Genre Essay

In this essay I am going to write about how the superhero film genre is represented in the Spiderman trailer.

First of all I am going to write about the visual imagery. We can see the wide shot of the glamorous New York City. The city is known for being a huge and sometimes as an urban jungle, and this can be represented by the long shot as if it demonstrates the big vast world Spiderman must hind his identity from. The fast pace of the trailer is typical of the superhero genre as well it’s as if it represents the hero rushing to the scene of the action allowing to audience to feel pumped up and excited about the prospect of what faces the hero. Not to mention the close ups of Spiderman which reveal a exaggerate his importance to the film. We can also see a lot of fighting taking place within the trailer there is yet another classic trait of superheroes films because a superhero film would not be the same without fight scenes. This also raises the excitement levels of the audience.

Next i am going to talk about the plot. It comes across as the same as any other superhero film, there is a really good looking girl in Mary Jane Watson who also turns out to be Peter Parker's love interest, who is portraying the role of the damsel in distress and as seen in near enough every superhero film the hero must save her. Though this is not the only similarity between this film and other superhero films. Peter Parker has to do more than save Mary Jane he also has to deal with the pressures of normal day life while trying to keep his super alter ego a secret. So he lives a double life which is a common plot in most superhero films but to be even more precise the hero often works in an office of some sort and that is exactly what Peter Parker does through working at the Daily Bugle.

Next i am going to discuss how the characters relate to a superhero movie, and where better to start than the hero himself. Peter Parker is a student who was bitten by a mutated spider which have him super powers, he sounds like someone you would find in an average superhero movie already but on top of that he has a love interest for Mary Jane Watson, who never seems to notice him. This is just his normal side, when he becomes his alter ego Spiderman we begin to see the more general representation of the superhero movie. First of all he has a costume made from spandex, he has super powers. a great sense of whats right and wrong and a girl he has to save. You can not get much more of a traditional superhero than Spiderman. Though Spiderman is only one character and as expected every character has a villain. In this case its the Green Goblin who is actually a filthy rich tycoon who does not care too much for others. The fact that he is a rich tycoon resembles most villains in superhero films.

The setting is also pretty common of that of a superhero film. New York City is the setting of Spiderman, the city that never sleeps. Often superhero films are set in big, bustling cities which are full of crime and New York fits perfectly into that also big cities have a lot of crime so a hero is needed. The setting also enables the audience to see the big world that Peter Parker must face, the setting also represents how small he are in the world and that everyone is able to make something of it not just superheroes.

The music used was also pretty epic and grand. This is commonly seen throughout superhero films it signifies how big the heroes mission actually is but it is also used to create effect. Maybe to build tension or to match the grand scale of whats going on in a certain scene or moment.

In terms of iconography there a plenty of traits throughout the trailer which are significant to the superhero genre. For example an obvious one is the spandex suit Spiderman wears along with the his superpowers. The binary of oppositions can also be applied to this trailer through the oppositions of good vs evil, moral vs immoral and day to day life vs alter ego. Out of everything thats been pointed out its safe to say the Spiderman trailer does a good job if representing the superhero film genre.