“Whatever It Takes”: How the MCU Avenges Neoliberal Hegemony

“Whatever It Takes”: How the MCU Avenges Neoliberal Hegemony Steven Manicastri, PhD University of Connecticut, 2021 Comic book films saturate the global market with stories of superheroes successfully overcoming insurmountable odds. The goal of this dissertation is to analyze the political trends contained in the first twenty-three films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s (MCU), the Infinity Saga, and how they both attempt to shape the ideology of their viewers and are in turn affected by surrounding political events. The MCU holds the largest corner of this market, with twenty-three films, numerous shows, and more of both on the way. As such, its films are a great place to think about central political struggles of our time: global capitalism, US Empire, patriarchy, and white supremacy. My hypothesis is that the MCU made leftward strides in its storytelling and production over the span of the Infinity Saga due to political movements pushing for more representation in film and media, and due to a rising skepticism among US audiences regarding capitalism and its global enforcement. The MCU adopts much of contemporary capitalism’s anti-foundational and anti-essentialist qualities, which permit it to be progressive to some extent on issues of racial and gender diversity, while never challenging the fundamental structure of the capitalist economy or the need for US Empire to defend the interests of capitalism. Nonetheless, the popularity of these films, and Marvel Studios’ responsiveness to the changing political attitudes of its audience, presents leftists with opportunities to wage a Gramscian war of position (i.e. a cultural political struggle) and develop a viewpoint contrary to that of the ruling class.