Superheroes and Morality

Ali Kaplan

20100982

Comm 102 (Section 3)

Edward Dunkley

26. 05. 2011

RESEARCH PAPER FINAL DRAFT

Superhero comic books influence how children perceive moral values. Since the moral values gained in childhood constitute the basis of morals of a person, the values reinforced by comic books are important to shape a societies' moral structure. Comic books can also be directly influential on adults. At the center of the moral lessons in superhero comic books, there is usually the clash of the superhero and the villain. Villains are at least as important as heroes for comic books for indoctrinating values and ideas and they are sometimes a better tool to do so. Villains personify notions to fight against, the notions that harm the society and individuals. Therefore, they play an important role at making people conscious about the threats to the society. Without villains, the existence of superheroes would be meaningless, but villains can exist without superheroes. The progress of villains from evil to good is also more effective than the progress of heroes to demonstrate the decarceration of criminals or the improvement of problems. Villains also help us understand the motivations behind violent acts. Since children are affected by comic books and villains play an important role at reflecting moral values in comic books, villains are crucial for children's moral education and the general reinforcement of moral values through mass media.

Children are mostly influenced by superheroes, whether they see superheroes appear on T.V, comic books or other media. Judy H. McCrary states that children are affected greatly by the mass media (3). She suggests that children's moral values are best understood by examining their perception of heroes (4). Combining the findings about mass media's influence on children and the findings about heroes' influence on children, we can come to the conclusion...