Cronenberg’s absolutely right. Nice to know there are others out there with superhero fatigue.
No one’s going to swoop down from the sky and solve your problems. You can lump superheroes in with gods and Santa Claus: adolescent wish-fulfillment fantasies that every intelligent adult must grow out of at some point.
Just because the subject matter is a childish concept doesn’t mean you can’t make an authentic work of art. For example Miyazaki’s films are about spirits, witches, giant talking wolves and all sorts of fairy-talish things adults should “grow out of”.
What a dreary thing cinema would be if it was limited to the realistic and adult. Of course we wouldn’t want to limit ourselves to fantasy either, but to banish it altogether is to reject a large part of what makes movies great.
“No one’s going to swoop down from the sky and solve your problems.”
Which is why adults go to movies for a couple of hours to experience a world in which that’s possible, before they have to hitch themselves up again and face the more complex world.
Fun and whimsy are good things. ‘Superhero fatigue’ simply means that we’re experiencing diminishing returns due to oversaturation in the market. It happens to the best of genres.
—PolarisDiB
Nor are we ever going to come across a room capable of granting our hearts’ deepest desires, yet we all take Stalker with the utmost seriousness.
Suppose there were an invincible man, with the genuine desire to protect people? How would that turn out? We get hints of possible realistic consequences in films like Kick Ass, The Invincibles and X Men, only shrouded in the entertaining narratives.
Here’s how I would make a superhero film. The man would start out protecting people from muggers and such, just like the mythology, then he’d be clearly developing a quiet sense of entitlement and superiority. He’d get the distinct idea that his idea of right and wrong was absolute and lose all sense of boundary. Maybe he’d start demanding rewards, and when the rewards weren’t as great as expected he’d get angry at the people he saved and start entertaining thoughts of the big corporations offering him billions to sabotage their competition. Maybe he’d save women and, not rape them, but act like he’s entitled to sexual rewards to which they submit because they’re afraid what might happen if they don’t do what he wants. He’d justify that because, he’s the superhero, if he’s doing something it can’t possibly be wrong. In the end he’d end up meddling in any situation where he thought one person was right and the other was wrong. He’d see people he caught being released from prison on legal technicalities and say, screw it, I’ll kill them instead of handing them over to justice because if I don’t they’ll keep doing bad things.
I don’t know how I’d end it. Maybe he’d be killed by somebody he saved who was terrified of him, somebody who carried his one weakness around with her because she’s heard other stories about things that happened to the people he saved.
^Basically, what Hancock was supposed to be until it was slowly diluted in the waters of Hollywood bureaucracy and became Hancock.
—PolarisDiB
“We get hints of possible realistic consequences in films like Kick Ass, The Invincibles and X Men, only shrouded in the entertaining narratives.”
Yeah, basically that kind of thing has comprised the majority of Mark Millar’s career—undermining the moral authority of the super man.
“Which is why adults go to movies for a couple of hours to experience a world in which that’s possible”
Depends on which adults you’re talking about. I don’t look to cinema for an escape from reality.
“For example Miyazaki’s films are about spirits, witches, giant talking wolves and all sorts of fairy-talish things adults should “grow out of”.
They’re also full of beauty and poetry and things which, although fantastical, resonate deeply. No Miyazaki film contains the kind of dumb, simple morality of your average superhero film, clearly meant for the consumption of children, or grown men of the ‘nerd’ mentality which has so overtaken our culture.
^ “My child’s entertainment is more adult than your child’s entertainment”
—DiB
The cultural assumptions at play here tend to be deeply ingrained and therefore difficulty to shake (even even see the reverse shot).
They’re also full of beauty and poetry and things which, although fantastical, resonate deeply. No Miyazaki film contains the kind of dumb, simple morality of your average superhero film, clearly meant for the consumption of children, or grown men of the ‘nerd’ mentality which has so overtaken our culture
The average super hero film is a commercial, generic product. The blockbuster format is the problem, not the concept of superhero itself. I’m sure Miyazaki could make an awesome superhero film with the hero swooping down from the sky.
Matt Parks
Probably (inadvertently?) the most publicity Cronenberg could have possibly gotten for his own film, though.