The development of Sociology as a
discipline has always run parallel to the rise of western Capitalism; both
being born out of industrial revolutions that spanned between 1760-1850 and
gained prominence through the social changes those revolutions created. These
ideas also coincided with the independence of British colonies that would
become the United States. These fraught fraternal fledglings became fatefully
intertwined. Whereas Sociology would use historical events, and
political/economic analysis to criticize capitalism; the United States,
primarily built by white wealthy landowning men seeking a regress of taxation,
would embrace it. This began our propagandistic and irrational fetishizing of
Capitalism for over two millennia, creating one of the more corrosive spurious correlations
between wealth and intelligence. This is because in a capitalist system,
economic success has become a chief indicator of intellect[1]. Colloquially, people
state: “How’d they make so much money if they weren’t smart?” without factoring
in a variety of social factors like family inheritance and opportunities born
out of an overabundance of intersecting privileges (class status, Whiteness,
cisgendered maleness, sexuality and ablebodiedness). Popular culture has been
one of the most effective tools to spread this false claim into every crevice
of our social order and thereby germinating this insidious amalgamation between
one’s bank account and their IQ[2]. One of the more
understated examples of this, that has collectively had the wildest impact
recently, is the deification of Elon Musk through the lens of The Marvel
Cinematic Universe’s portrayal of Tony Stark by Robert Downey Jr. The purpose of this paper is to interrogate
the power of this comparison on public perception and examine the dangers of
manufacturing the myth of the ‘benevolent billionaire’ which has contributed to
our current socio-political (constitutional) crisis in the US.
HISTORICAL
CONTEXT
The histories of Elon Musk and Marvel Studio’s
representation of Tony Stark embodied by Robert Downey Jr. have orbited one
another, each intersecting the other’s trajectory at a variety of points
throughout Musk’s and the character of Tony Stark’s life course. However, the
impact of these intersections has unfortunately had grave real-world
consequences that are difficult to disentangle.
Brief origin on Elon Musk
Born in 1971 Johannesburg, South
Africa, Elon Musk grew up in a wealthy family whom benefited from racist
Apartheid and neo- Nazi laws of the country at the time. The blood mineral industry born
out of such policies enriched the Musk family as Elon’s father made a deal to
receive a portion of emeralds produced in three small mines. This wealth and privilege allowed
Musk to immigrate from South Africa to Canada and eventually study Physics and Economics
at the University of Pennsylvania earning a bachelor’s degree in both,
conferred in 1997. After two internships in Silicon Valley, he was accepted
into the materials science graduate program at Standford. Upon declining to
enroll, Musk lacked the legal authorization to
live and work in the United States
until he secured an H1-B visa.
Concurrently with his education and
work experience, Musk began a history of corporate virulence. With money lent
to him by his father, Musk and his siblings created Zip2, an online yellow
pages in the early days of the internet. Zip2 was acquired by Compaq in 1999.
Musk took his 22-million-dollar buyout and spun it into an online financial
services and e-mail payment company called X.com. X would eventually become
PayPal when it merged with Confinity. When Musk became CEO, technological
problems and a poor business model led to the board ousting Musk and replacing
him with Peter Thiel. When PayPal was eventually sold to Ebay, Musk being the majority
shareholder was paid 175.8 million dollars. This began a pattern of Musk
buying/acquiring companies or organizations, gutting them of personnel and
regulation and then hoping to sell the pieces into his next venture.[3] Musk took his PayPal
payout to the Mars Society and founded Space X in 2002.
The founding of Space X marks the
time when Elon Musk begins to orbit US politics. At the time, President Obama
both increased NASA’s budget (by $ 6 billion) but decided to cancel the Constellation program, its Ares 1 and Ares
V rockets, and the Orion spacecraft while committing to the privatization of launch
vehicles to the Orbiting Space stations under the COTS program. Space X got the contracts. Space
X continued its relationship with the government through their next venture
“Starlink” a consumer internet business that sends batches of internet-beaming
satellites into orbit. Since 2022, Space X has had the Federal Communications
Commission contract for 13,500 satellites that would make up the Starlink Internet Network which pulled Musk deeper into the
political sphere.[4]
Musk’s
association with his Pay Pal compatriots would eventually be known collectively
as “The PayPal Mafia.” This
group of “tech bros” all have ties to South African Apartheid (recently giving them the nickname
“broligarchs”). As their wealth and status increased, these “broligarchs” began
to criticize US social programs,
women’s right to vote, and regulatory policies. These ideals would put them on an intersecting
trajectory with Donald Trump’s re-ascension to
President in 2024
in the form of VP running mate, insult to the poor southern community and
genuine couch connoisseur, JD Vance; as Vance was one of The Pay Pal
Mafia’s (Peter Thiel) protégés.
In
addition to an alignment of ideologies, Musk’s political interest is mostly
financial. This is because
the companies that he helms would be in constant financial jeopardy without government
contracts. Musk thereby ideologically shifts towards whichever political
wind will net him the most revenue. Yet, since aligning with Donald Trump, he
has seemed emboldened to express various levels and varieties of hate speech:
from misinformation, general technocratic dehumanization
(Eugenics) , Trans
discrimination, sexism, antisemitism, and white pride that culminated in Musk
giving a “Roman Salute” at Trump’s Second Inauguration that was interpreted by White Power Groups,
and most of the general public,
as the Nazi Zig Heil. At the time of this writing, The Department of Government
Efficiency (DOGE) the Agency tasked with reining in Government bureaucracy and
spending that Musk (sort of, but not really, only actually) leads, is dismantling the regulatory agencies
of the government that were directly overseeing his
companies. Yet, even
with all this veiled history, to the pain he is currently inflicting on
millions, there are those that still see him as a savior and a genius,
including himself. To understand where that comes from, we need to investigate
the MCU portrayal of Tony Stark.
The
MCU’s Tony Stark
In the
early 2000’s, there was a fraction at Marvel Comics regarding the adaptation of
their characters to TV and Film. In the years prior, to stave off bankruptcy,
Marvel Comics had sold the adaptation rights to some of their biggest
characters. The X-Men were at Fox, The Incredible Hulk was at
Paramount and Spider-Man was at Sony, each with their own complicated legal
entanglements of where, when, and how these characters can appear on screen. In
2002, upon the landmark success of the Fox Studios produced X-Men and Sony’s
Spider-man, executive David
Masiel met with the President of Marvel, Ike Perlmutter (at Mar-a-lago of all
places), to try and convince him that Marvel was leaving money on the table by
licensing their characters rather than producing their own films (Robinson,
Gonzales and Edwards, 2024). However, since selling off their best assets,
which in the early 2000’s were way too profitable to let go,[5] Marvel had to start with
lesser known, C and D-list heroes at the time.
Originally
conceived by Stan Lee in the early 1960’s and modeled after Howard Hughes, the
comic book portrayal of Tony Stark was, at its inception, a hard drinking, war-mongering
misogynist.
According
to DiPaolo (2011)
“[Lee] deliberately designed
Iron Man to be everything the readership hated as a creative challenge to see
if he could convince a liberal reader to find a “Military Industrial Complex”
billionaire protagonist likeable despite his conservative politics…Lee said
that he was not trying to change his readership’s politics, but to see if…[an]
inventor and munitions maker could be successfully presented as a redeemed
anti-hero.”
It is
unclear if Stan Lee knew the indelible cultural impact this would have. His
whimsical wager against writers’ block contributed to the chipping away of the public’s
disdainful animosity for the wealthy elite, and convinced readers that wealth,
weapons and womanizing can make a hero. This unfortunately laid a problematic
foundation for how Tony Stark would be portrayed on-screen.
Another problem came in November
2001 when Karl Rove had a meeting with the head of the Motion Picture
Association of America, Jack Valenti. The Bush Administration needed a unified
response to terrorism for the purposes of national security:
1.
The
US campaign in Afghanistan was a war against terrorism, not Islam
2.
People
can serve in the war effort and in their communities.
3.
US
troops and their families need support
4.
9/11
requires a global response.
5.
This
is a fight against evil
6.
Children
should be assured that they will be safe
While not
stating this as propaganda, Rove did declare that leaders of the industry have ideas
about how they want to contribute to the war effort. (Robinson et al, 2024:
61).
Rove’s
actions speak to the way the media is used by the government to shape public
perception. But, instead of news reels and cartoons playing before films as
they did during WWII, the mechanism of propaganda has become far more incestuous
in years since. Regularly, film production and video game developers are
provided with military consultants that control the depiction of the government
and the military in that medium. For film, this means a lower production budget
in exchange for script approval and distribution access. Therefore, during “The
War on Terror.” the undercurrent of major studio productions was to encourage
support for US foreign policy.
During
the development of what would become the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), the
United States was in two wars (in Iraq and Afghanistan) and had a former weapons
manufacturer as a Vice president (Robinson et al 2024). With the Bush Administration’s approval
ratings on a steep and steady decline,
Tony Stark was the perfect choice to be propped up as the propagandic paragon
of US military efforts to show that “[even a merchant of death]…has a heart”. Thus,
the writers for Iron Man (2008) recentered Tony’s backstory around being
captured in Afghanistan rather than Vietnam and had him be injured by his own munitions;
thereby centering him in the current moment and fulfilling the criteria set by
Rove. However, they still needed to make him likeable. Enter: Robert Downey Jr.
At
the time of his casting, Robert Downey Jr. (RDJ) seemed to have just come out
of auditioning for Tony Stark in real life. Considered a commercial failure and
substance abuser, RDJ had been recently fired off of Ally McBeal, and
even though he was clean and sober in 2007, he was on probation as early as 2005,
and that made the producers nervous (Robinson et al 2024). Director Jon Favreau
went to bat for Downey. When it was clear that the studio had no intention of
hiring Downy, Favreau leaked the news of RDJ’s casting to the press which was
met with fan enthusiasm (art was imitating life after all). Once he was cast,
both Downey and the writers went to work on fleshing out who Tony Stark was
going to be for the MCU.
In 2022, Iron Man (2008)
writer Mark Fergus explained to New York Magazine that one of the inspirations for
the characterization of Tony Stark in the MCU was Elon Musk.
“Stark was as if “Musk
took the brilliance of [Steve] Jobs with the showmanship of [Donald] Trump,”
adding: “He was the only one who had the fun factor and the celebrity vibe and
actual business substance.”
For his part, RDJ was encouraged by
Favreau and others to draw upon personal experiences, and producers would hope
that his face would be “a visual shorthand for the character.” (Robinson et al
2024). Thus, the MCU’s Tony Stark has the wealth and social awkwardness of Elon
Musk, Showmanship of Donald Trump, the charisma and humor of Robert Downey, all
wrapped up in a personification of US Militarism. Unfortunately, as this
version of Tony Stark grew in popularity, so did the lines between the
character, actor and their inspiration (Musk).
When
Art imitates life, and back again
Pop Culture and film are always used as a
truncated reference and explanation for the social world around us. We compare individuals,
people, and social situations to characters and plots of film and TV;
especially when those situations are hard to explain. When Iron Man exploded
onto the screen, RDJ’s portrayal of Tony Stark as a brilliant wisecracking do-it
yourself superhero who flouts international laws and commits war crimes by
murdering brown terrorists with precision and prejudice was a smashing success.
This annihilation of blatant terrorism was the cinematic wish fulfillment that
the public thirsted for after 9/11. Tony Stark/Iron Man was the white male savior
that was using weapons and militarization to make the world a better place. Whom,
in future installments, would quip that he “wanted to put a suit of armor
around the world” and “privatize world peace.” Sentiments that have henceforth
been reiterated by various people in power.[6] This is because superheroes
like Tony Stark “constitute an appealing form of pro-war propaganda, that
across the board, encourages a militarist view of the world and represents a form
of American Fascism.” (DiPaolo 2011: 19). We have commodified and coveted this
image enough for billionaires to use it as both rationalization and shield for
their crimes.
Tony
Stark’s popularity in the public consciousness and the overall cultural
zeitgeist, caused people to start looking for his real-world proxy. Given their
biographies were already ingredients of Tony Stark’s psyche, Musk and RDJ
started to become deified as the real Tony Stark themselves; RDJ allowing his
public persona to be taken over by the character so completely that it is
difficult to find a difference between character and actor in interviews and
public appearances. Meanwhile, Musk promoted and internalized these comparisons
to Stark which were furthered by his brief cameo in Iron Man II (2010). Musk
even went so far as to create a 3-D model of Space X
rockets similar to the way the films would depict Stark’s designs. These manufactured parallels
allowed the public to fantasize Musk to be that real life white
savior, jumping from the screen to save them, while simultaneously obfuscating the danger he poses
as a real world threat.
SOCIAL
ANALYSIS
The power of the comparison between the MCU portrayal
of Tony Stark and Elon Musk is found not only in how the popularity of the
character shapes public opinion, or in the expectation of hero worship as an
escape from the continuous monotony/occasional terror of our daily lives, but also
in the confluence of our conditioning to the myth of the benevolent billionaire
coupled with an emergence of a neurodivergent masculinity labeled in online
circles as the “Sigma” male. This
combination of traits furthers the embroglio between the image of Tony Stark
and Elon Musk.
The
Myth of the Benevolent Billionaire
In
a Capitalist system, money is a superpower. It creates opportunities and access
to resources, it whitens, masculinizes and “ables” peoples’ bodies; meaning it
minimizes the barriers that people experience for being a member of a
marginalized group. Money is the catalyst for transformation as much as various
forms of irradiation, or the mutation that follows in many superhero origin
stories. Therefore, it is not surprising then that the heroes that grace the
pages of comic books that are touted as “just human with no superpowers” are
almost always wealthy. Money bridges the chasm of physical, psychic or
supernatural abilities and puts humans on par with Gods in these stories.
The
combination of wealth and altruism was fueled through both a billionaire’s own
desire for legacy and the misinterpretation of capitalist cautionary tales that
isolate billionaires as being heroic. The savior complex for billionaires is
never built upon self-sacrifice, but trades on its belief in perpetuity. Many
of the wealthy American Families at the turn of the 20th Century had
a history of giving to charities and other “worthy causes”, not because they were
selfless and cared about “their fellow human”, but because of tax breaks
afforded to philanthropy, and the desire to maintain the legacy of their name.
Thus, names like Rockefeller, Carnegie, Wrigley, JP Morgan, and Vanderbilt
grace the side of concert halls, stadiums, office buildings, and plazas. The
founder of The Nobel Peace Prize, Alfred Nobel, made his fortune through
dynamite production. This has continued today with billionaires starting
charities, giving away millions of dollars while simultaneously hiding billions
in offshore accounts and stock dividends to avoid taxation. These practices
then combined with the popular misinterpretation of cautionary tales of
capitalism.
One
of the most common stories that manufactures this benevolence in billionaires is
the character of Ebenezer Scrooge in the Dickensian classic, A Christmas
Carol. Throughout the story, the reader rightfully is presented with the
interpersonal dangers of capitalism. Greed begets isolation, loneliness, and
bitter emotional stagnation that makes you cruel. While this anti-capitalist messaging
is important and valid; this story is one of the first that also presents
readers with the idea that the billionaire can be reformed, as every depiction
of the end of A Christmas Carol presents Scrooge as still an
economically wealthy man; his charity changing the lives of the people around
him; and they love him for it. This reinforces that money can be used for
emotional manipulation and still presents relationships as being transactional.
This
idea of benevolence is furthered in our superhero media. Comic books and their TV/Film
adaptations depicts these rich oligarchs as brilliant crime
fighters;
furthering the idea that social problems can be solved by wealth and individual
determination rather than collective action. This presents wealth as no longer
a corruptible force (as the intended message of Ebeneezer Scrooge’s plight) but
as a tool for righteousness. Iron Man and Batman are among the richest and most popular characters that parlay their wealth into an
unfathomable network of gadgets, equipment, and training for their own private war
against their understanding of injustice. Sure, at the same time they also
engage in various amounts of philanthropy; but their true work is always
outside of the system. This was astutely pointed out by Mathew Alford in his
original review of Iron man:
The Emotional appeal of
Iron Man (2008) rest on the idea that Stark, the self -confessed ‘Merchant of
Death’, has changed his carefree attitude towards arms manufacturing…These
readings of the film ignore the blatant fact that Stark actually continues to
build weapons, only now they are more hi-tech and produced covertly as a part
of his own bodily attack armor.”
(Robinson
et al 2024).
One
dangerous commonality of billionaire crimefighters in superhero fiction is their
egocentrism. The MCU’s Tony Stark always believes himself to be the smartest
person in the room and the one who will always have the right answers even
after he is blatantly proven wrong. In Iron man II, the character stands
up in front of Congress and says that he “Privatized World Peace.” because he
was the only one smart enough to come up with the arc reactor technology. After
he is proven wrong in that same film, he later believes that he can create
artificial intelligence that can act as “a suit of armor around the world” and
promptly created the AI villain Ultron. After that failure, he does submit to
government oversight and regulation in Captain America: Civil War. However,
that regulation is short lived, eventually culminating in his self-sacrifice at
the end of Endgame. Thus, through Tony Stark’s entire arc in the MCU, his
billions and bravado culminate in benevolence. Part of the appeal of Elon Musk
is that many were expecting the same trajectory. Political pundits, talk show
hosts, elected and appointed officials of the US government all have compared Elon
Musk to Tony Stark, opining on Musk’s charities and companies as if to manifest
this benevolence upon him. Yet, whenever Musk is given a chance to show the
world that he may be a hero, he turns out to be a supervillain.
In
addition to all the hate speech, bigotry and deregulatory crypto fascism Elon
Musk is currently producing/regurgitating through his leadership/consultation/leadership
with DOGE, he also decided to buy the social media platform
because people made fun of him. Afterward,
he then turned that platform into a cesspool of vitriolic and violently
racist, misogynistic hate speech
causing both advertisers and Users to flee; all under the guise of being a
champion of Free Speech. However, Elon Musk’s supervillainy lies in the control
of his businesses and the erratically sociopathic apathy with which he wields
that power. This came to light in 2022 with his Starlink system and the ongoing
Ukrainian Russian War. Musk’s biographer, Walter Isaacson,
falsely claimed that Elon Musk “turned off” Starlink during a Ukraine
counterattack.
While this would certainly count as supervillainy, Isaacson, regardless of the
statement’s invalidity, emphasizes Musk’s potential power and influence over
the region through the Starlink system; that on a whim, Musk could change the
scale and trajectory of the war. Much like the egoism of Tony Stark, this is
not benevolent, it is hostage taking for the
purposes of kowtowing.
This is evidenced by Musk’s attitude change on the war after aligning himself
with Donald Trump during the 2024 election; stating that he believed that
Ukraine had gone too far. A point Donald Trump and JD Vance
doubled down on in their explosive meeting with President Zelensky. Additionally, Musk has used his money to
repeatedly fuel constitutional crises by bribing people for votes both in the 2024 national election under
the guise of a lottery
and then again in the Wisconsin race for DA. Thus, while Tony Stark is no
benevolent billionaire (because even in fiction there is no such thing) Musk is
less like Tony Stark and more like Justin Hammer from Iron Man II, where
his wealth shields him from his own stupidity, and allows him to fail upwards while
disassociating from the human rights and dignity of others.
Neurodivergence
as ‘Sigma’ Masculinity
In a
patriarchal system, a person’s masculinity status is perceived as royalty.
Within this [often]-binary structured set of organizations and institutions, those
that have been assigned and openly perform the status of male and masculinity
are venerated; believing that their gendered position exempts them from
behaviors, labor, and expressions they think are beneath them. Thus, in a
masculine dominant society, the ideals, presentation, and behaviors surrounding
masculinity are the first to be policed; and men, are the first to be dominated
(Bourdieu 1998).
As
a part of that mechanism of control and domination, masculinity turns inward,
and like the ouroboros, men begin consuming each other
through the building of an irrational and harmful dominance hierarchy. This
hierarchy is peddled through the unfathomably profitable popularity of “The
manosphere”: the sprawling web of groups, belief systems and lifestyle gurus
that promote these irrational, erroneous and dangerous ideas of toxic
masculinity (Bates 2021).
The
hierarchy begins with the highly contested and debunked concept of “The Alpha”
male. This group has the characteristics of a lot of traditional masculinity:
Strong, athletic, loves sports, cisgendered, sexist, emotionally vacant, and
anti-intellectual. These individuals perceive themselves to be leaders and
reinforce these claims through cherry picked biological pseudoscience and
erroneous myths about the pack mentality of animals.
The next status in this cannibalizing
hierarchy is “the beta male”
As
I explained in a previous essay (2018):
“Beta” males are defined
as men who don’t identify/ fit the toxic forms of alpha male behaviors. Some
men embrace this position as a way to show how they are morally and
intellectually superior (the qualities they are using to define their
masculinity) to the “alpha” male. This superiority impacts their views on
women. Because they believe themselves to be superior to the “alpha” male, they
should be garnering the attention of women and not them
The
attention from women here is an important detail, as regardless of where
men are on this corrosive carousel of status and identity, they all perceive
themselves above women. It is their misogyny that binds them. Recently,
there is a new emerging status of masculinity, the “Sigma” male, and it seems
to incorporate autism and neurodivergence in its assessment of masculinity.
“Sigma” coded masculinity arose
first from a 2010 blog post by Science fiction
writer, Jon Beale,
who, in addition to espousing a myriad of racist and sexist beliefs, expressed
his frustration with the generalization of the “alpha and beta” structure and
what he considered “the losers” underneath them ( Just to go down the list:
deltas gammas, lambdas and omegas). Thus, he coined the term “Sigma male” which
is collectively understood as the introverted “lone wolves” and outsiders that
seemed to be on par with Alpha males, but maybe didn’t express their level of
bravado while remaining intelligent and stoic. One characteristic of this “Sigma” type of man
that is often glossed over is their expressions of neurodivergence. Many of the character names that
are often proselytized as “Sigma males” are John Wick, Walter White, Tommy
Shelby, Jason Bourne and Tony Stark. Those unconventional Heroes/anti-heroes, that
do not exhibit hyper masculine qualities, are brilliant but are able to become
singularly focused, mission driven, obsessive, have skilled pattern
recognition, able to be a social chameleon but unable to read social cues all
the time. Thereby incorporating qualities of neurodivergence on the autism
spectrum into this questionable masculinity quagmire.
In addition to the co-opting of
neurodivergence into a masculinity latticework that reinforces misogyny and toxic
self-destructiveness, “The Sigma male” archetype is also a new form of
“supercrip” stereotype. The “Supercrip” stereotype is a type of disability
stereotype often found in action, fantasy and superhero media where a person’s
disability is the source of superpowers which negate the persons physical and
or mental disability. Clear examples of this in comic book media: Daredevil, several
of the X-men, Barbara Gordon, Cyborg, and yes, Tony Stark. With the “Sigma
Male” however, their “superpower” and what makes them a good assassin, drug
kingpin, gangster, government agent and “Genius, Billionaire, Playboy Philanthropist
Superhero” is their neurodivergence.
The
overall contradiction of the Sigma male supercrip, outside of its lack of
social and scientific evidence, is that much of the “Alpha and Beta” status
criteria are flimsily supported through a pseudo-scientific biological argument
of men’s innate nature (which also allows them to justify their frequent transphobia
and discrimination). However, a simple internet search will reveal “the sigma male grindset” a quasi-self-help guide to
becoming a sigma male. This idea of “becoming” leans more into the social
construction of gender than those arguments often used by these groups that
tend to be more based in biological determinism. Granted, the identification of
this hypocrisy should not be revelatory, many belief systems that have cultlike
qualities, as those in the misogynistic manosphere do, are both convoluted and
hypocritical. Because, having a clear set of principles, and the conviction of
those principles leads to accepting consequences for those beliefs. In short,
it takes courage, and these men and their allies have none.
Elon Musk has become the literal
posterchild for “Sigma male” masculinity, gracing the cover of a seminal text on the
subject. With the
help of the myth of the benevolent billionaire, he has been deified by “The
manosphere” as their current and most fervent paragon, and in their mind, a real life Tony Stark. Yet, when you look at the basic
comparison, it is only the sigma male archetype, and the billionaire myth that
connects them. This, as I have argued above, is more of a function of the use
of Musk in the updating and creation of the MCU’s Tony Stark. When looking
closer, they are also leagues apart. Tony is shown to be an inventor and
engineer. Meanwhile, the only thing Musk has designed, not even engineered, is
the Cyber-truck. An ugly eyesore of an automobile that has had so many flaws and recalls that even Tesla dealerships won’t take it as
a trade in. Tony
has built his company on his ingenuity, Musk is a corporate vulture that raids
and consumes companies, destabilizes them and then sells off the pieces into
his next venture, which is more akin to the corporate robber barons of 1980’s
cinema, than the Superhero populism of today.
CONCLUSION
Elon Musk is not Tony Stark.
However, the MCU’s Tony Stark being a symbol of American Militarized Fascism is
a low bar for a comparison. Regardless of the invalidity of this contrast, its repetition
online among the media illiterate masses shaped the public perception of Musk
enough for him to be elevated into the halls of political power in ways that his
billions could not give him access so expeditiously. Although, as Musk
continues to dismantle government infrastructure through these robber baron tactics,
many of his supportive public have reassessed their opinions of him. Yet, we
may be in a situation where the damage he has already done is irreparable, with
no superheroes around to save us.
REFERENCES
Bates, Laura 2021. Men Who Hate
Women: From Incels to Pickup Artists The Truth about Extreme Misogyny Naperville:
Sourcebooks.
Bourdieu Pierre 1998. Masculine
Domination Standford: Standford University Press
Dipaolo, Marc 2011. War Politics
and Superheroes: Ethics and Propaganda in Comics and Film. London:
McFarland and Company.
Robinson, Joanna, Dave Gonzales and
Gavin Edwards 2024. The Reign of Marvel Studios New York: Liveright
Publishing
[1] It
should also be mentioned that this is usually invoked once someone has a lot of
money. Rarely are poor smart people given the confidence that they will have
economic success. If you are not wealthy, it is perceived that you are ‘not
that smart’ or you’re lazy.
[2] IQ
tests aren’t a measure of Intelligence either. I just wanted to not have to say
intelligence over and over.
[3] As
he did with Twitter
[4]
Yes there is Tesla and Neuro-link and the purchasing of Twitter. But the
acquisition of government contracts and its leading to his nebulous political
position as the maybe Not, but actual leader of DOGE (Dept of Government
Efficiency) this is the most direct
route if I don’t want the thesis to get lost or have this essay be gargantuan
[5] Fox,
Sony and Universal would consistently put films into production just so that
the rights would not revert back to Marvel Comics. Many films were rushed, announced before they
even had a creative team, and in the “doomed” The Fantastic Four (1994) that
was never intended for release.
[6] Including Musk himself
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