Assignment
1-3-2
Journal
Article Analysis
Louise
Njie
HUMN240-H4WW
Professor
I. Morris Schottenein
April
30, 2013
For this assignment, I chose to analyze
Spider-Man in love: A psychoanalytic Interpretation by Richard Kaplan. In my
opinion, this article is intended for a generalized audience and no specific
audience in particular. The author analyzes how spider-man falls in love with
MJ his one true love and how they met. He also talks about Spider-man’s
childhood and his high school days. The author also briefly touches on the
subject of the myth of super heroes and their love interests.
The writer focuses on a few ideas in this
analysis. Firstly, he talks about how not all super heroes are all hard hearted
and rigid and emphasizes that they too can fall in love just like the rest of
us. After all, they are humans just like the rest of the society that they
protect. Richard Kaplan goes on to say that when it comes to super hero movies,
love is not the first priority of the super hero, upholding their duty as the
protectors of mankind is and anything else would be a distraction.
The writer also touches on the fact that
super heroes do not always have a happy ending nor do they always get the girl
at the end of the movie. They have to make sacrifices just like the rest of us
and they have to face the same challenges as we do when it comes to love. For
example, Spider-Man had to give up MJ in the end to focus on his “public duty”
of saving the world.
The article focuses on gender roles and
gender role socialization and how that plays an important role in our view of
super heroes and what they should look and act like. Parker (Spider-Man) was
not a “masculine man”. He wasn’t muscular nor was he hard. Instead, he had a
soft voice and had a lean build and was not intimidating at all as we would expect
super heroes to be. The writer mentions that MJ ends up falling in love with
him however because of this very reason, because he reminded her of her
mother’s nurturing nature.
The author of this
article also gives his readers an in-depth insight into the early life of Peter
parker (Spider-Man), which actually helps the readers understand the hero
better from a psychological point of view. During his earlier years, Peter did
not get adequate attention from his father and this made him feel rejected and
angry. Due to the fact that he was slightly afraid of his father, he could not
misbehave in school so in his mind’s eye, his father was the villain and he
directed all his anger towards him. Peter’s father leaves and he is forced to
live with his Uncle Ben and his wife.
Spider-Man’s uncle is later murdered and
this triggers him to start his quest to becoming a super hero, thrusting him into
the “call to adventure” stage of his “hero’s journey”. The article later goes
on to describe how Spider-Man falls in love with MJ and how he constantly must
find the balance between playing super hero at night and a normal kid by day.
The article concludes by indicating that women want “real men” to fall in love
with. In the end MJ falls in love with Peter Parker, the man and not
Spider-Man, the super hero. Women want a man who is understanding and caring,
not just a tall, strong and handsome man.
Personally, I think this was an in-depth
article that gave an insight into the life of Spider-Man the super hero and Peter
Parker the actual man behind the mask of Spider-Man. The one thing about this
article that I didn’t particularly like was the body of the article and how the
writer organized his ideas. The ideas did not flow into each other instead, they were scattered all over
the article and I almost had to read the whole article 4 times before I could
grasp the concept of what the author was trying to say in each paragraph and
worked really hard to connect the ideas together. In my opinion, the article
was not very organized and it was difficult for me to read it because he didn’t
capture my attention nor keep me interested most of the time.
For the most part, I agree with the
writer’s points. For example, he mentioned that “……this image of the
threatening bad father should be comprehended as a longstanding, powerful, and
pervasive image within American popular culture.” (Kaplan, Richard L. (April
2011). Spider-Man in love: A psychoanalytic Interpretation. Journal of popular
culture, volume 44, issue 2, p. 291-313. Retrieved from http://0-journals.ohiolink.edu.olink...issue=v44i0002).
I agree with this statement. It goes back to the theory of nature vs. nurture,
how a child was raised and what environment they were raised around during the
first few years of their lives plays a vital role in how their belief system is
shaped as they grow up. It affects how they see the world and themselves in it.
I also agree with the fact that super
heroes are humans just like us and they face almost the same challenges that we
face in our everyday lives. Not all men are rigid and hard hearted and a man
does not have to be this way to be considered a man. One last thing I agree
with is that women want to fall in love with a “real man” and not an insecure
little boy who hides behind a mask.
For the people that are really interested
in Spider-Man, this would be an important article for them as it can provide
them with a detailed understanding into the various sides of the life of the
hero, from how he was raised to how he became a super hero. Other than the fact
that I didn’t like how the writer organized his thoughts, it was a good read
overall and I learnt a lot about the super hero we all know and love.
References
