Redefining Superhero:The Construction Of Postmodern Hero In Watchmen

Watchmen is an interesting movie since it presents its hero characters different from hero characters in the 80s and 90s Hollywood’s popular action movies. Yet, although this movie presents heroes that challenge the hero narratives in American culture, it is considerably a successful movie. Thus, it means that there is a shifting in how heroes are perceived in contemporary American society. Since superhero is a popular culture product, it can be analyzed in its relation to American society. Thus, this research is conducted to explain how the movie constructs its hero characters and how these hero characters respond to the American ideals. This research is a descriptive qualitative research that takes Watchmen the movie as its source of data. The primary data consists of characters, setting, costume, dialogue, visual images and other cinematographic elements. It is supported with secondary data consisted of journal articles, books, movie script, reviews and other related references. This research is conducted in American Studies framework. Thus, it incorporates various disciplines in the forms of theory and approach in analyzing the movie. It incorporates semiotics film theory, socio-cultural approach and also postmodernism theory in answering the research question. After conducting the research, it is found that the two hero characters analyzed in the movie are constructed as postmodern hero. They are not constructed following the traditional hero narrative. They challenge the traditional hero narrative because this concept does not respond to the changing values in contemporary American society. After September 11 attack happened, American society is in crisis. The attack produced the notion that ‘everything has changed’. Thus, the traditional hero concept which features the ‘all good’ and ‘larger than life’ character does not fit to the contemporary American society. Nowadays, American society is filled with more complex issues. These complexities can only be responded by postmodern hero character. The superhero concept is always changing since as a durable popular culture, superhero must always respond to the changing in American society. Keywords: Superhero, popular culture, sociocultural, postmodernism, watchmen.