Core77

At Design Observer, Jessica Helfand's got an all-too-short piece on the dramatic role of computers in Iron Man: The Screen Behind the Screen. Here's the sweet spot:

Without giving the entire story away, let's just say that [stark's] newly-minted conscience involves saving people instead of annihilating them, and that the locale for such efforts is somewhere in Afghanistan. And therein lies the essential irony: socially networked and globally interconnected, the illusion is that we're within reach of anything and everything. But with the real world in political, economic and environmental turmoil, the more we sit behind the screen, the more helpless we actually feel. In this context, Stark's odyssey is more than an action film: it's a psychological thriller, and a sociological fantasy. Here, perhaps, the paradox of our inner-connectedness comes full circle: we're all online constantly yet at the same time, we're powerless against our real enemies. What better fantasy than to imagine yourself capable of mouse-clicking your way to flights of supreme heroism like Tony Stark?

Nice, right? Well, as in many DO posts, the comments offer some beautiful gracenotes (albeit on another of Helfand's points). Here's Sam Potts:

I have to disagree with this thesis: "...this is a film in which the computer is incorporated, like a cast member, into the development of the plot itself." This movie, more than Minority Report, should clarify the difference between hardware and software. Iron Man (from the name on down) is all about hardware -- the robots that more or less build the suit around Stark are characters; the various screens inside the helmets do nothing plotwise. You get some cool 3D rendering software split across multiple monitors, but compare that to the robot with the fire extinguisher, who is so anthropomorphized that it gets laughs. It's all about the robots.

But for all its excellent gadgetry, I left this movie really bothered by the power-chord-driven fetishized military bravado. Courage Under Fire depicted similarly heavy-metal-driven tank assaults, or maybe it was Three Kings, but you clearly got the message that there was something wrong and possibly insane in all of it. At a time when our super-hi-tek military seems pretty well emasculated, I bet they're loving this shit at the DoD.

The real illusion of this movie is that American technology is potent. The most blatant reading of this movie is that American technology is a total fantasy. More popcorn, please!