This post, like many of my blog posts, was originally
supposed to be a rant. As much as I hate to sound like an insufferable elitist
constantly railing against the mindless unoriginality and lack of diversity in
mainstream cinema, my patience has been dwindling as rapidly as the ratings for
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. For the first
time, I kind of understand why critics spend so much time denouncing modern
blockbusters as superficial fluff pandering to some fictitious
lowest-common-denominator audience. With its emphasis on CGI bombast and
manufactured hype shifted into overdrive, the summer movie season has become
more exhausting than fun, and this year, I found myself rejoicing when fall
(aka awards season) finally arrived because even though Oscar-bait has its own
problems, at least it involves something other than white dudes in colorful
spandex punching one another for hours on end.
Of
course, you could pose any number of valid arguments about how all the
doom-prophesizing and rose-colored yearning for the good ol’ days when artistic
integrity really meant something is
bullshit, which it is. In terms of financial success, the blockbuster format is
as alive and well as ever; in fact, despite the widespread media coverage of
bombs like The Lone Ranger and After Earth, 2013 turned out to be
Hollywood’s most
lucrative summer of all-time. Plus, even though studios increasingly rely
on tent-poles like superhero movies to generate their profit, they still manage
to produce plenty of smart, ambitious, more intimate films along with the
big-budget extravaganzas. Besides, it’s not like Golden Age Hollywood was a
shining beacon of innovation and daring either. The only real differences
between then and now are that action flicks have surpassed musicals and westerns
in popularity and movies tend to revolve around brand names rather than star
power.
Still so happy for you.
In general, I like to think of
myself as fairly open-minded when it comes to art, and my heart has been broken
enough times by movies, from Eragon
to The Lovely Bones to Prometheus, that I have more or less
accepted the fact that most things won’t live up to my expectations. But for
whatever reason, whether it’s because Hollywood really is undergoing some sort
of creative implosion or I’ve just gotten a lot more cynical and hard-to-please
lately, this summer seemed even worse than usual. The breaking point for me was
Man of Steel. Sitting in the theater
during the last hour or so of that movie, alternately fighting the urge to
glance at my watch and stuffing my fist in my mouth to stop from bursting into
inane laughter, I could actually feel
my soul being crushed. It was like witnessing the apocalypse, the moment when
it dawns on you that the future is doomed and hope is nothing but a fool’s
dream, a cruel prank. Is this really what we have come to? Struggling to be amused
by an insultingly blatant recreation of 9/11 and stilted dialogue spoken by
characters with all the depth and charisma of blank paper? After the letdowns
that were Iron Man 3 and Star Trek into Darkness, this was the
last straw, the icing on the cake of mediocrity.
It’s not that these were the worst movies I’ve ever seen (Norbit, anyone?). But that’s what makes them so disheartening: even with all the convoluted plots and too-long action scenes and poorly written female characters, you can still make out those faint, tantalizing seeds of brilliance. It’s easy to forget about something that’s just plain terrible, but wasted opportunities, unrealized potential? That hurts. No matter how much you enjoy the movie, you can’t help but wonder about the “what ifs” and “if onlys”. To be honest, I don’t think I’ve truly loved a tent-pole flick since 2010, the year of Toy Story 3 and Inception; even the three superhero films from 2012, all of which I liked at least to some degree, feel like they could have been so much more. It’s becoming a rather worrying trend – the blockbuster that’s entertaining yet undeniably messy and flawed.
So
close, Mr. Bond, but if the movie’s going to be 143 minutes long, couldn’t you
at least give Eve Moneypenny something to do?
Maybe I’m being overly picky, or my personal standards have
gotten so high that I’m no longer capable of appreciating or tolerating
imperfection (which I don’t think is the case, since I keep swooning over 12 Years a Slave, even though I have
some fairly major issues with it). Either way, Man of Steel left me angry and disillusioned, fed up with the
mind-numbing banality that pervades so many blockbusters, especially superhero
movies. As I hope I’ve made clear in my previous
posts
on the subject, I have no inherent qualms with the superhero genre (in fact, I
think it’s one of the richest, most fascinating genres out there, when done
justice), but lately, its members have begun to acquire a dull monotony,
infinitely reproducing the same tired
narratives, characters and tropes. The most depressing part is that it
doesn’t matter. For all the fuss about Ben Affleck’s casting, you can pretty
much guarantee that in 2015, people will be lining up the wazoo for Superman v. Batman or whatever they end
up calling it, and assuming nothing surprising happens between today and
December 31, the highest-grossing movies of the last two years will have been The Avengers and Iron Man 3. At the moment and probably for the foreseeable future, it
looks like general public has yet to catch superhero fatigue. As long as the
cash continues to roll in, Hollywood has no valid incentive to alter its
current strategy.
For a
while, I seriously considered boycotting all franchise movies – sequels,
prequels, spin-offs, remakes and reboots. That way, I wouldn’t be contributing
to the problem, and I wasn’t jumping up and down with anticipation for any of
the upcoming series installments; I could always just catch those movies when
they came on TV later. But I eventually realized that it would be pointless. No
matter what I do, people are going to keep seeing these movies, and it isn’t like
I can force them not to in order to support my sanctimonious principles.
Besides, even if I’m not particularly excited or hopeful about it, it’s
inevitable that I’ll wind up paying to see the next Hobbit film, since as a die-hard Lord of the Rings fan, I’m practically obligated to (also, Evangeline
Lilly!).
I’ve made a big deal lately about how much I dislike Marvel
Studios. With the record-breaking success of The Avengers in 2012, the corporation cemented itself as the
indisputable supreme leader of the box office. Since then, it has embarked on a
mission to seemingly take over every facet of the entertainment industry, not
only green-lighting movies as
far in the future as 2017 but also producing a TV series for ABC and finalizing
a deal with Netflix for four more live-action shows. When the press talks
about the “phases” of Marvel’s long-term development strategy (as in:
“With Iron Man 3 opening Friday,
Marvel launches Phase Two”), it sounds like they’re talking about some ominous
super-villain’s plan for world domination, which is really not that far from
the truth.
You
can’t deny that Marvel is great at what they do; to date, their movies have
accumulated a combined $5,573,175,158 at the global box office. The problem is
that I don’t particularly like what
they do. Don’t get me wrong, I like some of their individual movies, especially
Iron Man and Captain America: The First Avenger, but I’m still skeptical about
the whole idea of grouping separate films together in one continuous
universe for multiple reasons. First, while I can see why the concept of
comic book movies resembling comic books themselves might appeal to fans of the
genre, the fact is that movies inherently don’t function the same way as comic
books; they aren’t produced en masse on a weekly basis, and they can’t simply
go on forever (though Hollywood is certainly trying to make it happen,
goddamnit). It’s hard to imagine that Marvel won’t eventually encounter major
problems in attempting to preserve the continuity of their various storylines
and universes as well as attract new audiences. Even right now, just at the beginning
of “Phase Two,” the Avengers movies feel incredibly insular, packed with
references and in-jokes designed to please fans of the comics, often at the
expense of the plot and character depth. For Heaven’s sake, they’ve made an
entire TV show revolving around a minor character who’s supposed to have died
and only had the semblance of an actual personality anyway. And what are the
post-credits teasers but Easter eggs for die-hard fans? Yes, on the most
fundamental level, they’re advertisements for future Marvel projects, but is it
really effective marketing if half the time, the majority of the viewers have
no idea what the hell is going on? When you’re trying to appeal to a broad
audience, I don’t think incessantly pandering to a limited demographic is the
way to go.
Don’t worry, we’re furious
too.
There’s also the matter of
diversity (or lack thereof) in terms of characters and casting. Yes, in
comparison to DC, Marvel seems like the Holy Grail of female and minority
representation, and they are at least doing some interesting things in their
comics. But the fact remains that they
have yet to even green-light a film exclusively fronted by a female or
non-white character, and aside from Black Widow in The Avengers, none of the female/non-white characters they do have
are particularly well-served. So far, Marvel has introduced only three semi-major
non-white characters – Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury, Idris Elba’s Heimdall and
Ben Kingsley’s The Mandarin; neither of the first two characters have received
their own narrative arc, and not only is The Mandarin played by Kingsley, who
is British and Indian descent (and no, being Indian isn’t “close enough” to
being Chinese to justify the whitewashing), but he turns out to be (*spoiler
alert*) nothing more than a joke.
So, women are like raccoons or…?
Looking around the Internet, I get
the sense that we’re supposed to be celebrating Marvel’s massive success or at
the very least rooting for them to “beat” DC, whatever that means, but the whole
thing mostly just makes me depressed. Obviously, DC has its fair share of
problems (the understatement of the year), but everyone acknowledges that
they’re sexist and clueless and overall just have no idea what the fuck they’re
doing. Marvel, on the other hand, is frequently praised for having “strong”
female characters and revolutionizing
blockbuster franchises, but as I’ve discussed, kind of/sort of treating
your female characters like people instead of stereotypes or tropes is hardly
worthy of adulation. Also, few people seem to bother asking if Marvel’s impact
on franchises is a good thing. It’s funny that the studio has somehow acquired
a reputation as scrappy underdogs, a champion of marginalized geeks and a
welcome, uplifting alternative to the grim soullessness of DC and mainstream
Hollywood as a whole, when the truth is that Marvel is the epitome of the establishment. They don’t tell stories; they churn
out products cobbled together from spare parts on an assembly line.
Can’t stop, won’t stop raving about this movie.
Which brings me back to Captain America: The Winter Soldier. My
ears perked up a little when I heard that directors Anthony and Joe Russo were
aiming for a ’70s-style
conspiracy thriller vibe, but the trailer was what really grabbed my
attention. Not only is it one of the more well-made trailers I’ve seen lately,
showing just enough to make an impression while leaving the overall plot
largely enigmatic, but it also presented a movie that looks… different. The sleekness that
characterized the previous Marvel films has been replaced by a darker, grittier
visual style, and although there will no doubt still be the usual big action
set-pieces, the trailer’s emphasis on atmosphere and Captain America’s internal
conflict gives me reason to hope that the movie might create tension in ways
other than wall-to-wall fighting. The casting is also intriguing, to say the
least, with Scarlett Johansson apparently receiving her
biggest role yet as Black Widow (which, of course, doesn’t compensate for
the lack of a solo Black Widow project), should-have-been-Oscar-nominated
Anthony Mackie donning wings as Sam Wilson (aka the Falcon) and Robert Redford stepping
up as the head of S.H.I.E.L.D., a particularly savvy move considering the
veteran actor’s presence in such films as Three
Days of the Condor and All the
President’s Men. Most of all, I’m delighted by the hints at an antagonistic
relationship between Captain America and S.H.I.E.L.D., as the former struggles
to adjust to the murkiness and cynicism of post-9/11 society. Could the movie
actually address issues of morality
and politics? Unheard of! The themes
of freedom vs. national security, idealism vs. cynicism, individualism vs.
patriotism, etc., are things that Agents
of S.H.I.E.L.D. was supposed to explore but abandoned in favor of a
laughably simplistic debate between government transparency and secrecy.
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