypothesis, lifetime superhero engagement was not significantly associated with higher levels of risk-taking in the vignettes ( r = .10, p = .47), picture sort ( r = .01, p = .92), or activity room ( r = .17, p = .19) tasks.

Table III shows results from the three regression models predicting each risk behavior outcome. Each model included four predictors: gender, immediate superhero media exposure (media condition), lifetime superhero media exposure, and lifetime media superhero engagement. Results confirm the correlational results and suggest immediate exposure to superhero media, as measured through random assignment to the superhero and neutral conditions, had minimal influence on children’s risk-taking.

Results of Negative Binomial and Linear Regression Models Predicting Children’s Risk-Taking Outcomes

Note . * p < .05 and ** p ≤ .01. CI = confidence interval.

Lifetime superhero exposure was related to risk behavior in one multivariate model. The overall model predicting risk-taking in the picture sort task was significant, R 2 = 0.18, F (4, 57) = 2.84, p < .05, with lifetime superhero exposure as the only statistically significant predictor (β = 0.37, p ≤ .01). The regression models predicting risk-taking in the activity room and vignettes were not significant (activity room χ 2 [4] = 4.91, p = .30; vignettes R 2 = 0.16, F [4, 56] = 2.40, p = .06).

This study analyzed the effects of both immediate and lifetime superhero media exposure and engagement on risk-taking behavior in 5-year-old children. Neither immediate superhero exposure nor lifetime superhero engagement had a strong influence on children’s risk-taking. Lifetime exposure was related to risk-taking behavior in two bivariate models and one multivariate model predicting children’s risk-taking intent.

Early social learning theory research demonstrated that film-mediated modeling influences children’s aggressive behavior ( Bandura et al., 1963) , but our research did not clearly replicate these patterns concerning the influence of superhero media on children’s intended or actual risk-taking behavior. Most research evaluating the influence of both film-mediated ( Bandura et al., 1963 ) and real-life modeling ( Bandura et al., 1961 ) includes ∼10 min of uninterrupted aggressive behavior. In this study, the children in the superhero condition were exposed to intermittent displays of both risk-taking and safe behaviors across a 13-min media exposure. The limited intensity of the media exposure in the current study might explain its limited influence compared with previous research on aggression. Alternatively, the null results may be attributed to the child-oriented content of the superhero television show to which the sample was exposed. We selected developmentally appropriate content that involved relatable human-like animated characters engaging in risky and fantastical behaviors like climbing, flying, and unrealistic jumping, but the content was animated and directed toward children. Extensive anecdotal evidence suggests young American children are regularly exposed to adult-oriented superhero movies and television shows ( Common Sense Media, 2020 ), many of which include aggression as well as risk-taking, and exposure to such media content might yield different results.

The findings did indicate children’s lifetime superhero exposure may influence their risk behaviors. These results support one previous study on the influence of long-term exposure to superhero media on children’s aggressive behaviors ( Coyne et al., 2017 ). The relation between lifetime media exposure and behavioral outcomes like risk-taking is likely to be complex and bidirectional. Longitudinal research in the adolescent sexual health literature suggests, for example, that a predisposition toward certain preferences may lead adolescents both to prefer sexy media and to initiate sexual intercourse early ( Steinberg & Monahan, 2011 ). This predisposition might stem from a combination of biological and environmental influences, and a similar situation may exist for children’s risk-taking: some combination of biological and environmental predisposition may lead both to risk-taking during play and a preference to view and affiliate with superhero characters and shows. There may also be some cyclical influences: children who engage in risk-taking may enjoy watching risk-taking in the media and then modeling the behaviors they witness, creating a repetitive cycle of influencing and modeling.

Lifetime superhero engagement did not predict children’s risk-taking behavior at a statistically significant level. One explanation for this finding could relate to Bandura’s (1971) emphasis on the need for motivation in modeling and observational learning. Our measurement of engagement may have captured a more superficial level of engagement with superhero characters that did not incorporate the necessary motivation to imitate behavior. Simple possession of material objects, such as toys and clothing, may reflect motivation to engage with material goods, family interest in superhero media and trends in popular children’s toys as much as it does the child’s desire to emulate superhero risk-taking behavior. In contrast, lifetime superhero exposure, which more strongly predicted risk-taking, may more closely represent the child’s active interest in modeling and engaging in superhero risk-taking behaviors.

Our results should be considered in the context of study limitations. We addressed the challenge of studying young children’s behavior in a laboratory-setting through use of developmentally appropriate material, restricting the length of each activity in the protocol to 10 min or less and the length of the full study protocol to ∼1 hr, and providing children with breaks as needed. Experimental tasks were quick-paced and engaging, and children seemed to enjoy engaging with the researchers. Nonetheless, the tasks were necessarily brief and offered only a “snapshot” of intended or actual risk-taking behavior in a laboratory setting. Also, the vignettes task had poor internal reliability, perhaps partly due to the restricted range and distribution of outcomes for each item. Alternative strategies to consider in future research might include behavioral observation in real-world settings (e.g., playgrounds) or use of computer-driven simulation.

An additional limitation was our reliance on only parent report to assess superhero engagement. We included a brief child-report measure of this construct in our study protocol, but found clear evidence of invalid responding (e.g., multiple children were asked if they owned any clothing with media characters on them and answered “no” even though they were wearing such outfits at the time of the visit), so those data were omitted from our analyses. Future research might adopt alternative strategies to assess engagement by child report also, such as through semi-structured and prompted interviews ( Coyne et al., 2017 ). Future research might also incorporate measurement of other relevant constructs, such as parent preferences and rules about child “screen time,” and to identify assessment strategies with strong evidence of reliability and validity to assess outcome constructs of interest.

We selected the shows (PJ Masks and Caillou) and episodes included in this study through a rigorous process of expert consultation and matching of content in the episodes as well as pilot-testing, but the selection process relied on commercially available media and no perfect match was possible. Selection of alternative shows or episodes may have yielded different results for the immediate superhero exposure analyses.

We recruited our sample based on an a priori power analysis and previous research ( Potts & Swisher, 1998 ) that suggested we would achieve large effect sizes between the two media condition groups. However, many of our results fell closer to a medium effect size, thereby influencing the number of statistically significant findings within our sample. Despite this limitation, the pattern of effect sizes in our results, as well as statistical significance of some results, reveals consistent though modest links between lifetime superhero exposure and engagement in risk-taking during early childhood. Future research with a larger sample size is recommended; we would anticipate such studies might yield statistically significant effects with comparable effect sizes.

Further research might also consider strategies to assess causality or directionality of influences. Our experimental design to test influence of immediate superhero exposure offered one strategy to evaluate causality, but identifying research designs to accomplish this same goal based on lifetime exposure is challenging. Finally, our sample was largely middle to upper middle-class, so generalization to lower income populations or those with lower parent education levels should be conducted carefully.

Young children in America are exposed to an extraordinary amount of media, including superhero media. This study suggests immediate exposure to superhero media did not alter children’s risk-taking behavior while long-term exposure may increase their risk-taking, potentially leading to increased risk for unintentional injury.

B.A.M. gratefully acknowledges being supported by a Canada Research Chair award. Thanks to the UAB Youth Safety Lab for their support and to the following individuals for help with data collection and coding: Anna Johnston, Caitlin Bullard, Brittany Cangialosi, Claire Estep, Marissa Lausen, Kevin Luo, and Ana Williams.

This research was supported by the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Department of Psychology and College of Arts and Sciences funds.

Conflicts of interest : None declared.

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