Mental Debility as the Superhero Trait of Today's Real Human in Alejandro González Iñárritu's Birdman

Abstract

This article shows how director Alejandro González Iñárritu conflates notions of the mad-genius trope, mental illness, and the superhero in his film Birdman, exalting the mentally debilitated identity that is popular today under biocapitalism. It also explores how the film's concept of "real art" as dependent on the grotesque exhibition of mental debility is shaped by (and reinforces) our current biocapitalist notion of a real human experience.

Keywords

• Birdman
• mental illness
• disability
• debility
• performance
• biopolitics
• superhero