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| Image via Marvel |
People who know me know that I am a nerd. A nerd behind mysteries in science and movies, especially a Marvel and DC buff. I love movies, especially action movies and fantasies like Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Harry Potter, Marvel,ofcourse and more…
Currently I am going a little bit crazy as the most awaited movie of all time: Marvel’s Avengers:Infinity War is less than 3 weeks away. I am gagged and super excited. And I bet any marvel fan worth his or her vibranium would be going crazy because of this seemingly looooooonng wait.
Yaa i am a nerd, a crazy Marvel and DC fan boy, boring, irritating, socially awkward analogous to the characters in The Big Bang Theory – Love that show. Buts that’s not what I’m going to write about here now.
My this awesome journey started since I was a kid reading comics and watching animated tv shows to 2008, when the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) launched with Iron Man thats also when the Marvel Studious started took on a mission to direct all movies to the one, the ultimate, the INFINITY WARS!!!!! My journey from the infinity stones to infinity wars was amazing, awesome, emotional, thrilling and what not. This another universe acted as my escape hatch from reality, and a really good one to GET SHWIFTY.
So I am writing this blog to find out why are we as humans, or Me, attracted to super heroes–
So the first reason why people are attracted is Excitement, who doesn’t love excitement right?
For the next, you all need to know about stress. There are two types of stress: controlled and uncontrolled. Our brain is a perplexing organ(I am going to write about it in my upcoming blogs). We, as humans, feel bad when we cannot face or be in control of a stressful situation, for example we feel stressed out before giving a presentation because the outcome isn’t in our control and we aren’t sure what the result is going to be. But when the stress can be controlled by our brain, we humans love it. So for controlled stress, there are 2 criteria:for it to be in control (outcome id known) and to be short lived. Let’s take an example of a roller coaster – here we get short term excitement, or in other words short term
stress, therefore it fulfils the two conditions. First its controlled because the person knows that he is safe, secondly its short lived because the person knows that the ride will end in few minutes. Similarly, when you are watching an action movie you get stressed and excited but in the same time you feel 100% safe. In addition you know that the movie will only last for few hours.
Furthermore, the prefrontal cortex in our brain helps in imagining and connecting with reel images. This region could be controlled, because of which we are able to stop from acting or behaving the same way the hero or other characters does. But people, (like me – in action scenes I move left and right to dodge punches, when the main actor or actress goes into water I fill air in my mouth and stop breathing, also start copying their actions, and more. Yess I’m weird ? but don’t have any damage, I’m sure.), with damage to this area are more likely to respond to movies as if they are real, and jump and scream. Kids also face similar problem, since their prefrontal cortex is still developing. That’s why kids sometimes talk back to movies (again like me ?) or jump over their seats and hide during scary scenes.
An interesting I found is that in action movies, when the hero walks away from an explosion, people, especially men, feel like tu put their fists in the air because these scenes release testosterone in men. Science has actually proven that having a physical reaction to action movies is not just in your imagination. In a study conducted in 2004 by the University of Michigan, men’s testosterone levels actually rocketed by as much as 30% after watching a violent scene from The Godfather: Part II, whereas women experienced a drop. No wonder guys love action movies—they simply can’t help themselves.
Whenever a person watches a movie he actually identifies with the hero, becomes one with him in his imagination and as a result he feels more confident by the end of the movie. The subconscious mind can’t tell the difference between the real experience and a visualised experience, so when the movie hero does heroic acts your subconscious mind believes that you are the one who did them provided that you identified with him. Most of the times, I walk with wider steps after seeing an action movie. (According to body language walking with wide steps indicates the presence of courage and confidence.) Because I, or in other words the hero I identified with, killed the bad guys, defeated the flying dragon and saved the princess making me feel much more confident after watching the movie.
Action and fantasy movies also provide a perfect healthy escapement environment for people who have stressful lives.
One of the more common reasons, I don’t know about others but true for me, is that: action, adventure, fantasy or sci-fi movies act like an escape hatch, a back door to escape the daunting reality. These movies or books help my appeal to my inner self and enter a world where my imagination is the limit and help me get a break from the stressful real reality. Many people have seen me drift away, sitting alone not doing anything, people think I’m thinking some new theory or all that. Humbug. I drift away all the time to the magical Middle Earth to embark on a journey or quest with various characters exploring and encountering fierce dragons, trolls, magical realms with my superhero powers of imagination. This helps me relax and detox after a long, tiring day or class. I also happen to visit the 2D world, explore the multiverse in my USS-Millenium Falcon Enterprise, a ship I designed and made just out of my imagination.
