Do Chitari lives matter? In this episode we look at the ways movies and TV shows make it ok for our heroes to kill by dehumanizing the people they’re fighting, and how that connects to issues in our own world.
Also, this week welcome Paul Christopher Hoppe who will be co-host of the podcast going forward.
Click here to download, or you can find us on Itunes under Superhero Ethics.
The Ethical Panda 
I enjoyed this quite a bit. It does a good job in using comics and movies as examples of where certain kinds of “bodies” are more easily dehumanized and in this dehumanization, it becomes easier to justify violence and even murder. In a lot of ways, our country is really founded on this process. The first perception of Native Americans as being less than human easily allowed us to steal their land and murder their people. This process also allowed for the Slavery of the first African Americans and allows for the tolerance of continued police brutality, incarceration and murder of some bodies over others. I have to admit, though, that I am still pondering the ethics of killing robots. I mean, at what point is something not human? At what point do we say something has a right to life or not? R2D2 is the most lovable robot and his death/murder would be very sad to me. Yet, he IS scraps and metal. Where do we draw the line? I’m still pondering this one…It’s tricky to me.
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