4 ms·

I think he's overstating Marvel/DC's cultural significance. The new generation of viewers have a very different moral sensibility. The evil is much more shockin

I think he's overstating Marvel/DC's cultural significance. The new generation of viewers have a very different moral sensibility. The evil is much more shockingly evil, but the good is less cartoonish and more relatable, and therefore more vulnerable. I just finished watching the new Stranger Things season. One of the things I love about that show is that it juxtaposes the 1980s kids' sci-fi genre with a storyline that would have been totally intolerable to the consumers of that genre back then. The tone that results is kind of this weird combination of nostalgia and tragedy.

pmoriarty 9y ago
Don't sell 80's viewers short. Many of us put up with, and sometimes even enjoyed, the pap that was fed to us by the TV networks back then, but that doesn't mean that's what we preferred. That's just all we had, created by people who grew up on media from the 50's and 60's. The media of today is often created by the very people who were dissatisfied with what was available to us back in the 80's. It'll be interesting to see what people dissatisfied with the media of today come up with in another 30 years.
- groovy2shoes 9y ago
  > The media of today is often created by the very people who were dissatisfied with what was available to us back in the 80's. It'll be interesting to see what people dissatisfied with the media of today come up with in another 30 years. This is a good observation, and seems to be true to me throughout literary/artistic history. You can look back through time, and many eras are obviously predominated by a particular creative movement, and each movement can be seen as a reaction of the previous dominant movement: postmodernism as a reaction of creators who were dissatisfied with modernism, modernism as a reaction of those who were dissatisfied with realism, itself a reaction to romanticism, etc. Hegelian dialectics come to mind. Of course, the avant-garde of any era didn't necessarily dislike the former movement (or otherwise be entirely unappreciative of it) to be dissatisfied with it; the only needed to recognize the shortcomings therein. The ebb-and-flow of these movements makes me wonder if the arts are inherently unable to characterize and embody the human experience. I don't see any reason why that must be true, but the notion that people have been identifying and responding to the shortcomings of their broader artistic environments since the dawn of art itself makes me contemplative. Perhaps it's simply that the human experience itself is in a constant state of flux.
mc32 9y ago
His lament seems to be the cartoonish worlds were for kids to indulge in, while they formed ideals of good and bad, etc. However, today's comics audience is a mature audience seeking escapism rather than one forming its moral compass.
- tomaskafka 9y ago
  Come on. Wishing a 'superdaddy' or a 'supermom' would came and took away our complex problems with a single act is not mature.
- kakarot 9y ago
  I dunno. I don't think it's such a clear-cut situation. I definitely just read comics because it is something to do and I like contemplating the stories. But as a kid I suffered long term child abuse and it was about escapism for me from day one growing up. I seriously talked myself out of suicide more than once on the premise that I would get to find out what happened in the next episode of ______. But now I'm older, away from those horrible people and have much less to escape from... It's more about the intellectual curiosity, and yes, the dilemma of good vs evil. Upon reflection, my experience is literally the opposite from what you and Moore are claiming.

pmoriarty 9y ago

Don't sell 80's viewers short. Many of us put up with, and sometimes even enjoyed, the pap that was fed to us by the TV networks back then, but that doesn't mean that's what we preferred. That's just all we had, created by people who grew up on media from the 50's and 60's. The media of today is often created by the very people who were dissatisfied with what was available to us back in the 80's. It'll be interesting to see what people dissatisfied with the media of today come up with in another 30 years.

groovy2shoes 9y ago
> The media of today is often created by the very people who were dissatisfied with what was available to us back in the 80's. It'll be interesting to see what people dissatisfied with the media of today come up with in another 30 years. This is a good observation, and seems to be true to me throughout literary/artistic history. You can look back through time, and many eras are obviously predominated by a particular creative movement, and each movement can be seen as a reaction of the previous dominant movement: postmodernism as a reaction of creators who were dissatisfied with modernism, modernism as a reaction of those who were dissatisfied with realism, itself a reaction to romanticism, etc. Hegelian dialectics come to mind. Of course, the avant-garde of any era didn't necessarily dislike the former movement (or otherwise be entirely unappreciative of it) to be dissatisfied with it; the only needed to recognize the shortcomings therein. The ebb-and-flow of these movements makes me wonder if the arts are inherently unable to characterize and embody the human experience. I don't see any reason why that must be true, but the notion that people have been identifying and responding to the shortcomings of their broader artistic environments since the dawn of art itself makes me contemplative. Perhaps it's simply that the human experience itself is in a constant state of flux.

mc32 9y ago

His lament seems to be the cartoonish worlds were for kids to indulge in, while they formed ideals of good and bad, etc. However, today's comics audience is a mature audience seeking escapism rather than one forming its moral compass.

tomaskafka 9y ago
Come on. Wishing a 'superdaddy' or a 'supermom' would came and took away our complex problems with a single act is not mature.
kakarot 9y ago
I dunno. I don't think it's such a clear-cut situation. I definitely just read comics because it is something to do and I like contemplating the stories. But as a kid I suffered long term child abuse and it was about escapism for me from day one growing up. I seriously talked myself out of suicide more than once on the premise that I would get to find out what happened in the next episode of ______. But now I'm older, away from those horrible people and have much less to escape from... It's more about the intellectual curiosity, and yes, the dilemma of good vs evil. Upon reflection, my experience is literally the opposite from what you and Moore are claiming.