HULK SMASHED
In Hulk Smashed!
The Rhetoric of Alcoholism in Television’s Incredible Hulk, Joseph F. Brown
compares the Incredible Hulk series’ to the struggles of recovery from
alcoholism and addiction. The basis for the comparison is that the Hulk’s
enraged state is the drunken state of the alcoholic and the alcoholism itself,
which is self-destructive. Bruce Banner, the normal human form of the Hulk, is
constantly in search of a gamma-radiation cure for the Hulk. Brown relates that
endless search to the alcoholic or addict’s search for the elusive path of
sobriety. Brown also relates the people that the Hulk helps along his journey
to self-reflections of an alcoholic because the Hulk, like an alcoholic, can
see other issues and help others with those issues but cannot help himself
(Brown, 2011).
ANALYSIS
Joseph Brown’s article is a very informative piece that
outlines the general stages of addiction and details the changes of how
alcoholism has been perceived by the public and political scene over time. The
article successfully gives the audience an easy to understand analogy between
The Incredible Hulk series’ and the stages of alcoholism. Brown does a good job
of relating separate stages of alcoholism to the stages of the Hulk’s rage and
his search for a cure. However, after taking a psychology course and studying
about addiction a bit on my own, I feel that the analogy could have gone deeper
and Brown could have done a better job of comparing David Banner’s search for
the cure to an addict’s stage of regret after they come down from whatever high
they were on. Also, Brown strayed from analogy for a significant portion of the
article to discuss changes in the treatment perception of alcoholism as a
disease opposed to blaming alcohol itself for the problem. Perhaps, Brown could
have related those issues to the Hulk series in some way so as not to abandon
the analogy completely and return later in the article.
DO I AGREE?
I feel that Brown and many other scholar and journalists
discussing alcoholism and addiction is very meaningful. Addiction plays a large
role in many lives and in popular culture as well. However, if Joseph Brown was
implying that any part of The Incredible Hulk series’ had undertones of
alcoholism and addiction, then I do not agree with his analysis. Some of the
comparisons were thin and obviously a far stretch from the original intent of
the creators of the Hulk. I understand that part of my agreement segment of
this paper is finding the author’s intent but I guess I just felt that the
author should have been more clear and concise in his article instead of
relying on me, the reader, to find the meaning.
IMPORTANCE
According to alcoholismstatistics.com, 15 million people
are affected by alcohol dependency in the U.S. alone (Alcoholism, 2013). Therefore,
any article devoting time to the subject is of importance. Joseph Brown chose
to use a very prevalent piece of modern culture, which is superhero
movies/shows, and use it to draw reader attention to a topic that is often
times overlooked or wrote off as a normal social standard. Brown was also able
to relay the importance of treating addiction as a disease opposed to just
blaming the substances being abused themselves.
REFERENCES
Alcoholism
statistics. (2013). Retrieved from
http://alcoholismstatistics.net/
Brown, J. F., & BROWN, J. F. (2011). Hulk
Smashed! The Rhetoric of Alcoholism in Television's Incredible Hulk. Journal
Of Popular Culture, 44(6), 1171-1190.
doi:10.1111/j.1540-5931.2011.00894.x. Retrieved from EbscoHost
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