Is America Really Running Out of Original Ideas?
December 21, 2021 1:51 PM Subscribe
The nation’s crisis of originality isn’t in our minds, but in our markets. Take movies, for example. In the essay, I observed that the share of Hollywood blockbusters that are sequels, adaptations, or reboots has increased steadily this century. But is this evidence that today’s screenwriters are “running out of ideas”? Not really, and suggesting that they are innately less capable of conceiving of non-sequels than they used to be is kind of absurd. (And I’m a little embarrassed that I implicitly made that suggestion!)
What’s changed isn’t minds but markets—namely the international market for blockbusters. In the 1990s and early 2000s, the box office globalized around the same time that cable TV (and, eventually, streaming) came around to gobble up tens of billions of dollars’ worth of Hollywood stories. Studios responded by focusing on hits with worldwide appeal—it’s just a matter of fact that CGI is a more superior cinematic export than talky dramas—even as the talky-drama writers got plenty of opportunities to write for TV. Simultaneously, the rising cost of producing and marketing blockbusters encouraged the major studios to place their bets on safe projects.
These market shifts have created a self-perpetuating cycle: American moviegoers (criminally!) ignore well-reviewed original movies without CGI, since many of them reserve their few annual movie tickets for stories they already know. Movie studios both respond to this audience behavior and drive it, by investing more heavily in action-packed franchises, validating and deepening the audience desire for explosive sequels. Thus, the box office has been transformed by market dynamics from a showcase of original storytelling to a destination for new installments in familiar franchises.
What’s changed isn’t minds but markets—namely the international market for blockbusters. In the 1990s and early 2000s, the box office globalized around the same time that cable TV (and, eventually, streaming) came around to gobble up tens of billions of dollars’ worth of Hollywood stories. Studios responded by focusing on hits with worldwide appeal—it’s just a matter of fact that CGI is a more superior cinematic export than talky dramas—even as the talky-drama writers got plenty of opportunities to write for TV. Simultaneously, the rising cost of producing and marketing blockbusters encouraged the major studios to place their bets on safe projects.
These market shifts have created a self-perpetuating cycle: American moviegoers (criminally!) ignore well-reviewed original movies without CGI, since many of them reserve their few annual movie tickets for stories they already know. Movie studios both respond to this audience behavior and drive it, by investing more heavily in action-packed franchises, validating and deepening the audience desire for explosive sequels. Thus, the box office has been transformed by market dynamics from a showcase of original storytelling to a destination for new installments in familiar franchises.
Also, I get that "Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld" was a huge smash, but did we really need "Gilgamesh and Agga"? Can't people come up with new stories?
posted by signal at 2:12 PM on December 21, 2021 [11 favorites]
posted by signal at 2:12 PM on December 21, 2021 [11 favorites]
Books have ruined our children's ability to pay attention to rocks and hard labor.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 2:16 PM on December 21, 2021 [29 favorites]
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 2:16 PM on December 21, 2021 [29 favorites]
since you value invention how about inventing a fucking alternative to reducing everything in the human endeavor to performance in a fucking market
just an idea
posted by lalochezia at 2:17 PM on December 21, 2021 [22 favorites]
just an idea
posted by lalochezia at 2:17 PM on December 21, 2021 [22 favorites]
So, Hollywood = America's only source for originality? Yeah, no.
posted by coffeecat at 2:22 PM on December 21, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by coffeecat at 2:22 PM on December 21, 2021 [7 favorites]
It's easy to diss this kind of thinking but as a classic example of Betteridge's law the answer to the question Is America Really Running Out of Original Ideas? is an emphatic no. No one is running out of ideas. Never at any time in human history has there been so much artistic production, in every medium, everywhere. There is a huge amount of material published every day, books, movies, plays, ads, blogposts, magazine articles, operas, musicals, videogames, TV series, you name it, in every language and all around the world. Most of it isn't original in the least, but some of it is. The problem isn't Betteridge, it's Sturgeon!
posted by chavenet at 2:24 PM on December 21, 2021 [16 favorites]
posted by chavenet at 2:24 PM on December 21, 2021 [16 favorites]
Two Jacobin takes on the entertainment industry I've come across lately: Movies are worse now because their corporate funders are risk averse, in which Martin Scorsese would like you to get off his lawn, and Entertainment monopolies are zombifying mass culture, which takes aim at two of the biggest fish in the barrel, late-period Simpsons and the Space Jam remake.
posted by box at 2:28 PM on December 21, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by box at 2:28 PM on December 21, 2021 [7 favorites]
And hence, I stopped going to movies over ten years ago. The two exceptions were Jodorowsky’s last two films. No interest in CGI spectacles, and audience behavior is annoying.
posted by njohnson23 at 2:41 PM on December 21, 2021
posted by njohnson23 at 2:41 PM on December 21, 2021
Hi, I'm a sci-fi/fantasy writer. Spring of 2020 was my first conversation with a Hollywood studio exec. He contacted me, I checked him out, he was for real. No, it didn't come to anything.
The thing he told me in that conversation that stuck with me: the lack of originality in Hollywood isn't remotely about creativity. It's the studio chiefs and the fear of risk. That's why we have so many remakes and reboots and why franchises get strung out so much. It's not even about CGI or genre or any of that; it's just studios being afraid to take risks on new things. He said, "Nobody wants to do a deal they haven't done before."
posted by scaryblackdeath at 2:43 PM on December 21, 2021 [46 favorites]
The thing he told me in that conversation that stuck with me: the lack of originality in Hollywood isn't remotely about creativity. It's the studio chiefs and the fear of risk. That's why we have so many remakes and reboots and why franchises get strung out so much. It's not even about CGI or genre or any of that; it's just studios being afraid to take risks on new things. He said, "Nobody wants to do a deal they haven't done before."
posted by scaryblackdeath at 2:43 PM on December 21, 2021 [46 favorites]
On the other hand, while Marvel movies are derivative and formulaic, (but still fun!), the concept of the Marvel Cinematic Universe - dozens of loosely-connected movies with different writers, directors, and actors telling a broad, overarching story - is fairly innovative, and while others have tried it before and since, nobody has done it nearly as well as Marvel has over the past 15 years.
posted by Hatashran at 2:49 PM on December 21, 2021 [25 favorites]
posted by Hatashran at 2:49 PM on December 21, 2021 [25 favorites]
If you're not a big comics fan, it's hard to tell there's anything else being made these days. I know there is but those movies don't get much attention and you have to wonder how much longer they'll be made before the filmmakers throw in the towel. That would be a shame and a loss but making films isn't charity work and no one can afford to do it forever if they can't make any money.
posted by tommasz at 2:51 PM on December 21, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by tommasz at 2:51 PM on December 21, 2021 [6 favorites]
I was close to posting an FPP on Thompson's previous article, linked in the first line of this one, entitled America is running on fumes. In short, he identifies three items that's preventing new ideas:
1. The big marketplace of attention
2. The creep of gerontocracy (old people)
3. The rise of “vetocracy”
His follow up here seems to rephrase the problem as "we have a market problem" and maybe, America doesn't have those three original problems, which makes no sense. Also, his definition of "market" here seems to ignore that for the science and hardware subjects, these are heavily driven by government which is not a traditional "market". We went to space because of the government, we invented the internet because of the government, we have vaccines due to the government. But our government is increasingly polluted by people who are more interested in mining social clout to get reelected instead of performing good governance; it's also run by a lot of out of touch old people; and our two party system is very good at vetoing any progress.
posted by meowzilla at 2:51 PM on December 21, 2021 [7 favorites]
1. The big marketplace of attention
2. The creep of gerontocracy (old people)
3. The rise of “vetocracy”
His follow up here seems to rephrase the problem as "we have a market problem" and maybe, America doesn't have those three original problems, which makes no sense. Also, his definition of "market" here seems to ignore that for the science and hardware subjects, these are heavily driven by government which is not a traditional "market". We went to space because of the government, we invented the internet because of the government, we have vaccines due to the government. But our government is increasingly polluted by people who are more interested in mining social clout to get reelected instead of performing good governance; it's also run by a lot of out of touch old people; and our two party system is very good at vetoing any progress.
posted by meowzilla at 2:51 PM on December 21, 2021 [7 favorites]
It's a shame how every movie these days has to be about 'special effects', what happened to good old fashioned films?
posted by signal at 2:51 PM on December 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by signal at 2:51 PM on December 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
The funny thing is "dozens of loosely-connected stories with different writers, artists, and editors telling a broad overarching story" is a good description of the comic book series that most of the MCU is based on. The only innovation is getting it to work in movie theaters instead of on a spinner rack.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 2:52 PM on December 21, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 2:52 PM on December 21, 2021 [4 favorites]
I ignore most of the MCU and DC movies because I'm a big comics fan.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 2:53 PM on December 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 2:53 PM on December 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
When talking about sequels, prequels, dequels, and reboots, I think that there is the famous Henson Exception where "but with Muppets" should never ever be viewed as "running out of ideas".
posted by NoThisIsPatrick at 3:02 PM on December 21, 2021 [14 favorites]
posted by NoThisIsPatrick at 3:02 PM on December 21, 2021 [14 favorites]
tommasz: "If you're not a big comics fan, it's hard to tell there's anything else being made these days."
Sorry, but no. There's thousands of movies coming out, through traditional channels, on the many different streaming services—including youtube and vimeo—and in meatspace and digital festivals all around the world. These movies are much more diverse than in the past, many made by historically excluded groups telling their stories for the first time in the medium.
Ditto for short stories, books, comics, music, games, &c.
We live in a golden age of creativity.
posted by signal at 3:02 PM on December 21, 2021 [28 favorites]
Sorry, but no. There's thousands of movies coming out, through traditional channels, on the many different streaming services—including youtube and vimeo—and in meatspace and digital festivals all around the world. These movies are much more diverse than in the past, many made by historically excluded groups telling their stories for the first time in the medium.
Ditto for short stories, books, comics, music, games, &c.
We live in a golden age of creativity.
posted by signal at 3:02 PM on December 21, 2021 [28 favorites]
I, wanna see it.
America should lose its consumption of gratuitous violence in the form of a new genre. call it post-cinema. Not predictable, over soundtracked, diluting alot of story arcs in an age of presequel.
posted by clavdivs at 3:04 PM on December 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
America should lose its consumption of gratuitous violence in the form of a new genre. call it post-cinema. Not predictable, over soundtracked, diluting alot of story arcs in an age of presequel.
posted by clavdivs at 3:04 PM on December 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
In the essay, I observed that the share of Hollywood blockbusters that are sequels, adaptations, or reboots has increased steadily this century.
The first Tony award for Best New Musical was given in 1949; the first winner of Best New Musical that wasn't an adaptation or reboot was arguably the 10th winner, The Music Man; although three of the five nominees that year were. And this period includes a lot of stone cold classic musicals, like South Pacific (James Mitchener adaptation), My Fair Lady (Shaw adaptation) and West Side Story (Shakespeare reboot).
posted by Superilla at 3:05 PM on December 21, 2021 [5 favorites]
The first Tony award for Best New Musical was given in 1949; the first winner of Best New Musical that wasn't an adaptation or reboot was arguably the 10th winner, The Music Man; although three of the five nominees that year were. And this period includes a lot of stone cold classic musicals, like South Pacific (James Mitchener adaptation), My Fair Lady (Shaw adaptation) and West Side Story (Shakespeare reboot).
posted by Superilla at 3:05 PM on December 21, 2021 [5 favorites]
We live in a golden age of creativity.
I totally agree, but it can be hard to sift through to find the things that you will like. I know there are movies on Netflix that I find appealing*, but it seems like there is no way to find them except through random chance and an actual effort to combat their algorithm which really wants me to watch whatever the new Ryan Reynolds movie is.
*Aside from my love of the Netflix holiday romcoms and my inexplicable weakness for Adam Sandler movies, which are easy to find.
posted by Literaryhero at 3:39 PM on December 21, 2021 [6 favorites]
I totally agree, but it can be hard to sift through to find the things that you will like. I know there are movies on Netflix that I find appealing*, but it seems like there is no way to find them except through random chance and an actual effort to combat their algorithm which really wants me to watch whatever the new Ryan Reynolds movie is.
*Aside from my love of the Netflix holiday romcoms and my inexplicable weakness for Adam Sandler movies, which are easy to find.
posted by Literaryhero at 3:39 PM on December 21, 2021 [6 favorites]
The links box shared above were what I was thinking too: cinema is largely controlled by a handful of large companies, and large companies tend to be very risk-averse. The rise of meticulous, exhaustive in-house analytics (being able to know, for instance, which audiences stopped watching something on one’s own streaming service) only contribute to this. New ideas are welcomed, but the platforms where they are given a go are smaller and/or more independent.
Incredibly, I’m going to tie this to cookies. Have you been in an American grocery store cookie aisle? Odds are good there are, say, 20 varieties of Oreos. These are all sandwich cookies of course, but why all Oreo? Why not different brands? Less risk and less cost. But the idea is the same: they’re all sandwich cookies. Same formula, with years of brand loyalty (guh) and fans. Easy sell.
For truly new ideas? Let a startup take on all that risk and prove a market; a BigCo can then just buy the brand and IP. Tidy, but boring, and reinforces so many systemic problems.
Which is where we’re at with movies. There will always be interesting things, but they’re gonna be harder to find, and likely in more controlled settings where companies can really see if there’s anything there. If there is, expect an entire universe of stories around it. Lots of ideas, constrained. 40 Star Trek series. 800 Marvel movies. Phineas and Ferb crossovers with Star Wars. Prequels of prequels. Sequels of sequels.
posted by hijinx at 3:49 PM on December 21, 2021 [4 favorites]
Incredibly, I’m going to tie this to cookies. Have you been in an American grocery store cookie aisle? Odds are good there are, say, 20 varieties of Oreos. These are all sandwich cookies of course, but why all Oreo? Why not different brands? Less risk and less cost. But the idea is the same: they’re all sandwich cookies. Same formula, with years of brand loyalty (guh) and fans. Easy sell.
For truly new ideas? Let a startup take on all that risk and prove a market; a BigCo can then just buy the brand and IP. Tidy, but boring, and reinforces so many systemic problems.
Which is where we’re at with movies. There will always be interesting things, but they’re gonna be harder to find, and likely in more controlled settings where companies can really see if there’s anything there. If there is, expect an entire universe of stories around it. Lots of ideas, constrained. 40 Star Trek series. 800 Marvel movies. Phineas and Ferb crossovers with Star Wars. Prequels of prequels. Sequels of sequels.
posted by hijinx at 3:49 PM on December 21, 2021 [4 favorites]
As Bob Dylan sang in Brownsville Girl,
Oh if there's an original thought out there, I could use it right now
...A song for which he got a shout out from Gregory Peck at his own Kennedy Center honors in 1997.
Quoth Dick Proenneke: You can't beat that.
posted by y2karl at 3:54 PM on December 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
Oh if there's an original thought out there, I could use it right now
...A song for which he got a shout out from Gregory Peck at his own Kennedy Center honors in 1997.
Quoth Dick Proenneke: You can't beat that.
posted by y2karl at 3:54 PM on December 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
I love cookies but I’d be fine with say 10 total varieties, occupying maybe 15 feet of shelf space. We don’t need a “chips aisle”, “candy aisle”, “cookie aisle”, “soda aisle”, and 200 feet of refrigerated ice cream variants. Too many choices! Sell me something that’s not terrible for me. Same for movies if you follow me. I can imagine the special effects on my own most of the time - they get boring eventually. Remember the first season of GoT where they just talked about the aftermath of the battle in tents instead of staging a 10 jillion dollar CGI scene? Totally ok with that.
posted by freecellwizard at 3:57 PM on December 21, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by freecellwizard at 3:57 PM on December 21, 2021 [3 favorites]
In defense of remakes and prequels and sequels I have to point out that re-adaptations of scripts are what live theater is all about, and if the celluloid users do the same thing, it does not mean they are out of ideas.
posted by ocschwar at 4:04 PM on December 21, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by ocschwar at 4:04 PM on December 21, 2021 [5 favorites]
I have not RTFA, and probably shall not since it’s taking quite the drubbing here, but I wanted to admit the way in which I’m part of the problem: if there are two movies I want to see, one a flashy CGI spectacle and the other a talky drama, but I only have opportunity to see one in the theater, I’ll go for the CGI spectacle, since it will lose more of its effect if I wait to watch it at home. I’ll watch the talky drama when it comes to rental or streaming, but my box office dollars will have spoken in a way I don’t entirely intend.
posted by ejs at 4:12 PM on December 21, 2021 [13 favorites]
posted by ejs at 4:12 PM on December 21, 2021 [13 favorites]
if there are two movies I want to see, one a flashy CGI spectacle and the other a talky drama, but I only have opportunity to see one in the theater, I’ll go for the CGI spectacle, since it will lose more of its effect if I wait to watch it at home.
yes, and also, if i don't expect the movie to be loud for most of its running time i will probably skip it in the theater since i expect it to be ruined for me by people talking in the audience. so the talky drama actually benefits from private viewing.
posted by The Minotaur at 4:34 PM on December 21, 2021 [3 favorites]
yes, and also, if i don't expect the movie to be loud for most of its running time i will probably skip it in the theater since i expect it to be ruined for me by people talking in the audience. so the talky drama actually benefits from private viewing.
posted by The Minotaur at 4:34 PM on December 21, 2021 [3 favorites]
I will happily go watch aliens-and-explosions movies in a theater, and then get most of my entertainment from reading books and watching random things on YouTube.
posted by Foosnark at 4:42 PM on December 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Foosnark at 4:42 PM on December 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
And hence, I stopped going to movies over ten years ago. The two exceptions were Jodorowsky’s last two films. No interest in CGI spectacles, and audience behavior is annoying.
Not to interrupt your old man scolds kid cloud speech, but if you go see movies basically any time not on opening night, it’s probably you alone or maybe a few other people quietly also avoiding crowds.
It’s a very enjoyable time. And believe it or not, Mr Ridley, they are making non-superhero movies.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 5:20 PM on December 21, 2021 [6 favorites]
Not to interrupt your old man scolds kid cloud speech, but if you go see movies basically any time not on opening night, it’s probably you alone or maybe a few other people quietly also avoiding crowds.
It’s a very enjoyable time. And believe it or not, Mr Ridley, they are making non-superhero movies.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 5:20 PM on December 21, 2021 [6 favorites]
I'm not a fan of MCU, but hey they actually manufactured a few artifacts that I didn't hate: Ragnarok & Infinity War were entertaining. Into the Spiderverse was rather dazzling, but maybe not exactly MCU.
posted by ovvl at 5:22 PM on December 21, 2021
posted by ovvl at 5:22 PM on December 21, 2021
Also, I get that "Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld" was a huge smash, but did we really need "Gilgamesh and Agga"? Can't people come up with new stories?
Don't even get me started on all these epic poems, oh great another guy is blessed by one god and cursed by another and now he's got to wander around a bit. I mean, come on. Are poets running out of creativity?
posted by Gygesringtone at 5:26 PM on December 21, 2021 [3 favorites]
Don't even get me started on all these epic poems, oh great another guy is blessed by one god and cursed by another and now he's got to wander around a bit. I mean, come on. Are poets running out of creativity?
posted by Gygesringtone at 5:26 PM on December 21, 2021 [3 favorites]
On the other hand, while Marvel movies are derivative and formulaic, (but still fun!), the concept of the Marvel Cinematic Universe - dozens of loosely-connected movies with different writers, directors, and actors telling a broad, overarching story - is fairly innovative, and while others have tried it before and since, nobody has done it nearly as well as Marvel has over the past 15 years.
As a person who is not a fan of comic movies and avoids them, I thought this was a really interesting point. I can see how that is part of the appeal.
It's not that there are only sequels being made, but since those get all the marketing dollars and have the big budgets, they take up a lot of oxygen in the room these days.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:33 PM on December 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
As a person who is not a fan of comic movies and avoids them, I thought this was a really interesting point. I can see how that is part of the appeal.
It's not that there are only sequels being made, but since those get all the marketing dollars and have the big budgets, they take up a lot of oxygen in the room these days.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:33 PM on December 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
I don't really understand why comic book movie fans are so touchy about articles like this. You won.
Try and be graceful about it.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 5:56 PM on December 21, 2021 [25 favorites]
Try and be graceful about it.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 5:56 PM on December 21, 2021 [25 favorites]
...if you go see movies basically any time not on opening night, it’s probably you alone or maybe a few other people quietly also avoiding crowds.
I recommend first matinees. I saw Jurassic Park with about 40 other people in the King theater at the 3:30 PM first showing. Line was down the block and around the corner when we came out. The same was true when I saw Alien at UA 150. Boy, seeing that movie in a half-empty theater made it so much scarier. I watched the last five minutes from behind the curtain in the lobby.
posted by y2karl at 6:15 PM on December 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
I recommend first matinees. I saw Jurassic Park with about 40 other people in the King theater at the 3:30 PM first showing. Line was down the block and around the corner when we came out. The same was true when I saw Alien at UA 150. Boy, seeing that movie in a half-empty theater made it so much scarier. I watched the last five minutes from behind the curtain in the lobby.
posted by y2karl at 6:15 PM on December 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
There were six "Thin Man" movies. More than a dozen "Andy Hardy" movies. An endless number of Dracula and Mummy and Werewolf films. Sooooooooo many Sherlock Holmes films. This isn't even counting actual serials. The first 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was in 1910, and so on.
None of this is new. It's literally as old as movies. Not to mention Shakespeare knew a franchise when we saw it, which is why we have all those Royal plays. And etc.
I wonder why people continually forget this. Then I remember writers need to pitch stories to eat.
posted by jscalzi at 6:56 PM on December 21, 2021 [24 favorites]
None of this is new. It's literally as old as movies. Not to mention Shakespeare knew a franchise when we saw it, which is why we have all those Royal plays. And etc.
I wonder why people continually forget this. Then I remember writers need to pitch stories to eat.
posted by jscalzi at 6:56 PM on December 21, 2021 [24 favorites]
There were six "Thin Man" movies. More than a dozen "Andy Hardy" movies.
And dozens of other series that have now been largely forgotten, like Boston Blackie, that were also popular in their time.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:12 PM on December 21, 2021 [3 favorites]
And dozens of other series that have now been largely forgotten, like Boston Blackie, that were also popular in their time.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:12 PM on December 21, 2021 [3 favorites]
When talking about sequels, prequels, dequels, and reboots, I think that there is the famous Henson Exception where "but with Muppets" should never ever be viewed as "running out of ideas".
Yes, but that is because The Muppets are a theater company. They can put on all kinds of shows and tell any number of great stories, and we enjoy watching them because we enjoy watching THEM do the performance.
posted by hippybear at 7:14 PM on December 21, 2021 [15 favorites]
Yes, but that is because The Muppets are a theater company. They can put on all kinds of shows and tell any number of great stories, and we enjoy watching them because we enjoy watching THEM do the performance.
posted by hippybear at 7:14 PM on December 21, 2021 [15 favorites]
Hollywood has never been good at original ideas. The Hollywood studio system is an investment vehicle, and they go for what they believe to be sure fire returns on investment.
They are making money, not art, and it's only happenstance than anything good is ever made.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 7:19 PM on December 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
They are making money, not art, and it's only happenstance than anything good is ever made.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 7:19 PM on December 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
There were six "Thin Man" movies. More than a dozen "Andy Hardy" movies.
And dozens of other series that have now been largely forgotten, like Boston Blackie, that were also popular in their time.
They made 28 Blondie movies.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 7:30 PM on December 21, 2021 [6 favorites]
And dozens of other series that have now been largely forgotten, like Boston Blackie, that were also popular in their time.
They made 28 Blondie movies.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 7:30 PM on December 21, 2021 [6 favorites]
They made 28 Blondie movies.
Deb Harry never gets old.
posted by maxwelton at 8:46 PM on December 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
Deb Harry never gets old.
posted by maxwelton at 8:46 PM on December 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
Deb Harry never gets old.
I dunno.. I saw Blondie with Devo a few years ago, and she was not in the best of form.
posted by hippybear at 8:49 PM on December 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
I dunno.. I saw Blondie with Devo a few years ago, and she was not in the best of form.
posted by hippybear at 8:49 PM on December 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
The first Tony award for Best New Musical was given in 1949; the first winner of Best New Musical that wasn't an adaptation or reboot was arguably the 10th winner, The Music Man; although three of the five nominees that year were. And this period includes a lot of stone cold classic musicals, like South Pacific (James Mitchener adaptation), My Fair Lady (Shaw adaptation) and West Side Story (Shakespeare reboot).
Yeah, but this is a phenomenon that is particular to musicals because musicals are freaking hard to produce. A musical needs excellent music, excellent lyrics, both of which connect effectively to the drama on stage - if you add the additional risk of doing an original story, you multiply risk of suckage for anyone who needs to buy into the production: talent, investors, venues, audiences, etc.
Those points are why most great musicals are adaptations. So it's tough to argue that it's all a bad thing. But those points don't all hold true for, say, Inception, and they're not historically as true for Hollywood.
But there's an interesting case to be made that this *is* the case for the kinds of movies Marvel makes.
Which brings me to my thesis: Hawkeye rules, go watch the Avengers musical in the first episode right now if you haven't yet
posted by billjings at 9:18 PM on December 21, 2021 [3 favorites]
Yeah, but this is a phenomenon that is particular to musicals because musicals are freaking hard to produce. A musical needs excellent music, excellent lyrics, both of which connect effectively to the drama on stage - if you add the additional risk of doing an original story, you multiply risk of suckage for anyone who needs to buy into the production: talent, investors, venues, audiences, etc.
Those points are why most great musicals are adaptations. So it's tough to argue that it's all a bad thing. But those points don't all hold true for, say, Inception, and they're not historically as true for Hollywood.
But there's an interesting case to be made that this *is* the case for the kinds of movies Marvel makes.
Which brings me to my thesis: Hawkeye rules, go watch the Avengers musical in the first episode right now if you haven't yet
posted by billjings at 9:18 PM on December 21, 2021 [3 favorites]
On the superhero tip, I'm still waiting for something/anything that comes close to either Buckaroo Banzai or the original Adam West Batman TV show. Nothing else I've seen comes close to getting the tone right.
posted by philip-random at 9:19 PM on December 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by philip-random at 9:19 PM on December 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
It's pretty justifiable for studios to be risk averse. A few hundred million still counts as a pretty good hunk of change to toss around. Even so, we absolutely are in a golden age of cinema, and it's far easier to produce and distribute a film than it's ever been, even for complete amateurs. I don't even bemoan the difficulty in finding anything other than huge blockbusters. In the good old days, the only movies you were ever likely to see were made by the big studio gatekeepers.
I am pretty sick of superhero movies, but that's because I grew out of superheroes by the time I was old enough to get a driver's license. Totally my hang up. If you like them, good for you.
There were six "Thin Man" movies. More than a dozen "Andy Hardy" movies.
And dozens of other series that have now been largely forgotten, like Boston Blackie, that were also popular in their time.
They made 28 Blondie movies.
When I was a kid here in L.A., there was a small uhf channel that was practically dedicated to showing old Bowery Boys/East Side Kids movies. I don't know how many dozens were made back in the day, but they must have turned a profit for a pretty long time. And they were all pretty interchangeable. You could tune in that channel any time for 45 minutes and see the same faces up to the same hijinx in movies that spanned over 20 years. FWIW, I'm guessing that small uhf channel broadcast those movies because they acquired the catalog for little or nothing at all, rather than dedication to preserving the cultural legacy of those rascally street toughs.
posted by 2N2222 at 9:30 PM on December 21, 2021
I am pretty sick of superhero movies, but that's because I grew out of superheroes by the time I was old enough to get a driver's license. Totally my hang up. If you like them, good for you.
There were six "Thin Man" movies. More than a dozen "Andy Hardy" movies.
And dozens of other series that have now been largely forgotten, like Boston Blackie, that were also popular in their time.
They made 28 Blondie movies.
When I was a kid here in L.A., there was a small uhf channel that was practically dedicated to showing old Bowery Boys/East Side Kids movies. I don't know how many dozens were made back in the day, but they must have turned a profit for a pretty long time. And they were all pretty interchangeable. You could tune in that channel any time for 45 minutes and see the same faces up to the same hijinx in movies that spanned over 20 years. FWIW, I'm guessing that small uhf channel broadcast those movies because they acquired the catalog for little or nothing at all, rather than dedication to preserving the cultural legacy of those rascally street toughs.
posted by 2N2222 at 9:30 PM on December 21, 2021
the first winner of Best New Musical that wasn't an adaptation or reboot was arguably the 10th winner, The Music Man
Wait what? The Music Man was on Broadway winning awards 5 years before the film was made.
posted by hippybear at 9:37 PM on December 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
Wait what? The Music Man was on Broadway winning awards 5 years before the film was made.
posted by hippybear at 9:37 PM on December 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
There's thousands of movies coming out, through traditional channels, on the many different streaming services—including youtube and vimeo—and in meatspace and digital festivals all around the world. These movies are much more diverse than in the past, many made by historically excluded groups telling their stories for the first time in the medium.
But few to none of them get to my local cinema. If I want to go to the cinema, my options are pretty much blockbusters, or travel. And I'm not travelling for the cinema (least of all now). I wouldn't mind, there is an extent to which it was always thus, but it does feel like "blockbuster" covers an ever narrowing field.
In defense of remakes and prequels and sequels I have to point out that re-adaptations of scripts are what live theater is all about, and if the celluloid users do the same thing, it does not mean they are out of ideas.
The difference is that you can't go back and see the theatre production from thirty years ago - you go see the one they're doing now. You can still see the film from thirty years ago. There isn't the same need to repeat things, similarly to how you get tribute bands playing live, but rarely rerecording albums.
posted by Dysk at 9:59 PM on December 21, 2021 [5 favorites]
But few to none of them get to my local cinema. If I want to go to the cinema, my options are pretty much blockbusters, or travel. And I'm not travelling for the cinema (least of all now). I wouldn't mind, there is an extent to which it was always thus, but it does feel like "blockbuster" covers an ever narrowing field.
In defense of remakes and prequels and sequels I have to point out that re-adaptations of scripts are what live theater is all about, and if the celluloid users do the same thing, it does not mean they are out of ideas.
The difference is that you can't go back and see the theatre production from thirty years ago - you go see the one they're doing now. You can still see the film from thirty years ago. There isn't the same need to repeat things, similarly to how you get tribute bands playing live, but rarely rerecording albums.
posted by Dysk at 9:59 PM on December 21, 2021 [5 favorites]
Yeah, there were a bunch of Blondie movies, Tarzan, and other "pulp" or light entertainment movies made. They were mostly made on the cheap intended as filler between big releases, not the dominant form for movies. That's the reason people aren't still talking about those Blondie movies, they were made to be enjoyed and forgotten, like sitcoms. Oh, sure, maybe they missed a trick by not making a "Comic strip cinematic universe" back in the day, where Blondie could have met the Katzenjammer Kids or Dagwood could have gotten into some hijinks with Dick Tracy and could still be reliving those wonderous days of the early comics as studios dumped their budgets into making more and more of them designed around studio IP concerns. Don't want to make anything too challenging and risk harming the franchise!
Last week the latest installment of the Spiders-Man franchise opened to 260M box office, while notable other movies, like Del Toro's Nightmare Alley, and Spielberg's West Side Story and so on were taking in less than 10m. That isn't how things always were, where one type of movie, and, basically, one corporation dominated the box office so utterly. People mock the metaverse, but when it comes to Disney they not only don't question their growing control over the market, but actively embrace and celebrate it as if wanting all movies to be filtered by what's best Disney's corporate values. Thanks to the internet, it isn't even just the movie itself that matters, but every outlet and "influencer" looking to get views attaches themselves to it like lamprey to a shark, hoping to get some of that sweet, sweet attention for themselves, amplifying the effect.
Sure, pandemic, but people still went to Spider-Man where the crowds would be largest, and, sure, streaming. That's been eating away at box office for years, we've discussed it here before. Movie going may be dying off regardless of Spider-Man and the few other tentpole nostalgia laden films that still find success as people become content with streaming, but the wide selection of options right now isn't likely to last as the money won't be there for all of it, leaving some few to control the "movie/tv" industry that's left. For now that still favors the US because the core problem remains neo-liberal capitalism rewarding the fewest with the most as people seek ease and convenience and find the money spent on familiar stories to be relaxing for not being a challenge then wonder why things turn out badly as more control is given to fewer and fewer hands and gesture for "someone" to fix things, but, ya know, fix it without inconveniencing us.
posted by gusottertrout at 11:24 PM on December 21, 2021 [5 favorites]
Last week the latest installment of the Spiders-Man franchise opened to 260M box office, while notable other movies, like Del Toro's Nightmare Alley, and Spielberg's West Side Story and so on were taking in less than 10m. That isn't how things always were, where one type of movie, and, basically, one corporation dominated the box office so utterly. People mock the metaverse, but when it comes to Disney they not only don't question their growing control over the market, but actively embrace and celebrate it as if wanting all movies to be filtered by what's best Disney's corporate values. Thanks to the internet, it isn't even just the movie itself that matters, but every outlet and "influencer" looking to get views attaches themselves to it like lamprey to a shark, hoping to get some of that sweet, sweet attention for themselves, amplifying the effect.
Sure, pandemic, but people still went to Spider-Man where the crowds would be largest, and, sure, streaming. That's been eating away at box office for years, we've discussed it here before. Movie going may be dying off regardless of Spider-Man and the few other tentpole nostalgia laden films that still find success as people become content with streaming, but the wide selection of options right now isn't likely to last as the money won't be there for all of it, leaving some few to control the "movie/tv" industry that's left. For now that still favors the US because the core problem remains neo-liberal capitalism rewarding the fewest with the most as people seek ease and convenience and find the money spent on familiar stories to be relaxing for not being a challenge then wonder why things turn out badly as more control is given to fewer and fewer hands and gesture for "someone" to fix things, but, ya know, fix it without inconveniencing us.
posted by gusottertrout at 11:24 PM on December 21, 2021 [5 favorites]
Literaryhero: "I totally agree, but it can be hard to sift through to find the things that you will like. "
There's a handy filter for that.
posted by chavenet at 2:00 AM on December 22, 2021 [3 favorites]
There's a handy filter for that.
posted by chavenet at 2:00 AM on December 22, 2021 [3 favorites]
This fuss about cinema is nostaligic for cinema being a big visual event, but we've disintermediated and you can get films on your portable phone and internet device. Look back and learn, sure, but look ahead and hope, too.
Today's world has huge problems with unsafe software running through our infrastructure and businesses, most work making software takes the approach cobbling together tools and libraries of code other people have already made. Funding was cited as a problem for this logging-user/attacker-supplied-data exploit in common Java library log4j. The way Java was marketed (write once run everywhere) and log4j made available (copyright is owned but no further rights are restricted) say that network effects and ubiquity are desired with terrible mono-cultural consequences.
In the last decade innovative markets have popped up: crowdfunding and this thing called Blockchain for secured accounting ledgers and this trend selling works of art with stake in the secured accounting ledgers. Even games companies are talking about putting things (ancilliary to their art, tbf they're enabling gambling for a cut) on these secured ledgers -- there's innovation in markets funding stuff, just not massive innovation in funding movies ... or for fighting climate change or resolving the gap between rich and poor.
posted by k3ninho at 2:29 AM on December 22, 2021
Today's world has huge problems with unsafe software running through our infrastructure and businesses, most work making software takes the approach cobbling together tools and libraries of code other people have already made. Funding was cited as a problem for this logging-user/attacker-supplied-data exploit in common Java library log4j. The way Java was marketed (write once run everywhere) and log4j made available (copyright is owned but no further rights are restricted) say that network effects and ubiquity are desired with terrible mono-cultural consequences.
In the last decade innovative markets have popped up: crowdfunding and this thing called Blockchain for secured accounting ledgers and this trend selling works of art with stake in the secured accounting ledgers. Even games companies are talking about putting things (ancilliary to their art, tbf they're enabling gambling for a cut) on these secured ledgers -- there's innovation in markets funding stuff, just not massive innovation in funding movies ... or for fighting climate change or resolving the gap between rich and poor.
posted by k3ninho at 2:29 AM on December 22, 2021
MCU blockbusters are fucking terrible, yes, but who cares? As the article suggests the thing you want is on TV now - just because it’s not a big budget cinema thing doesn’t mean the market / skill of making original or serious stories has left the industry. It’s probably even more financed and supported given the rise of streaming and streaming-service produced lower budget work.
posted by thedaniel at 4:53 AM on December 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by thedaniel at 4:53 AM on December 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
A handy app would be something that could look through this article, for example, and list which of the movies are on streaming services and where, for those of us that aren’t going to theaters. Or the website could just do it itself! There are some movies there I could put on my watch list, but clicking through the search menu on Netflix and Prime for even a couple is a chore. I know the power of the dog is on Netflix, but if any of the others are they aren’t being advertised where I’m seeing them.
posted by acantha at 5:12 AM on December 22, 2021
posted by acantha at 5:12 AM on December 22, 2021
And even if it's on tv, it depends on your geography (ETA to add an example: gunpowder milkshake not actually being on my market's Netflix until a month later. By then I've forgotten). All in all, there's something to be said about the squeezing of the middle-tier market: it's got to be massive movies (or movies made massive from clout) or tiny programmes. I'm not sure how it will all shake out.
It used to be there are reviewers you can depend on if not on their objectiveness but you know what they're partial to and the fact they get to suffer the vast array of media with the pay/resources to at least somewhat insulate them from a certain level of pressure to please everybody, but with fragmented markets everyone's beholden to something so every fandom channel declares each new movie as the most amazing or not at all or run the risk of losing access or copyright takedowns.
So that's the problem of cultural taste-making and agenda-setting, in that we don't have such a thing anymore per se that can exist above the noise of actual money driving any product's promotion.
The second is distribution: the globalisation of media, and by that i mean the near-instant reach of us pop culture while the various rights and licenses ecosystem still being way behind is also a problem imo because there's never enough pause for a smaller-than-a-blockbuster movie to generate a buzz long enough to get ppl to the theatre especially if they're on the festival circuit, since the expectation now is, if I'm hearing about it, then it's available to watch. If not, it's always 'old' news. I personally feel the friction/lag when it comes to these smaller movies and yes, tv shows (eg Hulu is not in my market but the Indian version of Disney+ is which somehow carries *some* Hulu shows but not all and always on a delay; HBO Max is not a guaranteed same day release, and i can never easily find the info in my market). But strictly on movies, no wonder these mid-tier stuff are finding refuge in streaming, which is a lifesaver in the pandemic I'm sure but will be one more brick in the demise of various local cinemas, unless you have money. I love randomly selecting a movie on a Friday night but those days are numbered it seems like.
Be it me who lives outside the US, or someone else who lives outside an American city, it's a problem of compounding factors. Eventually however it's just going to be a historical artifact.
posted by cendawanita at 5:14 AM on December 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
It used to be there are reviewers you can depend on if not on their objectiveness but you know what they're partial to and the fact they get to suffer the vast array of media with the pay/resources to at least somewhat insulate them from a certain level of pressure to please everybody, but with fragmented markets everyone's beholden to something so every fandom channel declares each new movie as the most amazing or not at all or run the risk of losing access or copyright takedowns.
So that's the problem of cultural taste-making and agenda-setting, in that we don't have such a thing anymore per se that can exist above the noise of actual money driving any product's promotion.
The second is distribution: the globalisation of media, and by that i mean the near-instant reach of us pop culture while the various rights and licenses ecosystem still being way behind is also a problem imo because there's never enough pause for a smaller-than-a-blockbuster movie to generate a buzz long enough to get ppl to the theatre especially if they're on the festival circuit, since the expectation now is, if I'm hearing about it, then it's available to watch. If not, it's always 'old' news. I personally feel the friction/lag when it comes to these smaller movies and yes, tv shows (eg Hulu is not in my market but the Indian version of Disney+ is which somehow carries *some* Hulu shows but not all and always on a delay; HBO Max is not a guaranteed same day release, and i can never easily find the info in my market). But strictly on movies, no wonder these mid-tier stuff are finding refuge in streaming, which is a lifesaver in the pandemic I'm sure but will be one more brick in the demise of various local cinemas, unless you have money. I love randomly selecting a movie on a Friday night but those days are numbered it seems like.
Be it me who lives outside the US, or someone else who lives outside an American city, it's a problem of compounding factors. Eventually however it's just going to be a historical artifact.
posted by cendawanita at 5:14 AM on December 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
Scaryblackdeath, quoting a studio exec: "Nobody wants to do a deal they haven't done before."
It's the same, on a much smaller scale, in commercial publishing. Smaller only because the amount of money at risk is in four to six digits, not seven to nine. Commissioning editors get some leeway: even so, if they make an unbroken run of bad purchasing decisions they're going to end up dead-ended in their career, or fired.
Remember commissioning editors at a big five imprint don't determine the profitability of a book. That's largely on Marketing and the sales team (who, I remind you, are not selling to the public, they're selling to a handful of big-ticket buyers who select the titles Barnes and Noble and Amazon will push). It's also on the author to some extent—name recognition sells more books than any amount of advertising (hence the term "big name author": you know you've made it when the font size of your name on the front cover is larger than the title).
Anyway ...
The easiest internal sale for an editor is to go to the Marketing meeting and say "this one is next-in-series, for a series where sales are holding up from book to book" (most series undergo sales decay at 20-50% per book, which is why you see so many two-volume trilogies on the market).
Why do authors (like me) put up with this?
Well, let's rule out self-publishing first: self-pub is a lot of extra work in stuff that takes me away from what I do best (writing) and forces me to be my own marketing, editorial, accounting, and sales manager. I want to write. I wrote as a hobby for 20 years before I sold a novel. I've been selling novels for another 20 years since then.
Back when it was a hobby, I was a student and then I needed a day job to support myself. Day jobs sap your energy, so the last decade I was doing it as a hobby, I completed three novels. (All of them eventually sold ... eventually.) After I started getting paid for the hobby—yippee!—and got a side-hustle writing for magazines (remember them?) I suddenly found I had enough time to write far more novels. In fact, over the past two decades I've averaged 1.5 novels per year, despite slowing down with age (and dealing with personal and family medical issues). So my productivity at the thing I love doing went up 500%.
So this is why we put up with the constant refrain from Editorial, "write us one just like the last book, only different enough to keep the readers happy". This is why there are so many series out there. We enjoy doing what we do, but perverse incentives and risk aversion feed back down the production queue and push us in the direction of doing something safe.
(I have occasionally taken a gamble on something that scared my commercial editors. It generally paid off. But it meant putting an entire year of work on the line, and it doesn't always work, which hurts.)
posted by cstross at 5:34 AM on December 22, 2021 [18 favorites]
It's the same, on a much smaller scale, in commercial publishing. Smaller only because the amount of money at risk is in four to six digits, not seven to nine. Commissioning editors get some leeway: even so, if they make an unbroken run of bad purchasing decisions they're going to end up dead-ended in their career, or fired.
Remember commissioning editors at a big five imprint don't determine the profitability of a book. That's largely on Marketing and the sales team (who, I remind you, are not selling to the public, they're selling to a handful of big-ticket buyers who select the titles Barnes and Noble and Amazon will push). It's also on the author to some extent—name recognition sells more books than any amount of advertising (hence the term "big name author": you know you've made it when the font size of your name on the front cover is larger than the title).
Anyway ...
The easiest internal sale for an editor is to go to the Marketing meeting and say "this one is next-in-series, for a series where sales are holding up from book to book" (most series undergo sales decay at 20-50% per book, which is why you see so many two-volume trilogies on the market).
Why do authors (like me) put up with this?
Well, let's rule out self-publishing first: self-pub is a lot of extra work in stuff that takes me away from what I do best (writing) and forces me to be my own marketing, editorial, accounting, and sales manager. I want to write. I wrote as a hobby for 20 years before I sold a novel. I've been selling novels for another 20 years since then.
Back when it was a hobby, I was a student and then I needed a day job to support myself. Day jobs sap your energy, so the last decade I was doing it as a hobby, I completed three novels. (All of them eventually sold ... eventually.) After I started getting paid for the hobby—yippee!—and got a side-hustle writing for magazines (remember them?) I suddenly found I had enough time to write far more novels. In fact, over the past two decades I've averaged 1.5 novels per year, despite slowing down with age (and dealing with personal and family medical issues). So my productivity at the thing I love doing went up 500%.
So this is why we put up with the constant refrain from Editorial, "write us one just like the last book, only different enough to keep the readers happy". This is why there are so many series out there. We enjoy doing what we do, but perverse incentives and risk aversion feed back down the production queue and push us in the direction of doing something safe.
(I have occasionally taken a gamble on something that scared my commercial editors. It generally paid off. But it meant putting an entire year of work on the line, and it doesn't always work, which hurts.)
posted by cstross at 5:34 AM on December 22, 2021 [18 favorites]
Sorry, forgot to add (before the edit window closed): the key take-away is capitalism does not optimize for creativity, it optimizes for maximum sales at minimum risk. Across all media, all art forms, it seeks to maximize return on investment, not art.
posted by cstross at 5:45 AM on December 22, 2021 [15 favorites]
posted by cstross at 5:45 AM on December 22, 2021 [15 favorites]
cendawanita: " So that's the problem of cultural taste-making and agenda-setting, in that we don't have such a thing anymore per se that can exist above the noise of actual money driving any product's promotion. "
Yeah, the whole griping in the article in some posts here reminds me of people complaining that there's no good rock music anymore because there's no equivalent of Led Zeppelin or Poison or something.
To use an outdated phrase, nah fam. In music, film, writing, etc, there's more of everything than ever before and it's awesome. It's just that you have to go look for it. What some people seem to miss is being told on the six o'clock news which cultural artifacts are 'quality' and having them available at their local mall.
posted by signal at 6:02 AM on December 22, 2021
Yeah, the whole griping in the article in some posts here reminds me of people complaining that there's no good rock music anymore because there's no equivalent of Led Zeppelin or Poison or something.
To use an outdated phrase, nah fam. In music, film, writing, etc, there's more of everything than ever before and it's awesome. It's just that you have to go look for it. What some people seem to miss is being told on the six o'clock news which cultural artifacts are 'quality' and having them available at their local mall.
posted by signal at 6:02 AM on December 22, 2021
Ah yes, the issue of massive media consolidation is actually just "people aren't looking hard enough"
posted by Ferreous at 6:19 AM on December 22, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by Ferreous at 6:19 AM on December 22, 2021 [3 favorites]
Like, it can be simultaneously true that the long tail of available media is longer than ever and also that in terms of attention and revenue the media ecosystem is increasingly concentrated into fewer and fewer corporate hands.
posted by Pyry at 6:23 AM on December 22, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by Pyry at 6:23 AM on December 22, 2021 [4 favorites]
If the "Marvel Cinematic Universe" includes all the worlds in the many metaverses does that not include all the books and movies ever written? Including "It's a Wonderful Life", "Die Hard" and "Fellini Satyricon" ?
posted by sammyo at 6:36 AM on December 22, 2021
posted by sammyo at 6:36 AM on December 22, 2021
Doyle chap keeps writing stories about that detective fellow of his instead of more interesting character studies of local aristocrats
It's an interesting comparison, as Doyle repeatedly tried to break from writing Holmes (killing him in The Final Problem, setting The Hound of the Baskervilles before his death to avoid resurrecting him, making clear he was retired in His Last Bow) in order to focus on the historical novels he thought more artistically worthy, but was pulled back to Holmes by the market every time.
Now Doyle's historical novels are all but forgotten while Holmes is arguably, particularly from our current perspective, the most culturally significant literary product of the last 200 years. His influence goes far beyond Doyle's transformation of the previously inchoate detective archetype and its far-reaching effects on crime fiction, or the place that Holmes occupies in the constellation of superhero archetypes: Holmes, and the fan responses to him, have profoundly influenced how we interact with fiction and drama, and those responses are fundamentally linked to key characteristics of the works themselves. For example, the now commonplace conceit that a single body of work comprises its own fictional canon was first truly (and still most fully) realised as The Game played by members of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London, which treats the texts as historical documents produced by (with a couple of exceptions) Watson. The SHSL was also the originator of fan conventions with routine cosplay, while published amateur and professional fan fiction is yet another modern commonplace pioneered by Sherlockians. Holmes has a greater impact on our popular narrative entertainment culture than any character or set of works I can think of, even The Lord of the Rings.
On one hand, I think that this significance, and the flowering of joyful and creative things from the Holmes stories, can be argued to give the lie to the position that insatiable market demand for popular and populist entertainment is either new or ultimately harmful. On the other, I think it's important to be aware of the specifics of where we are now, as well as their historical parallels. In particular, the economics of production are fundamentally different: Doyle could have lived (much more modestly) on his income without publishing a single Holmes story after the incident at the Reichenbach Falls, but modern media companies could not just switch to the equivalent of historical novels without financial ruin. Further, Doyle had (as the sole producer of the stories) the whip hand over publishers, and (while eager to please his market) was able to exercise a very great degree of creative control. The basic logistics of filmmaking have always meant that movie authorship is so tricky a question that we have to use a French word to describe it, but it does feel like we're now in a position where many major creative decisions have been taken out of the hands of the people best qualified to make them, in part for economic reasons and in part because of a modern culture which favours managerialism over professionalism. I think it's important to recognise that, yes, in many ways we have been here before, and that this era will pass like any other, but think there's still room for valid complaint about the extent to which formula has displaced creative decision-making due to the particular circumstances we're currently in.
posted by howfar at 6:39 AM on December 22, 2021 [8 favorites]
It's an interesting comparison, as Doyle repeatedly tried to break from writing Holmes (killing him in The Final Problem, setting The Hound of the Baskervilles before his death to avoid resurrecting him, making clear he was retired in His Last Bow) in order to focus on the historical novels he thought more artistically worthy, but was pulled back to Holmes by the market every time.
Now Doyle's historical novels are all but forgotten while Holmes is arguably, particularly from our current perspective, the most culturally significant literary product of the last 200 years. His influence goes far beyond Doyle's transformation of the previously inchoate detective archetype and its far-reaching effects on crime fiction, or the place that Holmes occupies in the constellation of superhero archetypes: Holmes, and the fan responses to him, have profoundly influenced how we interact with fiction and drama, and those responses are fundamentally linked to key characteristics of the works themselves. For example, the now commonplace conceit that a single body of work comprises its own fictional canon was first truly (and still most fully) realised as The Game played by members of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London, which treats the texts as historical documents produced by (with a couple of exceptions) Watson. The SHSL was also the originator of fan conventions with routine cosplay, while published amateur and professional fan fiction is yet another modern commonplace pioneered by Sherlockians. Holmes has a greater impact on our popular narrative entertainment culture than any character or set of works I can think of, even The Lord of the Rings.
On one hand, I think that this significance, and the flowering of joyful and creative things from the Holmes stories, can be argued to give the lie to the position that insatiable market demand for popular and populist entertainment is either new or ultimately harmful. On the other, I think it's important to be aware of the specifics of where we are now, as well as their historical parallels. In particular, the economics of production are fundamentally different: Doyle could have lived (much more modestly) on his income without publishing a single Holmes story after the incident at the Reichenbach Falls, but modern media companies could not just switch to the equivalent of historical novels without financial ruin. Further, Doyle had (as the sole producer of the stories) the whip hand over publishers, and (while eager to please his market) was able to exercise a very great degree of creative control. The basic logistics of filmmaking have always meant that movie authorship is so tricky a question that we have to use a French word to describe it, but it does feel like we're now in a position where many major creative decisions have been taken out of the hands of the people best qualified to make them, in part for economic reasons and in part because of a modern culture which favours managerialism over professionalism. I think it's important to recognise that, yes, in many ways we have been here before, and that this era will pass like any other, but think there's still room for valid complaint about the extent to which formula has displaced creative decision-making due to the particular circumstances we're currently in.
posted by howfar at 6:39 AM on December 22, 2021 [8 favorites]
Like, it can be simultaneously true that the long tail of available media is longer than ever and also that in terms of attention and revenue the media ecosystem is increasingly concentrated into fewer and fewer corporate hands.
Indeed, and people can talk all they want about a long tail, but if they aren't actually seeking out any works within that tail, then using it as proof of a vibrant movie/movie/book/etc scene is kinda pointless. It might be nice that some would be artists make some dough, but without an audience there's no cultural weight to any of it.
posted by gusottertrout at 6:58 AM on December 22, 2021 [2 favorites]
Indeed, and people can talk all they want about a long tail, but if they aren't actually seeking out any works within that tail, then using it as proof of a vibrant movie/movie/book/etc scene is kinda pointless. It might be nice that some would be artists make some dough, but without an audience there's no cultural weight to any of it.
posted by gusottertrout at 6:58 AM on December 22, 2021 [2 favorites]
I am sure it is in no way an original observation, but superhero movies are very unlikely to be good for the health of anyone involved. The audio visual equivalent of highly processed foods, almost instantly regrettable and designed to create appetite rather than satiate it.
There is something so desperate about the continuing success of these films, it's like an addict's cry for help.
I can't really marshal my thoughts on this into a coherent argument at the moment, which I will blame on the Omicron currently running through my veins.
I have tried to use Fanfare to find new things (is there a master list somewhere?), as well as the Netflix codes, but that has to be done when one has the energy and time to explore, rather than sit back and relax. Similar with Spotify and discovering new music, there is plenty on there, but the weekly recommendations are but the tip of the iceberg. I find artist playlists are good on Spotify, it would be helpful if Netflix et al had a similar feature. It all goes to remind me that I am not who the companies are trying to keep happy, as I am only the customer, the profit margin is calling the shots. Making interesting things easy to find isn't a priority.
Anyway, here's that video about America's obsession with zombies, which was a refreshing eye-opener for me: An Indigenous Interpretation of the "Zombieland" Frontier. As linked in a previous thread.
posted by asok at 7:29 AM on December 22, 2021 [2 favorites]
There is something so desperate about the continuing success of these films, it's like an addict's cry for help.
I can't really marshal my thoughts on this into a coherent argument at the moment, which I will blame on the Omicron currently running through my veins.
I have tried to use Fanfare to find new things (is there a master list somewhere?), as well as the Netflix codes, but that has to be done when one has the energy and time to explore, rather than sit back and relax. Similar with Spotify and discovering new music, there is plenty on there, but the weekly recommendations are but the tip of the iceberg. I find artist playlists are good on Spotify, it would be helpful if Netflix et al had a similar feature. It all goes to remind me that I am not who the companies are trying to keep happy, as I am only the customer, the profit margin is calling the shots. Making interesting things easy to find isn't a priority.
Anyway, here's that video about America's obsession with zombies, which was a refreshing eye-opener for me: An Indigenous Interpretation of the "Zombieland" Frontier. As linked in a previous thread.
posted by asok at 7:29 AM on December 22, 2021 [2 favorites]
I remember a friend's look of disbelief the day I was defending the first Tobey Maguire crack at Spiderman.. talking about how fun it was, the magic of seeing live action representations of Spiderman swinging through a cityscape, how it evoked the old cartoon. I have to say, looking over the years with the refinements to visual tech and explosion in hero movies.. I had no fucking clue. I made myself watch the latest Spiderman on Netflix, the one with Mysterio. There's nothing particularly wrong with it but it's just plain wrong. If that's not an example of exhausted garbage, I don't know what is. And as the internet has pointed out, what's with the transformation of Aunt May? Sure I'm old and cranky, what of it
posted by elkevelvet at 7:39 AM on December 22, 2021
posted by elkevelvet at 7:39 AM on December 22, 2021
This was fun, but the last Hawkeye dropped today, gotta run!
posted by signal at 8:02 AM on December 22, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by signal at 8:02 AM on December 22, 2021 [3 favorites]
There is, I think, an important distinction to be maintained between arguments over the value/potential meanings of superhero movies especially in regards to considerations of "taste" and that of any type of movie or corporate product so completely dominating a market, no matter how much it might be liked. I think both discussions are important since I don't think just chalking anything off to taste suffices as explanation given that taste is as much a cultural construct as anything innate and anything that dominates the culture is necessary to understand in what and why that is, especially in considerations of all the other things being slighted.
posted by gusottertrout at 8:05 AM on December 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by gusottertrout at 8:05 AM on December 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
I totally agree, but it can be hard to sift through to find the things that you will like.
Yeah, I feel like looking for under-the-radar stuff that my husband and I might like to watch is a part-time job by now. I read through tons of articles about the best stuff on Netflix/Hulu/Prime/other streaming services on the off-chance that they list a show or movie I haven't heard of before.
And it's not just the volume of content that can be overwhelming, it's the sheer number of content providers.
Like this article 15 International Series to Binge-Watch Over the Holiday Season has some intriguing-sounding shows that appear on streaming services I've never heard of before, like MHz Choice, Viaplay, Topic, and Pantaya.
posted by creepygirl at 10:32 AM on December 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
Yeah, I feel like looking for under-the-radar stuff that my husband and I might like to watch is a part-time job by now. I read through tons of articles about the best stuff on Netflix/Hulu/Prime/other streaming services on the off-chance that they list a show or movie I haven't heard of before.
And it's not just the volume of content that can be overwhelming, it's the sheer number of content providers.
Like this article 15 International Series to Binge-Watch Over the Holiday Season has some intriguing-sounding shows that appear on streaming services I've never heard of before, like MHz Choice, Viaplay, Topic, and Pantaya.
posted by creepygirl at 10:32 AM on December 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
The audio visual equivalent of highly processed foods, almost instantly regrettable and designed to create appetite rather than satiate it.
I am sceptical about this. As far as I can tell, nearly all of the people involved in making films want to make something good in a medium they love and, due to the competitiveness of the field, work exceptionally hard to do so. That doesn't mean that there are no ignoble motivations driving what gets made and how: there are and they tend to dominate, usually being the motivations of the people with lots of money. But I'm not sure that those motivations ever really control the worth of the final product. Partly because I'm not sure the sort of moral probity you seem to be identifying as missing is actually that important to the creation of good art: we've all (regrettably) sat through pieces of turgid, self-important, spiritually poisonous shit made with the most high-minded of goals, and (hopefully) found beauty, surprise and insight in works motivated by the crassest commercial interests (I, for example, learned a surprisingly huge amount about my own psyche from Robert E Howard's Solomon Kane stories). People complained about the moral harms of theatrical performance in the 16th century, and of the corruption and frivolity caused by novel reading in the 18th (and fiction magazines in the 19th, rock music in the 20th, etc). And, of course, most theatre was (and is) crap, and most novels were (and are) shit, and nearly all of this junk has been forgotten entirely except by people who need a subject for their PhD*. But the lasting products of these amoral popular swamps are not the spiritual fevers that their high-minded critics railed against, but artistic works of lasting value.
Are all superhero movies of value? No. Hardly any are of significant worth beyond their (very considerable) value of distracting and entertaining people for a while. And it's surely undeniable that there are too many of them at this point. But the truism that most of everything is crap is, unusually for a truism, actually true, and the tendency of markets to oversaturate audiences with safe bet products until everyone is sick of them seems to be a constant through time. And, crucially, as far as I can see it remains the case that, through good luck and hard work, talented people will, from time to time, manage to make something of more lasting impact and value, no matter what the constraints of market and formula. I will happily join in with complaints about the excessive and extended proliferation of comic book movies, especially given how short my attention span is, but I struggle to see it as any sort of genuine spiritual, moral or artistic danger.
*along with lots of great works which never got an appropriate defender. Would we remember Dickens if it weren't for Chesterton's efforts to rehabilitate him?
posted by howfar at 10:48 AM on December 22, 2021 [4 favorites]
I am sceptical about this. As far as I can tell, nearly all of the people involved in making films want to make something good in a medium they love and, due to the competitiveness of the field, work exceptionally hard to do so. That doesn't mean that there are no ignoble motivations driving what gets made and how: there are and they tend to dominate, usually being the motivations of the people with lots of money. But I'm not sure that those motivations ever really control the worth of the final product. Partly because I'm not sure the sort of moral probity you seem to be identifying as missing is actually that important to the creation of good art: we've all (regrettably) sat through pieces of turgid, self-important, spiritually poisonous shit made with the most high-minded of goals, and (hopefully) found beauty, surprise and insight in works motivated by the crassest commercial interests (I, for example, learned a surprisingly huge amount about my own psyche from Robert E Howard's Solomon Kane stories). People complained about the moral harms of theatrical performance in the 16th century, and of the corruption and frivolity caused by novel reading in the 18th (and fiction magazines in the 19th, rock music in the 20th, etc). And, of course, most theatre was (and is) crap, and most novels were (and are) shit, and nearly all of this junk has been forgotten entirely except by people who need a subject for their PhD*. But the lasting products of these amoral popular swamps are not the spiritual fevers that their high-minded critics railed against, but artistic works of lasting value.
Are all superhero movies of value? No. Hardly any are of significant worth beyond their (very considerable) value of distracting and entertaining people for a while. And it's surely undeniable that there are too many of them at this point. But the truism that most of everything is crap is, unusually for a truism, actually true, and the tendency of markets to oversaturate audiences with safe bet products until everyone is sick of them seems to be a constant through time. And, crucially, as far as I can see it remains the case that, through good luck and hard work, talented people will, from time to time, manage to make something of more lasting impact and value, no matter what the constraints of market and formula. I will happily join in with complaints about the excessive and extended proliferation of comic book movies, especially given how short my attention span is, but I struggle to see it as any sort of genuine spiritual, moral or artistic danger.
*along with lots of great works which never got an appropriate defender. Would we remember Dickens if it weren't for Chesterton's efforts to rehabilitate him?
posted by howfar at 10:48 AM on December 22, 2021 [4 favorites]
The podcast Literature and History by Doug Metzger completely changed my perspective on remakes, prequels and sequels.
It turns out that Western literature is rooted in an ancient version of the MCU, where Mesopotamian, Greek, and Roman authors told, retold and revised stories about archetypal characters in the forms of gods and heroes.
For example, Medea is the main character in Hesiod’s epic poem Theogony (730 BCE), Euripides’ tragic play Medea (431 BCE) and Appollius Rhodius’ epic poem Argonautica (3rd century BCE). And these are just surviving examples. Medea, Jason, Zeus and the rest must of been the subjects of countless poems and plays telling, retelling, and modifying their story arcs.
I’m not a huge MCU fan, but I can now see it more as the latest incarnation of a fundamental style of human storytelling rather than just as an creatively bankrupt cash grab.
posted by lumpy at 12:55 PM on December 22, 2021 [6 favorites]
It turns out that Western literature is rooted in an ancient version of the MCU, where Mesopotamian, Greek, and Roman authors told, retold and revised stories about archetypal characters in the forms of gods and heroes.
For example, Medea is the main character in Hesiod’s epic poem Theogony (730 BCE), Euripides’ tragic play Medea (431 BCE) and Appollius Rhodius’ epic poem Argonautica (3rd century BCE). And these are just surviving examples. Medea, Jason, Zeus and the rest must of been the subjects of countless poems and plays telling, retelling, and modifying their story arcs.
I’m not a huge MCU fan, but I can now see it more as the latest incarnation of a fundamental style of human storytelling rather than just as an creatively bankrupt cash grab.
posted by lumpy at 12:55 PM on December 22, 2021 [6 favorites]
There is something so desperate about the continuing success of these films, it's like an addict's cry for help.
I'm not sure why it's necessary to pathologize people whose tastes in entertainment are different than your own. I mean, I think most would agree that an insane lust for thoughtful, character-driven story bespeaks the depraved mentality of an inveterate puppy-kicker, but we don't bring it up in every last elena ferrante thread.
posted by logicpunk at 1:19 PM on December 22, 2021 [5 favorites]
I'm not sure why it's necessary to pathologize people whose tastes in entertainment are different than your own. I mean, I think most would agree that an insane lust for thoughtful, character-driven story bespeaks the depraved mentality of an inveterate puppy-kicker, but we don't bring it up in every last elena ferrante thread.
posted by logicpunk at 1:19 PM on December 22, 2021 [5 favorites]
I don't really understand why comic book movie fans are so touchy about articles like this. You won. Try and be graceful about it.This is something worth really thinking about. I don't understand it yet. Comic book, fantasy, and SF films, broadly defined, account for most of the highest grossing US films in recent years. Video games are a multi-hundred-billion dollar per year industry. Twitch has 30 million active users and a non-trivial share of all internet traffic. The Big Bang Theory TV show was among top few ranked programs on television for years.
The geeks have won. Popular media caters to us. Advertising caters to us. The news caters to us. People like us own or control a hell of a lot of the world's commercial activity. I don't get why so many of us continue to pretend that we're an oppressed minority.
Is it really just because all of our dads made fun of us when we were 12? Who the hell cares. The world is much larger than your dad ever realized. Is it because it's fun to pretend to be the underdog? It isn't much fun unless you're not actually the underdog. Is it because, after having won the cultural lottery, we're so bored there's nothing else that excites us except pretending we're being attacked? (One could, of course, say the same about white people in the US, but with far more significant consequences.)
Getting upset because someone said dismissive things about a novel that perfectly evoked your experience as a bullied child is one thing. Getting upset because someone said there are too many movies about Batman is hard to take seriously, unless you make movies about batman. But, the widespread impulse to do so is worth thinking about.
posted by eotvos at 1:32 PM on December 22, 2021 [4 favorites]
I have not RTFA, and probably shall not since it’s taking quite the drubbing here
Drubbing? I don't see any evidence that anyone except meowzilla RTFA'd either.
posted by polecat at 3:20 PM on December 22, 2021
Drubbing? I don't see any evidence that anyone except meowzilla RTFA'd either.
posted by polecat at 3:20 PM on December 22, 2021
You won. Try and be graceful about it.
I'm trying to think of other examples of graceful winners and am drawing blanks. The winners get to lord it over everyone else, that's part of the appeal of winning.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 4:13 PM on December 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
I'm trying to think of other examples of graceful winners and am drawing blanks. The winners get to lord it over everyone else, that's part of the appeal of winning.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 4:13 PM on December 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
If the "Marvel Cinematic Universe" includes all the worlds in the many metaverses does that not include all the books and movies ever written? Including "It's a Wonderful Life", "Die Hard" and "Fellini Satyricon" ?
That's Phase 13.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 4:30 PM on December 22, 2021
That's Phase 13.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 4:30 PM on December 22, 2021
>The winners get to lord it over everyone else, that's part of the appeal of winning.
I think that's why people hatred the British Empire and now hate the USA Hegemony: lording anything is actually shitty behaviour.
posted by k3ninho at 5:02 PM on December 22, 2021 [2 favorites]
I think that's why people hatred the British Empire and now hate the USA Hegemony: lording anything is actually shitty behaviour.
posted by k3ninho at 5:02 PM on December 22, 2021 [2 favorites]
Indeed, and people can talk all they want about a long tail, but if they aren't actually seeking out any works within that tail, then using it as proof of a vibrant movie/movie/book/etc scene is kinda pointless. It might be nice that some would be artists make some dough, but without an audience there's no cultural weight to any of it.
So, this is my main complaint about streaming media culture -- I really really want curated channel that feeds content to me.
The best example I have of this is Turner Classic Movies, which as a television channel is one of the best curated and most interesting things I've ever encountered. American Movie Classics used to be very similar about 20-25 years ago before they went commercial and lost some amount of their catalog (or because it isn't popular, they stopped running it because, well, commercials).
They have theme months, they have odd time slot gaps they fill with strange shorts and profiles.... I've seen things on that channel I never would have sought out but am glad to have seen. I have seen actors I know well in movies I've never heard of. I've been exposed to entire nights of movies by a single director, or a single star, specifically chosen to go together to underscore something about that person. The selections have led me into new discoveries and helped remind me of things I loved long ago and had forgotten.
If TCM had this channel available for us to buy, we would have bought it opening day. It's literally the only reason we keep the stupid highest premium package for our satellite subscription. It's not available in any of the other packages.
I wish more streaming services would do this. Something you just put on and it plays, but it's not random, it's selected for a reason. It's just not available for basically any service, and I really really want it.
posted by hippybear at 5:57 PM on December 22, 2021 [5 favorites]
So, this is my main complaint about streaming media culture -- I really really want curated channel that feeds content to me.
The best example I have of this is Turner Classic Movies, which as a television channel is one of the best curated and most interesting things I've ever encountered. American Movie Classics used to be very similar about 20-25 years ago before they went commercial and lost some amount of their catalog (or because it isn't popular, they stopped running it because, well, commercials).
They have theme months, they have odd time slot gaps they fill with strange shorts and profiles.... I've seen things on that channel I never would have sought out but am glad to have seen. I have seen actors I know well in movies I've never heard of. I've been exposed to entire nights of movies by a single director, or a single star, specifically chosen to go together to underscore something about that person. The selections have led me into new discoveries and helped remind me of things I loved long ago and had forgotten.
If TCM had this channel available for us to buy, we would have bought it opening day. It's literally the only reason we keep the stupid highest premium package for our satellite subscription. It's not available in any of the other packages.
I wish more streaming services would do this. Something you just put on and it plays, but it's not random, it's selected for a reason. It's just not available for basically any service, and I really really want it.
posted by hippybear at 5:57 PM on December 22, 2021 [5 favorites]
I think that's why people hatred the British Empire and now hate the USA Hegemony
It's funny, in a way, that is brought up since it seems fairly clear to me that superhero movies are speaking to an "end of empire". Superhero movies tend to be "about" having or finding moral clarity and acting on that awareness, the genre has changed over the years since Spider-Man in 2002 the superhero movies before that being of a somewhat different sort, but the essentials remain fairly constant as they almost must given the nature of the genre being about characters defined from the start as extrordinary "heroes", so by default the movies almost must be resolved by right action, with some room for ambiguity in a select few when the circumstance is made more complicated. The superhero is often expressly representing or commenting on US power, offering a corrective throwback to the time of US hegemony in an era filled with moral doubt.
One can, in a way, see this as much by the movies that weren't considered successful as by those that were. Raimi's 2002 Spider-Man, coming out in the wake of 9/11, offered a vision of "with great power comes great responsibility", where Spider-Man corrects his momentary lapse of judgement that led to the loss of Uncle Ben by asserting a new moral vision.
By 2007, however, Spider-Man 3 was deemed a failure for showing Spider-Man, essentially, as being responsible for the origins of that movie's "axis of evil", by new moral lapses or presumed ones, not properly attending to Flint Marko which led to him becoming The Sandman, having a conflict with Eddie Brock and not handling the alien symbiote responsibly leading to Brock becoming Vemon, and having been involved with the death of Norm Osborn leading Harry to take up the mantle of the Green Goblin. Spider-Man's hubris under the influence of the symbiote thus "creates" the villains he has to fight at the end of the film. Raimi isn't particularly subtle about connecting Spider-Man here to the US, revisiting the end of the 2002 movie atop the Empire State building also in front of the flag.
Spider-Man 3 wasn't well received, but the notion doesn't end there. The Dark Knight picks it up, showing a moral conflict where the existence of a superpower leads to a supervillain arising just to fight him, Nolan's film has a sense of ambiguity about it, where the Joker's appeal unbalances the moral center and led to a darker DC universe where things aren't really sorted out prior to Wonder Woman, which is why Zac Snyder has his fanboys, the DC universe being the darker adopting moral expedience as its center. Iron Man, like The Dark Knight, made in 2008 at a transitional moment from the Bush era to the next presidency, took a different tack and showed Stark becoming Iron Man because of his past failings and developing a moral center. The conflict is similar, but the "origin" defines the hero as evolving from the playboy under terrorist threat and "fixing things". The Marvel universe mostly kept to this optimistic take, but that optimism can be seen at least as much as nostalgia for a time of US hegemony as a coherent ideology for use of power as the centering of the "hero" is a given and the Marvel movies have purposefully muddied the waters around values beyond that of the hero since the comparative failure of Iron Man 3, which suggested more of a flawed history for Stark it didn't resolve.
The later movies took things in different directions as events changed and sometimes offered some sense of inner-conflict in the heroes, Iron Man most notably, but then he also was the most notable "sacrificer" as well, Black Widow likewise but not given a movie until post-End Game, while some of the other movies showed more the conflict between the hero and the world he operates in, Black Panther and some of the Thor movies, where the conflict is more about making a choice, defining the moral clarity, then in any moral ambiguity. The feeling then is that of being a strong moral center from which the "right" actions will naturally flow and this is repeatedly tied to issues of US power and its failings, where the moral clarity of the heroes solves the problems in a manner like that of how the image of the US was once portrayed by mass media. There is some resemblance to some other cycles of movies and other fiction in the US and England where ideas of fading power and desire for hegemonic order have been noted, so that seems to be a likely point of reference when looking at the superhero genre as well, or likely will be sometime in the future when the moment has passed.
posted by gusottertrout at 1:53 AM on December 23, 2021 [2 favorites]
It's funny, in a way, that is brought up since it seems fairly clear to me that superhero movies are speaking to an "end of empire". Superhero movies tend to be "about" having or finding moral clarity and acting on that awareness, the genre has changed over the years since Spider-Man in 2002 the superhero movies before that being of a somewhat different sort, but the essentials remain fairly constant as they almost must given the nature of the genre being about characters defined from the start as extrordinary "heroes", so by default the movies almost must be resolved by right action, with some room for ambiguity in a select few when the circumstance is made more complicated. The superhero is often expressly representing or commenting on US power, offering a corrective throwback to the time of US hegemony in an era filled with moral doubt.
One can, in a way, see this as much by the movies that weren't considered successful as by those that were. Raimi's 2002 Spider-Man, coming out in the wake of 9/11, offered a vision of "with great power comes great responsibility", where Spider-Man corrects his momentary lapse of judgement that led to the loss of Uncle Ben by asserting a new moral vision.
By 2007, however, Spider-Man 3 was deemed a failure for showing Spider-Man, essentially, as being responsible for the origins of that movie's "axis of evil", by new moral lapses or presumed ones, not properly attending to Flint Marko which led to him becoming The Sandman, having a conflict with Eddie Brock and not handling the alien symbiote responsibly leading to Brock becoming Vemon, and having been involved with the death of Norm Osborn leading Harry to take up the mantle of the Green Goblin. Spider-Man's hubris under the influence of the symbiote thus "creates" the villains he has to fight at the end of the film. Raimi isn't particularly subtle about connecting Spider-Man here to the US, revisiting the end of the 2002 movie atop the Empire State building also in front of the flag.
Spider-Man 3 wasn't well received, but the notion doesn't end there. The Dark Knight picks it up, showing a moral conflict where the existence of a superpower leads to a supervillain arising just to fight him, Nolan's film has a sense of ambiguity about it, where the Joker's appeal unbalances the moral center and led to a darker DC universe where things aren't really sorted out prior to Wonder Woman, which is why Zac Snyder has his fanboys, the DC universe being the darker adopting moral expedience as its center. Iron Man, like The Dark Knight, made in 2008 at a transitional moment from the Bush era to the next presidency, took a different tack and showed Stark becoming Iron Man because of his past failings and developing a moral center. The conflict is similar, but the "origin" defines the hero as evolving from the playboy under terrorist threat and "fixing things". The Marvel universe mostly kept to this optimistic take, but that optimism can be seen at least as much as nostalgia for a time of US hegemony as a coherent ideology for use of power as the centering of the "hero" is a given and the Marvel movies have purposefully muddied the waters around values beyond that of the hero since the comparative failure of Iron Man 3, which suggested more of a flawed history for Stark it didn't resolve.
The later movies took things in different directions as events changed and sometimes offered some sense of inner-conflict in the heroes, Iron Man most notably, but then he also was the most notable "sacrificer" as well, Black Widow likewise but not given a movie until post-End Game, while some of the other movies showed more the conflict between the hero and the world he operates in, Black Panther and some of the Thor movies, where the conflict is more about making a choice, defining the moral clarity, then in any moral ambiguity. The feeling then is that of being a strong moral center from which the "right" actions will naturally flow and this is repeatedly tied to issues of US power and its failings, where the moral clarity of the heroes solves the problems in a manner like that of how the image of the US was once portrayed by mass media. There is some resemblance to some other cycles of movies and other fiction in the US and England where ideas of fading power and desire for hegemonic order have been noted, so that seems to be a likely point of reference when looking at the superhero genre as well, or likely will be sometime in the future when the moment has passed.
posted by gusottertrout at 1:53 AM on December 23, 2021 [2 favorites]
There definitely is a strange tendency I've seen in a lot of super hero movie stans to be irritated by people who don't engage with their content. It's a real weird insecurity when people get offended when you tell them don't watch mcu movies and try to sell you on them.
posted by Ferreous at 5:28 AM on December 23, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Ferreous at 5:28 AM on December 23, 2021 [1 favorite]
Howfar - I am sceptical about this. As far as I can tell, nearly all of the people involved in making films want to make something good in a medium they love and, due to the competitiveness of the field, work exceptionally hard to do so.
What I am trying to say, is, what is the difference between a Marvel Universe movie and a Michael Bay movie? I select Bay because I believe his films are pretty irredeemably awful, specifically because they are shot through with fascist tropes.
Disney movies, while being slightly less fascist in the main, are still problematic in different ways.
Logicpunk - I'm not sure why it's necessary to pathologize people whose tastes in entertainment are different than your own.
Maybe I wasn't clear, I am referring to Hollywood, not the audience. (junky voice) Just one more epic CGI fight scene, c'mon man(/junky voice)
Oh, and the reason that people like the End Game so much is that there is an actual sense of jeopardy. Something lacking elsewhere in the series.
posted by asok at 1:15 PM on January 6, 2022
What I am trying to say, is, what is the difference between a Marvel Universe movie and a Michael Bay movie? I select Bay because I believe his films are pretty irredeemably awful, specifically because they are shot through with fascist tropes.
Disney movies, while being slightly less fascist in the main, are still problematic in different ways.
Logicpunk - I'm not sure why it's necessary to pathologize people whose tastes in entertainment are different than your own.
Maybe I wasn't clear, I am referring to Hollywood, not the audience. (junky voice) Just one more epic CGI fight scene, c'mon man(/junky voice)
Oh, and the reason that people like the End Game so much is that there is an actual sense of jeopardy. Something lacking elsewhere in the series.
posted by asok at 1:15 PM on January 6, 2022
« Older For the Apogee of Night, a Solstice Weird Podcast... | Before The Fictional Artist Inevitably Burns Out... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
And this Christie person, who insists on publishing her flashy 'murder' books, instead of, say, a nice sonnet about flowers.
No accounting for people's taste, I say.
posted by signal at 2:06 PM on December 21, 2021 [17 favorites]