Okay class, today's lesson is on Structuralism...

Structuralism is an approach in academic disciplines that explores the relationships between fundamental elements of some kind, upon which some higher mental, linguistic, social, cultural etc "structures" are built, through which then meaning is produced within a particular person, system, or culture.

Thank you Wikipedia.

Are you asking what the heck that means in English. Reread the above. Structuralism isn't a difficult thing to wrap your head around. It is a way to frame something like a book or a film or maybe even a comic book. Did any of you not see that coming. What? Really? Shame on you. Lets take a Structuralist look at Marvel's summer crossover series Civil War. No wait, don't stop reading!!! You're about to learn something.

Structuralism is a way to peal away some of the layers that a piece of literature consists of or in this case it is a way to peal away the form of a comic book. One idea about the universe is that everything within it has an equal and opposing counter-part. Every action causes a reaction. A Ying for every Yang. So when you read a book or watch a film one way to find meaning in it is to frame it with binaries.

Lets pick out a binary from Civil War...

Captain America vs Iron Man (Too Geeky)
Hero vs Villain (Aren't Cap and IM both heroes???)
Good vs Evil (Too general of concepts to have fun with)
Free vs Regulated (Hmmmm)
Disciplined vs Wild (Might some someplace weird)
Right vs Wrong (Again too general)
Resisting vs Compliance (I like it, lets go with it)

So very briefly, the plot of Civil War (for those who have not been paying attention). A group of good guys go after a group of bad guys. The two fight. Hundreds of innocent people get killed by the end of the battle. The citizens demand the government do something about it. The government makes it illegal to be a superhero unless you are registered and trained through the government. The super heroes of the Marvel Universe are divided on the subject and turn on each other.

Captain America (superhero Jesus who can do no wrong) states in Civil War issue one, "Super heroes need to stay above that stuff [politics] or Washington starts telling us who the Super-Villains are." He states his opposition to registration and when the government trys to force him into having to arrest unregistrued heroes, he resists. He escapes capture and begins an underground resistance movement.

Iron Man (boozing playboy...I'm not bias) leads pro-registration side. With Iron Man is the everyman's hero, Spidey, "See, the Registration Act gives us a choice: we can continue the trend that Captain America advocates and have people with powers completely unchecked or super heroes can go legitimate and earn back a little public trust." Spidey speaks before unmasking to the public at a press conference. He declares his support for the laws the people decide are fair. He steps into the light about who is he because he believes in the system.

What we have then is a story about principles and reality. The reality in America in the Marvel Universe is there are individual human beings who posses immense power. Many of them try and do good things with their power, which makes them heroic characters. Often they make terrible mistakes, which makes their stories dramatic and fun to read. Some of them have oblitrated entire solar systems and kill billions of people (Dark Phoenix Saga). Their mistakes can leave torturious emotional scars (Death of Gwen Stacy). The new reality in the Marvel Universe is that heroes need to be apart of the system. The people do not feel safe with power not being regulated. Captain America disagrees on principle. His identity is already public knowledge. His choice to resist is not about keeping secret who he is, it is about leaving a source of power free of anyone else's control other than the individual who possesses. Cap's fear is that systems can become corrupted and without opposition, a twisted system could take control of weaker systems. On one side we have a believer who is acting on principles and breaks the law because of personal opinions. On the other side we have individuals who recognize laws are decided on by the people and to oppose the system is to oppose what society has decided is the common good. So at one level Civil War is a story about acting how you belive is just regardless of what others say. At another level Civil War is a story about following what the system has declared is justice.

Structuralism is a way to break down a story to look at it at depth. It can be a tool to use to break apart something to see if there is more to it than what appears on the surface. The down side to structuralism is it isn't a very precise tool to judge depth. With binaries, a story can have only two possibilties. When you frame something through Structuralism, you may oversimplify a work.

Does that make sense?