Many parallels can be drawn from the Iron Man franchise that mimic or even follow the current geopolitical events that we are witnessing today. Tony Stark is first brought to life amidst the wars of the middle-east as charismatic weapons manufacturer and business entrepreneur. Further exemplified where the American idealism personified through young genius and a western billionaire playboy that suites many nationalistic and iconic Americana idealisms.
The iconic actions of Stark and Stark industries, as both entity and character set fourth personal agendas that may mirror, to a degree, the current state of America, her allies and her people’s ideas as a culture and society today.
Tony Starks role as CEO of internationally recognized weapons and defense manufacturer plays into an idealistic portrait of the modern successful American man that women would desire to be with and young men to aspire to become like.
Stark industries could be considered a represenitive proxy for the United States. Like any modern capitalistic societies, America is indeed a corporation with political and international interests and the military power and will to protect and enforce those interests. The wars being fought by stark industries closely mirror those current conflicts seen today around the world with a focus on the middle east. Indeed, the initial films protagonists are obvious representations of Islamic fundamentalist groups such as Al-Quiada, and more recently ISIS/ISIL.
Stark industries as a successful weapons manufacturer also has divisions in the biomedical and life sciences. Many interesting projections for technology are offered in this fantastic story that mimic the reality, or soon to be reality, that are being designed in many advancing fields today. The largest being obviously the arc reactor invention, that essentially provides the world with limitless clean energy. The far reaching and unimaginable effects that this invention would be to broad to merely speculate on. Instead, a focus on the innocuous technologies in the film are even a more hopeful projection for America and the world at large today. One simple example of this would be the obvious application and use of prosthetic technology that can be gleaned from the Iron-man suite and its application for the wounded veterans of todays conflicts.
Tony Stark’s patriotism may be disseminated from his father who worked closely with the allies in world war two. Tony Stark senior had an enemy to fight and a purpose to uphold that was in line with a nationalistic ferver at the time.
This duty of Tony’s father that he upheld for his country kept him away and distant from Tony as a youth. Now as a man maybe the blind ambition of Tony, coupled with his obvious patriotism is reminiscent of a boy mimicking his father, and vying for his approval and attention. Tony’s eventual pursuit to become a weapons manufacturer is in line with this idea. In this sense, stark industries could be nothing but a weapons manufacturer for America, this helps keeps Tony’s relationship with his dad alive, but also distorted. It is this distortion that fuels Tony’s psyche in part to evolve into the vigilante-American protector “Iron Man”. Which immortalizes him and his father satisfying both his tremendous ego but also the paternal issues he grapples with to some degree. The initial test flights of the iron man technology, literally had Tony Stark reaches and looking toward the stars, in an insatiable need to conquer the “glass ceiling”, or the modern super equivalent to the pinnacle of success.
The advent of technology has always, and almost wholly been from or the need for it in wartime scenarios, and it is only in the more recent times that human technological advancements have not been based solely on wartime technologies and their application into the civilian life; although, while this is still very relevant today, just not the only type.
Today we advance technology through peacetime endeavors and scientific inquiry and quality of life advancements.
As this technology has progressed so has the distance needed to engage an enemy in war. Hand-to-hand combat is no longer required. The disconnect that technology offers us from our potential advisories is unrivaled in history. This distance, provides not only physical distance between enemy wartime combatants and their civilian populations, but also a psychological barrier that distances the fragile populous from the horrors of war. This is also true for the Iron-suite technologies. The physical barrier of the suite, for Tony, is for protection, with an endemic characteristic of strength inherent to the name and of “iron”. The suite as coping mechanism for war, like today the wars of the world are fought through are television, radio’s, podcasts, web live features. Technologies disconnects and puts these conflicts at a distance especially from the average American. The same is true for Tony when he occupies the suit as “Iron-Man”, there is both the physical separation, offering protection but also the mental distance through technology that offers some degree of protection from a very sensitive ego and psyche.