Readership, religion, media, and superhero narratives: an exploration of transcendental style and meaning-making processes in comic books and film

This thesis uses an innovative and interdisciplinary framework to investigate the factors that imbue a film or comic book with transcendent potential and is structured around three key research questions: 1) Can superhero narratives fulfil modified versions of traditional transcendental film frameworks? 2) Does a superhero narrative that subverts the very idea of superheroes and features characters not typically associated with mythic or religious figures still have transcendent potential? 3) Can the comic book's form be used in creative and innovative ways to enhance the transcendent potential of a superhero narrative? I use the work of André Bazin, Paul Schrader, and Christopher Deacy to demonstrate that existing frameworks for effective religious, transcendent, and redemptive films are too narrow to account for the lived experiences of some viewers. Using a methodology built on the work of hermeneuticists (like Paul Ricoeur and Hans-Georg Gadamer), semioticians (like Ferdinand de Saussure, Charles Sanders Peirce, Roland Barthes, and Roman Jakobson), and myth theorists (like Pascal Boyer and Joseph Campbell) I show that the transcendent potential of any given text resides both in the text itself and the intertextual and cultural background of those who encounter it. I combine this theoretical model with the work of comics theorists (like Thierry Groensteen, Scott McCloud, Drew Morton, Darby Orcutt, Douglas Rushkoff, and Ian Hague) to demonstrate that both superhero narratives and the comic book medium are inherently suited to expressing the transcendent. In order to test, and ultimately prove, my claims, I conduct case studies of three films (Captain America: The First Avenger (Joe Johnston, 2011), Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (Zack Snyder, 2016), Watchmen (Zack Snyder, 2009)) that are not typically associated with transcendental style and one comic book (Watchmen (Alan Moore and David Gibbons, 1986-1987)).