Survey Results: the political ramifications of real-life super-heroes
Over a 6-week period, Fantom Comics conducted a survey to see how its customers would react to super-heroes if they really existed. If you'd like to see the survey, (or take it yourself and email it to us at fantomcomics@gmail.com), it's available right HERE.
First, a qualifier. This was a pretty unscientific survey, and with only 47 entries it's not as large a sample as we would like. Nonetheless, it offers an interesting look into how comic book readers feel about the characters they follow. We're only including a few of our results in this report, as the hope is this will generate more interest and people will respond to the survey online, thus allowing us to publish a full report of our findings.
Practically everyone in DC is a Democrat. Not a big surprise, but still, it didn't allow us to divide people's responses along party lines. Therefore, we analyzed the results according to a person's answer to the following question:
The government is:
a) At best, a necessary evil, or
b) In general, a force for good
The results were as follows:
The government is:
a) At best, a necessary evil: 41%
b) In general, a force for good: 50%
The remaining 9% of those surveyed had no opinion.
Here are three questions we asked people and how they answered based on their views of government:
A super-hero - while in costume - witnesses an activity that is not illegal but that he believes is wrong. Should he intervene?
For those who thought the government is a force for good, 35% agreed that the super-hero should intervene. Of those that thought the government was at best a necessary evil, only 21% agreed.
Super-heroes have a responsibility to use their fame and super-powers to solve large, long-term social issues.
Of those who thought the government is a force for good, 70% agreed that super-heroes should use their fame to solve large, long-term social issues, while only 26% of those that thought the government was at best a necessary evil agreed.
If super-heroes existed in real life, should they be regulated by the government, or left to their own devises?
For those who thought the government is a force for good, 52% agreed that super-heroes should be regulated. Of those that thought the government was at best a necessary evil, only 26% thought they should be regulated.
CONCLUSIONS
Democrats would lead the charge for pro-registration
On the understanding that those on the American political right are generally skeptical of government, and those on the left typically supportive of government activity, we can make some broad generalizations.
Let's look at Marvel's current Civil War story arc, in which super-heroes are at odds over a new law requiring super-powered costumed heroes to register with the federal government. Our survey results would imply that twice as many Democrats as Republicans would support registering super-heroes with the government.
There have been many debates on the subject between customers and staff at Fantom Comics, with most people considering regulation a right-wing conspiracy against individual civil rights. But looking at these results, and putting aside short-term political anger and looking at the broader strokes of American politics, we find that it is almost always the Democrats that prefer more regulation and the Republicans less. This is not a value judgment but a statement of fact. Democrats are constantly accused of regulating an industry to death, while Republicans are accused of allowing industries to run rampant with no accountability. Think police oversight, or environmental standards or corporate accountability. It is Democrats supporting a tight leash and Republicans pushing for a loose one (or none at all). If Democrats argue that Wall Street's actions need to be accountable to the public, why is it far-fetched to think they'd have problems with masked, super-powered soldiers running loose, taking the law into their own hands and answering to no one?
Supporters of an active government also support an active super-hero community
3 times as many readers who think the government is generally a force for good prefer their super-heroes to tackle long-term social issues than those readers who think that government is at best a necessary evil. While only a minority of respondents believed that costumed super-heroes should intervene in non-crimes they considered immoral, many more pro-government readers took this stand than those skeptical of the government.
