Within the first five minutes of the movie “Iron Man II,” Tony Stark declares that his wonderful suit of iron has guaranteed world peace. In doing so, he pushes one of the foremost lies that form the foundation of capitalist ideology: that true peace for workers can exist alongside the profit motive. In this grotesque film, which is filled with sexism, the glorification of the U.S. military and Cold War anti-communism, this deception is perhaps the worst. Capitalism only offers ceaseless violence, from domestic abuse to nuclear war, for the world’s workers. No “Iron Man” can do what communist revolution can: consign capitalism to the dustbin of history and usher in a society based on workers’ needs and hopes.
In the first film, Stark is kidnapped and forced to build a super weapon for terrorists, portrayed by Arab-looking actors (thus fulfilling the film industry’s role as a source of racist, imperialist ideology). Instead of developing a weapon for his captors, Stark builds a metal suit that allows him to fly, shoot and generally wreak havoc on the “bad guys.”
The film begins with the U.S. government demanding Stark hand over the suit to the military. Defiantly invoking his “right to private property” and declaring that he has “privatized world peace,” Stark refuses. In this Libertarian fantasy Tony Stark, the super-capitalist, provides for the needs of the working class (who suffer most from the ceaseless violence of capitalism and would thus benefit most from true peace). Libertarianism is the belief that capitalist markets are completely self-regulating and that there is no need for government. Accordingly, the state in the movie, rather than being shown as an instrument of the capitalist class, is shown as a bumbling bureaucracy separate from the capitalist class.
Through a montage of magazine covers and a brief self-congratulatory speech from Stark himself, we learn that the invention of the Iron Man suit has led to five years of “peace and prosperity.” Stark reveals the nature of this “peace” when he declares himself a modern “nuclear deterrent,” a clear allusion to the “peace” of the Cold War era. The U.S. appears to still be an imperialist power and people like Tony Stark still live in utter wealth, meaning that many more have to live in desperate poverty.
The Iron Man is clearly being used not as a weapon of liberation but a weapon of intimidation. The Iron Man has not brought world peace, but rather world domination by U.S. imperialism. By the end of the movie, the reality that the so-called “free market” hero is in service to the U.S. war machine is apparent: Tony Stark is fighting alongside his friend and U.S. Army Colonel, James Rhodes. Stark Industries, his company, may be the hot company, but it still needs the might of the U.S. military to allow it access to markets. (Replace Stark Industries with ExxonMobil and you’d have a movie about the invasion of Iraq.)
Along with a U.S. superhero, this film gives us the proto-typical Russian villain, Ivan Vanko or “Whiplash.” Vanko’s father was a Russian scientist who worked with Stark’s father, but was deported by the elder Stark back to the USSR because Vanko was too greedy (which is rich, coming from a Pentagon contractor).
Vanko is a physicist (with a gym membership himself) incapable of comprehending Stark’s technological advancements. He can only mimic advancements, not develop his own, thus fulfilling the stereotype of the overly mechanical Russian scientist not privy to the “freedom” of U.S. capitalism.
Of course belief in this myth requires forgetting that in many scientific fields the Soviet Union was far ahead of the “liberated” U.S. The specter of communism still haunts the bosses and their film industry.
“Iron Man II” will clearly be one of the biggest blockbusters of the year (in its first two days it made over $327 million worldwide). And it is not hard to see why: good actors put in strong performances and top-of-the-line special effects highlight an action-packed script. But every aspect of capitalist media is designed to reinforce capitalist ideas and we should be critical of these underlying lessons. “Iron Man II,” at its core, is a celebration of capitalist individualism and U.S. nationalism simply wrapped in a sleek, glamorous shell.