“Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane!” Those iconic words, heard in each episode of The Adventures Of Superman, established a clear precedent for the superhero genre. Civilians exist in these stories mainly to be rescued from danger and to gaze in slack-jawed bewilderment at the costumed crime fighters before them. Artist LJ Frezza examines this trope in a new video essay for Fandor Keyframe called “Superhero Bystanders.” Culled from 34 years’ worth of superhero movies, ranging from 1980’s Superman II to 2014’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2, the video largely consists of scenes in which powerless mortals gape like idiots at something amazing happening just off-screen. Actors rarely look as foolish as they do when they’re pretending to watch a man fly over a major American city. “The on-screen audience mirrors us as viewers,” claims a caption in the essay. If so, this is not a very flattering reflection. Because these people look like dopes:
Superhero Bystanders from Fandor Keyframe on Vimeo.