A scientific deep dive into the Marvel movies’ most hilarious trope: the shirtless scene

Whether it’s Iron Man fiddling with his arc reactor or Star-Lord getting hosed down, you can almost always count on the hero of any given Marvel movie to lose his shirt — it’s practically a trope.

At this point —17 films and nine years into the Marvel Cinematic Universe — the “shirtless superhero” scene is up there with Stan Lee cameos, post-credits scenes, and 30something blond men named Chris in terms of reliable franchise staples. 

Such serious commitment on Marvel’s part, then, would seem to warrant some serious analysis on our part. And we do mean “serious.” This isn’t just an excuse for bald-faced objectification — goodness, no.  Read more…

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