This is a Neighbourhood Watch Area

As superhero films rapidly grew in popularity over the past two decades, the idea that American superheroes are society’s modern mythology has become a common refrain uttered by academics, YouTubers and even renowned directors like Sir Christopher Nolan alike. My project, a screenplay entitled “This is a Neighbourhood Watch Area”, seeks to explore how this new superheroic mythology intermingles with a country’s native legends. It specifically nods to Robin Hood, dramatizing how a child raised on both that legend and superhero stories might be inspired to heroic resistance against twenty-first century England’s inequality, gentrification and rising populist fascism. The work aims to be as snappy and accessible as films in the superhero genre, though infused with the grounded authenticity of a native (yet multi-ethnic and queer) English experience, to entertain and, perhaps, itself inspire some heroic resistance.