Professor Sharon Lamb from the University of Massachusetts did a research on boys 4-18 and found out that kids want to be superheroes when they grow up.  She then blasted superheroes, saying that “Today’s superhero is too much like an action hero who participates in non-stop violence; he’s aggressive, sarcastic and rarely speaks to the virtue of doing good for humanity.”  She continues to say “When not in superhero costume, these men exploit women, flaunt bling and convey their manhood with high-powered guns.”  It’s obvious she’s talking about Tony Stark in Iron Man 2 and she hasn’t done enough research on other superheroes.

If Lamb watched other superhero movies besides Iron Man 2, she’d know that the heroes are portrayed as selfless characters.  They sacrifice their regular lives to help out society. While Tony Stark was a jerk in Iron Man 2, Bruce Wayne in ‘Dark Knight’ was shown as a man of conflict, even questioning his own methods.  Tobey Maguire’s portrayal as Spider-Man in the trilogy made him a good role model.  He regretted the death of his uncle and that’s the reason he became a masked superhero.  Even when he’s already rescuing people, he still feels bad about his uncle’s death at the end of the day.

Lamb added superheroes back in the days were “real people with real problems and many vulnerabilities” outside their costume.  I don’t remember Adam’s West Batman questioning his vigilante ways.  He seemed to act the same when he was Bruce Wayne or wearing his costume.  He was one dimensional.  It’s true that  superheroes today are more aggressive but that doesn’t mean they’re bad.  Blade killed a lot of vampires in the film trilogy but he had to do it to protect humanity.  Superheroes aren’t campy anymore like they were portrayed back in the 80’s and 70’s and that’s a good thing.  Today, they’re depicted as characters  with inner demons and that’s all something we can relate to.

Maybe Lamb thought portrayals of superheroes like this is more accurate:

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