What I landed on a few years ago was how deeply disturbing the argument, "But it's my childhood!" is when so casually embedded in how we think of art and entertainment. First of all, do you WANT your childhood to be the legally enforced intellectual property of a liability-free media conglomerate? Secondly, don't you have enough pride in your own childhood to then demand the work live up to the original qualities that endeared you to the movie?
In short, "it's my childhood" does the exact opposite operation it should: reduces the judgment of the viewer while greases the saleability of bad work. If "your childhood" has any personal value, you would protect it with great judgment and little permissiveness.
Or, we can then all agree that your childhood was shitty, because you spent it watching movies instead of developing your own concept of self, personality, and character.
MY childhood was spent running around the mountains pretending I was lost in Jurassic Park, but Jurassic Park sure as shit was not my childhood and does not justify seeing a Jurassic World movie unless I hear indication that the movie is actually good on its own merits.
Yeah I think it also directly ruptures the relationship that we, as adults, all ought to develop with our childhood selves. It's easy, as an adult, to retreat into the media that you spent so much time with as a child (and are therefore comfortable with), but you're not actually doing your childhood self any favours there. What about that child's emotions? What about the ways that child was failed that you can now correct as your own adult? What about what that child lost as a result of that failure? Surely valuing one's childhood should be rooted in nurturing those things rather than the media that that child looked at.
Signed, a former child who watched Bambi every day and didn't deserve any of the crap they went through.
Yes! One great way to revisit your childhood is simply rewatch and reappraise your childhood movies. Sometimes you'll find them awful and give yourself permission to let them go. But often you can find some pretty surprising, and often fun, "Ooohhh, I did not recognize the impact this scene has in my point of view."
Literally none of that makes a sequel necessarily interesting. It can be, but isn't just for the fact of being a sequel. In this sense Superman Returns, which I get the sense failed to really grab the fan base and critical praise, at least was an attempt to complete what Richard Donner established with I and I, however messily. You can see how that could be attractive to fans of the original, and face the risk of living up to what has been established. Whereas subsequent Superman films haven't seemed to have any mission statement or reference to establishment, so why wave it away as "Just a Superman film"? You might love the character but was how he was handled any good? You can't just be like, "Big S, red cape, blue suit, therefore I'm done thinking."
I think people get bogged down in how over-crowded these movies are -- with gratuitous violence and endless characters derived from the IP -- and they lose sight of what these elements ultimately crowd out, which is agency. Too many of these characters and storylines are reactive, and you wonder, reactive to what exactly?
Avengers: Endgame was ultimately damaging. People rooted for those heroes because they had a basic goal -- resurrect a bunch of dead heroes (these movies do NOT care about the average non-superhero human). But in doing so, they were defeating the last five years of Thanos' actions, which were to wipe half of life off the board.
The shows dabbled in this, but ultimately, we have no idea what happened in those five years with everyone gone. "The Falcon And The Winter Soldier" implied that those years were prosperous for some people, and the return of the rest of everyone would be damaging. This was a frustratingly inarticulate position, but more pointedly, Mackie's Captain was nonplussed by all this. He was stopping terrorism, but we never really see if he agrees or disagrees with this position. His fists suggest that he doesn't, but at the show's finale he spoke up against calling these people terrorists, suggesting the truth was more complex. If only he, and the show, made us privy to these truths. Instead, Cap seems to simply fight for the status quo, and not only is this socially regressive, but it's empty, since we don't even know what the status quo is.
More and more, these overplotted movies rob the lead characters of agency so we end up realizing we have no idea what these heroes want, what they're fighting for. I sat through "Brave New World" thinking, if Anthony Mackie goes home now, I assume some other Avenger will show up to clean up this mess, and no one will be the worse for wear. I kept wondering, given the racially-charged nature of his interactions with the President, and the incident involving Isaiah Bradley, if maybe he'd be fed up with this administration and go home, leave the shield behind. Or maybe he'd start packing heat again like he did in earlier movies and start dealing a very violent set of justice. Maybe he ignores the Avengers and dials up assistance from Jon Bernthal's Punisher. Wouldn't that be a statement?
Instead I'm left wondering, what does Cap want here? And, more pointedly, what does Anthony Mackie want here? Does he really want to be the Captain of America, without once acknowledging what America is or has become? When are these Captain America movies going to actually address America? People (myself included) have reached to see Trump or Biden or whomever in President Ross, simply because we want to grant a little bit of loaded real-life significance to this character and what he means. Because without that, this isn't about anything. President Ross at least wants things in this movie. What does Captain America want? What did Shang-Chi want? What do any of these guys want anymore?
I remain fascinated by this great Marvel experiment in 2025 because it asks us, as a society, what a hero actually does in the modern world (pointedly, specifically using characters created in the 1960's as far as the Falcon, President Ross and "The Leader"). More and more, it just seems to be, wait for someone to show up and get punched. Doesn't feel like heroism to me.
Your note on the status quo piques my interest most of all in this (fantastic) remark. Like you say, Cap fights for the status quo despite us audiences not really knowing what the status quo is, and my read on that is that Cap, and Marvel itself, doesn't know what that is, either.
So, just as BNW is contextualizing the Fans, it's asking us to contextualize a status quo in its stead, and the film can serve that status quo, whatever it is, because its goal is unfussy digestibility. And since the film's lack of expression means we can't make anything new, then the lone fact of its unceremonious digestion - of its existence without expression - can fulfill that notion of status quo.
These heroes offer nothing to live up to because they define themselves by passivity and comfort. They want whatever is easiest for you to want them to want. A dark Superman story affirms the easy belief that no one with that much power could ever be good, but Superman's commitment to goodness challenges that. Superman happens to the world, a dark Superman allows the world to happen to him.
Also, I do think we shouldn't overestimate how much of this is pathetic corporate fear. There was an actual mandate to not mention Trump during the first administration, because Marvel head and literal pile of garbage Ike Perlmutter was a major Trump donor (and, allegedly, "friend"). Not even in the comics, apparently.
Such a mandate unfortunately limits expression about MANY ideas, least of all what it means to be American and to be named Captain America. So when we ask what someone named Captain America would WANT, unfortunately it becomes a loaded question because the current President is a selfish and self-loathing gutless coward. We all want heroes. But God, you can't even TALK about what a hero would be, because it'll sound like a slight against the spineless dimwit currently in the White House. Which it would be.
What I landed on a few years ago was how deeply disturbing the argument, "But it's my childhood!" is when so casually embedded in how we think of art and entertainment. First of all, do you WANT your childhood to be the legally enforced intellectual property of a liability-free media conglomerate? Secondly, don't you have enough pride in your own childhood to then demand the work live up to the original qualities that endeared you to the movie?
In short, "it's my childhood" does the exact opposite operation it should: reduces the judgment of the viewer while greases the saleability of bad work. If "your childhood" has any personal value, you would protect it with great judgment and little permissiveness.
Or, we can then all agree that your childhood was shitty, because you spent it watching movies instead of developing your own concept of self, personality, and character.
MY childhood was spent running around the mountains pretending I was lost in Jurassic Park, but Jurassic Park sure as shit was not my childhood and does not justify seeing a Jurassic World movie unless I hear indication that the movie is actually good on its own merits.
Yeah I think it also directly ruptures the relationship that we, as adults, all ought to develop with our childhood selves. It's easy, as an adult, to retreat into the media that you spent so much time with as a child (and are therefore comfortable with), but you're not actually doing your childhood self any favours there. What about that child's emotions? What about the ways that child was failed that you can now correct as your own adult? What about what that child lost as a result of that failure? Surely valuing one's childhood should be rooted in nurturing those things rather than the media that that child looked at.
Signed, a former child who watched Bambi every day and didn't deserve any of the crap they went through.
Yes! One great way to revisit your childhood is simply rewatch and reappraise your childhood movies. Sometimes you'll find them awful and give yourself permission to let them go. But often you can find some pretty surprising, and often fun, "Ooohhh, I did not recognize the impact this scene has in my point of view."
Literally none of that makes a sequel necessarily interesting. It can be, but isn't just for the fact of being a sequel. In this sense Superman Returns, which I get the sense failed to really grab the fan base and critical praise, at least was an attempt to complete what Richard Donner established with I and I, however messily. You can see how that could be attractive to fans of the original, and face the risk of living up to what has been established. Whereas subsequent Superman films haven't seemed to have any mission statement or reference to establishment, so why wave it away as "Just a Superman film"? You might love the character but was how he was handled any good? You can't just be like, "Big S, red cape, blue suit, therefore I'm done thinking."
I think people get bogged down in how over-crowded these movies are -- with gratuitous violence and endless characters derived from the IP -- and they lose sight of what these elements ultimately crowd out, which is agency. Too many of these characters and storylines are reactive, and you wonder, reactive to what exactly?
Avengers: Endgame was ultimately damaging. People rooted for those heroes because they had a basic goal -- resurrect a bunch of dead heroes (these movies do NOT care about the average non-superhero human). But in doing so, they were defeating the last five years of Thanos' actions, which were to wipe half of life off the board.
The shows dabbled in this, but ultimately, we have no idea what happened in those five years with everyone gone. "The Falcon And The Winter Soldier" implied that those years were prosperous for some people, and the return of the rest of everyone would be damaging. This was a frustratingly inarticulate position, but more pointedly, Mackie's Captain was nonplussed by all this. He was stopping terrorism, but we never really see if he agrees or disagrees with this position. His fists suggest that he doesn't, but at the show's finale he spoke up against calling these people terrorists, suggesting the truth was more complex. If only he, and the show, made us privy to these truths. Instead, Cap seems to simply fight for the status quo, and not only is this socially regressive, but it's empty, since we don't even know what the status quo is.
More and more, these overplotted movies rob the lead characters of agency so we end up realizing we have no idea what these heroes want, what they're fighting for. I sat through "Brave New World" thinking, if Anthony Mackie goes home now, I assume some other Avenger will show up to clean up this mess, and no one will be the worse for wear. I kept wondering, given the racially-charged nature of his interactions with the President, and the incident involving Isaiah Bradley, if maybe he'd be fed up with this administration and go home, leave the shield behind. Or maybe he'd start packing heat again like he did in earlier movies and start dealing a very violent set of justice. Maybe he ignores the Avengers and dials up assistance from Jon Bernthal's Punisher. Wouldn't that be a statement?
Instead I'm left wondering, what does Cap want here? And, more pointedly, what does Anthony Mackie want here? Does he really want to be the Captain of America, without once acknowledging what America is or has become? When are these Captain America movies going to actually address America? People (myself included) have reached to see Trump or Biden or whomever in President Ross, simply because we want to grant a little bit of loaded real-life significance to this character and what he means. Because without that, this isn't about anything. President Ross at least wants things in this movie. What does Captain America want? What did Shang-Chi want? What do any of these guys want anymore?
I remain fascinated by this great Marvel experiment in 2025 because it asks us, as a society, what a hero actually does in the modern world (pointedly, specifically using characters created in the 1960's as far as the Falcon, President Ross and "The Leader"). More and more, it just seems to be, wait for someone to show up and get punched. Doesn't feel like heroism to me.
Fromtheyardtothearthouse.substack.com
Your note on the status quo piques my interest most of all in this (fantastic) remark. Like you say, Cap fights for the status quo despite us audiences not really knowing what the status quo is, and my read on that is that Cap, and Marvel itself, doesn't know what that is, either.
So, just as BNW is contextualizing the Fans, it's asking us to contextualize a status quo in its stead, and the film can serve that status quo, whatever it is, because its goal is unfussy digestibility. And since the film's lack of expression means we can't make anything new, then the lone fact of its unceremonious digestion - of its existence without expression - can fulfill that notion of status quo.
These heroes offer nothing to live up to because they define themselves by passivity and comfort. They want whatever is easiest for you to want them to want. A dark Superman story affirms the easy belief that no one with that much power could ever be good, but Superman's commitment to goodness challenges that. Superman happens to the world, a dark Superman allows the world to happen to him.
Exactly right.
Also, I do think we shouldn't overestimate how much of this is pathetic corporate fear. There was an actual mandate to not mention Trump during the first administration, because Marvel head and literal pile of garbage Ike Perlmutter was a major Trump donor (and, allegedly, "friend"). Not even in the comics, apparently.
Such a mandate unfortunately limits expression about MANY ideas, least of all what it means to be American and to be named Captain America. So when we ask what someone named Captain America would WANT, unfortunately it becomes a loaded question because the current President is a selfish and self-loathing gutless coward. We all want heroes. But God, you can't even TALK about what a hero would be, because it'll sound like a slight against the spineless dimwit currently in the White House. Which it would be.
I am being nice.
Fromtheyardtothearthouse.substack.com