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> Primarily, mass-market superhero movies seem to be abetting an audience who do not wish to relinquish their grip on (a) their relatively reassuring childhoods

> Primarily, mass-market superhero movies seem to be abetting an audience who do not wish to relinquish their grip on (a) their relatively reassuring childhoods, or (b) the relatively reassuring 20th century. Or, you know, sometimes we just like a little escape-ism. It's no different than reading a good sci-fi/fantasy book where the hero(es) win in the end. It's fun. Not everything needs to be a deep exploration of our intellectual and emotional destitution, not for everyone.

jrochkind1 7y ago
The particular common themes and tropes used for escape-ism are not irrelevant to understanding the cultural context. Superhero stuff obviously isn't the only kind of fiction that can be used to get a little escape-ism, and fiction isn't even the only way to find a little escape-ism, but superhero movies are a currently especially popular one, and it is not silly to look at the cultural resonances of why that might be.
- chimprich 7y ago
  > superhero movies are a currently especially popular one Is this really a new thing? As far as I can tell, the trope of the superhero has been wildly popular throughout cultural history. Achilles, Thor, Arthur, and so on.
  - peterwwillis 7y ago
    When was the last time in the past couple centuries that people were flocking to dozens of plays about Nordic and Greek heroes for 15 years straight?
    - Touche 7y ago
      Cowboy movies (westerns) and plays were the superhero movies of the past couple centuries, until they faded out (from mass popularity) in the 1970s or so.
      - peterwwillis 7y ago
        Cowboys are the antithesis of the superhero. They don't have fame and glory, they don't live well, they're usually struggling to make ends meet, and they're barely able to save themselves or a wagon train, much less the country/world. They definitely have no super powers. They are the hard-working common man, the underdog. Part of their admiration was about a country which had become wealthy and powerful that wanted to re-imagine itself in rough-and-tumble working-class ideal. Even in the 19th century, stories of the West were fodder for most of the "civilized" cities throughout America, more for their salaciousness than anything else. Shoot-outs at the O.K. Corral were sold alongside gangs of thieves robbing trains. Although, the "hero" cowboy was very much what Moore is going on about - symbols of white supremacy bringing order to the native savages, killing who they wanted, chivalrously treating women as inferior and delicate, ignoring the law when it was convenient, though somehow still revered as symbols of righteousness. They're more akin to Old Testament figures than Captain America.
        Touche 7y ago
        Well Superman is the story of an immigrant, Captain Marvel is an orphan boy who was living on the street and even after he receives powers has to work a job to survive, Miles Morales is from a middle class family who is unhappy about having powers, etc. I'm not sure why you think the superhero genre is about fame and glory. There are examples of that for sure, but it's not the norm, and definitely not the roots of the genre.
        Izkata 7y ago
        Uh, I think you meant Captain America.
        Touche 7y ago
        I meant Captain Marvel: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Marvel_(DC_Comics) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Marvel_(DC_Comics)
  - tachion 7y ago
    Hold on a minute, are you saying Thor wasn't real?!
- hailwren 7y ago
  I don't think superhero films are as popular for their themes as their predictability. The Avengers universe hit on a formulaic, y-o-y predictable movie strategy and Marvel has been taking it to the bank. By franchise, superhero films are doing fairly poorly. It just happens that Marvel has a war chest of shitty content and can tell publishers with confidence that they have a profitable movie. Why is it profitable? (Somewhat circularly) because it is successful. They can pour these big budgets into lame tropes that no one really likes, but critically no one really hates so they can get that mass (international) market appeal. The problem that all of these racism narratives ignore is that while, yes, North America has the largest box office revenue it's still on 30% of the global market. Super heroes are popular because they are boring and appeal to the 12-year-old child in everyone.
  - IOT_Apprentice 7y ago
    Your comments seem at odds with the popularity and the sales figures for Marvel movies. If their content is so "shitty" and their franchises are doing poorly, yet their profits and film attendance are huge, those seem to directly oppose your opinion. Their films are successful, profitable and they are making more of them. The audience goes to films they find interesting. They vote with their dollars. Big budgets do not guarantee success or profitability. Popular as boring makes zero sense. Avengers Endgame box office had international sales of $1,939,427,464 vs $858,373,000 for domestic sales. The point being it was extremely successful and profitable worldwide. Facts like box office appear to negate your supposition. It is unclear who the publishers are that you refer to. Marvel publishes their own comic content. They decide what movies to make from their IP. They hire writers and directors to adapt that IP to movies. Do you mean their stockholders? Or the press?
    - hailwren 7y ago
      I specifically addressed profitability and why boring would lead to profitability in my original argument. Publishers, in this context meant the people who are responsible for signing off on the funding of movies.
- dkonofalski 7y ago
  >superhero movies are a currently especially popular one To be fair, we're just now in an age, technologically speaking, where the stories of superheroes can be brought to life without seeming campy or ridiculous. The surge in popularity is because this is the first time in the history of these types of stories where they can be visualized with a realism that allows us to hope for that type of escapism in the real world. There are too many people who just hate the grind of every day life so watching a movie that injects something supernatural and even superlatively good into the "real world" is naturally appealing.
  - wutbrodo 7y ago
    I'm not sure this is the case, as the popular superhero movies are precisely the campy and ridiculous ones (centrally, the MCU, the Kidz Bop of movies).
    - dkonofalski 7y ago
      The MCU movies are not considered campy by most standards since they take themselves and their internal universe completely seriously. Batman of the 1960s was campy. The Flash TV show is campy. The MCU may have some humorous moments but the tone, overall, is serious and thought-provoking. Civil War, Black Panther, Winter Soldier, and Iron have all been mentioned here already but you can go on and on with those films.
      - wutbrodo 7y ago
        Okay, but using such a strict bar for campiness also invalidates the original claim. There are plenty of superhero renditions that don't qualify as campy that predate the recent wave and the technology that supposedly enabled it. (eg Burton's Batmans).
        dkonofalski 7y ago
        No it doesn't. The Tim Burton movies were also campy and they reveled in it. Also, the point isn't about whether the movies are campy or not but simply that we're at the point where you can show superheroes on screen believably. Even Burton's Batman had to use fake penguins and matte paintings to try and make Gotham seem real and it still looks wooden and lifeless. I would say that Raimi's Spider-man (though not fully) and Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy pushed us into the age of superhero believability and popularity. It's the difference between Lou Ferrigno being painted in green makeup lifting up cardboard and foam vs. a fully realized Hulk that matches what was originally in the comic books in ferocity and strength.
myself248 7y ago
I think his point is that escapism is fine for kids, but we're adults now and we're hindering ourselves by always escaping to a black-and-white good-and-evil fantasy land where there's no need for compromise or understanding as long as you have a big gun and supernatural powers. Sometimes a hero is someone who unites, explains, or educates. But there's precious little of that in the kind of simplistic, violent, nuance-free "win" that continues to be perpetuated in this material. And that is to the detriment of society's ability to reason.
- alphakappa 7y ago
  There’s no reason why escapism should only be for kids. There’s plenty of ‘deep’ art in this world, and fantasy escapism isn’t preventing that from existing.
  - SolaceQuantum 7y ago
    "There’s plenty of ‘deep’ art in this world, and fantasy escapism isn’t preventing that from existing." But even you quote 'deep' as if it isn't deep at all. By this rhetoric there isnt any deep art, whatsoever, in existence. And I think that bolsters the point that we need less escapism and that actual real critical thought needs to be applied.
    - eli_gottlieb 7y ago
      Go read the Iliad, the Odyssey, and even the Book of Exodus and tell me it wasn't comic-book movie fare for ancient Greeks and Hebrews.
  - _hardwaregeek 7y ago
    It kinda is if you think about the economics of the box office. Scorsese makes this point in depth with his NYT Op-Ed. Basically studios have become preoccupied with making purely franchise tentpoles and not funding lower budget creative movies. Now the common response to that studios are just giving the people what they want. But A. people will tend to like what you put in front of them and B. that doesn't mean studios should starve creative, new ideas. It's a sign of the times that someone like Martin Scorsese has trouble getting money, that a film with Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci has to be made with Netflix. Also, studios seem to forget that these franchises started as risks themselves. Iron Man was a huge risk. Star Wars was massively precarious. If executives hadn't taken the original risk, these franchises wouldn't be the cash cows they are. Escapism isn't necessarily bad but it's a little noticeable how much escapism is being sold to us at the detriment to real, innovative, intelligent art.
peterwwillis 7y ago
If most of what you read is sci-fi or fantasy, it's possible that your entire life revolves around escapism, which isn't good for your mental development. I have found maybe two fantasy novels which can combine the real personal struggles and moral quandaries of regular human beings with fantasy themes and captivating writing. Superhero movies can be emotionally deep or thought-provoking, but the vast majority of them are designed not to stimulate your mind, but to get you to keep buying buckets of popcorn for $15 and action figures. The one thing we don't need more of is mindless entertainment that coincidentally reinforces our biases and problematic thinking.
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signal11 7y ago
I think the recent Joker movie was a good counter-example, of a comic book character study that was not comfortable to watch. Most people I know left the theatre with a lot of questions and/or a sense of unease, not with a spring in their step. On the other hand, perhaps Joker is the exception that proves the rule. It was certainly unlike every other superhero movie thus far.
- AlexandrB 7y ago
  I think part of the problem is the massive success of the MCU. Before the MCU, superhero movies did not seem so homogeneous. There were plenty of flops, but more interesting experiments as well. Consider the weird artistic and tonal shifts between the 90s Batman movies. The MCU is such a homogeneous set of films. None of them are actively bad like many of the DC movies, but they all blend together so that nothing sticks out or feels unique either. This is made explicit in how Disney exercised creative control over these movies to keep them from straying too far from the intended formula and feel[1]. [1] https://www.cinemablend.com/new/How-Iron-Man-2-Ruined-Jon-Favreau-Relationship-With-Marvel-20003.html https://www.cinemablend.com/new/How-Iron-Man-2-Ruined-Jon-Fa...
  - pnw_hazor 7y ago
    Also, the relatively recent Tencent (China) effect ensures that the plots are non-challenging.
  - glitchc 7y ago
    The interplay between Catwoman and the Penguin in Batman Returns is a fascinating bit of cinema. You get two different people, crazy in different ways, but equally crazy in magnitude, trying to work together, to get along for a common goal. It's a wonderful bit of underappreciated cinema from Devito and Pfeiffer.
- glitchc 7y ago
  I don't think the recent Joker movie is a good counterpoint. This iteration of the Joker was rather whiny and needy. More than anything, he embodied the kid mentality of "pay attention to me, or I will throw a tantrum!" over the "I don't give a f..., I'll just do what I want" mindset that's normally associated with Joker. If anything, this Joker felt like a typical incel, a typical angry young man. It's not a superhero movie as there were no superpowers on display.
jbigelow76 7y ago
Not everything needs to be a deep exploration of our intellectual and emotional destitution, not for everyone. I think Moore's criticism and your push-back kind of dovetail into Martin Scorsese's critique[1][2] that comic book movies aren't cinema. It would be fine for comic book movies to be the escapist entertainment they are if they weren't the overwhelming majority of type of movie that is getting made these days. I wonder if Moore would be as critical if instead of there being 20+ Marvel Character Universe movies in the span of 10 years there had only be say 4 or 5? [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/opinion/martin-scorsese-marvel.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/opinion/martin-scorsese-m... [2] The article lightly touches on Scorsese's critique but doesn't go into depth, probably because Moore is critiquing the "matter" and Scorsese is critiquing the "medium", but they intertwine heavily.
- schwartzworld 7y ago
  > I wonder if Moore would be as critical if instead of there being 20+ Marvel Character Universe movies in the span of 10 years there had only be say 4 or 5? Would it even be a topic of discussion? Lots of bad movies get made. The question is why is this drek the dominating force in American movies now?
  - jbigelow76 7y ago
    Would it even be a topic of discussion? That's my point, it probably wouldn't be. Lots of bad movies get made. The question is why is this drek the dominating force in American movies now? The movie that kicked off the MCU train was the original Iron Man in 2008. It was actually GOOD and was still somewhat novel; and it made a shit-ton of money. That's why the all the follow ups happened, Disney's corporate lack of imagination and the audience's uninterest in holding them accountable for it, which is where Moore's and Scorsese's critiques of the audiences intersect.
    - goatlover 7y ago
      This misses the point of Marvel movies, though. There is an entire universe of characters and stories. Iron Man's success paved the way for putting those stories on the big screen. Guardians of the Galaxy, Black Panther, Dr. Strange, the Infinity Saga, and so on. That's what Keven Feige, and many of the Marvel people have been trying to do. Setup a universe to tell these stories instead of just having one-off superhero movies. So instead of Spider-Man or Iron Man just being in their own movies, they can fight alongside (or even against) Captain America, Thanos, etc.
Miner49er 7y ago
I think his point is that at a certain point we should start questioning why we need so much escapism, and work to fix that.
- jimbokun 7y ago
  Because reality is increasingly depressing.
  - Gene_Parmesan 7y ago
    Reality is not increasingly depressing. Reality is simply itself. It has no tone, no emotions, no motives, no trend. So saying this is not helpful; in fact, it's sort of highlighting part of the problem. The fact that people are more frequently describing "reality" as something that exists as a sphere that can be rejected or escaped or avoided is concerning to me. If "reality" is itself what's depressing, what other choice is there? Reality is all there is. Don't forget that one of the goals of the flavor of government seen in my country, America, is that of cultivating mass apathy. It's tyranny by way of "nothing I do really matters so why try." Convincing people that this concept of reality is what's going sour, and not the "leadership" evidenced by the 0.001%, must be a massive win for them. Escaping from your personal stressors for a little while by sinking into a movie or a book is perfectly reasonable. It's when it turns into an -ism and becomes the centerpiece of our cultural milieu that we should be very concerned.
  - zentiggr 7y ago
    Bingo... one of my favorite quotes, that I try to live up to as best I can: "Be miserable. Or be motivated. Whatever's next, it's your choice." and "Whether you think you can't, or think you can, you're right." Can't say I'm a miracle worker but I try to remember that believing I can't do something is the start of my feeling miserable, and every time I break through that wall _something_ happens.
- pnw_hazor 7y ago
  I don't know if we need escapism anymore or less than before. Now it is more available than ever before and people are wealthier than ever before. So they have time and opportunity to do more of what they want.
phjesusthatguy3 7y ago
a) There were no heroes in "Watchmen" b) If there were, they certainly didn't win in the end.
coldtea 7y ago
>Or, you know, sometimes we just like a little escape-ism. What kind of escape-ism we chose, and how much escape-ism we chose, also has societal consequences. >Not everything needs to be a deep exploration of our intellectual and emotional destitution, not for everyone. His point is much larger than deep vs shallow entertainment.
Abishek_Muthian 7y ago
Isn't any entertainment (movies, music, reading, gaming etc.) by itself escapism? i.e. few mins to few hours of escape from the pathetic(most) life. Alan Moore talks about Super Hero worship, but if you take a country like India; people have been worshipping 'movie heroes' literally, they command huge power, in certain states movie actors get regularly elected as 'Chief Minister' i.e. highest position of state power. I tend to think, it's because here people need more escapism due to obvious reasons.
- Quekid5 7y ago
  I tend to agree. Movies in general seem to be escapism[0]. Even incredibly depressing/artful movies like Requiem For A Dream, Joker (since it was brought up on this thread), Irréversible, The Truman Show, Martyrs, Saw, etc. are a form of escapism. Now, each person may have their own preferences as to what type of escapism they want, but ultimately it's really just spending a few hours at a theatre or in front of a TV. (We could argue about the intellectual merits of each of the films I've mentioned, but that's irrelevant as to whether they're escapism or not.) Hot take: The problem isn't "shallow movies" or similar. It's that well-enough-off people are increasingly getting bored. [0] Hell, I'd even extend that to most art.
  - the_af 7y ago
    What's your definition of "escapism". How is watching Irréversible escapism?
    - Quekid5 7y ago
      In the same way that RFAD is. It distracts from one's own life and "at least I haven't got it that bad".
      - the_af 7y ago
        Fair enough, but do note that's not what most people (or dictionaries) mean by "escapism" -- and your interpretation will puzzle people who use it in a derogatory manner. When discussing fiction such as movies, books or shows, the most commonly accepted meaning is of a thrilling fantasy, usually with a strong component of wish-fulfillment or adventure, that allows one to be distracted of the boring realities of actual life. Neither Requiem for a Dream nor Irréversible are escapism in that sense. In fact they are terrifying movies, with zero wish-fulfillment, and which often remind you of real life rather than distracting you from it. As an aside, if what you got from those movies was "at least I don't have it that bad" then you got a completely different message than me...
nabla9 7y ago
The fact that escapism and fun is of certain style and theme tells a lot about the mind of people who consume it and people who provide it. Also the underlying assumption that something you watch for fun and entertainment must be mindless and stick to repetitive format seems to be weak.
EliRivers 7y ago
What is being escaped? In these movies, the heroes don't seem to be seeking to make significant changes. To escape anything. Status quo preservation is the game. It's the opposite of escapism; for the audience, it's a comforting blanket of things remain the same. Perhaps that's what they need. (Yes, they're escpaing doing the housework for three hours while they go to the movies; if we're going to discuss superhero movies, a brutal literal interpretation of everything is not helpful :) )
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scarejunba 7y ago
Well, it's sort of like the Bechdel Test. A single movie can fail it and it means little for its quality (12 Angry Men, for instance) but if the overwhelming number of movies fail it then we know something's up.
IOT_Apprentice 7y ago
This is ludicrous. Historically, all cultures have tales and myths involving heroes and villains, including in religious texts. Is the illiad for 12 year olds? Is Arthur and the Round table (Le Mort de Arthur) or Jason and the Argonauts or the works of Ovid not stories of superheros? All cultures have had stories which have been transmitted orally, via song, via poems, via books and even gasp via comics.

jrochkind1 7y ago

The particular common themes and tropes used for escape-ism are not irrelevant to understanding the cultural context. Superhero stuff obviously isn't the only kind of fiction that can be used to get a little escape-ism, and fiction isn't even the only way to find a little escape-ism, but superhero movies are a currently especially popular one, and it is not silly to look at the cultural resonances of why that might be.

chimprich 7y ago
> superhero movies are a currently especially popular one Is this really a new thing? As far as I can tell, the trope of the superhero has been wildly popular throughout cultural history. Achilles, Thor, Arthur, and so on.
- peterwwillis 7y ago
  When was the last time in the past couple centuries that people were flocking to dozens of plays about Nordic and Greek heroes for 15 years straight?
  - Touche 7y ago
    Cowboy movies (westerns) and plays were the superhero movies of the past couple centuries, until they faded out (from mass popularity) in the 1970s or so.
    - peterwwillis 7y ago
      Cowboys are the antithesis of the superhero. They don't have fame and glory, they don't live well, they're usually struggling to make ends meet, and they're barely able to save themselves or a wagon train, much less the country/world. They definitely have no super powers. They are the hard-working common man, the underdog. Part of their admiration was about a country which had become wealthy and powerful that wanted to re-imagine itself in rough-and-tumble working-class ideal. Even in the 19th century, stories of the West were fodder for most of the "civilized" cities throughout America, more for their salaciousness than anything else. Shoot-outs at the O.K. Corral were sold alongside gangs of thieves robbing trains. Although, the "hero" cowboy was very much what Moore is going on about - symbols of white supremacy bringing order to the native savages, killing who they wanted, chivalrously treating women as inferior and delicate, ignoring the law when it was convenient, though somehow still revered as symbols of righteousness. They're more akin to Old Testament figures than Captain America.
      - Touche 7y ago
        Well Superman is the story of an immigrant, Captain Marvel is an orphan boy who was living on the street and even after he receives powers has to work a job to survive, Miles Morales is from a middle class family who is unhappy about having powers, etc. I'm not sure why you think the superhero genre is about fame and glory. There are examples of that for sure, but it's not the norm, and definitely not the roots of the genre.
        Izkata 7y ago
        Uh, I think you meant Captain America.
        Touche 7y ago
        I meant Captain Marvel: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Marvel_(DC_Comics) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Marvel_(DC_Comics)
- tachion 7y ago
  Hold on a minute, are you saying Thor wasn't real?!
hailwren 7y ago
I don't think superhero films are as popular for their themes as their predictability. The Avengers universe hit on a formulaic, y-o-y predictable movie strategy and Marvel has been taking it to the bank. By franchise, superhero films are doing fairly poorly. It just happens that Marvel has a war chest of shitty content and can tell publishers with confidence that they have a profitable movie. Why is it profitable? (Somewhat circularly) because it is successful. They can pour these big budgets into lame tropes that no one really likes, but critically no one really hates so they can get that mass (international) market appeal. The problem that all of these racism narratives ignore is that while, yes, North America has the largest box office revenue it's still on 30% of the global market. Super heroes are popular because they are boring and appeal to the 12-year-old child in everyone.
- IOT_Apprentice 7y ago
  Your comments seem at odds with the popularity and the sales figures for Marvel movies. If their content is so "shitty" and their franchises are doing poorly, yet their profits and film attendance are huge, those seem to directly oppose your opinion. Their films are successful, profitable and they are making more of them. The audience goes to films they find interesting. They vote with their dollars. Big budgets do not guarantee success or profitability. Popular as boring makes zero sense. Avengers Endgame box office had international sales of $1,939,427,464 vs $858,373,000 for domestic sales. The point being it was extremely successful and profitable worldwide. Facts like box office appear to negate your supposition. It is unclear who the publishers are that you refer to. Marvel publishes their own comic content. They decide what movies to make from their IP. They hire writers and directors to adapt that IP to movies. Do you mean their stockholders? Or the press?
  - hailwren 7y ago
    I specifically addressed profitability and why boring would lead to profitability in my original argument. Publishers, in this context meant the people who are responsible for signing off on the funding of movies.
dkonofalski 7y ago
>superhero movies are a currently especially popular one To be fair, we're just now in an age, technologically speaking, where the stories of superheroes can be brought to life without seeming campy or ridiculous. The surge in popularity is because this is the first time in the history of these types of stories where they can be visualized with a realism that allows us to hope for that type of escapism in the real world. There are too many people who just hate the grind of every day life so watching a movie that injects something supernatural and even superlatively good into the "real world" is naturally appealing.
- wutbrodo 7y ago
  I'm not sure this is the case, as the popular superhero movies are precisely the campy and ridiculous ones (centrally, the MCU, the Kidz Bop of movies).
  - dkonofalski 7y ago
    The MCU movies are not considered campy by most standards since they take themselves and their internal universe completely seriously. Batman of the 1960s was campy. The Flash TV show is campy. The MCU may have some humorous moments but the tone, overall, is serious and thought-provoking. Civil War, Black Panther, Winter Soldier, and Iron have all been mentioned here already but you can go on and on with those films.
    - wutbrodo 7y ago
      Okay, but using such a strict bar for campiness also invalidates the original claim. There are plenty of superhero renditions that don't qualify as campy that predate the recent wave and the technology that supposedly enabled it. (eg Burton's Batmans).
      - dkonofalski 7y ago
        No it doesn't. The Tim Burton movies were also campy and they reveled in it. Also, the point isn't about whether the movies are campy or not but simply that we're at the point where you can show superheroes on screen believably. Even Burton's Batman had to use fake penguins and matte paintings to try and make Gotham seem real and it still looks wooden and lifeless. I would say that Raimi's Spider-man (though not fully) and Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy pushed us into the age of superhero believability and popularity. It's the difference between Lou Ferrigno being painted in green makeup lifting up cardboard and foam vs. a fully realized Hulk that matches what was originally in the comic books in ferocity and strength.

myself248 7y ago

I think his point is that escapism is fine for kids, but we're adults now and we're hindering ourselves by always escaping to a black-and-white good-and-evil fantasy land where there's no need for compromise or understanding as long as you have a big gun and supernatural powers. Sometimes a hero is someone who unites, explains, or educates. But there's precious little of that in the kind of simplistic, violent, nuance-free "win" that continues to be perpetuated in this material. And that is to the detriment of society's ability to reason.

alphakappa 7y ago
There’s no reason why escapism should only be for kids. There’s plenty of ‘deep’ art in this world, and fantasy escapism isn’t preventing that from existing.
- SolaceQuantum 7y ago
  "There’s plenty of ‘deep’ art in this world, and fantasy escapism isn’t preventing that from existing." But even you quote 'deep' as if it isn't deep at all. By this rhetoric there isnt any deep art, whatsoever, in existence. And I think that bolsters the point that we need less escapism and that actual real critical thought needs to be applied.
  - eli_gottlieb 7y ago
    Go read the Iliad, the Odyssey, and even the Book of Exodus and tell me it wasn't comic-book movie fare for ancient Greeks and Hebrews.
- _hardwaregeek 7y ago
  It kinda is if you think about the economics of the box office. Scorsese makes this point in depth with his NYT Op-Ed. Basically studios have become preoccupied with making purely franchise tentpoles and not funding lower budget creative movies. Now the common response to that studios are just giving the people what they want. But A. people will tend to like what you put in front of them and B. that doesn't mean studios should starve creative, new ideas. It's a sign of the times that someone like Martin Scorsese has trouble getting money, that a film with Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci has to be made with Netflix. Also, studios seem to forget that these franchises started as risks themselves. Iron Man was a huge risk. Star Wars was massively precarious. If executives hadn't taken the original risk, these franchises wouldn't be the cash cows they are. Escapism isn't necessarily bad but it's a little noticeable how much escapism is being sold to us at the detriment to real, innovative, intelligent art.

peterwwillis 7y ago

If most of what you read is sci-fi or fantasy, it's possible that your entire life revolves around escapism, which isn't good for your mental development. I have found maybe two fantasy novels which can combine the real personal struggles and moral quandaries of regular human beings with fantasy themes and captivating writing. Superhero movies can be emotionally deep or thought-provoking, but the vast majority of them are designed not to stimulate your mind, but to get you to keep buying buckets of popcorn for $15 and action figures. The one thing we don't need more of is mindless entertainment that coincidentally reinforces our biases and problematic thinking.

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signal11 7y ago

I think the recent Joker movie was a good counter-example, of a comic book character study that was not comfortable to watch. Most people I know left the theatre with a lot of questions and/or a sense of unease, not with a spring in their step. On the other hand, perhaps Joker is the exception that proves the rule. It was certainly unlike every other superhero movie thus far.

AlexandrB 7y ago
I think part of the problem is the massive success of the MCU. Before the MCU, superhero movies did not seem so homogeneous. There were plenty of flops, but more interesting experiments as well. Consider the weird artistic and tonal shifts between the 90s Batman movies. The MCU is such a homogeneous set of films. None of them are actively bad like many of the DC movies, but they all blend together so that nothing sticks out or feels unique either. This is made explicit in how Disney exercised creative control over these movies to keep them from straying too far from the intended formula and feel[1]. [1] https://www.cinemablend.com/new/How-Iron-Man-2-Ruined-Jon-Favreau-Relationship-With-Marvel-20003.html https://www.cinemablend.com/new/How-Iron-Man-2-Ruined-Jon-Fa...
- pnw_hazor 7y ago
  Also, the relatively recent Tencent (China) effect ensures that the plots are non-challenging.
- glitchc 7y ago
  The interplay between Catwoman and the Penguin in Batman Returns is a fascinating bit of cinema. You get two different people, crazy in different ways, but equally crazy in magnitude, trying to work together, to get along for a common goal. It's a wonderful bit of underappreciated cinema from Devito and Pfeiffer.
glitchc 7y ago
I don't think the recent Joker movie is a good counterpoint. This iteration of the Joker was rather whiny and needy. More than anything, he embodied the kid mentality of "pay attention to me, or I will throw a tantrum!" over the "I don't give a f..., I'll just do what I want" mindset that's normally associated with Joker. If anything, this Joker felt like a typical incel, a typical angry young man. It's not a superhero movie as there were no superpowers on display.

jbigelow76 7y ago

Not everything needs to be a deep exploration of our intellectual and emotional destitution, not for everyone. I think Moore's criticism and your push-back kind of dovetail into Martin Scorsese's critique[1][2] that comic book movies aren't cinema. It would be fine for comic book movies to be the escapist entertainment they are if they weren't the overwhelming majority of type of movie that is getting made these days. I wonder if Moore would be as critical if instead of there being 20+ Marvel Character Universe movies in the span of 10 years there had only be say 4 or 5? [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/opinion/martin-scorsese-marvel.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/opinion/martin-scorsese-m... [2] The article lightly touches on Scorsese's critique but doesn't go into depth, probably because Moore is critiquing the "matter" and Scorsese is critiquing the "medium", but they intertwine heavily.

schwartzworld 7y ago
> I wonder if Moore would be as critical if instead of there being 20+ Marvel Character Universe movies in the span of 10 years there had only be say 4 or 5? Would it even be a topic of discussion? Lots of bad movies get made. The question is why is this drek the dominating force in American movies now?
- jbigelow76 7y ago
  Would it even be a topic of discussion? That's my point, it probably wouldn't be. Lots of bad movies get made. The question is why is this drek the dominating force in American movies now? The movie that kicked off the MCU train was the original Iron Man in 2008. It was actually GOOD and was still somewhat novel; and it made a shit-ton of money. That's why the all the follow ups happened, Disney's corporate lack of imagination and the audience's uninterest in holding them accountable for it, which is where Moore's and Scorsese's critiques of the audiences intersect.
  - goatlover 7y ago
    This misses the point of Marvel movies, though. There is an entire universe of characters and stories. Iron Man's success paved the way for putting those stories on the big screen. Guardians of the Galaxy, Black Panther, Dr. Strange, the Infinity Saga, and so on. That's what Keven Feige, and many of the Marvel people have been trying to do. Setup a universe to tell these stories instead of just having one-off superhero movies. So instead of Spider-Man or Iron Man just being in their own movies, they can fight alongside (or even against) Captain America, Thanos, etc.

Miner49er 7y ago

I think his point is that at a certain point we should start questioning why we need so much escapism, and work to fix that.

jimbokun 7y ago
Because reality is increasingly depressing.
- Gene_Parmesan 7y ago
  Reality is not increasingly depressing. Reality is simply itself. It has no tone, no emotions, no motives, no trend. So saying this is not helpful; in fact, it's sort of highlighting part of the problem. The fact that people are more frequently describing "reality" as something that exists as a sphere that can be rejected or escaped or avoided is concerning to me. If "reality" is itself what's depressing, what other choice is there? Reality is all there is. Don't forget that one of the goals of the flavor of government seen in my country, America, is that of cultivating mass apathy. It's tyranny by way of "nothing I do really matters so why try." Convincing people that this concept of reality is what's going sour, and not the "leadership" evidenced by the 0.001%, must be a massive win for them. Escaping from your personal stressors for a little while by sinking into a movie or a book is perfectly reasonable. It's when it turns into an -ism and becomes the centerpiece of our cultural milieu that we should be very concerned.
- zentiggr 7y ago
  Bingo... one of my favorite quotes, that I try to live up to as best I can: "Be miserable. Or be motivated. Whatever's next, it's your choice." and "Whether you think you can't, or think you can, you're right." Can't say I'm a miracle worker but I try to remember that believing I can't do something is the start of my feeling miserable, and every time I break through that wall _something_ happens.
pnw_hazor 7y ago
I don't know if we need escapism anymore or less than before. Now it is more available than ever before and people are wealthier than ever before. So they have time and opportunity to do more of what they want.

phjesusthatguy3 7y ago

a) There were no heroes in "Watchmen" b) If there were, they certainly didn't win in the end.

coldtea 7y ago

>Or, you know, sometimes we just like a little escape-ism. What kind of escape-ism we chose, and how much escape-ism we chose, also has societal consequences. >Not everything needs to be a deep exploration of our intellectual and emotional destitution, not for everyone. His point is much larger than deep vs shallow entertainment.

Abishek_Muthian 7y ago

Isn't any entertainment (movies, music, reading, gaming etc.) by itself escapism? i.e. few mins to few hours of escape from the pathetic(most) life. Alan Moore talks about Super Hero worship, but if you take a country like India; people have been worshipping 'movie heroes' literally, they command huge power, in certain states movie actors get regularly elected as 'Chief Minister' i.e. highest position of state power. I tend to think, it's because here people need more escapism due to obvious reasons.

Quekid5 7y ago
I tend to agree. Movies in general seem to be escapism[0]. Even incredibly depressing/artful movies like Requiem For A Dream, Joker (since it was brought up on this thread), Irréversible, The Truman Show, Martyrs, Saw, etc. are a form of escapism. Now, each person may have their own preferences as to what type of escapism they want, but ultimately it's really just spending a few hours at a theatre or in front of a TV. (We could argue about the intellectual merits of each of the films I've mentioned, but that's irrelevant as to whether they're escapism or not.) Hot take: The problem isn't "shallow movies" or similar. It's that well-enough-off people are increasingly getting bored. [0] Hell, I'd even extend that to most art.
- the_af 7y ago
  What's your definition of "escapism". How is watching Irréversible escapism?
  - Quekid5 7y ago
    In the same way that RFAD is. It distracts from one's own life and "at least I haven't got it that bad".
    - the_af 7y ago
      Fair enough, but do note that's not what most people (or dictionaries) mean by "escapism" -- and your interpretation will puzzle people who use it in a derogatory manner. When discussing fiction such as movies, books or shows, the most commonly accepted meaning is of a thrilling fantasy, usually with a strong component of wish-fulfillment or adventure, that allows one to be distracted of the boring realities of actual life. Neither Requiem for a Dream nor Irréversible are escapism in that sense. In fact they are terrifying movies, with zero wish-fulfillment, and which often remind you of real life rather than distracting you from it. As an aside, if what you got from those movies was "at least I don't have it that bad" then you got a completely different message than me...

nabla9 7y ago

The fact that escapism and fun is of certain style and theme tells a lot about the mind of people who consume it and people who provide it. Also the underlying assumption that something you watch for fun and entertainment must be mindless and stick to repetitive format seems to be weak.

EliRivers 7y ago

What is being escaped? In these movies, the heroes don't seem to be seeking to make significant changes. To escape anything. Status quo preservation is the game. It's the opposite of escapism; for the audience, it's a comforting blanket of things remain the same. Perhaps that's what they need. (Yes, they're escpaing doing the housework for three hours while they go to the movies; if we're going to discuss superhero movies, a brutal literal interpretation of everything is not helpful :) )

deleted 7y ago

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scarejunba 7y ago

Well, it's sort of like the Bechdel Test. A single movie can fail it and it means little for its quality (12 Angry Men, for instance) but if the overwhelming number of movies fail it then we know something's up.

IOT_Apprentice 7y ago

This is ludicrous. Historically, all cultures have tales and myths involving heroes and villains, including in religious texts. Is the illiad for 12 year olds? Is Arthur and the Round table (Le Mort de Arthur) or Jason and the Argonauts or the works of Ovid not stories of superheros? All cultures have had stories which have been transmitted orally, via song, via poems, via books and even gasp via comics.