“Are the superheroes and the villains, the light and the darkness, the good and the bad, ultimately just analogies for humans and their shadow selves?”

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At the end of the day, there is no way I can be sure if my initial thesis is true or not. However, based on my research and my analysis, I believe that they are. As I explained throughout this blog, I do believe that Jung’s collective unconscious is at least partially true when it comes to this subject. The superheroes, the villains - they appear to be reinterpretations of a bigger debate about humans, about the good and the bad that exists in all of us.

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My desire to connect everything through colour theory proved successful. The answers I got from my last experiment - the paintings- were actually better than anything I was expecting. This time, for most of my work, there was no clear outline for which character the paintings depicted, there was no way people could connect stories they already knew to the pictures they were seeing. However, the emotions they described after they looked at the paintings proved to be extremely close to the intentions I had while creating them. Even more, the emotions, the personality traits, the states of being they described, they were closely connected to the characters we all know. The trick was, they did not know they were describing those characters. If anything, what this experiment truly proved is how big of a role colour theory has in the superhero genre and how big of an impact colours make on each of us. When we watch something, we do not think about the colours we are seeing, we do not consider the different shades, the different spectrums. What we do is experience them. Colours are so integrated into our unconscious that we do not always pay attention to them, but we react to them without even noticing. Truly, we do not see colour, we feel it.

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There is an important aspect that I learned through making this project which differs from what I believed in the beginning. I thought that the Shadow Theory would strictly connect only to the superheroes and the villains, but I did not consider its original application – connecting it to only one individual at a time. While researching, creating videos, taking pictures, painting, I realised that each superhero, by themselves, can be fully connected to the shadow theory. The same thing applies to the villains. While placing the two against each other creates a perfect dynamic between the Persona (superhero) and the Shadow (villain), placing each of them against their own internal struggles works as well. At times, this way of interpreting the connection between the two subjects proves even more interesting. I could say that is why most of the paintings I ended up doing showcase only one person instead of two. The only painting that matches my initial idea is the one showcasing Spider-Man (Persona) and Mysterio (Shadow). The rest of them are based on one superhero at a time and their own internal struggles, their own weaknesses, their own failures – each showcased through different colour palettes. The only exceptions to this rule would be Eddie Brock/Venom and Bruce Banner/Hulk, which are clearer, more direct examples of Personas and Shadows. 

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Is there a way to be sure my answer is correct? No. However, based on my research and practice I personally believe this to be true - Superheroes and Villains are analogies for humans and their shadow selves. They are a way for us to learn about what is good, what is bad, what is neither of them or both at the same time – they are lessons that we will continue taking for the rest of our lives. What ends up happening is that we accept and begin to like both of them because, ultimately, we are both of them. And they are, as individual characters, each of us – flawed, but deeply, and truly, human.