Is there nothing Marvel cannot do? Comics. Movies. Television. Merchandise. Their goal of world domination is still a long way off, but baby steps are key to victory. Their next method for infiltrating the public at large? No, not porn. Education.
The University of Baltimore is now offering students the chance to participate in a college course entitled Media Genres: Media Marvels. The curriculum will investigate how the interconnected nature of the Marvel Cinematic Universe offer insights into modern society and culture.
With the first class set to start in Spring 2015, students can expect to fully nerd out during the semester. Professor Arnold T. Blumberg, a faculty member at the UB’s Yale Gordon College OF Arts And Sciences, will teach the class, and says the purpose is to “encourage students to better understand the culture’s fixation on superheroes, fictional global threats, and other “widescreen” novelistic tales that have pushed the comic book-to-film ethos into new territory.” He went on to broadly discuss in the press release the reason the course has arrived at this point:
“One thing we’ll do is dive into the impact of the Guardians of the Galaxy film, which proved two things: Mainstream movie audiences are not remotely tired of superhero movies; and Marvel Studios can now release a sci-fi adventure that actually features talking trees and raccoons. It’s not that they’re getting away with it—they’ve created a universe in which fans completely accept these developments, and they’re ready for even more.”
