The Glamour of Superheroes

In a rare Atlantic article available online thanks to aldaily.com, superheroes of movies are compared with Hollywood's Golden Age icons because they create glamour.

If that sounds crazy, it’s because we tend to forget what glamour is really about. Glamour isn’t beauty or luxury; those are only specific manifestations for specific audiences. Glamour is an imaginative process that creates a specific, emotional response: a sharp mixture of projection, longing, admiration, and aspiration. It evokes an audience’s hopes and dreams and makes them seem attainable, all the while maintaining enough distance to sustain the fantasy.

Superheroes epitomize the values we cherish while taking us away fromt he drab, dreary world that we inhabit every day. For just a moment, men can fly and good can triumph over evil - and while it's hard work to be glamorous, it's worth the work if you can save the world.