WandaVision as an analogy for capitalist society, superheros as the 1% and the promise to capitalist liberal reformers.
“not even allowed to think of leaving”- ‘Agnes’-character of nosy neighbor
The latest episode of WandaVision-episode 6 and the whole of the series so far can be seen as analogy for functioning capitalism, how it tries to maintain itself as a system and the deep rooted problems with this kind of society.
The people of Wanda’s Westview are when observed, idyllic and happy.
However underneath the fog of Wanda’s spell, her ‘cover’ reality, her ‘Hex’ they are trapped in fake lives and ‘not even allowed to ‘think of leaving’.
We already know this from the military and S.W.O.R.D people outside the Hex, but we hear it more powerfully from Wanda’s neighbor Agnes. When Vision goes off on his own to investigate the town, suspecting something is rotten in the state of Westview, he finds Agnes at the edge of town motionless in despair, physically immobile in her car. He momentarily gets her out of the ‘cover reality’ using his powers and she tells him how trapped they (the supporting characters) are and that they aren’t even permitted to think about leaving.
They — the supporting characters, the ordinary folks, should never think they can change their situation/class.
Think of Westview/The Hex as the ideology of capitalism.
-It keeps the majority of people in a beaten down state, a prison of the mind, alienated, performing on the outside, miserable inside.
-It feels impossible to fight against individually.
-It throws out or absorbs difference and dissent. Rambeau is a dissenting voice. She threatens the reality that has been assembled. So she is spat out.
The army outside is absorbed.
The only ones who are not under a hypnosis/controlled are the 1% of Wanda’s kids, husband and brother-whatever roles they have in the program-they are not like the rest of the people there-they have agency-even Vision has enough agency to go off script and investigate the outside. The ethical rich less kindly known as (poverty tourists) take on causes of the lower classes/the third world-out of morality. They are horrified by what the see-something that they themselves had helped to create (vision is a super powered being, same as Wanda-she made it happen-he is like her-to push it further in the context of the MCU-they are both powered by & contact with the mind stone.
The super powered beings are the 1% who have agency. The next level-like the middle class-are the people who engage with them and perform, have roles in the show. They’re still under control and trapped but have the honor of getting to play a small role in the 1%’s lives. They ‘got better jobs’ but essentially are trapped in meaningless roles.
Even lower in the social order are the people on the outskirts of town-analogous to the downtown poorer areas of city.
The people on the edge of town aren’t even able to engage of perform, they repeat the same meaningless actions physically moving right to left without hope of change. We see a woman standing at her clothes line moving her arm up and down. Her hand looks purple with blood from keeping it raised. The tears running down her face the only sign she is aware of her prison.
Wanda herself is also a victim of this society. Wanda herself is an immigrant. She was born in a poor country ‘Sokovia’. We are given a flashback to her youth jokingly showing her trick-or treating in poor homemade costumes in Sokovia and being offered an old raw fish. The image of a burning trashcan and a guy robbing a car in the background showing how different her life was then. Yet is also supposed to be kinda funny.
She has (like many other kids growing up in poorer countries)-dreams of living an ideal American life. No surprise then, that she uses her powers of changing reality to place herself in an American sitcom, part of 2.4 ideal family unit, in a perfect town, that negatively cannot touch, celebrating Halloween the ‘ideal’ way that she never could when she was a kid in Sokovia. We don’t know how conscious she was of doing this, but we know it’s her ideal. As Pietro says to her ‘if I found ShangriLa I wouldn’t want to be reminded of the past either’.
WandaVision also shows us how capitalism will convince us that we should accept the control of the 1%, as they are the only ones who can save us. Through morality. We are convinced that the leaders are benevolent leaders. They will punish and save us.
Why do we believe they could save us? Why would they? This is the duality of capitalist ideology. In this analogy, the ones in control are represented in 4 ways.
-Wanda-who controls and keep in check.
-Wanda’s kids-who are blissfully unaware and keep gaining new things, toys, powers, they are still part of the performance but whenever they have a problem they are able to use powers to get out of it. They are taught basic lessons of morality through the death of their puppy and grow from it
-Vision- who is powerful, but represents the idea of the benevolent leader who will fight for the common man.
-Pietro-who is the Darkside of the ideology pleased with itself. He tells Wanda how impressed he is with her control of the town.
The proponents of functioning capitalism say, with better paid jobs, family values (as Pietro mentions, Wanda has kept couples and families together) and keeping a happy face, not thinking about our problems-we can have a idyllic happy society on the surface. One that appears as such and keeps the people that matter in control, perpetually in their roles.
In any case, this ideology teaches us, we cannot fight it, and can only hope for the ones in control to change things in a way that we will prefer.
While illustrating ideas like ‘rebellion’ and ‘fighting back’ the world of superheros always props up this idea that the only people who can make changes are the super-powered (the 1%).
Garth Ennis’ ‘The Boys’ begins to criticize this idea of benevolent power, acting ethically, and ties superheros to capitalism directly showing them actively being used to make money for the Vought corporation (a coronation proved within the story to have links to the Nazi).
Still, this vision gives us no way out either. In the series the collective action of the ordinary folk (the ‘boys’) isn’t enough, the ‘good’ supes (the lesbian (Maeve), the rebel (Starlight) and the immigrant (the female/Kimiko) end up beating the Nazi supe. Superpowers beat superpowers.
In the comic, the boys stop being ordinary by taking compound V.
The fact that we are shown a gay woman, a foreign woman and a rebel working together and winning is akin to a breadcrumb thrown to the liberals. It has no meaning within the context of the The Boys as it’s world sends up this kind of pandering by showing us the fake-corporate-woke-films the seven act in.
The slogan is ‘Girls Get it Done’ and we are invited to share in the joke of how corporations will try to join in and capitalize on Woke Culture. Then, cynically, the world of The Boys sells it to us in the main plot, by showing the actual super powered women in the program beating up the villain Nazi-saying ‘look how ridiculous this idea is-like we originally showed you.’.
The Boys (TV series) doesn’t really believe in collective action, or in gay, female or minorities power. Even the demonstrators are so easily manipulated from one side to another. They are a faceless group sometimes against sometimes for the supes. They are a background for our main characters.
Finally, only person that really beats the Nazi supe is Homelander’s super powered son-giving us a very traditional image of Monarchistic-succession. Where within the 1% the next generation is the only other one to gain power once the current regime is ended. He is also a white male.
Though maybe there is a double layer, maybe this is the joke, and the story is stilling sending it self up (which it is) but then what are we left with other than nihilistic hopelessness and self defeating humor?
While we see Hayward criticizing Monica Rambeau for having too much affection for “super-powered individuals,” citing her help of Captain Marvel-within the world of WandaVision, the white males who are typical symbols of power seem to criticize and fear the superheros. Yet in that same world the super powered beings are the best equivalent of rich white men who control our capitalist world
If we truly believe we can never change society, then our only hope is to believe the people with any power will change it for us. In that light, who would be blamed for wishing actually true benevolent moral heroes existed?
In our society we mock earnestness. We send up this kind of morality yet we yearn for it too. We tell ourselves that ‘absolute power corrupts absolutely’-but do we ask why it does? And whether it HAS to be that way? What if power was not in the hands of the few but the many? Not in the context of democracy but in collective action by ourselves for ourselves.
These movies and programs might make me feel hopeless, but I can’t stop watching them. I am not alone in this-proven by how companies like Marvel are the biggest money makers in media and are getting bigger every day. We want to imagine that this kind of morality can exist.
To go back to Pietro talking to Wanda in the square, he admires the society she has made and rules. She asks -while indicating the place around her-“don’t you think it’s wrong?”. He says (paraphrasing as best I can) “course not, I’m impressed! you’ve kept couples and families together, you’ve kept people’s personalities close to what they really are and given them better jobs’.
Within a capitalist society we are made to feel the best we can ever hope for is a reformed version which is ‘more hyped up’ maybe with better jobs, better wages, but it would be even more of a sham, a forced lie. Maybe the best option is to realize we have power ourselves?
Instead of unifying for a king, this king shows the power of people unified. Collective power is the strongest of all and has changed society many times and will yet.
