Extended Project Presentation By Kyle Borg Dissertation Title: How do American ideologies of Marvel superheroes translate from the comics to the Marvel Cinematic Universe?

Why the Marvel Cinematic Universe? It is a very big franchise in recent cinema. I am a Film Studies Student, who enjoys watching these films and thought it would be fun to write about them. There is a lot of characters to write about, with lengthy comic book backgrounds. I believe I have already got a understanding about what these characters represent after reading a few storylines involving these characters.

dissertation synopsis The dissertation is an analysis of the American ideologies associated with the heroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Using resources, the dissertation focused on some key points: Identifying what American Ideologies the characters represent How American Ideologies are translated from the comic book source material to the big screen How and why Ideologies are constructed for heroes to represent How the filmmakers and Marvel Studios uphold these ideologies by including them in their films

Example: Hawkeye Unlike his comic book counterpart, Hawkeye has a family in the MCU. The only superhero presented with a wife and children in the MCU. His family represents the nuclear family because of its structure. The nuclear family structure has been reinforced in many parts of American culture over the years, this is most evident in movies. Example of successful films that use this family structure are It’s a Wonderful Life, Back to the Future and The Incredibles.

Conclusions from my dissertation There is a range of ideologies that the Marvel heroes symbolise The films encourage audiences to support the heroes through the narrative The philosophies that the characters embody distinguishes them, and makes them more likeable Marvel Studios actively promote beliefs and values though their characters The films utilise and subvert stereotypes to comment on society

About the Dissertation Any Questions? About the Dissertation

Evaluation

Primary Research My Primary Research for this project consisted of conversations with Media Teachers at Worthing College and the owner of Uncanny Comics, a local comic book store in Worthing. The conversations with the Teachers were separate one-to-one conversations about how America presents certain ideologies through the Media. As well as getting their opinions on the MCU. The conversation with the owner of Uncanny Comics involved the superheroes in the MCU and what ideologies they represent. We also talked about his opinion on the changes to the Marvel characters.

Primary Research The information that I received from the conversations were noted. However, when reviewing my research, I found that the points that were made about the MCU were already found in more detail during my secondary research. When talking to the Teacher’s about the Media displaying the American ideologies, I received other examples that display the ideologies, like the nuclear family, in other media. Both of these conversations gave me ideas, that were expanded upon in my dissertation.

Secondary Research These sources comprise of Books, Interviews and Online articles. I used these sources for different reasons: I looked at book to develop and back up my points and to use quotes from them. I used web articles to get an idea of what people think about the characters and about what they represent. When looking at the comic book background of the characters, I used book encyclopedias or the Marvel website, to get a summary of their history.

Secondary Research When finding research materials, I found a surplus amount of sources that revolve around the character of Iron Man. This caused the chapter concerning this character to be longer than other chapters. I went to libraries to find research sources, discovering that there wasn’t many sources relating to the MCU. This could be because of it being constructed very recently. The experience of collecting the research was initially quite difficult, until I started writing the dissertation and I knew what points I wanted to make.

Writing the Dissertation When writing the dissertation, I found it hard starting because I wasn’t sure about what points I wanted to make. So I wrote the names of MCU heroes and notes what I perceived them to represent. After doing that, I began to write my dissertation more fluidly. The Layout of my dissertation changed a lot throughout writing it. The inspiration for my final layout came from one of the exemplars I saw on the SharePoint.

Organisation of my time This, in my opinion, was my biggest weakness. I set out, in the beginning of the project, to do some work every week, but I ended up only doing a minimal amount of work. Doing tasks, like watching the key films, took longer than I wanted it to. This lead to me doing most of the work very near to the deadlines. This could cause my dissertation to be rushed and unprofessional.

Final Thoughts I believe I did answer the question I set out to tackle in my dissertation. Looking at numerous American Ideologies connected to the MCU heroes and coming up with ideas of to why these were included in these films. However, I do not believe I went into too much detail about what ideologies were taken from the comic books and didn’t use enough examples of these. I have learnt from this experience, that timing everything correctly is critical. Next time I would give myself milestones and deadlines to make sure I am engaged with the project and get it finished way before the deadline.

Any Questions?