UNSOED Conferences, International Conference on Language, Linguistics, and Literature (COLALITE) 2020

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Highly Educated Blacks as the ‘Alternate Educational Opportunities’ in Marvel Movies
Irma Febriyanti

Last modified: 2020-05-30

Abstract


American popular culture and their concept of power have been known worldwide since their influence on other countries outside the United States was quite massive. Being the world’s dominant economic and military power, the United States also has a huge influence on major global film industry, where the reflection of American society is seen and exposed. Hollywood has been holding a great cultural imperialism with its planted and structured image of American society or so called as the Americanization. Yet, it undeniably draws global attention to American diverse culture as well, where white superheroes, characters and actors hold greater power and are represented as the higher educated ones. Until Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) recently has been exposing highly educated black characters in their movies and it seems ‘too good to be true’ due to the racial achievement gaps which later found black educated characters to be crucially important in validating young black representation and identity in Marvel movies. This research is analyzed under Gramsci’s concept of power as the background of this cultural phenomenon and Galtung’s theory on structural violence where blacks have no opportunities to represent their race equally powerful and educated compared with their white counterparts in American structured society. Thus, with Marvel’s well-known phrases ‘alternate universe,’ this study aims to uncover the highly educated black characters in Marvel movies which can be considered as the ‘alternate educational opportunities’ and developed to be a meaningful inspiration for all black Americans and minorities in the U.S.

 


Keywords


American culture, education, black Americans, Marvel movies, structural violence