Editorial: Can We Start Giving Superhero Movies Some Respect?

The writer with the largest presence on Rope of Silicon, Brad Brevet, used to be one of my favorite writers when it came to the world of cinema, but sometime last summer, a shift happened in his writing. It was like a switch flipped in his brain or something, every single thing he wrote was dripping in gratuitous cynicism. Now, a cynical approach is not only a perfectly fine way to write pieces on movies, it can be a great angle if one does it in a successful fashion. Unfortunately, Brevet has made it tiring to read his endless mean-spirited attitudes towards blockbuster filmmaking.
An article he put up yesterday on his website revolved around a statement made by the director of Birdman, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, regarding superhero features. He starts out relatively even-handed on them, stating he sometimes enjoys them, though he does lump every single one of these films together by calling them simple. I'm not saying some fun features like Thor: The Dark World have overly intricate plot structures, but to put 'em all together in that fashion feels hyperbolic.

But he isn't through yet, oh no. He then rants about how many of them are right-wing in politics (ooooookkkkkkkk.....) and then refers to them as, and I'm quoting him here,<em> "They have been poison, this cultural genocide, because the audience is so overexposed to plot and explosions and shit that doesn't mean nothing about the experience of being human."</em> Well now. Ain't isn't that a level headed statement? Contrary to his statement, I actually would say the recent blockbuster extravaganza Guardians of The Galaxy does say something about "the experience of being human", in that it reiterates how much caring about other people in a selfless manner is integral to our well being, but whatever. I suppose since it's a summer blockbuster it can't have anything to say, right?

Good Lord, it's just irritating to see such a dismissive attitude towards films that are such a major part of the cinematic zeitgeist. These kind of comments are what take up the majority of conversation of comic book based films, who have their cinematic achievements tossed aside in favor of pinning them as evidence of a fractured cinematic society. Now, I'm sure complaining about the lack of respect massively financially successful movies receive sounds like the sort of idiotic victimization that's at the center of God's Not Dead. But a recurring trend in online discussions is to talk about how, along with sequels and reboots, the "dreaded" superhero movies are destroying the integrity of Hollywood. That just seems more than a bit ridiculous to me. Tales from Marvel Studios and the like are just natural another part of of blockbuster filmmaking, which has existed for nearly 40 years now. And hell, even before then, plenty of things like Flash Gordon and Batman movie serials proved audiences had an appetite for exciting adventure.

Yet, it seems like there has to be a bad guy in place for making sure smaller movies don't find success, so major superhero movies have to be the "bad guy". My favorite movie of last year was Her, a beautiful film that had astonishing performances from Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson, a motion picture I adored, yet it only made $25 million at the US box office. Considering how dismissive people are to the movie whenever I note my admiration for it, I'm surprised it made that much. I'm not sure the X-Men are as much to blame for certain smaller movies not doing well as much as factors like marketing and audience reaction. Plus, just as some superhero movies succeed while others fail, some dramas tend to become huge hits, such as this months Gone Girl.

That David Fincher movie was not funded by some scrappy kid with a dream, but produced by 20th Century Fox. Surprisingly, Inarritu's 2014 feature Birdman is financed for $18 million, money that came from News Corp owned company Fox Searchlight Pictures. Birdman won't get an Avengers sized marketing push, but with that small of a budget, it doesn't need to. Look, it's totally fine not to like superhero, sequels or blockbuster features. Hell, I support you expressing that opinion if you do so in a coherent manner, and I've met many people who have done so. But comments like the ones regularly given by Revent and Inarritu just have this sort of arrogance to them, where they have to push down comic book movies not only to have an enemy to fight, but also to have some way to seem "ahead of the curve" in some fashion. That attitude feels like a very simple way to lose the opportunity to see some great movies. After all, if the stigma of "all non-sequels are good and all sequels are bad" were true, Wish I Was Here would be a masterpiece and Dawn Of The Planet of The Apes would be an atrocity. Similarly, it's impossible to lump all comic book or superhero based movies into one quality category.

As for me, I'll continue to have an open mind and look for good cinema in the many different forms it can take. Maybe it will come by way of a Richard Linklater odyssey, maybe by a new Iron Man adventure, perhaps by a PIXAR feature. The world of cinema has so many possibilities, it'd be a shame to dismiss one particular form of it, in this case superhero features, in the rash manner that Inarritu seems to revel in.