2XiV

CineAction, Summer, 2009 by Edward D. Bacal

In Hancock, Will Smith’s superhero film of the summer ’08 blockbuster season, he plays John Hancock, a superhero who, in spite of his unsightly characteristics, nevertheless uses his super powers to uphold justice in the streets of America. While this is no extraordinary story in itself, what I find to be of note with Hancock is the way that the representations of its protagonist suit its contemporary social context; specifically, I am interested in how Hancock, released roughly four months prior to election day, and with its careful depictions of Will Smith, acted as a sort of de facto campaign ad for Barack Obama, another ‘unlikely’ hero, often regarded as a quasi-superhero for America. What I’d like to explore here is how, in light of the implications of releasing a film amid election hysteria that casts an African American man as a superhero, the respective images (1) of Will Smith and Obama come to parallel each other. Moreover, I’d like to explore how the development of these images, including the manifestations they take on within culture, cause them to merge, in a sense, thereby problematizing distinctions of identity and the visual forms it takes on.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

A sort of non-superhero, whose unlikeliness itself is present in his vagrant-like appearance, particularly the colour of his skin (he being a sharp contrast to the white, middle- to upper-class Supermans and Batmans that make up the typical superhero grammar) one of the main challenges a character who looks like Hancock faces in playing a superhero is to overcome a less than favourable persona in order satisfy the role itself. This is to say, in spite of his incongruity towards a deeply rooted type, Hancock has to be recognized and viewed as a superhero proper, just as the role of American president, as well, is far from exempt from these challenges of representation (it being another role typified by the upper class white male). Indeed, the notion of a president anything other than white is unprecedented, and was for many, unimaginable (or unacceptable), in spite of all the rhetoric of a purportedly post-racial America.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

From here, I would argue that part of the function Hancock played was to ease the racial concerns of voters with ambivalent conceptions of African Americans (particularly those viewers who draw from a rich repertoire of negative depictions of African Americans in the media, be it from your traditional derogatory representations, or from figures such as Blaxploitation anti-heroes like Shaft and Sweet Sweetback, who, in their assertively afrocentric attitudes are likely to be more discomforting than anything else to many a white viewer (2)). Hancock, despite his adverse appearance and unsavoury characteristics, is nevertheless cast as superhero, and America, post-racial or not, is ultimately better off with the auspices of his superpowers. This scenario, I feel, is reminiscent of much of the story of Obama’s candidacy: to be elected into power and deliver change for the better, he has had to gain the trust and support of so much of an American population that still, on a conscious level or otherwise, typecasts blacks into the roles of an inferior other (which is to say not as their president). In short, Hancock plays out many of the anxieties concerning whether a black man can be trusted as president, as by re-presenting these racial tensions in a film (3) that shuffles the instituted structure of character types and roles, it attempts to ease such tensions by questioning them; in other words, despite the widely held negative and essentialist conceptions of African Americans, they can be superheroes, and they can be presidents.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The situation, however, becomes especially curious with the arrival of the ads for Will Smith’s latest film, Seven Pounds, particularly its promotional poster (first advertised roughly a month after the election): a close up shot of a suit-and-tied Will Smith, well groomed, and with a stately countenance that I wouldn’t hesitate to call ‘presidential’. Compared with the poster for Hancock (another close up shot of Smith–dishevelled enough to suggest vagrancy, but without compromising his good looks), one could read the respective posters as pre- and post- election images, thereby delineating a parallel between Smith and Obama, contingent on the latter’s status.

Hancock clearly exhibits its unattractively atypical superhero, however, it measures it out with a hearty dose of American sensibility (e.g. the conspicuous eagle on his hat, or the quasi-majestic Los Angeles sunrise reflected in his sunglasses, to say nothing of the less than subtle name “John Hancock”). Combining one part unattractive hero with another of American pride (4), the poster is a condensation of this notion of the unlikely, unsightly hero whose extraordinary abilities and sense of national duty inspires him to fight for his country–the latter aspect being a compensation for the former. The poster for Seven Pounds, on the other hand, is much more to the point, as rather than beat you over the head with signifiers of American duty, it takes Obama himself as its reference point (no longer needing anyone’s vote, its representational purpose, I’d argue, is to further institute the image of Obama–as president–into the cultural consciousness); however, the poster functions by signifying not Obama himself, but the schema of visual language that has been used to represent him (the poster itself not dissimilar to the iconic HOPE image surrounding Obama’s campaign). The visual codes associated with Obama are there, inscribed into this image of Will Smith (the suit and tie, the expression on his face, and the strongest unit of semblance between the two, the colour of their skin, as for many, black skin is enough to make a tangible bond between characters far less similar than the protagonist of Seven Pounds and Obama), and through these codes a bond is formed between the two. The poster captures an essence of Obama, but not Obama himself (perhaps it is what Roland Barthes might call “Obamicity”) (5), but more than merely a process of connotation, by replicating the visual language used to represent Obama, this essence of Obama becomes embodied by the images of Will Smith. I would argue, moreover, that this similarity between Smith and Obama–as respectively expressed through these images–isn’t quick to make itself obvious as a result of the supersaturation of the public sphere with images of Obama, so much so as to render the formation of any such bond invisible (as consistent with the aim of any ideological function); the two now share a language so familiar to us their connection hides under our noses.