https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-50473092

Watchmen creator Alan Moore: Modern superhero culture is embarrassing

According to Alan Moore - creator of the Watchmen series and widely considered one of the greatest comic book writers - it is.

He says superheroes are perfectly fine for 12 or 13-year-olds but adults should think again.

"I think the impact of superheroes on popular culture is both tremendously embarrassing and not a little worrying," he says.

Alan wrote Watchmen in 1986. The series depicts an alternate history where superheroes emerged in the 1940s and 1960s and their presence changed the course of history.

He believes the characters are "perfectly suited" to the imaginations of a younger audience - but now, they serve a "different function, and are fulfilling different needs".

The writer claims adults enjoy superhero films because they don't wish to leave their "relatively reassuring childhoods" behind, or move into the 21st century.

(continued, there are some parallels with RPG gaming culture here)

I read this earlier. I do find it weird the number of adults that are really into superhero movies. It reminds me of when I read that the average age of a WWE fan was 50-something. I think that turns out not to be true, but I still know a surprising number of adult men who watch people pretending to fight and acting in a cartoonishly macho way. The way wrestlers are written is the same as how every other videogame character seems to be written and one of the reasons why I struggle to bother with a lot of them any more. Another one would be the number of adults reading the Harry Potter books, and not just people who grew up with it. I actually listened to an interview last month with Philip Pullman where he said that his publishers deliberately pitched his books as children's books because that's the only way to get the average adult to read fantasy novels (presumably that or a TV deal).

As for superhero films, I think the Marvel ones in particular that I've seen (none since the first couple) have been very formulaic and clearly aimed at a younger audience. But then I don't see how it's much different from action films in the 80s where you have an overly macho character putting the world to rights with violence and spouting some cheesy lines while doing it. But it's interesting that they were marketed as adult films (most of them were R-rated for a start) whereas nowadays, adults have less of a problem watching, reading or playing stuff that's explicitly aimed at a younger audience.

Anyway...



Here's an article that goes into the book question.

I'm not going to fault anyone for liking what they like but Moore's not entirely wrong in one regard in that a line can be drawn from comic book, movie, and gamers and this toxic culture of far right, knee-jerk reactionists, the likes of which revenge vote for Trump, in response to their beloved franchises diversifying.

I'm not even joking here. From when the ball started rolling with an all-female Ghostbusters right up to the recent announcement of a female Thor there has been an incessant pouring of grieving white men clogging up the comment sections as a backlash to 'woke' culture. And in those comments you will see 'This is why we're voting Trump', 'This is why Trump won', 'This is why Trump's gonna win in 2020'. Literally a bloc of Trump supporters who are terrified of losing their privileged status as white males voting for an insecure, disrespectful, destructive, emotionally immature, trashy bully like they are (or wish they were) as a fuck you to society stemming from the culture of grown white men who take kids' things seriously. They even railed against the new depiction of She-Ra as an almost Tomboy rather than an unrealistic female seemingly created to titilate young boys. This is a show for little girls! And these emotionally stunted manbabies are allowed to vote?

I'm sceptical.

If there's a way of demonstrating immaturity, beyond simple disdain, then I think some evidence would be appropriate.

Most people want escapism from their entertainment, and arguably they need it too given the state of the world.

There's room too for art that challenges our assumptions and makes us think about real issues the world faces, but let's not kid ourselves that it's ever been much more than a niche market.

I suppose the problem comes from people who consume the former but mistakenly think it's the latter, and that you really can solve extremely complex issues quickly and simply, and often with little more than brute force. Still, I guess there'd be people who think that regardless of what they watch and read.

Meh. I'll look down on comic book fans when they start shoplifting.

Or denigrating minimum wage earners. No clear link between thread title and content. I am surprised.

Was the new Ghostbusters a problem before release? It was after, it was garbage. As for Thor (Jane Foster), fanboys should be happy as this is canon, though they might not be happy with Portman due to her alleged refusal to be in Avengers recently.
The movies made by Marvel are reasonably diverse, imo. Heimdell is well liked, no one grumbled about Domino or lesbian superheroes in Deadpool 2. Kamala Khan is coming, and hopefully so too is Miles*.
What the fans want is the stories to be as true to the comics as possible, otherwise the studios are 'stealing' their memories for a buck.

*I have a bet Doctor Strange 2 will drag him over.

Alan Moore is a silly twat. His Watchmen was not created for preteens, they would not understand it.
Also, he writes the fucking books!

Superheroes = Deus ex machina

aufbahrung wrote:Superheroes = Deus ex machina

Not what deus ex machina means.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_ex_machina

Deus ex machina (/ˌdeɪəs ɛks ˈmækɪnə, - ˈmɑːk-/ DAY-əs ex-MA(H)K-in-ə,[1] Latin: [ˈdɛ.ʊs ɛks ˈmaːkʰɪnaː]; plural: dei ex machina; English ‘god from the machine’) is a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem in a story is suddenly and abruptly resolved by an unexpected and seemingly unlikely occurrence, typically so much as to seem contrived.

A superhero movie is about a superhero, therefore the superhero is not a plot device used to solve a problem introduced by the writer which he or she is struggling to solve.

In fact, superhero movies establish the remit of a superhero's powers early, then have the superheros play with those powers throughout the 'Fun & Games' of Act 2a, meaning those powers and their limitations are clearly set up.

Fallible wrote:No clear link between thread title and content.

Yup; this is another non-sequitur expanded to thread format.

(continued, there are some parallels with RPG gaming culture here)

Ahh I see... you're just furiously rubbing yourself off again.

They're comic books, FFS, who gives a shit about "canon"? Gods, people need to get a grip.

Ironclad wrote:Was the new Ghostbusters a problem before release?

Yes it absolutely was, people whined and howled long, long before it ever came out. You can't seriously pretend otherwise. Female Ghosbusters?? SJW's ruined muh childhood!

What the fans want is the stories to be as true to the comics as possible, otherwise the studios are 'stealing' their memories for a buck.

What 'fans' want is to live in a time capsule from 40 years ago. Actual fans understand that it isn't 40 years ago, and mature adults today aren't going to pretend it is. The only people that would are the ones who are actually trying to steal your faded memories for a buck.

the fuck

Yeah Ghostbusters tantrums started the second it was announced. It must've given the anti-SJWs an enormous sense of satisfaction when it turned out a bit shit but there's no way they could've known that in advance. Leslie Jones was bullied off Twitter over it.

People were talking about the movie raping their childhood and other ridiculous hyperbole. Rose-tinted glasses made them forget that Ghostbusters 2 destroyed the franchise years ago even with the original cast.

You see this a lot: fans' sense of entitlement. I remember George RR Martin getting the hump with fans both complaining about the length of time it takes for him to write, and also that they spent so much speculating that he would die before he finished it due to his age and weight.

I'm not sure if we humans were always like this, and the internet gave us the means to bawl our dissatisfaction to people other than our immediate friends and families, or whether the internet itself has curated this kind of behavior.

I just want a good story.

I’m rooting for both sides because it’s a surprisingly thoughtful thread. But can I point out? There’s no real dichotomy between pining for one’s cherished past/ beloved story/ ingrained self-image, and... pining for one’s cherished past/ beloved story/ ingrained self-image. Pointing out that what one is really objecting to is a thousand changes to canon (when it’s loudest, it’s usually a particular kind of complaint, too... so it’s pointless to camouflage it) isn’t really making a distinction. I say this mainly bc I find self-reflection fascinating, as in, from an anthropological pov.

Added - More provocative, but also serious: most of us, especially when we’re railing & wailing, don’t really know why. We think we do, but that’s hubris. It’s rationalization after the fact, usually. But like mentioned above... you parse out the language, and there’s no real substantive difference. Mostly a subsuming of a (loud) kind of complaint into the general kind (which is still about resistance to change).

Also: worst deus ex machina ever? Captain Marvel’s entrance in Endgame. Ugh. You think it’s because she’s a woman?