A recent study of modern superhero movie characters revealed that the latest superheroes might be negative influences on kids. Sharon Lamb from the University of Massachusetts-Boston spoke on behalf of the study and explained: "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. When not in superhero costume, these men, like Iron Man, exploit women, flaunt bling, and convey their manhood with high-powered guns."

The researchers presented the results at the American Psychological Association convention the past Sunday. A valid point from the research states that kids may take those movie characters as their role models, if they do not have real-life models, to make up for their lack of guidance. However, the study doesn't depict all superheroes as 'bad' role models; it only targets the current, not the old, ones.

Source: Yahoo! Movies

People thought Iron Man was a kid's movie?



It would be nice if they posted anywhere what movies they were talking about. Then I might actually pay attention.

Well, apparently they were focusing on the Iron Man movies because they used Iron Man's character as an example.

I'm surprised I didn't see this earlier. The way I see it is it's just another excuse saying media is telling kids to do bad things.

Iron Man is a shoddy comparison for this article. Even back in the "old" comics, he was still a flirtatous, flashy, showy billionaire. There was even a time where Tony Stark fell victim to homelessness and alcoholism.

They also did this in Spider-Man, where Harry Osbourne becomes addicted to drugs and Peter Parker and his friends help him come off of his addiction.

The point is, superheroes are flawed too, and the writers know it. That's the story's way of telling you "No one's perfect." The only superhero with no real flaw is Superman, and that's the whole point of his comic.

I'm just going to stick to the argument of how these aren't even kids films to begin with since they're PG-13.

If you want to see them as a good influence watch thre actual TV shows although I haven't ever seen Iron Man the animated series.

They use Iron-man as an example for kids? Hey it's not just the super-hero's fault, it's their parents, if they let their kids see that at such a young age, and let the kids watch it again, it's the parent's fault. I mean it's rated pg-13. Or at least get some sense into the kids. Geez.

I'm a little confused. What "modern" superheroes? Do you mean the superheroes that were modified from the 1920s, 30s, or whenever they were made to this day?

Lite is a right. In the original comics they covered a LOT of dark territory in the non-war days, but this was targeted for teen-college people, since a lot of the readers were older.

The history of superheroes is really fascinating. There's a lot to be learned about their history and purpose.

*sigh* You know, if there's one thing I hate, it's "Moral Guardians". People who think that children should be exposed to nothing other than educational material and who expect anyone who makes a film that children could even possibly watch to live up to their standards. If you really don't want your children exposed to mass media, then don't show it to them, but for the love of Arceus, don't force your ideals upon everyone else. It's because of people like them that everything has to be so politically correct, and why there are so few good children's shows left.

Because OLD kids' superheroes were SUCH good role models.

I don't really think the Tick counts as a child's superhero.

Then again, none of them do. Let me go ahead and list off some well-known superheroes and their character flaws:

Iron Man: Heavy alcoholic, womanizer, and has been shown as a homeless man once
Hulk: Since Bruce Banner can't actually control his alternate personality, and it's based on pent-up anger, it tends to go off on rampant destruction, making Banner look like the criminal
Punisher: Basically, he's karma with a shotgun. He'll shoot on site for committing a crime
Batman: He's like the Punisher, but he shows restraint in that he'll never actually kill his opponents. There's also a lot of psychological analysis behind this character; some say that Batman and Bruce Wayne are two seperate personalities. There's also the whole homoerotic connotations with Batman and Robin to consider
Spider-Man: Not really any character flaws here, except the whole storyline where he wore the Venom symbiote and basically had augmented personality. He even refused to take it off, saying he "needed" it
Ben 10: He's actually a DC character, mind you. As a kid he can be a bit of a jerk, since he's only like 10 or 11 at that point. Thankfully his mindset changes in the sequel series
X-Men, various mutant characters: The X-Men are used constantly to support different issues going on in modern-day. They're all composed of various races, religions, and even sexualities. As a matter of fact, back in the day the writers wanted to incorporate homosexuality into a few of their characters, but Comics Codes wouldn't allow it

DC's not really main-stream anymore, apart from Batman and a bit of Superman here and there, so there aren't really any comparisons to make for their characters. The point of it all is, superheroes- even way back when- weren't perfect. As a matter of fact they were basically ordinary people with superpowers.

The best role models in the superhero universe....

?

Power Rangers, hands down!

They work as a team.

My favorite in each series is always Red.