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Criminological Examination of the 'Real-Life Superhero'

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Criminological Examination of the 'Real-Life Superhero' ‘THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND GRACES’: A SOCIO- CRIMINOLOGICAL EXAMINATION OF THE ‘REAL-LIFE SUPERHERO’ PHENOMENON Vladislav Iouchkov Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) 2017 Western Sydney University To my superheroic soul mate Caren, my super-mother Valeria, my super-smelly dogs Sumo, Loki and Lyca, and all of my close super-family and super-peers who stuck by me when I commenced this thesis by telling them “There’s a storm comin’…” in my best Catwoman voice. Not all heroes wear capes. Their strength and support just gives you the impression that you’re wearing one. Acknowledgements Far be it for me to call this journey a Hero’s one, but the call to adventure, the meeting of mentors, the crossing of thresholds, the facing of challenges, an intermission of death followed closely by rebirth, and finally the road back to the ‘ordinary’ all give an almost- indistinguishable impression of it. First and foremost, I wish to thank each and every one of the Real-Life Superheroes with whom I communicated during the course of this study – whether they participated or not. This project simply would not have been possible without the granted generosity of your time, attention, and dedication towards helping me to advance this research. Joseph Campbell wrote in The Hero with a Thousand Faces that “Wherever the poetry of myth is interpreted as biography, history, or science, it is killed” – upon completing this thesis, I could not disagree more. A special thanks also go out to Nutan Muckle, Dr Peter Bansel, Vicki Fox and Cynthia Bailey of Western Sydney University for their invaluable assistance in traversing what is (let’s face it) an area deserving of its many eye-rolls and vocalised grunts during one’s candidature: administration. But not only were some of these tedious processes eased by the speed and efficiency of your expertise, at every turn you exceeded your job titles by being yet another support network dedicated to keeping up my morale throughout my candidature. Likewise, a thank you to all fellow PhD candidates and academic colleagues that I encountered throughout the process of pouring mutual countless hours of procrastination (under the guise of relevant conversation, of course!). Finally, a hearty thank you to my supervisors Professor Adam Possamai and Dr Philip Birch – the collective Alfred Pennyworth to my Bruce Wayne – who tirelessly helped to mould me into a better writer, researcher, empiricist, critical thinker and ultimately, better person. With every challenge, every play of devil’s advocate, I was kept on my toes as I used them’s fightin’ words from your feedback to always push myself to a higher standard, and towards a higher potential. A crucial step of The Hero’s Journey is the meeting of the mentors, and without your guidance I could have never crossed the first threshold, let alone seen my return to the world. Statement of Authentication The work presented in this thesis is, to the best of my knowledge and belief, original except as acknowledged in the text. I hereby declare that I have not submitted this material, either in full or in part, for a degree at this or any other institution. ………………………………………………………………………………………. Table of Contents Chapter 1 – Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1 1.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 1 1.2 Real-Life Superheroes (RLSHs) ....................................................................................................... 1 1.3 Media perceptions of Real-Life Superheroes.............................................................................. 7 1.3.1 ‘Masked Vigilantes: Heroes or Hoaxsters?’ .............................................................................. 7 1.3.2 ‘Vigilante Archetypes and the Spread of Real-Life Superheroes’ .................................... 8 1.3.3 ‘Sydney Has Another Real-Life Vigilante Superhero And He’ll Totally Kick Your Ass’ ..................................................................................................................................................................... 9 1.3.4 ‘Real life superheroes transform into masked vigilantes to protect cities of America’ ......................................................................................................................................................... 10 1.3.5 ‘Meet The Guys From The Real Life Superhero Movement: Crazed Vigilantes Or Courageous Crime Fighters?’ ................................................................................................................ 11 1.3.6 The Media and Real-Life Superheroes: a complicated relationship ........................... 12 1.4 Early incarnations of Real-Life Superhero activity: ‘The Fox’, and ‘The Guardian Angels’ ............................................................................................................................................................ 13 1.5 Academic Research on Real-Life Superheroes: an untapped field .................................. 18 1.6 Aim of this study ................................................................................................................................. 20 1.7 The organisation of the thesis ....................................................................................................... 21 1.8 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................. 24 Chapter 2 – Heroism with a Thousand Faces: deconstructing the accessibility of ‘heroism’ in society ................................................................................................................................ 25 2.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 25 2.2 A preliminary consideration of heroism as commodity ...................................................... 26 2.3 Informal Social Control .................................................................................................................... 27 2.4 Distinguishing between ‘Heroism’, ‘Altruism’, and ‘Volunteerism’ ................................ 31 2.5 The Banality of Heroism .................................................................................................................. 37 2.6 ‘The Hero’s Journey’ .......................................................................................................................... 42 2.7 Baudrillard and hyper-reality ....................................................................................................... 48 2.7.1 Hyper-reality and popular culture ........................................................................................... 49 2.7.2 The ‘Hyper-Real- Age of Superheroes ..................................................................................... 52 2.8 Heroism in Liquid Modernity ........................................................................................................ 56 2.9 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................. 59 Chapter 3 – Researching Real-Life Superheroes .................................................................... 61 3.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 61 3.2 Justification of the Study .................................................................................................................. 62 3.3 What is Qualitative Research? ....................................................................................................... 63 3.4 The Reflexive Researcher ................................................................................................................ 66 3.5 Methodology ......................................................................................................................................... 68 3.6 Method .................................................................................................................................................... 71 3.7 Safety, Ethics and Values ................................................................................................................. 79 3.8 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................. 82 Chapter 4 – ‘Origin Stories’: The Intrinsic Motives for Becoming Real-Life Superheroes ............................................................................................................................................... 85 4.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 85 4.2 Introducing the Sample .................................................................................................................... 86 4.3 Victimisation ........................................................................................................................................ 91 4.4 Health, including Near-Death Experiences .............................................................................. 97 4.5 Superhero Influence
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