Iron Man: Messiah of Post-National Capitalism

It's tempting to look at hollywood cinema as purely entertainment, and in many ways, that's not an inappropriate viewpoint to take. Hollywood films are after all primarily a commercial enterprise that makes money by entertaining the audience. However, as Terry Eagleton points out with regards to Literature in Literary Theory: An Introduction, film is always already political. It's not a radical perspective to treat film as political, indeed, it's naïve to treat it as being apolitical.
Marxist film theorists have long focussed on the political aspects of cinema, with a central question of Marxist criticism being how works produced within the capitalist system can serve an emancipatory function. The answer, most commonly, is that emancipatory or radical ideas can be concealed within hollywood films. In some cases, as argued by James Kendrick, these liberatory ideas can be more overt. However, in other cases, the covert message of films can in fact be antagonistic towards a liberatory goal. Sometimes a film can appear as simply mindless entertainment and contain themes that actively reinforce the capitalist status quo. Such is the case in 2010's Iron Man 2, the sequel to the 2008 blockbuster Iron Man.
The two films, despite being the product of the same creative team, seem to have a different social meaning contained within them. Iron Man, it can be argued (as I have in prior work), is a film that is directly hostile to the military-industrial complex and the capitalist system of which it is a part. The sequel, however, presents an altogether different view, praising capitalism and private enterprise while diminishing the working class. Taken together, the two films offer an almost Messianic tale or the redemption of capitalism. So, while the first film does offer a critique of capitalism, the second transforms this criticism into a test and trial that capitalism must endure in order to emerge stronger and more triumphant. The capitalist system must confront all opposition, even that from within in order to become stronger.
The first film is a retelling of the origin of the character Iron Man, updating his story to the contemporary era. It is the story of how billionaire inventor Tony Stark is captured by terrorists who want to force him to build a weapon for them. Instead, he constructs a suit of powered armor and uses it to escape. Upon his return to America, he must confront his business partner, who had in fact hired the terrorists to kidnap and kill Stark. As such, the film offers a critical view of the military industrial complex and global capitalism in general. It presents a world in which global capitalism is responsible for supporting terrorist groups like Al Quaeda. It's hero, while he comes from the bourgeoisie, must leave behind his old life in order to confront these evils in the world.
Stark, to confront his nemesis and the forces of capitalism, must leave behind his concerns with private property and become what Marx calls an independent man.
A being only considers himself independent when he stands on his own feed; and he only stands on his own feet when he owes his existence to himself. A man who lives by the grace of another regards himself as a dependent being. But I live commpletely by the grace of another if I owe him not only the sustenance of my life, but if he has, moreover, created my life – if he is the source of my life, and if it is not my own creation, my life has necessarily a source of this kind outside in. … The transcendence of private property is therefore the complete emancipation of all human sense and attributes because these sense and attributes have become, subjectively and objectively, human. (qtd. in Kendrick 42)
When Stark is captured by terrorists, he is forced to give up for a time, his private property. To literally survive, he must make himself a new. If he were to have done as his captors wished, they sure would have killed him in the end. Even upon his return to society, he continues to display the characteristics of an independent man. He chooses, on his own, and despite outside pressures, to devote himself and all resources at his disposal to making the world a better place. He is mocked by the capitalist system, as portrayed in the film by the CNBC broadcasts, and eventually forced out of his own company by the board as he wishes to get the company out of the arms manufacturing business. Finally, he is forced to confront and kill his business partner who uses Stark's own technology against him.
In the first film, Stark is initially portrayed at least partially in a negative light, a womanizer with a drinking problem. He must make his life anew in order to become a good person. By contrast, there are those characters who are consistently presented as good, all of whom come from the working or middle classes. Stark's assistant is good throughout the film. The soldiers and officers of the military are good throughout. These characters are not figured of the bourgeoisie even as they work for the bourgeoisie. The working class, while it is subservient to the bourgeoisie is the site of morality in the film. By contrast, the capitalists of the film are portrayed negatively. The true villain of the film is Stark's own business partner. The business media mocks and ridicules Stark for attempting to take his company in a moral direction.
While the military is presented in a positive light in the first film, to be a force for good, Stark must be independent, he must create and control his own destiny, and he needs to be honest to thw world. While government agents assist Stark in his final confrontation with Stane (his business partner), they do so because their interests are aligned with Stark's, and not because they have sanctioned Stark's activities. This only further reaffirms Stark's indendence; while he has aid from others, he stands alone in the end, “he owes his existence to himself.”
Ideologically, the first Iron Man makes sense. It was made and released at a time when the general populous of the country was upset with major corporations, in the wake of the Enron scandal and corporate greed causing a recession that was severely hurting average men and women across the country. The film may not have truly suggested socialism as a solution, but it was certainly critical of capitalism. At least it appears to be so.
What is the critic to make of Iron Man 2 then, and how do we rectify the two apparently different treatments of capitalism presented. The circumstances at the release of the second film are still bad nationally. The recession is still ongoing, and while major corporations and their stock values are recovering, the unemployment rate is even higher than before, and average working people are still suffering. It would make sense for the second film to continue to be oppositional towards global corporations and capitalism. Instead, the film is fully in support of capitalism, and oppositional to a working class that attempts to stand apart from the bourgeoisie.
Stark, in the second film, is part superhero, part business man and part rock star. His keynote speech as his corporate expo bears resemblance to a rock concert, complete with scantily dressed dancers on stage with him. Far from being mocked by the business world, he he hailed as the wave of the future in business, even his business rivals are afraid to appear jealous or resentful, so great is his popularity.
Just as in the first film, it appears to be an alliance of business and criminal forces that Stark must confront. However, there has been a substantive change. Whereas in the first film, the corporate leader is manipulating the terrorists, in the second, the corporation is manipulated by the criminal for his own ends. Hammer, a business rival of Stark's also in the arms business, hires Ivan Vanko in an effort to diminish Stark in the business world. Vanko, however, has other goals, he wants to kill Stark, and he doesn't care who he hurts in the process. Hammer is hardly the villainos mastermind that Stane was, instead, he's just a bumbler, seemingly unaware that he's being used by Vanko. The first films Al Quaeda like terrorists are dupes of the bourgeois capitalist, the second films capitalist is the dupe of the working class rogue physicist.
If the villain of the second film is from the working class, what of the other characters, those clearly identified as being good in the first film. They remain, however, how they are good has changed. No longer are they good because they stand by the independent man. Instead, they are now good to the extent that they remain loyal to the bourgeoisie. Stark's assistant Pepper Potts, for her unflinching and unfailing loyalty is promoted to CEO of Stark Industries. Col. Rhodes, however, for standing loyally with the military and not with Stark, is unwittingly made a part of the plot against Stark. He is redeemed at the end precisely so that he can stand with Stark in the final confrontation against Vanko. From this we see a consistent approach in the film to the working class. Those who attempt to rebel against the bourgeoisie (Vanko) are criminals and should be dealt with as such, those who place their loyalty in something other than free enterprise and the capitalist system (Col. Rhodes) are merely ignorant, and finally, those who support the bourgeoisie unfailingly (Pepper Potts) will be rewarded. Instead of holding up the working or middle class as a model of what it means to be good, the working or middle class are good precisely to the extent that they support capitalism, free enterprise and the bourgeoisie.
Tony Stark in Iron Man 2 is a twisted reflection of Marx's independent man. He is independent, certainly. He meets the requirement of creating, being responsible for and taking ownership of his own existence. However, he hasn't done so by giving up private property, instead he's done so by have complete and absolute control of his property such that he no longer needs to rely on the property of others at all. He fights in the film, and triumphs, to keep his property; whether it be from other corporstions or from the government. This hardly seems to be what Marx intended when he spoke of transcending private property, rather its an absolute exaltation of private property.
The film goes a step further in its exaltation of private property, when it has Stark announce before a Senate committee that he has successfully privatized peace. Indeed, at that point in the film, by his presence in the world as Iron Man, he has forced nations of the world to come together and work for peace. His technology is so superior to that of any nation on earth, including the U.S., that all nations must work for peace. Stark further proves his point and his technological superiority by showing video of other nations and corporations laughably failing to come anywhere close to building technology like his suit.
It appears at first in the film, that Vanko coming onto the scene with technology that can rival Stark's will call into question this privately enforced peace. Stark is shown to be falling apart personally, slipping back into alcoholism as he copes with his own mortality. The government comes to him, to show him that there is a way to resolve the problem of the toxin that is slowly poisoning him. Superficially we have at this moment, a melding of corporate and government interests. The private corporation or individual cannot accomplish everything on its or his own, and must turn to the government or public sphere for assistance. This moment, however, is short lived in the film, and doesn't shape the overall meaning substantially. This is because at the same time Stark has been forced to turn to one part of the government for help, another (the military) has chosen to steal his property (one of his suits) in a desperate attempt to acquire the technology for themselves. The military then turns to Hammer to further weaponize the suit, which turns out badly. Hammer does add weapons to the suit, but they are largely ineffective. What is instead effective is that Vanko is able to rewrite the computer software of the suit such that he can control it remotely even while there is a pilot inside. In this way, Vanko attempts to force Col. Rhodes to participate in the killing of Stark.
The conclusion of the film, while plot wise being rather unimportant and just another way to plug the Marvel comics film francise, is very important thematically. It features Nick Fury from SHIELD (a government intelligence agency) showing Stark a report that has concluded that while they would like the Iron Man suit, they don't particularly want Stark and furthermore, that since they have acknoledged that the suit is his, they will not have either. Instead, it is implied that the world will continue to have Stark's privately enforced peace, at least for the foreseeable future. He will continue to act as he sees fit to maintain the peace, independent of any governmental or other oversight.
What we have between the two films then, appears to be thematically and ideologically oppositional. The first film appears to support at least partially a Marxist critique of capitalism, or at the very least a liberal critique of corporations. The second film, however, is an exaltation of capitalism and the corporation, and a direct opposition to any working class revolt or questioning of the corporations or capitalist system. How then, is the critic to treat the two films together as a single artifact? Is it just that the first film is responding to a time when the people were desiring to see corporations as evil, and the second is from a time in which people are once more looking to corporations to improve things? Or is there an ideology that can rectify the two apparently distinct and oppostional meanings?
What I posit, is that the two films, taken together, show and exalt the transition from the old way of the military-industrial complex, the alignment of corporate and governmental interests, to a new form a post-national global capitalism. Yes, the first film does feature corporations and capitalism working for evil. However, looking again, the evil that Stane represents can also be seen to be a reinforcement of free-enterprise. This is because Stane is eventually destroyed and Stark triumphant. What Stane has done, is attempt to get ahead by turning for help to those who are opposed to free-enterprise and capitalism as a whole (Al Quaeda like terrorists). So, we can see Stane as evil because he abandons the capitalist way of doing things. Stark then, is not a redeemed member of the bourgeois who has seen the evils of capitalism, instead, he is an agent of capitalism transformed and sent to destroy those who have abandoned capitalism. This reading is much more in keeping with the second film, in which we once more see Stark triumph over someone who is opposed to or outside of the capitalism system. He does so, not by turning to the government for aid, instead, the government has become a crutch. Stark must now chart a course independent of the government, a future in which corporations and capitalism are no longer tied to or reliant upon the nation state. Instead, nations are brought together in peace because global capitalism has demanded such.
The Iron Man films, then, are a messianic tale for global post-national capitalism. The story of one man who will arise from hardship and suffering, and lead capitalism into an era in which it is no longer shackled to government at all. As Stark says, he has privatized peace. Free private enterprise doesn't need governments or nations to create a peaceful environment in which to do business. Instead, when it is in their interests, corporations can and will bring peace to the world.

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