Superhero movies used to be fun for me, and had an element of “Wow, they found a way to film the impossible…” but being that everything is a superhero movie… it has lost its magic as far as I’m concerned. They aren’t special, but now the expected norm.
And it feels like I am being force fed this steady film diet of blow up more stuff and violet conflict is the only answer.
Is this the American philosophy post 9/11?
That we can’t take care of ourselves and that someone or something with super powers, god like beings, are the only thing out there that can save us? There is something that doesn’t sit right with me as an American watching these movies. That what seems to make someone a great American is that we are all normal people from all over this world who band together to confront problems and solve them.
At least that’s my thought…
It reminds me of the use of the Western in movies. I feel almost all Westerns are about bring order to the world, either moral authority or physical dominance. The west was tamed, or the good guy wins, or what makes someone the good guy. It was the metaphor for a burgeoning nation that lacked a moral mythical foundation story, that has to exist after the Civil War, as that was the war that “solved” the original sin of the foundation of the country. And all of these stories are about normal people.
The Western came out of fashion by the 70’s and think was replaced by the super hero, but super heroes didn’t truly catch on till after 9/11.
What does that say about us?
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