This article discusses the reality that heroic characters in superhero movies commit crimes with disregard for the law and ethics, yet their actions are condoned because they are heroes. Using Ant-Man as an example, the article analyzes how the unethical behavior of heroes is hidden from the audience or rationalized in movies, and offers a critical perspective on this.
Introduction
When we were kids, we loved watching heroes like Superman take down bad guys in style, and we wanted to be just like them. The kid who played Superman on the playground is now an adult. I still enjoy watching superhero movies, but strangely enough, I don’t feel the same sense of exhilaration about the hero’s actions that I did as a kid. Instead, I find myself thinking that the hero is a villain. My admiration for my childhood idols has gradually waned, and I’ve begun to question the unethical behavior of the heroes in these movies, asking myself, “Is it really okay to do wrong in the name of heroism?
The plot
Ant-Man is a hero who can reduce the distance between atoms to make people the size of ants. To do this, he needs the Ant-Man suit, which raises ethical questions about how Scott Lang, the protagonist, acquires it. As an ex-convict, he is unable to live a normal life after being released from prison and goes back to stealing with his friends. He breaks into a house and steals an item, which turns out to be the Ant-Man suit. Even if the homeowner, Dr. Hank Pym, had encouraged him to do it, the theft was wrong. Scott Lang is later caught by the police and taken into custody for the theft, but he escapes by transforming into Ant-Man, which sends the police into a state of emergency. Second only to theft, escape from prison is a felony, and those who commit it should be brought to justice. Despite the fact that prisoners should be punished accordingly, Scott Lang ignores these legal procedures and rationalizes his theft and escape. Furthermore, the audience does not judge his actions as wrong simply because he is a hero. The audience understands that Scott Lang needs to escape the detention center at that moment, hopes that he won’t be caught by the police, and feels exhilarated when he does escape safely. They see his theft and escape as part of the process of becoming a hero, and no one takes issue with these actions.
The villain Dr. Darren Cross is also trying to develop a technology that reduces the distance between atoms, which is the core technology of Ant-Man. In order to perfect this technology, he recklessly performs vivisection on countless sheep, and sacrifices many sheep due to failure. When someone questions the legality of this technology, he says, “What law? Human law? The laws of nature are beyond human law. I am beyond the laws of nature.” He claims that he is beyond human law and cannot be regulated by the law. He then justifies his science and technology and eliminates anyone who questions it as an imperfect reductionist. When we see his reckless experimentation on live sheep and his treatment of human life as if it were the life of a fly, we realize that it’s unethical, and we want our heroes to swoop in and stop him.
However, if we go back in time a bit, the first person to develop organism shrinking technology was Dr. Hank Pym, the creator of Ant-Man’s suit. However, we don’t consider his research to be unethical. This is because the movie only shows Dr. Darren Cross’s experiments and nothing about Dr. Pym’s earlier experiments. In addition to shrinking organisms, Dr. Hank Pym has also developed the ability to control ants through electrical signals. He uses this technology to give them commands, and they are forced to obey him. To Dr. Pym, ants are merely there to do his dirty work for him. As if to prove this point, unlike Scott Lang, who gives his ants names, he refers to them only as numbers. While Dr. Darren Cross deserves to be criticized for his unethical experiments, Dr. Pym is even more unethical. Despite his unethical experiments and the destruction of the ants’ normal lives, the movie is admirable in that it cleverly hides this fact from the audience. Because we only believe what we see, we naturally think that only the villain, Dr. Darren Cross, is unethical, and we turn a blind eye to the unethical actions of the hero, Dr. Hank Pym, because we perceive that he is acting to save the world.
Ant-Man also uses his ant control skills to cross water on a raft made of ants, or to rush ants to block enemy bullets. This results in the death of many ants, but neither the hero nor the audience is sad about it. This is a similar disregard for life to that of Dr. Darren Cross, but we are held to a double standard because he is a hero.
The use of people as a means to an end is often seen in the film with Dr. Pym. His goal is to thwart Dr. Darren Cross’s ambition to use organism-shrinking technology for military purposes and destroy it. However, Dr. Pym tells Scott Lang, “I believe everyone deserves a second chance, and if you help me, I’ll help you be with your daughter again. (…) This isn’t about saving the world, it’s about saving them.”, tempting him to become Ant-Man. She sweet-talks him into becoming Ant-Man by telling him that it’s a second chance for Scott Lang, who has trouble getting a job as an ex-convict, and that stopping Darren Cross’ plans isn’t about saving the world, it’s about saving his daughter. In fact, Scott Lang already knows that Dr. Pym is using him as a means to an end, as he says in the movie “I’m expendable, that’s why I’m here, and you have to realize, he’d rather lose this fight than lose you.” In reality, Dr. Pym’s daughter is more qualified to be Ant-Man than Scott Lang, but because of his own experience with losing his wife, Dr. Pym doesn’t want to lose his daughter, so he wants to use Scott Lang as a means to his end. We’ve been taught countless times how unethical it is to use people as a means to an end. However, in the movie, we don’t question Dr. Pym’s actions of using people as a means to an end, and instead, we are subtly reminded that sacrifice is inevitable in order to be a hero.
Finally, and this is a problem with most hero movies, it is the role of the state to prevent and punish crime in our society. Only the state can punish individuals according to the law. However, Ant-Man doesn’t call the police to stop Dr. Darren Cross’s ambitions. Instead, he breaks into the company where Dr. Cross works, blows it up, and, after a duel with him, enters his suit and destroys the internal gadgets to eliminate him. Because he’s a hero, he’s above the law, arbitrarily destroying other people’s property and executing them. And yet, we love it.
Conclusion
“Can a hero be above the law because he is a hero?” was the question we posed in this article. The answer is, of course, no. But we don’t realize it, even though we know the obvious answer. Movies use villains to hide the truth from the audience in order to move the story along and make us condone or accept unethical behavior because they are heroes. Like me, many people grew up watching hero movies and still enjoy them today. As a result, many of us accept unethical behavior without realizing it, and fail to recognize wrong as wrong, which is why we need to be aware of it. Maybe a lot of things have been tolerated and taken for granted in the name of heroism, and we’ve accepted falsehoods as facts. What’s clear is that being a hero doesn’t put a hero above the law.
