Deadpool is all meta, i.e., he knows he’s in a movie/comic book. Mike Rugnetta of the Reasonably Sound podcast thinks this isn’t just a matter of the comic’s writers being much too impressed with their own cleverness, but that being in such constant pain due to his particular superpower/mutation has actually given him a higher level of awareness. Or maybe he’s just deluded.
Rugnetta describes this using carefully explained vocabulary from Maurice Merleau-Ponty: All consciousness is bound up in the physical, so Deadpool’s altered physicality alters his ways of understanding the world. His world is a text that he’s interpreting, and he’s “in dialogue, often literally, with his reality” via the little thought bubbles that in the comic indicate his multiple personality disorder (these are absent from the film). Because he perceives himself as constantly before an audience, this likewise affects his behavior, i.e., makes him a ham.
I’m not sure if I find this so enlightening, but hearing a fun piece of entertainment described in terms of one of the most fun philosophers (yes, I really think this) is, well, fun. That Mike fella’d probably make a good PEL guest one of these days…
Hear PEL take on Merleau-Ponty. A sequel to that episode will hopefully happen before the end of 2016.
-Mark Linsenmayer
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