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Seriously? Selective sampling and click bait. Two recent programs come to mind and I'm sure this list is not exhaustive. "The boys" and "Orville". Both chock f

Seriously? Selective sampling and click bait. Two recent programs come to mind and I'm sure this list is not exhaustive. "The boys" and "Orville". Both chock full of "heroes" who in-between being heroes are preoccupied with banging each other, getting drunk, eating or failing themselves. The last episode of "The Boys" ends with Homelander jerking off while perched on a ledge over the city and raging at the unfairness of life. It's certainly a comment on the blandness of the Marvel universe and Orville is a superior and cutting rip off of Star Trek which has become bland and inoffensive in it's latest incarnations. Orville cuts pretty close to the limit for whatever rating it has. The two "gay" aliens and the holodeck porn episode come to mind. It was done fairly well. Stressed out officer on a star ship gets a holodeck porn addiction and is no longer able to relate to or face his life partners demands for attention. It's not heroic and not glorious but relatively human. Orville's officers like to fuck. They order booze from the matter synthesizers and they get depressed and do stupid things. Of course it is still "star trek" and there are always happy endings and everybody learns a lesson at the end. It doesn't drift too far from the genre. However the article takes a selective slice of current cinematic culture and tries to pretend there are no other options out there whilst at the same time looking back at 80's and 90's cinema as if it was the age of body positive cinema.

deleted 6y ago
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_blu 6y ago
who's being selective? neither of your examples are mainstream. and isn't the Boys based on an old comic series? And it's certainly made to be a comment on the sexless trope we see in todays superheroes
- injidup 6y ago
  Mainstream? "The boys" is one of the most popular series on Amazon prime. It is certainly not a basement cult series known only to a few nerds. Yes it is based on an old comic. But so what. Most "stories" are recycled or "based on". Shakespeare did this as well.
  - pjc50 6y ago
    On Amazon, yes. Not in the cinema. Cinema is what the original article is talking about.
    - injidup 6y ago
      Perhaps the difference is important. Maybe not. Certainly the boundaries between "cinema" and "tv" are blurred with many people consuming most material via streaming. But maybe "series" can take more risk with the material than a "movie" just because the unit cost of a single "failure" can be amortized through the season if the the majority of episodes shine.
      - pjc50 6y ago
        I believe it's the market/censorship dynamics driving this; films targeting China and India (which is most really big budget Hollywood films) have much tighter control because the target markets accept less. Whereas streaming is smaller, cheaper, and targeted at more local audiences.
- dllthomas 6y ago
  If we can't count The Boys because it's based on an older comic, what do we say about the MCU movies central to the thesis?
- Blaiz0r 6y ago
  agreed, and The Boys has had success exactly because it stands out against the current normal action film/tv
ikurei 6y ago
As others said, I think you're being selective. The article focuses on mainstream action movies. The boys has had great success but still has orders of mangnitude less cultural impact than the MCU for instance. It's actually making, to some extent, the same point the article is making: super hero movies are bland and childish. I didn't even know what Orville is, sounds interesting. I'd say the _slice of current cinematic culture_ selected by the article is broad and impactful, and represents fairly well an important part of the whole. It's not the whole story, and you're right in pointing that out, but I don't agree that that invalidates the article.
- TheRealDunkirk 6y ago
  > The boys has had great success but still has orders of mangnitude less cultural impact than the MCU for instance. It's actually making, to some extent, the same point the article is making: super hero movies are bland and childish. I would think the approach would garner a little more sympathy in a forum populated by a lot people who work for companies that exist solely to divine a specific, incremental slice of human desire, and architect vast amounts of human capital to create an app to fulfill it, and make stupid amounts of money in the process. The people behind the MCU laugh at the notion that they have made a "bland" or "sexless" or <insert pejorative here> product, all the way to bank, with TRAIN LOADS of money.
BiteCode_dev 6y ago
What's more, tv shows are also often adapted from comics or books in a way that satisfy the advertisers. Take lockes and keys on netflix. The original comics is very violent. The murdered rape the kids mother, and when he escapes jail, he pays his ride by sucking dicks. He has horrible scars because the big brother trashed him with a brick in a blood frenzy that is visually rehashed as a memory regularly in the first tome. Bode sister hurt herself and his little bro while hidding because she is holding so hard. None of that made it into the tv show despite the fact it makes the story better: the characters make more sense, their reactions are congruent with their tragedy.
Barrin92 6y ago
Homelander jerking off in the Boys isn't what the author is talking about. He's talking about sensuality or eroticism, not public masturbation for shock value, which is what the Boys is all about (and it also applies to the violence in the show). I haven't seen the Orville but from the way you describe it it fits exactly into the authors description. Modern sexuality as a pathology and disease that gets in the way of 'healthy living'. Actual eroticism is almost completely absent from modern fiction.

deleted 6y ago

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_blu 6y ago

who's being selective? neither of your examples are mainstream. and isn't the Boys based on an old comic series? And it's certainly made to be a comment on the sexless trope we see in todays superheroes

injidup 6y ago
Mainstream? "The boys" is one of the most popular series on Amazon prime. It is certainly not a basement cult series known only to a few nerds. Yes it is based on an old comic. But so what. Most "stories" are recycled or "based on". Shakespeare did this as well.
- pjc50 6y ago
  On Amazon, yes. Not in the cinema. Cinema is what the original article is talking about.
  - injidup 6y ago
    Perhaps the difference is important. Maybe not. Certainly the boundaries between "cinema" and "tv" are blurred with many people consuming most material via streaming. But maybe "series" can take more risk with the material than a "movie" just because the unit cost of a single "failure" can be amortized through the season if the the majority of episodes shine.
    - pjc50 6y ago
      I believe it's the market/censorship dynamics driving this; films targeting China and India (which is most really big budget Hollywood films) have much tighter control because the target markets accept less. Whereas streaming is smaller, cheaper, and targeted at more local audiences.
dllthomas 6y ago
If we can't count The Boys because it's based on an older comic, what do we say about the MCU movies central to the thesis?
Blaiz0r 6y ago
agreed, and The Boys has had success exactly because it stands out against the current normal action film/tv

ikurei 6y ago

As others said, I think you're being selective. The article focuses on mainstream action movies. The boys has had great success but still has orders of mangnitude less cultural impact than the MCU for instance. It's actually making, to some extent, the same point the article is making: super hero movies are bland and childish. I didn't even know what Orville is, sounds interesting. I'd say the _slice of current cinematic culture_ selected by the article is broad and impactful, and represents fairly well an important part of the whole. It's not the whole story, and you're right in pointing that out, but I don't agree that that invalidates the article.

TheRealDunkirk 6y ago
> The boys has had great success but still has orders of mangnitude less cultural impact than the MCU for instance. It's actually making, to some extent, the same point the article is making: super hero movies are bland and childish. I would think the approach would garner a little more sympathy in a forum populated by a lot people who work for companies that exist solely to divine a specific, incremental slice of human desire, and architect vast amounts of human capital to create an app to fulfill it, and make stupid amounts of money in the process. The people behind the MCU laugh at the notion that they have made a "bland" or "sexless" or <insert pejorative here> product, all the way to bank, with TRAIN LOADS of money.

BiteCode_dev 6y ago

What's more, tv shows are also often adapted from comics or books in a way that satisfy the advertisers. Take lockes and keys on netflix. The original comics is very violent. The murdered rape the kids mother, and when he escapes jail, he pays his ride by sucking dicks. He has horrible scars because the big brother trashed him with a brick in a blood frenzy that is visually rehashed as a memory regularly in the first tome. Bode sister hurt herself and his little bro while hidding because she is holding so hard. None of that made it into the tv show despite the fact it makes the story better: the characters make more sense, their reactions are congruent with their tragedy.

Barrin92 6y ago

Homelander jerking off in the Boys isn't what the author is talking about. He's talking about sensuality or eroticism, not public masturbation for shock value, which is what the Boys is all about (and it also applies to the violence in the show). I haven't seen the Orville but from the way you describe it it fits exactly into the authors description. Modern sexuality as a pathology and disease that gets in the way of 'healthy living'. Actual eroticism is almost completely absent from modern fiction.