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Jackson Sirmans

Professor Gardiakos

ENC 1102

22 February 2023

Research Proposal

Purpose:

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has become a staple franchise throughout the past 15

years for many people. As a kid, my dad would take me to the movie theater to see every

Marvel movie released and it created a strong bond between us. We would analyze what every

detail meant and attempt to piece together what is coming next in the series on our way home

from the movie. Not only did watching the newest movie together help build a better

relationship with my father, it also was the only movie franchise that I felt was worth seeing in

the theaters.

Marvel’s fantastic storylines with larger-than-life heroes facing off against powerful

villains captivated me as well as people of all ages. As a movie franchise their goal was to

always take things up a notch every time they produced a new movie to keep their audience

hooked on the growing storyline. After developing characters individually through solo movies,

the creators decided to band together a set of heroes known by many as the Avengers. These

stories produced for the big screen are based off the once popular comic book series of the

past. As the era of comic reading slowed, the franchise had to look for a modern way to tell
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their stories on a larger platform. By taking parts of the plot from the original comics and

implementing them into the movies with modernized touch is known as intertextuality.

Throughout the lengthy series of movies and more recent tv shows there is an abundance of

intertextuality. I aim to pursue the impact of said intertextuality on the Marvel fan discourse

communities.

Methods:

Due to the vast size of content produced by the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and

the Marvel Comic Group (MCG), I plan to compare the more memorable moments that are

seen in both modes of entertainment. One of the key events I plan to analyze is from the movie

Spiderman: No Way Home which features a scene where three different “spidermen” come

together from different timelines which is originally featured in the comics. This singular scene

caused a commotion amongst fans which means it is a good instance to analyze. Another scene

that sparked conversation comes from the movie Avengers Endgame where all of the female

heroes introduced into the series up until that point are lined up displaying women

empowerment. This moment is not in the original comic book telling of the story so including it

in the modern version emphasizes growth in the community. Adding modern references is

common throughout the Marvel movie series from an allusion to Covid-19 to a character

known as Thor playing a popular game called Fortnite. These pieces of modern intertext are

designed to create a sense of relevance to the audience and analyzing how they are received by

said audience is what I aim to do.

I also want to investigate those who have made livelihoods from creating personal

content on the series and how their ideas impact their own audiences. There is no shortage of

content creators when it comes to analyzing and theorizing the next moves for the series so

narrowing down a list to less than a handful is quite difficult. After a lengthy process I have

decided to analyze YouTube creator The Film Theorists and TikTok creator @justthenobodys.

These theorists have a large community surrounding them that both consume and contribute

to their content in which projects theories to larger platforms. Using the two creators, I will

display the impact of the use of intertextuality on multiple levels of creators and audiences

within the community.

I plan to use James Porter’s article “Intertextuality and the Discourse Community” to

properly pick apart the concepts of intertextuality and discourse communities revolving around

the MCU which will give a sense of credibility to my research (ethos). Providing the audience

with a sense of understanding of what the concepts are will also help bring understanding of

the ideas I am trying to develop.

Discussions and Implications:

The MCU has an audience of people with diverse backgrounds and cultures which can

often lead to conflicts within the community. For a large period, there was a lack of

representation of various minority groups seen on the big screens. This led to many different

fans demanding that their groups and cultures be displayed in the movies. However, when

there was representation especially in cases where the original comic characters traits were

replaced, there was outrage among other parts of the community. Including events that took
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place during the movie's production also led to controversy within the community. For

example, they attempt to condemn sexism and highlight the female empowerment movement

through the movie Captain Marvel. Many fans enjoyed seeing a woman with such power in a

movie while others saw it as a corny attempt, almost offensive at times. The comic books were

written during a time when many things that are not acceptable today were back then. Which

means the whole picture of the original works often must be abandoned while referencing the

plot with more modern, acceptable features woven into it all. The introduction of multimodal

platforms for creation is also controversial within the community due to the sense of quantity

over quality. The introduction of shows dedicated to various characters has led to fans being

overwhelmed with amount of content they have to keep up with to understand the whole

picture of the story as well as the quality of the works suffering from unrealistic release

deadlines.

With such a large audience it is often hard to please all members, so Marvel creators

have to decide whether they want to spark change in the community by tackling tough issues or

to stick to the books. Analyzing the impact of intertextuality and multimodal implementation on

a discourse community and leaving the audience with their own perceptions of the MCU is my

goal. With that, the title of the research article will be “Marvel Cinematic Universe: The Impact

of Intertextuality on its Discourse Community.”

Annotated Bibliography

Frank, Kathryn M. “Diversify, Rinse, Repeat: The Direct Market, Sales Data, and Marvel Comics’

Diversity Cycle.” Cinema journal 60.1 (2020): 153–157. Print.

The article showcases the lack of proper diversification within the Marvel Cinematic

Universe through an idea of what the assumed audience wanted. Focusing on the market sales,

the author looks at what the Marvel franchise put priority on and more so what they don’t.

Frank makes a suggestion that Marvel feels obligated to make movies including more diverse

settings and roles but only does so here and there. The once in a while diverse movie then gets

released but doesn’t get a lot of emphasis on it which leads to a poor performance. This

becomes the cycle because the assumed audience becomes reality through a continuous

conditioning of the audience created by the Marvel franchise. I aim to use this article to expand

on the idea of the lack of proper representation in movies within the MCU and explain how

marketing can influence an audience’s perception. I don’t feel that this article has too much to

contribute to my research as I have it set now but it could be a small addition if truly necessary.

Garber, Erica. “Ride on: From Movie Franchises to Video Games, Television Series and More,

Entertainment Companies Are Tapping into Theme Parks to Leverage Their IP, Enhance Brand

Awareness and Connect with Consumers in a Completely New, Innovative Way.” License! (New

York, N.Y.) 19.3 (2016): 162–. Print.

The article dives into many different movie franchises branching out to many different

modes of entertainment from videogames to theme parks. Exemplifying how theme parks and

videogames have been around for decades now providing entertainment from a firsthand

standpoint every day. Movie franchises are realizing that they can extend their stories into the

real world in a way that will be available to the population year round. Many consumers from

the around the world visit these parks and become exposed to the franchises content which

expands their audience while diversifying culture within their community. Expanding the

cinematic universe toward the theme park market also creates an immersive experience for

their audience almost allowing an escape from reality which will be further developed by

another source in my research. I will use this as an example of multimodal

entertainment/experience put forth for the consumers. I also plan to tie this to the Disney

expansion of Avengers Campus which contains intertextuality within the ride and theme park

area dedicated to Marvel.

Gerring, Jayme V. “The Marvel Effect: Cinematic Universes and Their Impact on Box Office

Receipts.” Applied economics 54.42 (2022): 4886–4899. Web.

This article looks at a variety of factors that can alter or improve a movies performance

during opening weekend in the box office. Primarily using statistical analysis Gerring compiles

numerical factors from 250 movies during their opening weekend to determine whether or not

being a movie within the Marvel Cinematic Universe helps bring in revenue. Using different

categories such as: MCU vs. Non MCU, “star power,” Movie review organization ratings,
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Director star power, and other independent variables to find what brings in the big bucks on

opening weekend. Overall, most of the variables didn’t matter outside of whether the movie

fell into the MCU category. If it was a Marvel movie it would prove to have the best

performance in the box office over majority of other movies. Concluding that the dedicated

community was so large that any movie put out by Marvel was going to be worth watching

because the quality was just assumed to be high due to franchise association. I plan to use this

article to exemplify the dedication of the community with the statistics related to box office

performance as well as a line mentioned within that makes a claim that fans are eager to see

their loved comic book characters brought to life on the big screen.

Lee, Ji-Hyun. “The Effects of Media Literacy-Based Activities on Writing Skills in the EFL

Classroom.” International Journal of Learning, Teaching and Educational Research 20.11 (2021):

288–305. Web.

The article explores the question of media-literacy activities and their impact on general

writing skills. The author conducted a study using a variety of activities that include a lot of

popular movie series to determine whether they have any influence on writing skills of children

with different proficiencies. The article first provides multiple definitions of what media-literacy

means as well as the different subcategories within media-literacy as it is a broad idea. Media-

literacy is seen as important to creating a sense of belonging and growing

communication/writing skills. Majority of the research articles is talking about the experiment

at hand and how introducing popular characters/franchises into various educational activities
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can improve writing skills of young people. The main thing I am focused on with my research

regarding this article is the importance of media-literacy and its impact. The results regarding

improved writing skills due to using media-literacy based activities will make for a great

example for the positive impacts of the Marvel Cinematic Universe on the discourse

community.

Martynuska, Małgorzata. “Intertextuality in Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown.” Polish Journal

for American Studies 16.16 (2022) (2022): 29–42. Web.

The article describes how intertextuality is a very broad concept that can be applied to

almost all literature and creative works. All text builds off of all other texts and intertextual

references have become more common in postmodern film and writing. Mixing genres and

intertextuality has created a larger sense of creative/artistic freedom for movie makers.

Primarily analyzing books vs. film adaptation the author focuses on alterations made by the

filmmaker that fit more into the ideals of those living in the time period. Tarantino also has a

very recognized directing/film style that is consistent across movies he has made which

provides an idea that film directors can provide intertext between movies. I plan to use this

article to establish my ideas of original comics vs. more recent movies based on the comics.

Establishing that book to film adaptations is part of the concept of intertextuality will help tie

my point into the overarching theme of my paper. As well as an implication that directing style

has an impact on discourse community due to an essence of intertextuality.

Porter, James E. “Intertextuality and the Discourse Community.” Rhetoric review 5.1 (1986): 34–

47. Web.

Porter’s article tackles the two concepts of intertextuality and the discourse community

which are the primary focus of my research. Through his article he provides an outline of what

it means to be a part of a discourse community and how to excel within that community as well

as providing a sense of what intertextuality means. Through a variety of examples, he shows

that intertextuality has different modes and shows them in context. Since my article revolves

around these concepts I will reference his work a often in the introduction of my research to

help establish comfortability in them to my audience. The two concepts are strong enough to

stand alone in an analysis but I’m looking at how one impacts the other so Porter’s description

of how they tie together is perfect for providing the necessary and strong connection between

the two.

Robinson, Ashley Sufflé. “We Are Iron Man: Tony Stark, Iron Man, and American Identity in the

Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Phase One Films.” Journal of popular culture 51.4 (2018): 824–844.

Web.

This article creates a sense of American Pride through an iconic Marvel character during

the early part of the movie franchise. Iron Man’s back story is one that seems almost normal to

what happens in real life with real world issues like terrorist organizations in Afghanistan being

an example. As the movie series builds so does the American identity creating a sense of

national pride, freedom, and prosperity of the “Western World.” The whole first segment of the
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cinematic universe builds upon the idea of Americans being the good guys and any foreign

countries we’ve had conflict with are the enemy. This is done through referencing real world

issues in the movies or including subliminal messages that demonize other countries. The

article as whole picks at Iron Man for being individualistic and selfish which reflects upon the

“American Identity.” I plan to use this article as another example of the inclusion/intertextuality

of those of different decent through a villainous scope leading to a negative impact on the

discourse community.

Rogers, Jessie. “Chaotic Asian Spaces in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.” Journal of popular

culture 55.4 (2022): 755–776. Web.

This article focuses on the misrepresentation of cultures with the Marvel cinematic

universe primarily within the Asian community often creating negative stigma. The main target

is the concept of a “chaotic backdrop” of Asian culture with focusing on overpopulation and

crazy large but cluttered spaces. Many of the “monstrous” villains within Marvel movies were

developed in Asian spaces which paints Asian spaces poorly. Marvel attempts to shine light on

other cultures and minorities but in a lot of instances it backfires. This idea is flipped when it

comes to the Black Panther movie where the world building within outshines the true culture

which in turn falsely represents culture. Overall the point of the article is to pick apart the

movies that feature Asian spaces within the franchise and determine whether the culture is

represented properly or not. I plan to use this article to develop the idea of the impact of

cultural representation within the movie franchise laying out the good and bad of it. Not aiming

to point this part of my topic in any set direction but lay out pros and cons because it can really

go either way in cases.

Taylor, James C. “Reading the Marvel Cinematic Universe: The Avengers’ Intertextual

Aesthetic.” JCMS: Journal of cinema and media studies 60.3 (2021): 129–156. Web.

This article focuses on the modes of intertextuality found within the Marvel Cinematic

Universe especially with taking the original story from the comics and creating a new but comic

accurate story in a different form of texts. The time period of a lot of the original stories

presented through the mode of comic books which in some cases were produced as early as

the 1960’s. These stories are broken up into many pieces spread out over weeks leaving

audiences with cliffhangers and drawn-out plots over large spans of times. Taylor focuses on

how the stories created in the comics must be “compressed” to fit into the common guidelines

of movies. The other big point being made in the article is how there are layers of

intertextuality through the Marvel franchise as a whole from plot to settings to characters. I

plan to use this article to establish the outline of intertextuality within the Marvel Cinematic

Universe paired with James Porter’s article creating the rhetorical background for my research

article. I aim to set a structure of intertextuality within the MCU community in my introduction

and then point out whether each piece is impactful in a good or bad way.

Zawadka, Beata. “Contemporary American Cinema: Thrills to Narratives and Back.” Polish

Journal for American Studies 16.16 (2022) (2022): 5–9. Web.

The article focuses on the American cinema culture and its impact on the audience.

Digitalization on a large scale has provided easy access to varieties of film to people all around

the globe. For a long period of time American film lacked progressive ideologies and inclusion

sugarcoating reality. This false reality was one that many could become overindulged in almost
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getting lost in this fake world achieved by focusing on audiences emotions, not so much their

logic. The lack of representation within American cinema was extremely criticized especially

when aiming to place the film in “the context” of other cultures/countries. Digitalization has

brought forth an increase of diversity within films, but the previous wrongdoings may not be

overlooked by the audience as well as a possibility of misinterpretation. I plan to include a

couple of excerpts from this article to exemplify a lack proper representation as well as film

being a means to escape a sense of reality which will aid another source. I’m aiming to provide

both positive and negative impacts of the Marvel Cinematic Universe on its community.