However, these characteristics become important when considered against Tony's captors. Of course, none of these signifiers shed a light on Yinsen's relationship with or practice of Islam since there is no one way to be a practicing Muslim. Yinsen speaks many languages including English, wears a Western-esque outfit, and wants Stark to have a better legacy than his weapons being wrongfully used by “those murders”. This distinction is made between Yo Hinsen - the doctor who saves Tony’s life and his captors. Iron Man escapes the scrutiny for such stereotyping because it simultaneously makes use of what Mahmood Mamdani has termed as the ‘Good Muslim, Bad Muslim’ dichotomy in his book “ Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War and the Roots of Terror”. Maytha Alhassen’s report titled “ Haqq and Hollywood: Illuminating 100 Years of Muslim Tropes and How to Transform Them” provides an excellent analysis of the deep entrenchment of this Islamophobic narrative in Hollywood projects. TV shows like Homeland and 24 have also regularly played into the stereotype that all Muslims are terrorists, or at the very least, it is perfectly normal to suspect them of being one. For instance, in London Has Fallen, Agent Banning kills a brown-skinned terrorist with a vague Arabic name while delivering dialogues like “ get back to Fuckheadistan, or wherever you’re from.” Under this model, Muslim characters, particularly men, are generally shown as radical terrorists, greedy, corrupt and yet somehow incompetent oil sheikhs, patriarchal lecherous individuals or a combination of any of these. This stereotype has generally been focused on the Arab world, as Jack Shaheeh points in his book ‘Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies A People’, but in the post 9/11 world, depictions of Afghanistan have followed a similar trajectory. This is a significant plot development not only because it propels Tony’s transformation into a superhero, but also because it play directly into Hollywood’s long-standing oriental tendency to construct generalised negative narratives of Muslim people. In Iron Man 1, we see the superhero being kidnapped by and fighting Ten Rings - a terror outfit based in the hills of Afghanistan. More importantly, Iron Man 1 and 2 manage to reflect upon the contemporary geopolitical landscape in more substantial ways. This power imbalance is akin to the lingering imperial presence of the US in countries where American troops have intervened, even long after it has made an 'official' exit from them. Iron Man's actions, as portrayed in Avengers: Age of Ultron and Spiderman: Far from Home, continue to have ghastly consequences for the people who don’t have access to his wealth and privilege. We can draw defining poetic parallels between the Iron Man narrative and US military projects overseas. And while he is all those things, he is also a shining beacon of American exceptionalism and the perfect salesman of US liberal interventionism. In 11 years, the superhero featured in 10 movies, which have generated a total of $12.22 billion in box office earnings.Īsk any ardent MCU fan - including myself - and they will tell you that Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, contains multitudes: “genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist”, “Earth’s best defender”, “DaVinci for our times”, to name a few. One of Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU)’s most beloved and commercially successful superheroes, Iron Man took to theatres across the world in 2008, and the MCU never looked back. To do so, it often holds hands with America’s most potent soft power tool: Hollywood. To legitimise this enterprise, the Pentagon has to continuously manufacture popular consent in the eyes of the American public. This perpetual imperialistic militarisation of the world at the hands of the US military is not a self-sustainable project. America under Biden’s presidency might not be playing an active military role in Afghanistan anymore, but the USA continues to control as many as 750 military bases in approximately 80 countries around the world. Eighteen years after Operation Iraqi Freedom, reports from The Washington Post and New York Times have shown that the Pentagon lied about Iraq’s active WMD program at the time of invasion. The horror unleashed in Afghanistan is unfolding in front of us every day. Spearheaded by the need to protect US interests in an increasingly hostile world, this history is long and bloody. The history of US interventionism - which stems from America’s self-positioning as the leader of the free world - is guided by an innate sense of American exceptionalism.
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