>>84838927>From my experience kids also want to look like the people they admire.No, I disagree completely.
As much of a common sense statement on human nature it is, we don't always admire those who look like us or even those who act like us. How many kids IN ANY ERA had anything in common with Batman, Superman, or Wonder Woman? Almost none.
Granted, making a character similar to your target audience helps, but it's impossible and impractical to try to make it an exact fit. Peter Parker has the opportunity to share in teenage angst and shenanigans, but most Spiderman fans do not live in New York, work at a newspaper, or share in any of Parker's motivations and beliefs.
Superheroes are instead an ideal, something to strive to be similar to even if it's impossible. Like war propaganda, or the ancient stories about heroes like Odysseus and Achilles. Nobody was ever like Odysseus or Achilles, they're ideals.
And what do liberals idealize? Equality of outcome. Everyone HAS to be made a superhero, or else SOMEONE is oppressed by the evil white patriarchy. Thor cannot be a specific Norse God, there has to be a female Thor because EQUALITY!
Again, this is an ideal. The appeal of superheroes have not changed, and will never change, but what is idealized has indeed changed. Individual achievement and ability is no longer valued, instead identity and having the right beliefs - the author's beliefs, of course - are what is valued.
Just look at the new Star Trek series. What is the first thing we learn about it? Is it the moral issues that will drive the series? What alien races they'll meet? Some update to Star Trek's 'wagon train in the stars' premise? No, it's that Sulu is gay because his actor is gay. Despite Takei telling everyone "ummm, no, Sulu is straight and I'm just an actor".
What is idealized? Ideology, equality of outcomes, self-flagallation, and a kind of new white man's burden. It's sick.
