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With Great Power Comes Terrible Memes: Tracing Alt-Right Roots in the History of Spider-Man
Award Winner
Recipient of the 12th Annual Graduate Student Symposium Scholarship Award, Oral Presentations, Oak Room - Second Place (2019)
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Presentation Type
Oral Presentation (Electronic Copy Not Available)
Keywords
Spider-Man (Fictitious character); Trump, Donald, 1946-; Conservatives--United States;
Abstract
Peter Parker becomes a fantastic manifestation of the American dream when he transforms from a bullied high schooler to the unimaginably gifted, righteous vigilante known as Spider-Man. Except, as Marc Dipaolo points out in his essay “Spider-Man as Benedict Arnold, Objectivist, and Class Warrior,” “Spider-Man is the quintessential loser-hero.” Despite his immense power and the iconic status of his alter-ego, Peter Parker consistently struggles to make ends meet. What makes Spider-Man the ideal working-class hero is that, through adversity, he acknowledges his privilege and continues to fight for some greater good. What happens to Spider-Man without this sense of optimism though? In this paper, I will argue that the answer to that question is simple: we get Donald Trump and the Alt-Right.
This paper will examine Spider-Man’s origin story and try to find the divergence point where Spider-Man decides to reject the form of nihilism encapsulated by the Alt-Right’s internet trolling. I will consider Donald Trump’s distinction as the loser who won and the Alt-Right’s path to trolling nihilism, established by Dale Berran in his essay “4chan: The Skeleton Key to the Rise of Trump” in comparison to Spider-Man’s “loser-hero.” I hope to explore the idea that, essentially, Donald Trump and Spider-Man are twins, standing in front of different funhouse mirrors.
Start Date
3-4-2019 1:00 PM
End Date
3-4-2019 4:00 PM
Year of Award
2019 Award
Faculty Advisor
Dr. Brooke Wonders
Department
Department of Languages and Literatures
Copyright
©2019 Seth Thill
File Format
application/pdf
Embargo Date
4-17-2019
With Great Power Comes Terrible Memes: Tracing Alt-Right Roots in the History of Spider-Man
Peter Parker becomes a fantastic manifestation of the American dream when he transforms from a bullied high schooler to the unimaginably gifted, righteous vigilante known as Spider-Man. Except, as Marc Dipaolo points out in his essay “Spider-Man as Benedict Arnold, Objectivist, and Class Warrior,” “Spider-Man is the quintessential loser-hero.” Despite his immense power and the iconic status of his alter-ego, Peter Parker consistently struggles to make ends meet. What makes Spider-Man the ideal working-class hero is that, through adversity, he acknowledges his privilege and continues to fight for some greater good. What happens to Spider-Man without this sense of optimism though? In this paper, I will argue that the answer to that question is simple: we get Donald Trump and the Alt-Right.
This paper will examine Spider-Man’s origin story and try to find the divergence point where Spider-Man decides to reject the form of nihilism encapsulated by the Alt-Right’s internet trolling. I will consider Donald Trump’s distinction as the loser who won and the Alt-Right’s path to trolling nihilism, established by Dale Berran in his essay “4chan: The Skeleton Key to the Rise of Trump” in comparison to Spider-Man’s “loser-hero.” I hope to explore the idea that, essentially, Donald Trump and Spider-Man are twins, standing in front of different funhouse mirrors.
