Hancock Superhero Film as the Storehouse of Black Stereotypes
Hancock is an American superhero movie directed by Peter Berg in 2008 and starring Will Smith, Charlize Theron, and Jason Bateman. While in most of the contemporary superhero films, superheroes are loved and admired by the society, in this story, John Hancock (Smith) serves as a burden to Los Angeles citizens: his saving operations regularly cost the city millions of dollars. One day, Ray Embrey (Bateman), the head of a public relations firm whose life Hancock rescues, decides to show his gratitude by transforming Hancock’s public “asshole” image to the image of a “good guy”. This becomes the starting point of the whole adventure (Berg 2008). The short summary of the plot already …show more content…
What is worth noticing is that this lady, who rewards Hancock with an expressive “asshole”, afterwards, is a typical young white woman and not a representative of an ethnic minority. While one could view this scene as a mere sexual harassment episode, it could also be interpreted as an engrained stereotype of a black man who is full of lust, but, at the same time, a disrespectful and insulting attitude towards female bodies. The following scene in which a sexual stereotype about black men is overtly present depicts John Hancock saving a woman, again white, from a firing line. The most comic moment comes when he asks her: “Do I have permission to touch your body? It is not sexual”. And only after the woman’s begging and impatient phrase “Get me the hell out of here!” John finally decides to take the lady to a safer location (Berg 2008). While this episode is primarily meant to demonstrate Hancock’s transition from the rude and ill-mannered to the polite and considerate superhero, it also provides an unintentional reference to the centuries-old rapist stereotype about black males. According to this stereotype, the sexual attention received from a black man is something a woman should be fearful and cautious of. Furthermore, the main character (i.e. obviously, the actor Will Smith himself too) has quite a muscular body shape and it is said that Hancock does not age. The both qualities represent the traditional characteristics not only of superheroes, but of black men too. There has always been a general public perception that almost all black men look physically fit and age gracefully, if they actually do it at
Hancock is an American superhero movie directed by Peter Berg in 2008 and starring Will Smith, Charlize Theron, and Jason Bateman. While in most of the contemporary superhero films, superheroes are loved and admired by the society, in this story, John Hancock (Smith) serves as a burden to Los Angeles citizens: his saving operations regularly cost the city millions of dollars. One day, Ray Embrey (Bateman), the head of a public relations firm whose life Hancock rescues, decides to show his gratitude by transforming Hancock’s public “asshole” image to the image of a “good guy”. This becomes the starting point of the whole adventure (Berg 2008). The short summary of the plot already …show more content…
What is worth noticing is that this lady, who rewards Hancock with an expressive “asshole”, afterwards, is a typical young white woman and not a representative of an ethnic minority. While one could view this scene as a mere sexual harassment episode, it could also be interpreted as an engrained stereotype of a black man who is full of lust, but, at the same time, a disrespectful and insulting attitude towards female bodies. The following scene in which a sexual stereotype about black men is overtly present depicts John Hancock saving a woman, again white, from a firing line. The most comic moment comes when he asks her: “Do I have permission to touch your body? It is not sexual”. And only after the woman’s begging and impatient phrase “Get me the hell out of here!” John finally decides to take the lady to a safer location (Berg 2008). While this episode is primarily meant to demonstrate Hancock’s transition from the rude and ill-mannered to the polite and considerate superhero, it also provides an unintentional reference to the centuries-old rapist stereotype about black males. According to this stereotype, the sexual attention received from a black man is something a woman should be fearful and cautious of. Furthermore, the main character (i.e. obviously, the actor Will Smith himself too) has quite a muscular body shape and it is said that Hancock does not age. The both qualities represent the traditional characteristics not only of superheroes, but of black men too. There has always been a general public perception that almost all black men look physically fit and age gracefully, if they actually do it at