[ SECRET POST #6257 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #6257 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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[Unexpected Star - Michael McIntyre's Big Show]



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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 07 secrets from Secret Submission Post #894.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[ariakas]

Oh, same. Maybe the tv shows are doing different things, but I have no interest in them at this point, because the big tentpole releases are the same thing again and again, beat for beat, right down to the obligatory chase sequence, and once I got tired of that I've never been back to the franchise.

I think westerns suffered the same fate; the only way to wring blood from the stone is to do something different or edgy or deconstructive, which is why There Will Be Blood/True Grit (gritty!remake)/The Revenant were all resounding box office successes while classical white-hat/black-hat fare like the 3:10 to Yuma remake flopped.

OP has it completely backwards for sure; the only thing that's going to reverse the MCU downward spiral is breaking the formula completely and approaching the genre from a completely different angle, not just slapping a new coat of paint on what they already have.

[(Anonymous)]

I would loathe that
I hated tho
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[(Anonymous)]

W
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[(Anonymous)]

Yeah I think this is pretty much it. At some point, any genre just becomes so ossified that it's really difficult for people to get interested in stories in it. That's as true of fans as it is for critics or creatives.

I think you *can* have Western films that aren't revisionist that are still appealing and popular. But it would be really difficult and you still would have to make a conscious effort to not get trapped in the time-worn structures of the genre. You would need a lot of skill and effort into it. It's not like the heyday of the Western where it was a cheap genre where you could churn out formula pictures and there would be a ready-made audience for them. That audience doesn't exist anymore.

(also, my pet peeve: the Coen Brothers True Grit is NOT a remake)

[ariakas]

Also what Western audiences were either blind to or reveled in, the genocidal colonialism involved in "taming" the West is no longer something a modern audience can unsee and must be addressed (which it can be! and still tell a worthwhile and entertaining and even uplifting story!), so we can no longer go back an age where the old formulas worked.

Likewise, the fascism/militarism inherent in the superhero genre is starting to wear the shine off after 20+ years of the war on terror and World Policing; I know people are averse to the concept because "deconstructing" superheroes makes them think 90s-style hyperviolent antiheroes and not what is actually meant by the term, i.e. something like Watchmen. I think, were someone bold enough to make it, there's a modern!MCU!Watchmen out there waiting to be made that would blow peoples' minds and not only be critically successful but wildly popular.

[(Anonymous)]

More people say they care than actually care. Especially outside the AO3 echochamber.

[(Anonymous)]

Okay point on westerns, but the superhero genre is about beings with abilities or powers defeating villains. It is satisfying for the heroes to beat villains, and it doesn't have to be related to fascism. Space robots are bad! Murderous villains are bad! People enjoy superheroes kicking ass and cracking some jokes.

What viewers should sometimes accept instead is that they've outgrown a genre. Not in an age/maturity sense, but in the sense that it doesn't work for them anymore. I'm not at all interested in straightforward Hallmark Channel-style romances, but I don't expect those to change to cater to me, because many people enjoy those. I just watch something else.

[ariakas]

but the superhero genre is about beings with abilities or powers defeating villains. It is satisfying for the heroes to beat villains, and it doesn't have to be related to fascism. Space robots are bad! Murderous villains are bad!

Sometimes things are about things other than the things that are a literal description of the plot lmao

And man, as far as "supremacy through violence" and "special people inherently superior to normal people" go, these are about the most fascist themes out there, trumped only by "group of those inherently superior special people defend the normal people of their homeland from murderous undifferentiated hordes of subhumans." That's, like, straight off the wolves/sheep/sheepdogs bumper sticker of the jeep with confederate flags on it tier. Agreed that superhero shows "don't have to be" related to fascism, there is stuff that isn't this - but when the themes are this - which describes much of the large cinema releases - that is exactly what it is, and the genre is absolutely rife with it.

(The militarism side of the claim seems to have gone without question but in case it didn't, like, the MCU quite literally works directly with the US military on film development.)

It doesn't mean the people who enjoy these films are fascists nor are the people who made them (most likely), or that I'm saying they're bad and people shouldn't watch them - they're just consuming/reproducing the narratives of their culture, childhood, and surroundings. It just means the genre is a fertile ground to start questioning and subverting these things, just as modern Westerns have done with their own genre.

And lbr there's a ton of unfortunate themes/implications in Hallmark Channel-style romances, too, as well as rom-coms, and the comment thread below about it is bouncing off the realization that this, too, might be a genre with flaws people can no longer unsee (gender roles, consent, entitlement to sex, etc.) and requires questioning/reformulation to revive it.