This document discusses several concepts related to geopolitics, nationalism, and popular culture. It begins by defining key terms like geopolitical scripts, territorial symbols, and territorial differentiation/bonding. It then examines how institutions like religion, education, and media propagate ideology to shape individual worldviews. Mythmaking is described as both a psychological and social process that forms a collective national identity. Popular culture is discussed as a way people understand their position in a larger geopolitical narrative. Captain America is used as an example of how superhero comics promoted American exceptionalism and willingness to die for one's country. The document also analyzes the genealogy of the American hero archetype and how it has evolved from figures like God and

2. What is a geopolitical script?
What are the Culture Wars?
What is a territorial symbol?
Define territorial differentiation.
Define territorial bonding.

8. In “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” Louis Althusser
defines the state apparatus as the method by which institutions such
as religion, law, politics, education, the media, and the family
propagate ideology. While individuals experience the world
through their own consciousnesses, the full extent to which their
views have been shaped by these institutions is often not fully
acknowledged by the individual.
In Regeneration Through Violence Richard Slotkin argues,
“Myth describes a process, credible to its audience, by which
knowledge is transformed into power; it provides a scenario or
prescription for action, defining and limiting the possibilities for
human response to the universe.”
Myth making is simultaneously a psychological and social
activity. It reconciles and units societies into a single national
identity.

9. “Popular culture . . . is one of the ways in which people come to understand their
position both within a larger collective identity and within an even broader
geopolitical narrative, or script” (Dittmer 626).
According to Paasi, territorial symbols are “abstract expressions of group solidarity
embodying the actions of political, economic, and cultural institutions in the
continual reproduction and legitimation of the system of practices that characterize
the territorial unit concerned” (qtd. in Dittmer 627).
“Captain America was created in 1940, prior to the entry of the United States into
World War II, but after the war had been ongoing in Europe and East Asia for some
time. Timely Comics (later Marvel Comics) created the character in an attempt to tap
into the patriotic consciousness that was awakening in America (stealing the concept
and plagiarizing parts of the uniform from a rival company‟s character named „The
Shield” (Dittmer 629).
“Captain America‟s willingness to die for his country illustrates the essential
centrality of the nation to him and, by extension, to every American reading the
comic book. Support for the geopolitical objectives of American exceptionalism
becomes an understood, tacit extension of citizenship” (Dittmer 630).

10. “In societies that are still in the process of achieving a sense of identity, the
establishment of a normative, characteristic image of a group‟s character is a
psychological necessity; and the simplest means of defining or expressing the sense
of such a norm is by rejecting some other group whose character is deemed to be
opposite”
--Richard Slotkin Regeneration Through Violence
•The Puritans divided mankind from God.
The flesh was sinful.
•The New World represented what could
become a City on the Hill.
•They projected their spiritual psyche onto the
landscape and Native Americans. In their
literature, both came to represent the darkness
within a fallen and sinful man—temptations
one must piously overcome through one‟s faith
in God.

11. Genealogy of the American Hero: From God to the
Pioneer to the Cowboy to the Superhero
The “use of the Western metaphors can be
summed up in the Truman Doctrine of
containment, the idea that the frontier has to
be defended against an alien culture bent
upon the apocalyptic destruction of
America.”
--Peter Coogan Superhero: The
Secret Origin of a Genre

12. Genealogy of the American Hero: From God to
the Pioneer to the Cowboy to the Superhero
“But now the Powell Doctrine of
overwhelming force has replaced
the Truman Doctrine, and it seems
more based on the superhero
metaphor. In the Gulf War, Kosovo,
and Afghanistan the United States
acted more in the line of a
superhero than a Western sheriff.
Saddam Hussein, Slobodon
Milosovic, and Osama Bin Laden
are portrayed in the media as
power-mad, megolomanical
supervillains who threaten the
world and whom no one but
America can stop” (Coogan 233).

13. Six Elements of the Captain America Complex
(Common Among Christian and Jewish Zeal as well as Militant Jihad)
• Each side views its anger as blessed by a deity.
• Both sides depict the opposition as evil and considers any
type of compromise an immoral form of appeasement.
•Enemies are regarded as less than human, which rationalizes death tolls.
• Each side believes their violence is redemptive while the opposing side‟s
violence is senseless and unjust. Overcoming them is presented as a
religious/political imperative.
• This type of battle has a finite conclusion. As in the book of Revelations, its
end will usher in a new era of peace.
--Robert Jewett & John Shelton Lawrence
Captain America and the Crusade Against Evil: The Dilemma of Zealous Nationalism

14. “Popaganda: Superhero Comics and Propaganda in World War Two”
Chris Murray
FDR “[E]ncouraged official rhetoric in
popular culture, thereby communicating
political messages in a form that the
American public were already predisposed
to be receptive to. Advertisements,
Hollywood films, animated cartoons,
comics and so on all carried messages that
supported the war effort. In this way the
distinction between what was official
discourse and what was popular
entertainment became blurred during
wartime.”

15. From Overt Propaganda to Covert Ideological
State Apparatus
A Visual Analysis of Action Comics # 101 Cover by Chris Murray
• Atomic
bomb symbolizes America‟s
military strength, scientific ingenuity, and
victory in WWII
• Superman stands for truth, justice, and the
American Way
• Superman‟s agreeing to document this
event implies that he approves of weapons of
mass destruction
• Therefore, nuclear weapons are presented
as the American Way
• However, his use of the camera likewise
indicates his support for the freedom of the
press

16. The Superhero as Social Critique, the Troubled and/or
Anti-Establishment Superheroes
Comic Book Nation
Bradford Wright
“[T]he very notion of a troubled and brooding
superhero who could not always accomplish what he
set out to do betrayed the limited scope of his
superpowers--and suggested perhaps the limitations
confronting the American superpower as well."
"Superheroes like Spider-Man endorsed liberal
solutions to social problems while rejecting the
extreme and violent responses of both the left and the
right . . . in an American society facing deepening
political divisions, Marvel's superheroes worked to
preserve what remained of the vital center."

17. The Superhero as Social Critique, the Troubled and/or
Anti-Establishment Superheroes
Comic Book Nation
Bradford Wright
According to a poll conducted by Esquire magazine in
1965, student radicals ranked Spider-Man and the
Hulk alongside the likes of Bob Dylan and
Che Guevara as their favorite revolutionary icons.

18. Superheroes at Ground Zero of the Culture Wars
The Left
The Right
9/11 as Blowback
9/11as a
Clash of
Civilizations

19. •Is the “War on Terror” an ideological “Clash of Civilizations” or a conflict over
economic interests and exploitations?
•Is America liberating or occupying the Middle East?