Because I really fail to see the allure.
DL, please explain to me the appeal of comic book movies
by Anonymous | reply 26 | January 1, 2019 6:04 PM |
Good characters are good, bad characters are bad. The fight for justice and the defeat of evil remains ingrained in us ( even though some choose not to follow). There is no gray ( or grey if you are in the UK) area which requires understanding subtleties.
by Anonymous | reply 1 | January 1, 2019 2:32 PM |
Excellent question, OP!
by Anonymous | reply 2 | January 1, 2019 2:38 PM |
Hot men in tight costumes.
by Anonymous | reply 3 | January 1, 2019 2:39 PM |
I have, until recently, read them my entire life. Lots of family issue s during childhood. Always figured I wa drawn to the sense of justice comic books offered. People striving to be their best, maximizing the power they had. And hot men in tight costumes.
by Anonymous | reply 4 | January 1, 2019 2:41 PM |
It's a reaction to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. People want, even subconsciously, to feel safe in an unsafe world and superhero movies enable us to pretend for 90 minutes what it feels like to live in a world where the superhero (a modern day stand-in for God) will always save us from harm.
by Anonymous | reply 5 | January 1, 2019 2:45 PM |
Or, it could be just a lack of creativity in Hollywood, R5.
by Anonymous | reply 6 | January 1, 2019 2:47 PM |
Watching a comic book movie is the antithesis of reading a good book.
by Anonymous | reply 7 | January 1, 2019 2:50 PM |
I don't understand it either, OP.
I think there are a number of smart, sane people (like the few that have posted here thus far) who find the archetypes appealing, the battle of good vs evil, as it is in science fiction stories, another genre that I am completely uninterested in.......
But I also see a portion - I stress, a portion - of the audience that is a bit stereotypical - the nerds and yes, incels who seem to be stuck at 12 years old, the ones that aren't handling women or modern life or any sort of complexity well, and wish for a chance to fly in a cape with huge muscles, a huge penis, women at their beck and call and most importantly, power.....power they do not feel in their daily lives.
Businesswise, I think there's another reason, and that is that domestic box office receipts are no longer the main driver for these huge companies we have now. They are all international conglomerates and those films have to sell overseas. And in overseas territories, these broad stroke stories sell.
by Anonymous | reply 8 | January 1, 2019 2:50 PM |
I don’t get it either. I like superhero porn though.
by Anonymous | reply 9 | January 1, 2019 2:54 PM |
“Perfect” or superior people whose powers lie in what make them outsiders. They are superior to everyone and yet feel constantly vulnerable and alienated, and so/nevertheless they use their powers for good to defend and protect weaker-bodied people. Their strengths of will and belief are always tested, supposedly showing their vulnerabilities, and yet 100 percent of the time they triumph. I think all of this taps into an inherent kind of narcissistic fantasy that many people carry with them—they feel alienated and always question themselves, but simultaneously feel misunderstood and inherently fantasize that they are superior to others and may one day become matyrs. There’s a lot of religious dogma-based psych damage exploited by these stories.
Superhero stories can be very resonant but Hollywood has overdone it to the point that all their movies are the same story, just with different generic heartthrobs in different silly costumes with different supposed vulnerabilities. Birdman was good because it tapped into a vulnerability otherwise ignored by superhero movies: everyone gets old and unsexy and loses his allure after a while, and that’s the true story ignored by all the other superhero franchises that endlessly cast a new bodybuilding hunk or a pretty young new IT thing in Spandex. It’s fucking boring. I’ve seen five too many of these dumb movies in recent years—90 to 120 minutes of false tension as the hero discovers himself, doubts himself, sacrifices himself falsely and then triumphs. Yawn.
by Anonymous | reply 10 | January 1, 2019 2:56 PM |
R5 nailed it. Also, leaning on the superhero/god allows us to forgo any responsibility for fixing things ourselves. The title of that education documentary “Waiting for Superman” was revealing. Superman isn’t going to fix the schools, or climate change, or income inequality etc. but that means we would have to get off our asses to fix that stuff ourselves, and that’s unappealing to most.
by Anonymous | reply 11 | January 1, 2019 2:56 PM |
I doubt it’s that deep R11.
by Anonymous | reply 12 | January 1, 2019 2:57 PM |
Wanting someone to magically fix all of your problems is childish. That’s the opposite of “deep” R12
by Anonymous | reply 13 | January 1, 2019 2:59 PM |
Good vs Evil. Good always wins.
It's like why people read romance novels. Happy ending is guaranteed.
by Anonymous | reply 14 | January 1, 2019 2:59 PM |
OP, do you like ground fairs?
by Anonymous | reply 15 | January 1, 2019 3:02 PM |
I loved the 1989 Batman movie as a kid; I was 11 when it came out. My dad used to watch the old Adam West TV show and I just thought it was abysmal. The brooding, heavy atmosphere and serious treatment of a character that I had only known as foolish really appealed to me, as did seeing Michael Keaton—whom I thought of only as a comic actor—in a serious role. I didn’t know at the time who Jack Nicholson was, but I found him legitimately scary, and I even had a crush on Kim Basinger (even as seeing Keaton shirtless gave me a boner). I had never seen anything so over-the-top gothic and yet overtly comic book-y. I liked the second one but it pales and then the series got bad. By the time the critically lauded Dark Knight series came along I had tired of all superheroes, and now it’s just an endless stream of the same thing. I liked a lot of Wonder Woman, but then when Aries said “I! Will! Destroy you!” I laughed out loud and the movie was over for me.
by Anonymous | reply 16 | January 1, 2019 3:08 PM |
R9 links please!
by Anonymous | reply 17 | January 1, 2019 3:14 PM |
R13, no.
by Anonymous | reply 18 | January 1, 2019 3:16 PM |
Comic book movies are all cgi. Batman and Batman Returns were actors performing.
by Anonymous | reply 19 | January 1, 2019 3:17 PM |
I always thought it was a reflection of the abysmal state of pop culture, which hasn't progressed in the last 30 years.
by Anonymous | reply 20 | January 1, 2019 3:20 PM |
More like the desire for world box office r6. What other genre of movie could studios count on to sell all over the world in order to make insane profit? You have to have common themes and easily recognizable characters that can translate into the imaginations of anyone in the world. Super hero movies are ideally suited for that.
by Anonymous | reply 21 | January 1, 2019 3:23 PM |
Some of us love to read literary fiction, watch foreign films, AND we also like good superhero movies (not bad ones—they’re not all the same quality). There’s room for enjoying all kinds of art and entertainment.
by Anonymous | reply 22 | January 1, 2019 3:24 PM |
monotheism has removed demigods from the cultural equation. Humans need something like them but beyond them to look up to--and use as cautionary tale. Modern myths.
by Anonymous | reply 24 | January 1, 2019 5:46 PM |
Men in tights with abs.
by Anonymous | reply 25 | January 1, 2019 5:58 PM |
by Anonymous | reply 26 | January 1, 2019 6:04 PM |