Arrow and Superhero Television

James F. Iaccino is an associate professor of psychology at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology and has written a number of texts and articles on superheroes in film and television. Cory Barker is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Communication & Culture at Indiana University. His writing has appeared in Vox, Complex, The A.V. Club, and other publications. He lives in Peoria, Illinois. Myc Wiatrowski is an analyst of business and culture and associate instructor in the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology at Indiana University in Bloomington.

Table of Contents


Acknowledgments

Introduction

James F. Iaccino, Cory Barker and Myc Wiatrowski

Part One: Theoretical Approaches to Understanding Arrow

“I must become something else”: The Evolution of The CW’s

Arrow (Lisa K. Perdigao)

Reading the Body, Deciphering the Text: Arrow’s Multiliteracies,

Superheroics and Merging Multimodalities (Perry Dantzler)

The Arrow and His Villainous Counterparts: An Examination

of Their Journeys Toward Psychic Transformation (James F. Iaccino)

Part Two: Muscles, Scars and Tattoos

Working Out as Creative Labor, or the Building of the Male

­Superhero’s Body (Juan ­Llamas-Rodriguez)

Twenty Percent of His Body: Scar Tissue, Masculinity

and Identity in Arrow (Evan Hayles Gledhill)

Beyond Wounds and Words: The Rhetoric of Scarred

Embodiment in Arrow (Sara K. Howe)

The Mark of Cain: Bodies, Belonging and the Bratva (John Carter McKnight)

Part Three: Sexism and Empowerment in Arrow

Simians, Cyborgs and Smoak: Felicity’s Gendered Roles

(Ashley Lynn Carlson)

Sexism, Heroism and Morality in The CW’s Arrow

and DC Comics’ Green Arrow (Katherine E. Whaley and Justin Wigard)

Part Four: Politics and Diversity in Arrow

“You have failed this city”: Arrow, ­Left-Wing Vigilantism

and the Modern Day Robin Hood (Antonio Pineda and Jesu´s Jime´nez-Varea)

“What, O.J. and Charles Manson weren’t available?” DC Comics,

The CW’s Arrow and the Quest for Racial Diversity (Rodney A. Thomas, Jr.)

Part Five: The Influence of Arrow’s Fandom World and Fandom Building

Extending the Universe of Arrow in Arrow 2.5 (Me´lanie Bourdaa and Bertha Chin)

When Fans Know Best: Oliciters Right the Ship

(Tanya R. Cochran and Meghan K. Winchell)

Filmography

Bibliography

About the Contributors

Index