Carl Jung believes that our collective unconscious is formed from myths, legends - the knowledge that we inherited from our ancestors. Even though individuals are often not aware of the collective unconscious they possess, it tends to express itself in different ways throughout the generations. As such, all the legends and the myths are passed through the eras - they are transformed and remodelled to fit the mindset of the time. We can argue that the most mainstream way in which this old knowledge was translated into our times is through the Superhero genre. 

​

Delving even deeper into Jung's theory, we find the archetypes. The clearest one, the one that can easily be connected with the superhero genre, is the Persona. Jung explains it as the face we show the world, the one that hides all our insecurities and our weaknesses. Think about Superman, Batman, Iron Man - heroes tend to put on a mask or a disguise in order to become this better, indestructible, version of themselves. When they are undisguised, they become just regular people - that version can be seen as portraying another archetype, the Self. Of course, there is a third archetype hidden into the superhero genre - the Shadow. Here, it is showcased through each hero's villain counterpart. At first glance, we often see the villains as just evil parts of the story, but taking a closer look, we realise that they are the less polished version of the superheroes. They are the uncontrollable parts, they are what happens if the hero refuses to put out the Persona or, better yet, if the hero is unable to. 

​

Sidenote! I would like to point out an exception to the rule: Bruce Banner. It can be argued that his Persona is actually the Self that he portrays throughout the Marvel films, while his Shadow is portrayed through Hulk. As such, one could say that his true Self is not seen until Avengers: Endgame (dir. by the Russo Brothers, 2019) - although the acceptance process does start in Thor: Ragnarok (dir. Taika Waitit, 2017) - when Bruce finally accepts Hulk as part of himself and becomes the truly balanced and capable version of himself. I believe Hulk is the clearest example of Jung's Shadow theory as it shows the integration of all the archetypes into one single person.

​

While older films portrayed the hero and the villain as two completely separate and opposing entities, recent motion pictures are slowly merging the two and, in most of the cases, both the heroes and the villains are better for it. While Thor: Ragnarok (dir. by Taika Waititi, 2017) and Captain America: Winter Soldier (dir. by the Russo Brothers, 2014) are films that I mentioned before,  I would like to add Venom (dir. by Ruben Fleischer, 2018) to the superhero genre films that show the integration of the Shadow into the Persona with the result of a better Self (regardless of whether they use one single person or two different ones to showcase the archetypes).