Illustration by Lydia O’Neal
On Friday, April 10, Netflix released its first season of “Daredevil,” the latest production from the comic book leviathan known as Marvel. The show has already been met with rave reviews and avid viewership, or binge-watching as we call it these days. While most critics and fans have been praising the dark atmosphere and uncompromising action, the elements that make the show a success (and it is indeed good) are perhaps more subtle.
In an early scene in the first episode (no spoilers here), our masked vigilante beats up some henchmen in order to rescue a group of girls that are about to be sold into a human trafficking ring. When he has finished dealing with the villains, he approaches the girls and tells them to “head toward 48th street, stay in the lights and flag down the first officer you see.” While this is perhaps not the most sagely advice to give to a group of traumatized young women, it puts the modern daredevil miles ahead of his superhero predecessors. Too often in this genre, and truthfully in all media, do characters ignore the next logical step for those that are not essential to the narrative. Good guy beats up bad guy, saves bystanders and moves on to the next case; however, so rarely do writers, directors or audiences think about what happens next for the bystanders. Yet, while this seems like such a small issue, it is actually a problem that stems from something we see every day in our current civilization.
From here on out, I would like to refer to this problem as “the superhero conundrum.” I used “Daredevil” as an opening example, because this is an issue that is found in so many superhero and action films. The essential narrative elements get treated justly, while the periphery gets entirely ignored and forgotten (how many innocent lives do you reckon were lost during the 40-minute destruction of New York City in Marvel’s “The Avengers”? Doesn’t matter, because the good guys won.). This problem appears so frequently in media because it appears so frequently in life, and by continuing to facilitate these ideas we may be ignoring the superhero conundrum more and more in the future.
For an example of how this appears negatively in common practices of modern day life, think about littering. Although environmental education is on the upswing, and littering is certainly not as bad as it once was (at least in some areas), it is still a significant problem. I believe that the reason this problem persists in the face of so much positive information against it is because of the superhero conundrum. When people litter, whether it be leaving beer bottles on a sidewalk or tossing a “Mc Chevron” bag out of a car window, they are clearly not considering the next step for the item they are discarding. Once it has been tossed, it is cast out of the individual’s life and most people consider it to no longer exist. However, it obviously does exist, and there are certain consequences of its existence that are irredeemable. These trash items could float around for several years, causing environmental harm, hazards to peaceful animals and (not to be nitpicky) general untidiness. Yet, once they are cast from our lives and tossed into the amorphous idea known as “the world,” we so frequently forget about them and cease to care about the potential damage they can cause and our responsibility in the matter.
To take things one step further, I believe that the heart of the problem is the way that we have come to define our living spaces in contemporary society. Our lives are very insulated as are the things that we possess. We build small realms for ourselves, where we place our friends, our possessions and even our interests and beliefs. However, we have come to define the threshold of our spaces very firmly, and in doing so, we begin to ignore the world outside of our personal spaces. When a person litters, they toss a personal item from their own space, out into an indefinable space, thus trying to eliminate culpability and continue living in a serene and personal bubble.
There is hardly enough room in one article to discuss the ways that the superhero conundrum affects our contemporary society; however, I beseech you to think about it and its implications. I think that the more we identify it in the world around us, the more we can solve the problem. Think like daredevil; don’t just beat up the bad guys and leave the bystanders to an equally doomed fate: think about the next logical step for them and aid them to safety. Don’t drop this copy of The Emory Wheel on the ground; think about what would happen to it after you dropped it and reconsider. We all have the potential to be superheroes if we think about the conundrums they face and the ways that we can innovate to solve them.
Bobby Weisblatt is a College senior from Belle Mead, New Jersey.
