Last updated on May 3rd, 2012 at 10:31 pm
In the upcoming blockbuster The Avengers, MSNBC and CNN are featured, but after dissing Spider-Man last summer, ratings leader Fox News is conspicuously missing.
TVnewser has the scoop, “MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts appeared as himself, gamely pretending that the world had just been saved by a giant green man and the Norse God of Thunder. In addition to MSNBC, “footage” from the battle ran on CNN, local Time Warner Cable channel NY1 and ABC affiliate WABC ( we didn’t see any real anchors, just clips and an interview with a “witness”). There were also some fictional TV networks, including a fake channel 5, which is a Fox affiliate here in New York. We also noticed that the only cable news channel not featured was Fox News Channel.”
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
It is possible that Fox News declined to be featured in the movie. Why they would not participate in a film that is going to be a major hit is beyond me, but it is possible. If they didn’t want any of their on air talent featured, they could have allowed the film to use their logo.
In the paranoid culture over at Fox News it is possible that they wanted nothing to do with the film, but a more likely explanation is that they weren’t asked. Fox News viewers are reading this this right now and screaming Hollywood liberals and liberal bias at the top of their lungs as we speak. However Fox News has been very tough on superheroes, and they made the mistake of targeting the most iconic Marvel hero of all.
Fox News claimed that Marvel made a radical left turn when they introduced a half African American half Hispanic parallel universe Spider-Man in 2011, “Peter Parker the man behind the mask in the original comic series, but did you know there’s more than one Spider-Man universe? In Ultimate Spider-Man, which comic book readers know is different than the original, Peter Parker was killed off back in June and this week a new Spider-Man was introduced. Miles Morales is a half black, half Hispanic teenager who has a knack for fighting injustice and comes with some of the same powers but with different abilities, and this news took some in the media by surprise questioning whether or not Marvel Comics took a radical left turn to extreme political correctness by killing off a traditional American hero and replacing him with Miles Morales.”
Also in 2011 Fox News attacked D.C.’s Superman for renouncing his U.S. citizenship, and who could ever forget their infamous borderline labeling of SpongeBob as an Eco-terrorist?
It could be true that there is a logical explanation for the absence of Fox News. Maybe the “synergy” just wasn’t there between Marvel and FNC? Maybe Fox News wasn’t interested, or maybe Marvel didn’t care for having their most iconic hero attacked on the network?
Featuring both MSNBC and CNN, but not Fox News sends a fairly loud unspoken message. You don’t tug on Superman’s cape. You don’t spit into the wind, and you don’t mess around with Stan Lee’s Spider-Man.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
