The Cruel Optimism of National Security in Marvel's Iron Man Films
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Superpowered Security: The Cruel Optimism of National Security in Marvel’s Iron Man Films Katherine Cox December 2019 A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of The Australian National University Ó Copyright by Katherine Cox 2019 All Rights Reserved 1 Statement of Originality I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and to the best of my knowledge it contains no materials previously published or written by another person, nor material which to a substantial extent has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma, except where due acknowledgement is made in the thesis. Katherine Cox December 2019 2 Acknowledgements I cannot express the full extent of my gratitude and appreciation for my Chair of Panel, Dr. Russell Smith. Since supervising my Honours thesis in 2014, Russell has been instrumental in shaping my development as a scholar. I am indebted to him for modelling a rigorous and creative approach to scholarship and teaching, encouraging me to pursue opportunities that I thought were beyond my reach, and his willingness to give his time (and expertise on commas!) so generously. I would also like to thank my other panel members, who have provided essential support and feedback throughout my candidature. I have greatly benefited from Dr. Monique Rooney’s expertise in American culture, television and critical theory. I would also like to thank Monique for inducting me into the world of teaching, which has been transformative; I would not be who I am today without my students. I am also grateful to Dr. Chris Bishop, for his wealth of knowledge on American comic book history and timely feedback on drafts. During my candidature, I had the great pleasure of working with a brilliant academic and administrative community at ANU. I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the warm and vibrant culture in the School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics, and to represent the College of Arts and Social Sciences as HDR representative in 2019. For their support and guidance, I would like to thank Zhengdao Ye, Gemma King, Katharina Bonzel, Julieanne Lamond, Millicent Weber, Matthew Callaghan, Kate Oakes, Louisa Kirk, Kathryn Hind, Imogen Mathew, Hayden Blain, Eri Kashima, CJ O’Connor, Sahar Latheef, Anh Nguyen and Rebecca Spaull. Special thanks go to Inger Mewburn and Victoria Firth-Smith, who taught me how to communicate my research to the public (and how to write 26,000 words in a weekend) and to Tania Evans, Ally Wolfe, and Jonathon Zapasnik, who have each influenced my thinking in profound and valuable ways. 3 I would also like to acknowledge assistance from members of the wider academic community, who have provided vital feedback through conferences and peer review. I am especially grateful for comments from attendees and fellow panellists at the Superheroes Beyond conference in Melbourne in December 2018, and the International Conference of the Fantastic in the Arts in Florida, March 2019: Adam Daniel, Megan Mooney Taylor, Max Bledstein, Tony Vinci, Mark Buchanan and John Landreville. Finally, I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on my recent publication in Continuum, “’The gates of hell: the cruel optimism of national security in Secret City’ (December 2019), which drew heavily on arguments made in this thesis. Finally, through my work for the Australasian Consortium of Humanities Research Centres, I have had the opportunity to contribute to a vital effort to foster a sustainable future for the humanities. I am extremely grateful to Will Christie, who has been an excellent mentor in navigating the contemporary research environment, and to Tully Barnett, for providing essential support and advice. This thesis would not have been possible without my best friend, Lauren Sadow, who convinced me to start a PhD alongside her in 2015 and who has been an inexhaustible source of support ever since. I am indebted to her for putting up with me for fifteen years, for her companionship as we both learned to navigate the academic environment, and for exposing me to linguistic theory that unexpectedly inspired a major breakthrough in my understanding of security. Equally, I could not have done this without the support of friends and family, especially Callie, Sammy and Caity. A special thanks to Alex, without whom I would have been lost in comics forever. To Dad, for encouraging my passion for discovery, and for all the care packages of homemade cheese and mysterious vegetables. To Mum, for setting me on this path with my very own library card at only three days old, for analysing science fiction and 4 fantasy with me before I knew it was a career option, and for watching every Marvel movie in my thesis. This thesis is dedicated to my partner, David, who has been a boundless source of inspiration, encouragement and enthusiasm. Thank you for all the late-night discussions of political philosophy, geopolitics and strategy, for going above and beyond in supporting me through the writing process, and for the many long hours of proof-reading. I cannot wait to read the thesis you write one day. Finally, this project was generously supported by a University Research Scholarship from the ANU. I would also like to thank the ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences for a travel grant, which allowed me to attend conferences in Australia and the US. 5 Abstract Although the post-9/11 US national security environment has resulted in the erosion of civil liberties at home, and immense loss of life in Afghanistan and Iraq, national security remains a uniquely powerful political discourse. This thesis proposes that national security discourse is inextricably entangled with core American values and aspirations, and can therefore be understood as an object of ‘cruel optimism’ (Berlant, 2011): an affective attachment, no matter how counter-productive and even damaging it may prove to be, that cannot be abandoned because it underpins a fantasy that sustains the nation. Using Marvel’s immensely popular superhero Iron Man as a case study, including comic books (1963-2006) and films (2008-2015), the thesis brings cultural theory into conversation with critical security studies to examine the affective dynamics that make national security such a binding political concept in the United States public sphere. I argue that the Iron Man mythos responds to fantasies and anxieties arising from the practice of what I call ‘superpowered security’: the US discourse emerging in the wake of World War II in which both national and global security is predicated on the maintenance and legitimation of the US’ superpower status. The Iron Man suit is a complex prosthetic device that transforms Tony Stark into a cyborg, functioning simultaneously as life support, defensive armour and offensive weapon; it can be read, I argue, as a manifestation of a national security apparatus that enhances the nation’s ability to cope with crisis, but fundamentally alters society in ways that undermine the well-being of the people it protects. The thesis first examines Iron Man’s history of engagement with national security discourse in comic books, moving from Iron Man’s origins during the Vietnam War, through the Cold War, to post-9/11 storylines. It then conducts a major analysis of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's presentation and development of the character in Iron Man (2008), Iron Man 2 (2010), The Avengers (2012), Iron Man 3 (2013) and The Avengers: Age of Ultron 6 (2015). These narratives typically vindicate aspirational fantasies of American exceptionalism – freedom, prosperity, and innovation – that promise to redeem the United States’ legacy and create a better future. Throughout its history, however, the Iron Man suit has always been a problematic object. Not only is it detrimental to Stark’s wellbeing – frequently poisoning or imprisoning him – but the logic of exception and emergency that justifies its existence drives Stark to pre-empt threats that do not yet exist, with catastrophic results. Yet the suit is indispensable in the superhero genre’s environment of permanent emergency, especially in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which continually stages existential crises that threaten to repeat the trauma of 9/11. This is an impasse that wears Iron Man down throughout the franchise. Although his use of the suit ultimately compromises everything he is driven to protect, it is impossible for him to let it go. Viewing the Iron Man suit (and the logic of exception and emergency that it represents) as an object of a cruelly optimistic attachment not only explains why the Iron Man films can simultaneously be read as a critique and a defence of post-9/11 national security practices, but highlights an inherent tension in the way that national security is constructed in the public sphere. Through this analysis, the thesis offers a new way of thinking about national security in the public sphere, by tracing the affective tensions that emerge from narratives of superpowered security. 7 Contents Statement of Originality 2 Acknowledgements 3 Abstract 6 Chapter 1 – Introduction 9 Chapter 2 – The cruel optimism of security 29 2.1 The problematic concept of ‘security’ 32 2.2 Security as public narrative: the Copenhagen School and genre 45 2.3 Superpowered security: the affective structure of the Bush Doctrine 50 Chapter 3 – National fantasy in the superhero genre 64 3.1 Imagining the nation: fantasy, sovereignty and crisis in the superhero genre 72 3.2 Superhero as subgenre: mission, powers, identity, nemeses