1st Edition
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Youth, Race, and the Hypertext
Exploring the dynamic genres of animation and comic book films, this book examines the transmedia role of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and its critical involvement in attempts to diversify representations in youth-oriented cinema and culture.
Five years after the movie’s immense commercial and critical success, this book looks back on the innovative features of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018). The film’s force derives from how it uses the story of its young, ‘emerging’ Afro-Latino superhero to openly engage with a web of pressing topics in the field: transmedia storytelling, identity formation, race relations and minority representation. By offering an accessible analysis of the film’s hypertextual design and animation techniques, the book reflects on how it approaches the combustible dynamics of racial representation in contemporary American youth culture.
Written in an approachable style, this book is suitable for undergraduates, postgraduates and specialists in the field. The book is a versatile resource for media studies, film studies, animation studies and cultural studies courses, but will also appeal to fans seeking to investigate the thematic underbelly of Into the Spider-verse.
Introduction. ‘My name is Miles Morales’ 1. ‘I’m pretty sure you know the rest’ – Into a Spider-Verse of References 2. ‘This literally could not get any weirder’ – Animating the Spider-Verse 3. ‘You gotta choose a side’ – Racializing the Spider-Verse Conclusion. ‘Which one pointed first?’
Biography
Charlie Michael is Assistant Professor of Film at Georgia Gwinnett College. His research focuses on popular culture and media industries in a global context. He is the author of French Blockbusters: Cultural Politics of a Transnational Cinema (2019) and the co-editor of the Directory of World Cinema: France (2013), and his work has also appeared in journals such as SubStance, Transnational Screens and The Velvet Light Trap.
"Michael marries the worlds of film theory and larger popular culture critique in a way that is both deeply analytical and approachable for anyone interested in the majesty of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. His gradual unfolding of Miles Morales's debut film covers the vast complexities of its narrative and construction, from the animation to the racial politics at play, that offer a way for future superhero films to appeal to a youthful demographic that sees Miles Morales as "our Spider-Man". Michael takes a leap of faith with this work, and it is one that pays off handsomely by the volume's end."
- Marcus Haynes, PhD, Georgia Gwinnett College, Author of YA novel The Orange Scepter
