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Popular Culture Review
of any comic book hero with a proper nemesis depends in part upon the conflict
between them. A superhero, after all, can only be “super” when allowed to
thwart evil. Imaginary Man specifically saves Nemesis due to their blood ties,
but no superhero would survive in a world without a proper villain. People
would not buy comic books or flock to the latest movie adaptation only to watch
their favorite superhero patrol a world without crime or peril. “Challenge of the
Superfriends” reminds viewers of this critical point. The episode as a whole
provides a complicated, layered scheme wherein the cartoon depicts
superheroes, who are really imaginary friends, who themselves reflect t heir
creators’ perceptions of how a male and female superhero/supervillain might
act.
Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends rallies against “the corporate
interest that mass-mediated stories reflect” (Hastings 265). Despite being the
recipient of multiple award nominations and a success for The Cartoon Network,
the show refuses to dumb down its material to suit corporate interests. Through
Bloo’s antics in “One False Movie” and “Challenge of the Superfriends,” the
viewer questions what goes in to creating a blockbuster movie, why Star Wars
impacts an audience the way it does, and the interplay between superhero and
villain, among other things. Even the youngest of children, who increasingly
pick up on the cartoon’s subtext as they age, see that Bloo’s plans fail when he
relies too heavily on the excesses of popular culture, rather than on himself
Bloo serves as the perfect conduit through which popular culture can be
decontextualized, and thus examined. He parrots what he sees in movies, on
television, and the like, without questioning the value of such material. In so
doing, he allows the viewer to make such judgments, and perhaps to challenge
the hegemony of the American media and corporate interests in determining
what will become popular culture.
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Amy M. Green
Works Cited
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their Implications for a Science o f Humanity. Lanham: Littlefield Adams
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Fingeroth, Danny. Superman on the Couch: What Superheroes Really Tell Us about
Ourselves and Our Society. New York: Continuum, 2004.
Hastings, A. Waller. “Walt Disney and the Roots o f Children’s Popular Culture.’’ The
Lion and the Unicorn, 20.2 (1996), 264-271.
Johnson, Derek. ""Star Wars, Fans, DVD, and Cultural Ownership: An Interview with
Will Brooker.’’ The Velvet Light Trap, 56.1 (2005), 36-44.
Robinson, Lillian S. Wondenvomen: Feminisms and Superheroes. New York: Routledge,
2004.
Warshow, Robert. The Immediate Experience: Movies, Comics, Theatre, and Other
Aspects o f Popular Culture. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001.
Wetmore, Jr., Kevin J. “The Tao o f Star Wars, or. Cultural Appropriation in a Galaxy
Far, Far Away.” Studies in Popular Culture, 23.1 (Oct. 2000), 91-105.
Williams, Brett. “Good Guys and Bad Toys: The Paradoxical World o f Children’s