This seems like a good time to revisit Watchmen co-creator Alan Moore's thoughts on modern superhero movies
Aux Features Film
When Martin Scorsese dared to venture a less-than-glowing opinion of Marvel’s omnipresent superhero movies, something snapped in the collective consciousness. Suddenly, with the high drama of a cinematic universe in which beautiful people in tights beat each other up to save the universe, a great battle began to rage across the internet. Could Scorsese, as one of the world’s most acclaimed filmmakers, have a valid point to make about the state of mainstream film? Or is he just some old jerk who doesn’t enjoy CGI punch-ups and has to, by offering an opinion, spoil it for everyone who enjoys that sort of thing?
Weeks into the battle, we’ve grown no closer to the answer that would provide us the long-awaited ceasefire. Even after Scorsese wrote a reasonable, well-articulated elaboration on his opinion, Marvel stars, studio heads, and Disney executives stoked the flames with an Avengers-style group defense of their beloved, money-printing turf. Obviously a stronger weapon was needed by the opposition—and that weapon is a nuclear grade superhero put-down by none other than comics giant and Watchmen co-creator Alan Moore.
As Esquire covered in an article published earlier today, a 2016 interview between Moore and Brazilian writer Raphael Sassaki recently surfaced thanks to the Alan Moore World fan site. In it, Moore is asked for his thoughts regarding how superheroes have had an “impact…in our culture” and why he believes “people [are] fascinated by alternative realities.”
Moore doesn’t waste words. “I think the impact of superheroes on popular culture is both tremendously embarrassing and not a little worrying,” he begins. “While these characters were originally perfectly suited to stimulating the imaginations of their twelve or thirteen year-old audience, today’s franchised übermenschen, aimed at a supposedly adult audience, seem to be serving some kind of different function, and fulfilling different needs.”
The response continues:
Primarily, mass-market superhero movies seem to be abetting an audience who do not wish to relinquish their grip on (a) their relatively reassuring childhoods, or (b) the relatively reassuring 20th century. The continuing popularity of these movies to me suggests some kind of deliberate, self-imposed state of emotional arrest, combined with an numbing condition of cultural stasis that can be witnessed in comics, movies, popular music and, indeed, right across the cultural spectrum. The superheroes themselves – largely written and drawn by creators who have never stood up for their own rights against the companies that employ them, much less the rights of a Jack Kirby or Jerry Siegel or Joe Schuster – would seem to be largely employed as cowardice compensators, perhaps a bit like the handgun on the nightstand.
Not willing to stop without expressing the fullness of his opinion, Moore completes his answer by saying that “save for a smattering of non-white characters (and non-white creators) these books and these iconic characters are still very much white supremacist dreams of the master race.” By way of a finale, he adds: “In fact, I think that a good argument can be made for D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation as the first American superhero movie, and the point of origin for all those capes and masks.”
While we’re curious to see how Bob Iger or Kevin Feige would respond to any of these observations, it’s hard to imagine an equally forceful counterpoint coming from them anytime too soon.
For now, content yourself by reading the rest of the interview and prepare to absolutely ruin your nieces and nephew’s Thanksgivings by explaining to them exactly how their Iron Man toy is just a KKK action figure in disguise.
[via Esquire]
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252 Comments
Testify Alan Moore! TESTIFY!
Burn the witch! Burn the witch! How dare he, a master of the realm from which these movies arise, not worship at the altar of our bespandexed demigods! EXCLAMATION POOOOOOINTS!(Also, Jesus Cristo, but Baby Billy is one of the best tv characters to pop up in quite a while. That show is utter perfection.)
I want a spin off with Goggins as Baby Billy more than anything. They could use his look from the 80’s episode and give us the Baby Billy wandering years before Eli invited him back to the flock.Also, to your original point, I bet the spandex fans are probably thinking of this as the biggest betrayal possible.
Also, to your original point, I bet the spandex fans are probably thinking of this as the biggest betrayal possible. If they somehow went years without encountering this exact same refrain Moore’s been singing for literal decades? I suppose those people are!
That’s fair: I don’t claim to know the history of Moore’s views. Would it be fair to say most comic fans just don’t give a crap about his opinions?
Let’s put it this way: it pissed me off when I first heard it, in the 90s, as a teenager reading it in Wizard Magazine. Some jackass rattles Al’s cage whenever there’s something popular happening in comics or that’s comics-adjacent, and in some of those interviews the vibe of “why the fuck are you asking me?” almost has an odor.It’s old hat at this point. Occasionally a fellow creator will push back, which is fun, but it’s generally “old man yells at cloud” sort of stuff.
I want it to be like a Forrest Gump story where we basically find that Baby Billy inspired every real prosperity gospel preacher like Joel Osteen and Credflo Dollar.
“Utter perfection” is stretching, but Goggins as Baby Billy was a big part of convincing me that I like the show. Didn’t hurt that the same episode where he first plays a major part was also the one that really drove home the idea that the show is The Godfather with The Good Book in place of olive oil and where ALL the kids are Fredo.
It hurt ,3 times
I think this is as close to a William Shatner “Get a life” moment as we’re ever going to get in this reality.
It won’t work for the rabid fanbase (or they won’t care) but DAMN if you didn’t nail it with that analogy.
Obligatory
Just when I got that ear-worm out of my head…man is that thing catchy.
Ah, the old “dust off an old interview with Alan Moore” gambit. Good Content. Get those precious Clicks.
Sucked *you* in quicker than a Dyson, quickclicker..
“This seems like a good time to revisit Watchmen co-creator Alan Moore’s thoughts on modern superhero movies”Why? Why is anyone so interested in the opinions of people who have never and will never watch a superhero movie?
While we’re at it, how come nobody has asked William Friedkin for his opinion of the Fast and the Furious franchise? He made a movie with a car chase, after all.
becasuse he the greatest writer since stephen king and kurt vonnegutis there somone else? david “suicide” foster?
You are aware that an adaptation of his most famous work is, at the moment, the biggest thing in pop culture, yes?
William Friedkin is pretty infamous for giving his opinion on films actually…
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jun/17/william-friedkin-criticises-superhero-movies
If there’s anyone in the world capable of delivering an objective, nuanced and correct opinion of the role super-heroes play in out current culture it’s Alan Moore, he wrote the book, literally, on it.
Yeah but that expires. He may have had something intelligent nuanced and relevant to say back then when he wrote Watchmen, but like nearly every other human being, Alan Moore has grown less open to new ideas and change and innovation with age. The man is agenius but also a certifiable nutcase. He hates things that are clearly quality, and has a strong personal bias against the comic book and entertainment history.
If we wanted to talk to him about Watchmen, and the state of super heroes back when he was a prolific comic writer, sure he would be the expert.Now? He still has something to say no doubt, and I am still willing to listen sure, but it’s definitely accurate to point out how irrelevant his perspective is becoming and how invalid and outdated that perspective is.
Riiiiight….and that ancient old punter Willy Shakespeare has nothing relevant to say anymore about the human condition.
The Tempest has a few proto-superhero tropes.
Not really what I said at all but the fact thats what you took away from it says a lot more about you than me.
Dude, have you read anything of his since the 80s? He’s in LOVE with exciting new, weird ideas. Maybe too much!
It’s mainstream comics that haven’t changed. They’re still telling variations on the same stories from the 60s. And the movies are telling variations on THOSE stories.
Except Alan Moore hates superheroes. I’ve read in the introduction to some of his books how he vastly preferred the horror genre of comic books to the superhero genre, and kind of blames superheros for the downfall of what he considered a good period in comics when they had more variety and weren’t all just about Ubermenschen in tights beating one another up. So while the guy who wrote Miracleman, Watchmen, and Swamp Thing definitely knows his superheroes, he’s hardly an objective source on their effect on our culture because he has always disliked them and most of his work either avoids superheroes or shreds them to pieces.
That he’s not an objective source doesn’t mean he’s a bad one.(Leaving aside you’d never find a truly objective source on this topic… or any other really.)
Not so. My opinion is objectively true on every subject.
Oddly enough, with a single exception: the subject of the truthness of your opinion 🙂
Well I just think that given his personal experiences with Hollywood adaptations as well as his established prejudice against the majority of superheroes that not only is he not objective but he would be a bad person due to his obvious bias.
It’d be like asking Rex Ryan (or Ray Lewis) his objective opinion on the New England Patriots, not only would he be unable to divorce his own negative experiences but he would give you the opposite of an open and good faith answer. Is he an expert on football? Sort of. Lots of experience against New England? Yes. Someone who can be trusted to give a useful and honest assessment of them? No.
AMEN
You think that was objective and nuanced?
Yes, clearly if they had ever watched one they would know they’re great! Or maybe they have and they don’t like them
It’s a good time to revisit it because the AV Club has noticed that other sites got a lot of clicks for doing the exact same, absolutely bafflingly stupid thing. Be glad this is only *two* years old, I suppose.
If they’d run the story yesterday they could have tied it in with his birthday. I mean it’d still be lazy and pointless, but at least there’d be a vague reason.
A moment’s Googling tells me that the interview was originally published two years ago in Portuguese with an English version going up on a blog associated with the gentleman yesterday. I haven’t followed the links to confirm though because I only care so much. But it doesn’t seem quite as clickbaity as the media digging through old stuff to find something newly relevant.
Agreed and let’s be real anybody that’s ever read a comic book that love has thought , this would be a good movie. Books are made into movies all the time but some how comic book movies are bringing film making down, man fuck that. Blame the people who don’t support “real “ films not those of us who enjoy comic book movies.
Considering Moore is looked at as one of the biggest influencers of contemporary comic writers, his thoughts on superheroes is super important and worth hearing. He won’t be right in all cases, but he’ll be worth considering for sure.I think it’s generally good to hear adverse opinions from smart people, you have a good chance of learning something. Being uninterested in an opinion because it’s coming from someone not immersed in the culture sounds an awful lot like burying your head in the sand.
Oh, you poor triggered thing.Here’s an idea: Stop giving a shit what he says just because someone in the media asks him a question and the publishes his opinion.How about that?
Because he’s speaking to you, is a consummate and very special authority, is offering invaluable wisdom, and the issue is important.
I don’t understand why this is confusing? Superhero movies are an exaggerated extension of the comics world which takes stories that were previously known to a (large) subculture of fans, to a global audience.Why wouldn’t you want to discuss the impact of that narrative with Moore, especially when a lot of his work were meta-commentaries on the same concepts being discussed in the article?
I mean, I like a superhero flick as much as the next guy. But I will fully admit that I think his case is pretty inarguable.
For now, content yourself by reading the rest of the interview No.
THIS: “save for a smattering of non-white characters (and non-white creators) these books and these iconic characters are still very much white supremacist dreams of the master race.” YESi love COMIC BOOKS and i hate superhero movies…Ghost Rider I and II were VERY MUCH like the comics The Avengers bear NO RESEMBLANCE to the comics Wasp is THE LEADER of the avengers in comics THAT BITCH WAS IN CONTROL of those muscle bound jokers for FORTY YEARSbut not in the movies
in the comics FOR THREE ISSUES the avengers wereiron man, thor, hulk, ant-man, wasp then FOR TWENTY ISSUES they werecap am, wasp, giant man, scarlet witch, quicksilver, hawkeyethor hulk and iron man have “better” shit to do than be in the avengersThe Avengers are essentially, from issue 57 ON:Wasp, Yellowjacket, Vision, Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye (Goliath II)THOSE are The Avengers but no one will pay a billion dollars to see people work out a problem without PUNCHING something
If you want non-white protagonists, LGBT representation, and a diverse set of creators, you need to go indy. Fuck Marvel and DC. It takes a little effort to get into the scene and find the good stuff, but it’s worth it.
yes, welli’m far too familiar already with comic books and pop culture from 1920 to 2000 diverse is something that’s neither here nor there STORY is what i want and there are few writers willing to think of INTERESTING THINGS THAT HAPPEN instead they do pastiches of claremont or roy thomas or you get artist who can SHOW you anything, but can’t tell a story using dialogue (mike allred, however the milligan/allred x-force is PERFECT)
I’m not sure that Moore was ever a very big superhero fan in any media.I think he always wanted to do weird crap like Lost Girls and whatever the hell League of Extraordinary Gentlemen turned into after Black Dossier, he just had to do superhero stuff to get started.
I think some of his early DC work radiates with love for the characters but he was clearly always annoyed with the self imposed limitations on mainstream comics. His Swamp Thing run is like the ideal balance between sincere appreciation and experimentation.
Yeah, it’s hard to read his Superman works (including Supreme) as anything other than the work of a super-fan.
i also think being constantly fucked over by the big two companies really soured him on the genre.I mean you can’t look at TOM STRONG or TOP TEN and say “there’s a writer who hates superheroes”
I would say his work on Supreme is a wonderful tribute to Silver-Age Superman, as well as a rebuke to the grim ‘n’ gritty trend (which he had a hand in starting).
I feel like anyone who thinks this isn’t really that familiar with Moore’s work.
Nah, Alan Moore absolutely loves superheroes, that’s why he is so cranky. He always took it for what they were (silly fantasies for kids), and tried to see if he could push the genre further (first with Marvelman/Miracleman, then Swamp Thing and finally, Watchmen, with some other DC work here and there), but everyone took the wrong lessons from his work and never let it go. Hell,the central thesis of Watchmen was how fucked-up would be if people lived-out his superhero fantasies (it would turn fascist/psychotic/sexual very fast), but then people loved Rorschach and The Comedian and comics were ruined forever*.TLDR: He’s cranky because he tried to push the envelope in his favorite genre/medium, but everyone just got distracted with the sex and violence and that’s the norm now.*Not really.
Trying to read the current LoEG makes my head hurt and I have no idea what he’s trying to accomplish with it.
There’s an overarching point, but there’s a ton of noise to get there. Oddly enough, the closing volume directly takes on 50s era pulp comics, and he stabs at some of the points he made in the interview.
*pulp superhero comics
“and whatever the hell League of Extraordinary Gentlemen turned into after Black Dossier”It went full-on into reference porn for lit majors and I loved it for that. Bought and own all of it, and cannot recommend it to anyone in good conscience. 😀
That’s a good way to put it. I think I liked it when the references were either super obvious or Easter eggy.
I kind of like things like that.“Yeah, I’ve read the whole series. It’s one of my favourite things.”“Cool. You think I should read it?”“Oh, God no.”
SEE ALSO: Aqua Teen Hunger Force
Lost Girls and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen are both awesome. I was so sad that the latter got butchered in the movie, because it is my favorite work of his even more so that V for Vendetta or Watchmen. As far as Lost Girls that was smut with a plot, I feel like it appealed to a lot of different layers of my mind and helped one think about sex and literature without getting distracted by blood rushing elsewhere. Like it was porn that made me just want to think deeply about things instead of go to my bunk.
“I’ll be in my library.”
“Weird crap” aka the rare something if merit and value in the popular American comic culture
Nope. He grew up on the old Marvel comics, and genuinely admired their creativity and artistry. He was overjoyed getting to work with Superman and Batman and Swamp Thing and the Charleston characters.
It was working with DC that turned him off superhero comics. All the censorship and contract-breaking and thug behavior.So you might have to admit he knows what he’s talking about.
He did some foundational work in the 80s that people won’t stop gushing over. His work is very clever compared to the other stuff from its era, and… that’s about it.Anyway, the only time I want to read Alan Moore’s opinion is in a massive dialog balloon that’s crowding the work of a more talented artist out of the frame.
People sure are sensitive about the movies they like. It’s weird. You didn’t make the MCU. Stop taking this criticism so personally.
“abetting an audience who do not wish to relinquish their grip on (a) their relatively reassuring childhoods, or (b) the relatively reassuring 20th century. The continuing popularity of these movies to me suggests some kind of deliberate, self-imposed state of emotional arrest, combined with an numbing condition of cultural stasis that can be witnessed in comics, movies, popular music and, indeed, right across the cultural spectrum.”
That’s not about the creators.
It’s not entirely wrong, either, but either way, defensiveness is warranted.
Sure, but this interview was also resurfaced after weeks of Marvel fans having a prolonged tantrum over Scorsese and Coppola saying (in Marty’s case pretty gently, frankly) that they don’t like the movies themselves. Which seems to prove Moore’s point about the audience for them.
Fanboys certainly can be reactive.
“You didn’t make the MCU. Stop taking this criticism so personally.”
Counterpoint: Alan Moore has never seen an MCU movie. Stop asking him for his opinion.
You only need to see one MCU movie and you’ve seen them all.
That is absolutely not true.
Well, your opinion is as credible as Moore’s.
Is that the one where the guy with the red suit sacrifices himself and proves he’s not an asshole, or the one where the guy with the blue suit sacrifices himself for no reason?
Not true. There are more than one of them.
I’m sure he could make a pretty educated guess as to their content ..
Eh, that or people are sick of journos rattling Moore’s cage (or, in this case, dusting off a copy of the last time someone rattled Moore’s cage) over the current state of superheroes. Discussion and criticism are great, but Moore’s been yanking this chain (or having it yanked) for years. He hates the superhero subset of the medium. Not a hell of a lot more to glean.
I mean, he kind of makes it personal here, given his slight snideness about the “young-at-heart and non-unionised audience” who live in “some kind of deliberate, self-imposed state of emotional arrest”.He’s not entirely wrong, perhaps, but this isn’t entirely people just getting overly defensive over criticism of their favourite films. He’s attacking them as well.
who live in “some kind of deliberate, self-imposed state of emotional arrest” A quote from a man who never met a rape scene he didn’t like. Huh!
Oh, and he basically calls them cowards as well.
It’s not about liking/disliking stuff, it’s about saying “this isn’t art” based on a reductive view of the genre.Not everything is about attacking or defending shit.
That’s because SOME people have wrapped their entire personalities around the pop culture they consume. They’ve essentially turned cheap pulpy kidlit into a religion, and Alan Moore just said “You’re not in a religion, you’re in a cult, and your god is kind of evil and stupid.”We’ll stand for that with scientology, but not Marvel, DC, Star Wars, etc.
Sure, let’s hear from the guy with the bone in his hair….
Okay, I am repeatedly on record as defending Alan Moore as not the curmudgeon people think he is.But this is Peak Curmudgeon. Bordering on “Ok, Boomer” territory.Look man, I didn’t build the world I live in today. But I do try and make it just a tiny bit better, mainly by doing things like voting and investing myself in the political process. And I do that, in no small part, because I’ve been inspired by characters from fiction. Atticus Finch? Sure. Jean-Luc Picard? Definitely. Jean Valjean? Why not.But also by Captain America. And I don’t see why that’s a bad thing. I’m grateful for Alan Moore’s work, and I will continue to defend him as less a curmudgeon than people think he is, because he does get an unfair wrap. But Alan, dude . . .You don’t know me. So stop putting words in my mouth.
Meh, it can be two things. I’m comfortable with the idea that superheroes are a vital and interesting part of fictional media, while also being, as Moore states, great examples of fascist power fantasies.There’s a reason why the term ‘problematic faves’ exists. We’re only human.
Somewhere there’s a Philosophy grad student toiling away at a thesis that tries to establish a causal relationship between the rise of Marvel movies and the rise of populist white supremacy in American politics.
I would bet good money that you are correct.
Did they even have Marvel movies in the 1800s?
#HistoryMajorRespect
if by ‘toiling away’ you mean ‘making unfounded assertions propped up on nothing but the conviction that their incredibly myopic life experiences are universal and a handful of quotes from po-mo writers’, then definitely
You are correct in that multiple angles usually exist in our complicated culture and reality. It’s the problem with getting perspectives like Moore’s, Scorsese’s, Feige’s, or anyones for that matter, and acting like it’s the definitive stance on the subject. Do they all make good points? Sure. Do some of the things they say apply to some people and not others? Absolutely.At the end of the day I think everyone is right in some ways, and everyone is not the definitive word on the subject either. I enjoy quite a few of the superhero movies and some I think are pretty bad. I would love to see Hollywood be more diverse, not only with the opportunities offered to people, but in the projects that are made, but I’m still going to enjoy The Irishman when it’s released and probably the next Avengers flick too. Is art a reflection of our culture? Of course it is. But there are a lot more important things in the world that are alarming indicators, than too many superhero movies are being made. I firmly believe the market will correct itself and if it doesn’t then we only have ourselves to blame.
I firmly believe the market will correct itself and if it doesn’t then we only have ourselves to blame. It’s all cyclical, and it’ll change.
BTW, really dug this take.
Man, stop talking sensibly and throw a punch at someone for the love of god.
I could not stand the number of people who took the position, “Martin Scorsese has directed some good movies, therefore his opinion is objectively the one true knowledge.”
I firmly believe the market will correct itself and if it doesn’t then we only have ourselves to blame.It won’t because whenever someone who intimately knows the market says “You are to blame,” fans say “nuh-uh! What do you know anyway?” or “let me like the thing I like!” or some variation on a theme.
No doubt they are facistic power fantasies. But that isn’t his point, just a detail to his point. Alan Moore’s point infantilizies and dismisses any true fandom for the genre and culture. It basically paints people who enjoy these movies as idiots who dont want to think hard about things. Which is demonstrably close minded and wrong.
“It basically paints people who enjoy these movies as idiots who dont want to think hard about things.”Yeah, he didn’t have to use absolutes. Really, it’s just most of them, not all of them.
Yeah not even and if you actually think that, and youre not just trying to be king smartass of the internet, you might actually be the idiot in this situation.
“Yeah not even”“king smartass of the internet”You were saying?
Yeah, but EVERYTHING except witchcraft and hallucinogens is facism to Moore.
He’s the sort of person who doesn’t believe any sort of compromised good guy can even exist.
…
I mean, not knowing anything about the culture didn’t stop Moore from having a take on it. His take on Harry Potter in Century – which is awful in itself – is either the epitome of “ok, boomer” or Mark Millar’s horrid bullshit. Which is sad, because I think there is space to utilize the character as the Antichrist within the context of that story, but for that Moore would have to actually engage with the work itself.It’s honestly why I am so tired about this “art vs. superhero films” debate that the film media is perpetuating ad nauseum. The enthusiast press is doing nothing but baiting creators into hot, clickbaity takes about media they don’t care about in any way above superficial, in turn making me listen to my artistic idols spout ill-informed cloud yelling.Hey, AV Club and the rest of you boring press tits. Ask Scorsese, Coppola or Moore about the constant stream of remakes that Disney is shitting out in the name of artistic revisionism and not having to pay residuals. You know, about something that IS actually eroding this fucking culture and which actually does not engage with art in any meaningful way, considering how awful and phoned in they are. Or sit them down in front of Ready Player One and ask to defend that shit.
Harry Potter is Blairite neoliberalism made manifest in a mediocre but best-selling fantasy series for children and young adults. And let’s not mention the banking goblins.
Moore was not wrong. Moore is never wrong.
Oh good God, all of this. RPO directly removed Spielberg from the conversation. Any digs Spielbergo has against superhero movies are null and void.
The problem isn’t superhero movies, it’s how studios are being run by bloodless suits with economic AND political agendas. It’s how idiot businessmen are in charge of creative industries, and how they run them poorly and subsidize the losses by cutting funds for these boomers’ precious genres of choice. Scorsese and Friedkin would NEVER shit talk America or capitalism, and yet both of those things are the real root cause of their grievances.Hence live action Disney movies. Hence cop dramas that get acclaim and awards despite being propaganda for the bad actors of the state. Or gangster movies that inspire kids to be Scarface or Henry Hill (or
whomever) despite the fact that the movies show the downfall as a
narrative necessity. Or war movies that sometimes claim to be anti-war, then inspire the SHIT out of kids to join the armed forces to be unbeatable American super soldiers. Yeah, bullshit war movies have been tricking kids into thinking the Army or the Marines will turn them into ubermensch fighting gods with M4A1 dicks between their legs. I’m sure all of the crybabies in question love at least one war prop movie, even if it’s Paths to Glory or whatever.
I mean, the Captain America films by and large are basically military propaganda tho. (And not even as bad as Captain Marvel, which is just literally an Air Force recruitment as.)
Not really . . . I don’t know how you can watch the Star-Spangled Man for example, and not notice that the film’s tongue is practically poking a hole through its cheek. And that’s the most deliberately propaganda part of the entire trilogy:
It’s a film in part supported and funded by the Pentagon. I assure you they had some idea of what they were getting with their assistance.
It’s actually a common tactic in propaganda to try to mask the propaganda by including some light critiques of the subject (especially if you can show that the subject has a sense of humor about being lightly made fun of). Reifenstahl and Goebbels knew this instinctually, that people wouldn’t trust films that were just pure propaganda, so they laundered it through compelling stories that sometimes showed the downsides of the war. Not that I am saying Captain America is the same as Reifenstahl, but it is the same impulse. The Pentagon believe it or not sometimes turns down films that it thinks are too rah-rah because that just makes it too obvious.
In contemporary American film, an analogue would be something like Zero Dark Thirty, which shows Jessica Chastain vomiting and being troubled by the torture, and shows it as a horrific practice, but nonetheless (thanks to intentional leaks of misleading info from the CIA to the filmmakers) portrays it as an effective and necessary evil to stop the bad guys. The audience walks away thinking it was a balanced and nuanced take on the subject, rather than what it actually is, which is clever propaganda.
In the case of Marvel, this is all before getting into Captain Marvel trying its luck by running literal Air Force recruitment ads before the film in theaters. I saw the clip above in full when I watched the film, and I assure you, it was obvious to me that it was there to provide light jabs at the military so that the rest of the film, which almost across the board portrays the military in purely valorous and altruistic light, would not seem so obviously dishonest.
That interpretation of Zero Dark Thirty does a disservice to the very beginning and the very ending of the movie, which suggest that the rest of the movie was a meaningless exercise in vengeance that neither repaired the damage of 9/11 nor helped the person responsible for the vengeance.
That’s a pretty generous reading of a film that leaks showed the CIA literally picked as a conduit for their message:
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/watch-how-the-cia-helped-make-zero-dark-thirty/
Again, I think the film tried to make itself complex by having the characters express complex feelings, showing it as cyclical, whatever so that the audience is thrown off. To be fair, based on the leaks it actually seems to be the case that the filmmakers themselves were not fully aware of the extent to which the CIA (which provided information to them that it wasn’t even providing to Congress) was actively misleading them. But nonetheless that is the film as it stands. Even if we grant that it was trying to say anything nuanced or interesting, the actual effect of the film is that a hell of a lot of people think torture is effective or justified, which is just flatly a lie. And again, the CIA knows what it’s doing when it decides to collaborate on a project. They’re not in it for Bigelow’s subtle examinations of violence or whatever. They know what they are actually getting.
I don’t disagree with your interpretation, but “CIA propaganda” is a specific lens for viewing that text, and it doesn’t necessarily account for the net effect of the movie which (for me at least) was emotionally exhausting and borderline nihilistic. I appreciate that my response to it and reading of it don’t account for its propagandistic elements, but that’s the nature of fiction. Zero Dark Thirty is a non-didactic text that often allows its tone to contradict its plot.
By net effect I mean the net effect on the audience. Maybe you individually were aware that the torture element of the plot is based on lies (actually, most of the film is but that was less clear in 2012 than it is now) and were able to look at it in that context. If so, great, but that’s not the reaction most of the audience had. Most people watched it and walked away with the understanding that torture, however horrible it may seem, is ultimately useful and necessary to get information, and that the valorous Seal Team 6 (practically a terror organization) used that information to successfully kill a bad guy. The CIA absolutely knew what they were doing giving that information to filmmakers. They knew it would be laundered uncritically and that this would pass-through to the audience. That they were able to do it without issuing press releases or whatever that would be picked apart is the point. The defenses of some critics and audience members hailing its nuance ultimately provides cover for them.
He’s not putting words in your mouth, he’s judging you. Why is it that none of you people who get offended at criticism of superhero movies can argue without making shit up?
Bordering on? We’re well past Ok Boomer at this point.
The thing is, he’s not wrong. If everyone would come out and say “look, I know it’s dumb fluff, but I like it because this world is a 24-hour horror show and it’s nice to not feel terrible for 90-150 minutes,” I don’t think anyone would have shit to say about it. But if you’re gonna bust out the microscope and ask the dude about the cultural importance of superheroes, you’re gonna have to hold your nose and take your medicine a little bit.
Yeah, I realise the tone of his words make it feel like he’s personally attacking people but there is a problem with escapism being so focused on white men. There are plenty fans (and not just comic book fans, gaming is another big one) who throw a shit fit the moment they perceive any tokenism to exist in their properties – stories about this run endlessly on the AV Club (fans hated this character from Star Wars, Brie Larson, representation in computer game characters) and the normal response is “fuck those people, they’re terrible”. Moore is showing why those people may (may being a very important word in this sentence) end up with this perspective. Yeah, he’s stating it in a rather word of God “this is the case” way but it’s at least a point worth thinking about.
Here’s an idea: Stop giving a shit what he says just because someone in the media asks him a question and the publishes his opinion.
Let’s never forget that Captain America was created by two Jewish men and put on the cover of a comic book punching Adolf Hitler before America entered the war. He was invented as a pure “fuck you” to fascism.
The thing about fascism, though, is that saying “fuck you” to fascism is not at all incompatible with being fascist..
He is literally pointing out that golden and silver era series and publications, and their rotting, bloated franchises are the definition if “ok boomer” at it’s most hideous. Let’s be frank, these are poorly conceived characters with very little intrinsic value–at best.
But also by Captain America. Yes. Captain America is an excellent role model… for 12-13-year-old boys.After that, looking up to someone who runs around with a round shield solving problems with violence seems a bit…
I disagree with parts of this take. Moore has always been a prolific grouser, the very nature of his writing is to lift up the curtain of whatever trope he’s writing and undercut it. He’s always been an avid student and critic of comics, and he’s always been especially willing to bite the hand that feeds him, whether it’s his publisher, audience, or even collaborator.Regardless, Swamp Thing alone makes the grousing worth it.
Came for the lame “OK Boomer” shit, was happy to see it right at the fucking top of the comments. You kids are so fucking predicable when you’re hurt by the truth.
This is clownery, and you are a clown.
For now, content yourself by reading the rest of the interview and prepare to absolutely ruin your nieces and nephew’s Thanksgivings by explaining to them exactly how their Iron Man toy is just a KKK action figure in disguise.How about instead we prepare to explain to our nieces and nephews that Alan Moore and Martin Scorcese, like all artists and critics, still cling to the long-dead myth of the distinction between high and low culture, and fancy themselves gatekeepers between the two. And that although they are undeniably talented and established artists, their pronouncements about movies are no more definitive than the obtuse reductionism of pop culture websites engaging in elitist fan-shaming.Hopefully our nieces and nephews are wise enough to understand that you can enjoy both “low” culture like fun superhero adventure movies and “high” culture like movies about gangsters murdering each other and graphic novels about pre-teen fairy tale sex orgies.
How about instead we prepare to explain to our nieces and nephews that Alan Moore and Martin Scorcese, like all artists and critics, still cling to the long-dead myth of the distinction between high and low culture, and fancy themselves gatekeepers between the two.Moore doesn’t have any distinction between high and low culture. Moore once published a porn comic because he wanted to. This isn’t about high or low culture at all for him.
Eh, “Lost Girls” was literally Moore’s attempt to elevate and uplift pornography, a medium which is utilitarian by definition, because he believes that it’s the only vehicle to talk about sex freely. Most of the later parts of “League” consist of a treaty on high and low popculture.
I mean, most of the later parts of the League consist of more just riffing on stuff he likes and doesn’t like. I don’t think it has anything to do with high or low culture.Hell, Moore has stated his favorite comic book character is Herbie.
I believe he does (did?) look down on modern pornography and wrote Lost Girls in order to “bring legitimacy” to the genre of pornography
This is not high low this is Human versus Excel spreadsheet.
This isn’t an argument about high vs. low culture. It’s about culture vs. popular culture and how pop culture has subsumed everything to the detriment of everyone.
Here’s an idea: Stop giving a shit what he says just because someone in the media asks him a question and the publishes his opinion.
So instead YOU, Joe-superman-fetishist should be the gatekeeper. Saying we need to allow creators to be creative should not be considered snobby nor groundbreaking.
Martin Scorcese doesn’t make art films, he makes popular movies within very specific parameters. A lot of his work circles around the moral lives of horrible, violent white men, which is dull territory to cover repeatedly. Alan Moore makes opinions. His opinions are best expressed in giant dialog balloons with art by Chris Gibbons or Eddie Campbell. “High culture” and “low culture” have been meaningless of generations, and they are only used in conversations about how they’re meaningless. Superhero movies rely on well-established and easily recycled plot tropes and characterizations, and they use those tropes to express a small number of simplistic themes. In that sense, they’re just like every other genre of popular fiction, with the fun wrinkle that most of them are made by a single studio with direct oversight by a single executive. The really annoying part of this discussion is people pretending that our monoculture is actually a subculture. When things are stigmatized (as comics and fantasy novels were in the 80s), the act of enjoying them is itself interesting. The act of enjoying the most popular cultural products of the 21st century isn’t interesting, but people talk about it like it is. Hearing people talk about how much they love the MCU is like hearing someone talk about how much they love McDonald’s or the color blue. They’re not being insincere, and they’re not even talking about something that’s bad. But there literally has to be something more interesting to talk about.
Damn, AVC was feeling thirsty today.
“The continuing popularity of these movies to me suggests some kind of deliberate, self-imposed state of emotional arrest, combined with an numbing condition of cultural stasis that can be witnessed in comics, movies, popular music and, indeed, right across the cultural spectrum.”
Counterpoint: some people like escapist entertainment.
Counter-counterpoint: all culture is “escapist” by design. That doesn’t excuse consuming the worst of it under the guise of “let people enjoy things.”
That’s not a counterpoint, that’s what he’s saying. People are choosing to escape in bullshit fairy tales about people in ridiculous suits solving world problems with really hard punches.
The people who say that tend to like ONLY escapist entertainment.
So Alan Moore what do you enjoy watching these days?Oh the usual Russian dash cam footage, the kosher cow slaughter scene from In a Year of 13 Moons, Blue by Derek Jarman, and sometimes just for fun The Garbage Pail Kids movie backwards on high contrast while blaring Slayer covers of 90’s Gogurt jingles.
Is there any real correlation between having “mature” taste in entertainment and maturity as a person?
No.
I mean, Moore’s a genius. But his opinions on superheroes haven’t exactly changed since at least the ‘90s. Watchmen had plenty of “KKK equals superhero” discussions in the text. He loathes what they’ve become, likely as a result of his experience in the industry and his personal politics. He’s entitled to that opinion, and anyone surprised by it hasn’t been paying attention.(Though judging by his output in recent decades, he’s tied to the pop culture of his youth just as surely as the rest of us are.)
He’s also right about creator’s rights and how the industry treats its creators. That’s the one thing he more than anyone can speak to (though, he loves to throw other creators under the bus for not being as outspoken as he is)—and he ought to be able to complain about how he was treated by the executives. And mostly, yeah, we ought to listen. The more vital part of this interview was him engaging with why he no longer owns any copies of the properties he created. It’s devastating and more interesting than his thoughts of the films.
That said, I do see how his quote tied all this together into a jumble that slightly ignores the present (yeah, even the 2016-present). Was this pre-Trump’s election?(a) their relatively reassuring childhoods, or (b) the relatively reassuring 20th century.As for this, well, it’s an easy argument to make at the broad level. There’s no shortage of people who rant and rave about “their childhoods,” but it also ignores a lot of work by writers/artists of color and on the LGBTQ+ spectrum working to change it. He makes a passing remark about the “smattering,” but it’s so dismissive of the work these creators are doing and their impacts.His quote also ignores why people would want and crave escapist/fantasy fiction in the 21st century. Superhero comics and films are engaging with the 21st century (“white supremacist organization infiltrates global intelligence agency/governments” / Killmonger’s rationale in Black Panther / and like, all of Into the Spider-verse / Captain America helping migrants at the border / Coates’ work on Black Panther and Captain America / etc.). Is it engaging as radically as a lot of us would like? Not exactly, not yet. Hopefully soon.
Moore is a left-wing anarchist politically and he would point out that PoCs and the LGBTQ+ community working in commercial comic books isn’t exactly blowing the hinges off the soul-harvesting system of capitalism we all serve.
There’s a difference between escapism – which all culture, to some extent, serves – and consuming violent, predominantly white revenge or war fantasies produced by the world’s premiere mega-media corporation.
The part I don’t like about his argument is he seems to imply that people who engage in forms of culture aren’t aware that they are choosing to escape their reality for a bit or that their chosen form of entertainment, like comics or comic movies, might have some themes that came down from editors and producers who are in it for the money. I know he’s been in the industry for decades, so he has a lot more insight than I do into the comic making process, but I’m not in Oz and I don’t need curmudgeon sorcerer Alan Moore to tell me there is a man behind the curtain.
Plenty of people are smart enough to deconstruct or explicate themes in their books and shows and movies etc. and also to understand the role capitalism makes in getting things funded/published. He has his personal reasons for despising Hollywood, I understand his past with them, that doesn’t mean he has to treat everyone who sees a comic film as some uneducated peasant who doesn’t know how the world works.
“The more vital part of this interview was him engaging with why he no longer owns any copies of the properties he created. It’s devastating and more interesting than his thoughts of the films.”THAT.
The more vital part of this interview was him engaging with why he no longer owns any copies of the properties he created. It’s devastating and more interesting than his thoughts of the films. Of course Reid doesn’t mention this in the article because this point and discussion doesn’t generate the kind of outrage clicks and flame wars than “Alan Moore h8s superheros” and “Iron Man is KKK” does.
His opinion hasn’t changed because the culture has only proved his opinion more valuable over the last 30 years
Superhero comics and films are engaging with the 21st century Is it engaging as radically as a lot of us would like? Not exactly, not yet.Only within the parameters of DC and Marvel. He’s always been quite insistent that the best comics will be the indy stuff, where LGBT+ community is huge and vocal, and barriers are being broken in ways the Big 2 will never, ever allow.I mean, if art is supposed to change the way you think, mainstream comics and superhero movies are created to make sure you think the same thing over and over. I mean even Black Panther, which is all “about” racism, ends with inspiring message of
He’s not dismissing “a lot of work by writers/artists of color and on the LGBTQ+ spectrum.” That stuff isn’t making it into blockbuster movies. He’s criticizing mainstream, blockbuster movies. He doesn’t need to include a de rigueur nod to “marginalized” people toiling away in relative obscurity in the same field.
Enjoy your clicks.
“Primarily, mass-market superhero movies seem to be abetting an audience who do not wish to relinquish their grip on (a) their relatively reassuring childhoods, or (b) the relatively reassuring 20th century. The continuing popularity of these movies to me suggests some kind of deliberate, self-imposed state of emotional arrest, combined with an numbing condition of cultural stasis that can be witnessed in comics, movies, popular music and, indeed, right across the cultural spectrum.”Kind of exemplifies my feelings about Alan Moore in general: agree with him completely or not, the guy is good. Still, it reminds me of his introduction to V for Vendetta where he describes a scene in a pub in which someone changes the channel when a disturbing news report comes on and says the book is for “people who don’t change the channel.” He’s onto something for sure but, jesus, let people have their escape once in a while. Life is hard, the world is hard, and sometimes we gotta compartmentalize. I pay attention, I know what’s going on, but if I don’t drown out the awful noise sometimes, I’m not gonna be present for the things I need to be present for in my day to day. I know there’s resource sucking multi-billion dollar industries based on drowning out reality, and I think Moore is really insightful but, I don’t know, a little much with the judginess sometimes.
Your opinion stumbles dangerously close to the territory of the obnoxious “Let People Enjoy Things” meme. Consumers should absolutely have to account for what they consume and why they consume it. Life has always been hard for anyone who isn’t in the owner class but that doesn’t excuse lazy consumption.
I never saw that meme before looking it up and, yes, it’s quite obnoxious. I think my response comes from a general lack of empathy in our discourse.
We tend look at each other as symptoms of larger social trends, not human beings, and become angry at tiny cogs in the wheel, not the people and forces that set them turning. Not that it’s always wrong to do both, but it’s pretty toxic out there, you know? Do we judge the woman in Moore’s pub as shallow and in denial, a disposable enabler of society’s oppressors, or do we ask what her day was like, what she’s been through, what else she does in life besides turn off the TV, why she maybe needed some space just then? I’m also not sure what consumption argument is here. I should boycott Disney because their content numbs me to the struggles of the world? Do you judge me personally if I don’t?
“Consumers should absolutely have to account for what they consume and why they consume it.”Who is owed that account? You? Why?
I have no idea what’s obnoxious about letting people enjoy things. There are limits, obviously – I’m not suggesting we should let people enjoy child pornography or videos of torture – but why would I think I’m owed an explanation for why someone enjoys the shows they watch or the books I read? How is that my or anyone else’s business? And why are you assuming they’re consuming things lazily?
I think there are ‘entertainments’ so awful that their very existence implies a terrible audience (e.g. anything with Kirk Cameron in it), but I certainly agree that the default position should be that people can enjoy their entertainment and it’s up to an accuser to provide a persuasive argument as to why a given work is a bad thing to enjoy. Which Moore hasn’t really done here. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a glorious tirade but it’s not really an argument.
The issue is that like 95% of pop culture is mindless escapist bullshit now. Whenever you come across a positive comment or review about a really stupid movie, there’s always a part where the author writes some variation of “not every movie needs to make you think”. Of course not, but it would be nice if at least some fucking movies with mainstream exposure did. Or, you know, make you feel something.
You know, I’m not gonna dispute your numbers, but given the sheer volume of pop culture out there, I would argue that 5% leaves us with quite a lot of decent, easily accessible content. There’s lots of people making stuff. And the thing is, I’m not sure which side of the line superhero movies fall behind. There’s plenty of mindless escapism in them to be sure. But there’s also beautifully rendered, evocative visuals and storylines about self-discovery, self-sacrifice, the management of serious disagreements, human nobility, the worth of life itself, the role of government, etc. I’m not defending something like the MCU unequivocally at all. I think Moore is probably right in identifying the disturbing threads he does, and Scorcese’s arguments are very nearly right on. But I think you also need to look at what’s being offered throughout a reasonably broad spectrum. Civil War is a better movie than the first couple Thors because, among other factors, it’s more thoughtful and gives you more to chew on. You can follow a commercial formula, or work within a specified code, and still manage to say something worthwhile. Hitchcock certainly did it. I’m not saying bad things aren’t happening in the entertainment industry. Homogeneity is ascendant in all walks of life and the tragedy of that is very real, but there are still human beings pulling the levers of the big machine, and we should still pay attention to what they say and how they say it.
I have to say, I do feel there’s one bit of hypocrisy in Moore’s schtick: the beard.
See, that’s a Philosopher Beard. In the olden Roman days, when civilised people had slaves shave them carefully twice a day (because they were all copying Alexander), philosophers maintained giant, bushy beards – because why wouldn’t they? They didn’t care about public opinion, they only cared about The Truth (plus, like Moore, they never had to worry about getting a proper job). The beard symbolised the philosopher’s commitment to turning on, tuning in and dropping out of mainstream social expectations. (plus, they were all copying Carneades). Which is great, and totally what Moore is going for. Specifically, it’s a Stoic Beard (unkempt enough to demonstrate disdain for worldly vanities, unlike the Peripatetic Beard, but still cleaned and untangled, unlike the hardcore Cynic Beard).The problem is, once philosophers came to be identified by their beards, the sincere purpose of the beard was undermined – people stopped having beards because they were philosophers who didn’t care how they looked to other people, and started growing beards on purpose to look like philosophers to other people. And I think Moore’s beard is that beard. That photo is a perfect “look at how little I care about whether you look at me!” pseudophilosopher-instagram pic.It makes me think of an earlier generation of philosophy, when Socrates saw Antisthenes (the first Cynic) wandering through the forum. Antisthenes displayed his freedom from the opinions of others by walking around in barely-coherent rags, filled with holes, genitalia hardly covered, provocatively urinating in the street, not caring who was watching. Socrates pointed and said: “I can see your vanity through the holes in your cloak”.
Which, come to think of it, has nothing much to do with Spiderman, so sorry for that tangent…
Now that, my friend, is a motherfucking internet post. Resulting Wiki wormholing unearthed the deeply amusing sentence, “He was followed by Diogenes, who lived in a ceramic jar on the streets of Athens.” Ancient Greece had an Oscar the Grouch. Of course it did.
Leading to the famous, though probably apocryphal, conversation between Diogenes and Alexander:“I am Alexander, emperor of the world!”
“I am Diogenes, the dog” [Cynics were known as ‘dogs’]
“What gift might I give you, wise one, to show my respect and improve your life?”
“You can stand out of my damn sunlight!”
It’s very important to consider that maybe…Maybe if people could not escape from the real world, they would be forced to change it.And of course, there is the fact that no one who likes “escapism” ever considers escaping into a more complex, cerebral, intelligent world than Tattooine.
a) Some things are a distracting waste of time and the people who peddle them don’t give a shit about the cumulative societal impact of wastes of time so, yes, we should take responsibility for our consumption. b) I have found that the grueling, emotionally exhausting daily work of changing the world requires regular escapes. A game, a movie you get something out of, a evening spent in the arms of a loved one, a hobby, a creative outlet, a good long look at a painting, a concert, a glass of wine or three, a silent moment of weeping. All escapes. All needed, even if all would be replaced by another form of escape if taken away.c) What power would you consider exerting by “forcing” people to do anything? Under what scenario are you able to decide in any actionable way what is and is not a valid form of escape for someone else? d) The idea that “no one who likes escapism ever considers escaping into a more complex, cerebral, intelligent world than Tattooine” is not a fact. It is a patent inaccuracy made so by its simplicity and unwillingness to consider the broad and mutable spectrum of human behavior. e) This entire thread is an escape. I know, because I’m typing while I should be working.
OK Reposted Grumpy Sex Wizard Interview From 2016.
Doesn’t matter if it’s Scorsese or Moore, but the bottom line is like what you like. I don’t need my grandpa to understand/approve of Star Wars for my enjoyment.
I think his point isn’t so much that people should stop enjoying things, as that they should sometimes think more about why they enjoy them.
You’ll change your mind when grandpa uses your mint Star Wars LaserDiscs as coasters.
It is kind of interesting that Alan Moore believes that fans of super hero movies can’t let go of their childhoods and the past, but at the same time he considers himself a practicing magician.
I would like to take a break from being an exhausting pedant on the internet and appreciate Alan Moore’s wizard beard and curl definition.
To be fair, Alan Moore hates everything.
Currently, I’m reading Jerusalem by Moore and at 125 pages into the book, I don’t have the slightest clue what is going on.The words are incredibly pretty though. He does know how to say things well.
Dayum! Now I’m even more interested in hearing his views on the new Watchmen show
If I may politely ask, is there anything Alan Moore actually likes?
Writing nigh-unreadable novels?
Telling everyone his opinions about everything?
He likes The Sopranos.
Well then he is slightly human.
He loved The Wire
Writing porn with underage female public domain characters.
Y’know, REAL art!
Now now, that book also contained underage male public domain characters.
Oh christ I remember that. I was amazed the Simpsons were allowed to mock it when Alan Moore guest starred.
Psychologically damaging porn, witchcraft and hallucinogens?
Joints the size of an industrial lorry?
Yes. He certainly likes quality comics. He is simplu pointing out that your clinging onto golden and silver era characters and stories in modern comics and culture is terrible for the medium and creators in general. The failure of people such as you to even take a consummate authority seriously proves his point.
You can actually narrow it down to the 3 things he doesn’t like: DC and Marvel, comic book movies, and people asking him about the first two things.Oh. And ducks.
Of course!But you wouldn’t have heard of it, it’s still underground.
If I may politely reply, what the hell does what he like have to do with his critique? This isn’t kindergarten, or a sorority, where you have to pro-con-pro all the time.
Presumably to determine whether he’s a gloomy guts who hates everything or just specifically dislikes modern superhero culture.
Your ad hominem attack seems like an attempt to invalidate his very clear dislike of modern superhero tropes. So other than a petty snark, do you have a substantive rebuttal to his critique, other than try to dismiss him because his mood seems unsuitable to you?
My ad hominem attack? What? Were you responding to someone else?
No, I was responding to you.
What does someone do when they don’t like an opinion they think is “negative?” They attack the person. Oh, he’s just a curmudgeon. She’s a real sourpuss. He’s a gloomy gus. Ad hominem: directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining.
Except I didn’t say he was those things, so I’m not sure what you’re talking about. What I actually said is there is a distinction between a “gloom guts” who just hates most things on principle and someone who dislikes a specific thing for specific reasons. That’s kind of why I included the whole “either/or” option right there in the comment.
“Now, can I interest you in my thought-provoking and not at all culturally static graphic novel that shows Wendy having sex with Peter Pan, who’s actually a homeless boy who lives in a park, along with the rest of his band of boys? Oh, you’ll be intrigued to learn that Peter is also a male prostitute. No? Can I tell you about who Dorothy Gale from the Wizard of Oz had sex with? Alice from Alice in Wonderland?”
Counterpoint from fantasy author C.S. Lewis:
“When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”
Man, I love Alan Moore. And Martin Scorsese, for that matter. But slagging any and every superhero movie as either shallow amusement park rides devoid of art or story, or a quasi-fascist dream sequence enjoyed solely by stunted man-children, without having seen any of them, is stupid. There are plenty of movies that do actually fit their complaints, but dismissing the entire genre, sight unseen, is just plain lazy. Don’t see the movies if you don’t like them, but making such sweeping, derogatory assumptions about things that people enjoy, and about the people who enjoy them, is really shitty. It would be just as easy (and just as incorrect) to suggest that their own works are derivative and filled with cheap attempts at shock value through graphic sex and violence, and only enjoyed by perverts and deviants.Similarly, I love the AV Club, but it’s weird to watch stories pop up about this subject and see who the “reasonable” label gets to be applied to, depending on who’s talking. Were Chris Evans and Scarlett Johannsen really “stoking the flames” when they had a rather nuanced, thoughtful talk about Scorsese’s original comments?
Which of the current crop of capes movies don’t fit his description? Even “Black Panther” was quasi-fascist; the main thrust of the movie focuses on PoCs who have succeeded under capitalism refusing to assist the PoCs who have been exploited under the same system. Killmonger was right but he was “the bad guy” so he had to be comically evil and commit unnecessarily violent acts at random points to keep movie goers from agreeing with him.
When the apex of your movie is “protagnoist and antagonist have set-piece fist fight” – which is 99% of the MCU – you’re playing into fascist ideals.
I never knew Zorro was so fascist.
Eh, I wouldn’t worry about it. Adorable lil’ guy thinks he’s actually an arbiter of quality.
That was a bit over the line. My bad.Point is that categorical absolutes are ridiculous as regards any sort of art. Yes, even that which you personally do not consider art. And I say this as someone who only truly enjoyed a handful of MCU flicks, hasn’t seen a good chunk of them, and counts one of them as the second-worst movie he’s ever seen (subjectively).
“Even “Black Panther” was quasi-fascist; the main thrust of the movie focuses on PoCs who have succeeded under capitalism refusing to assist the PoCs who have been exploited under the same system.”You…you really didn’t see the criticism of that take within the same damn movie?As to the rest, if you’re going to interpret any third act fight as a direct reinforcement of fascism (of which “might makes right” is part of a bigger whole), then you’re deliberately and consciously choosing to limit your field of vision. And, hey, that’s fine, but that’s also on you.
‘Winter Soldier’ has the heroes destroy a tool of state-sanctioned surveillance and dismantle a corrupted intelligence organisation. (In fact, when one of the heroes suggest SHIELD could still be kept running despite its infiltration by fascists, the idea is shot down by the characters and the text.) It directly challenges the notion that security is worth sacrificing liberties for.
I think we were meant to agree with Killmonger’s point but not his methods.
I mean, I could start and end with “Captain America” if you want examples of superhero movies that aren’t fascist.
I’m not arguing that Batman, The Incredibles and potentially Iron Man can be viewed through a pretty troubling right-wing lens. But if your argument is going to be as broad as “any story where someone special has to use violence to protect people is fascist,” then I’m going to have to notify *checks notes* literally every action movie ever made.
Black Panther: Where the heroes stage a military coup with the help of a foreign power to overthrow the rightful ruler of a sovereign nation. And the elite force of said nation shows their military prowess against the rank-and-file soldiers doing their duty to defend said nation against said coup.
I agree with virtually everything you wrote, but I do wonder at this: “…I love the AV Club…”…?Once upon a time, sure, but I mean: post-Kinja with the devastation of the commentariat that brought; and with the precipitous decline in article quality and coverage; and the increasingly narrow, increasingly badgering political slant; and now the bald contempt the AV Club writers have for what remains of their audience (which this article exemplifies) — what exactly is there left to love?
Okay, fair. I like the AV Club. I’m madly, deeply in like with it.
Counterpoint: are any of the superhero movies made today all that different in terms of characterization, theme, or plot from the stories drawn in the 60s, when Moore grew up, or the 80s, when he actually wrote for DC?I mean, Marvel never even had the balls to make Tony Stark an alcoholic.
Movie Tony Stark is quite different from ‘60s or ‘80s comic book Tony Stark in some ways – he’s not a Cold War figurehead for the military-industrial complex, for one thing. He snubs authority instead of being a tool for the status quo. He’s a motor-mouthed, impulsive smartass instead of a responsible captain of industry (albeit one with a drinking problem).
In bigger, more important ways, he’s very much the same. Which is good, because I expect to see a brilliant guile hero in a high-tech suit of armor when I pay money to see a movie called “Iron Man.” Just like I expect to see a rebellious archer who robs from the rich when I pay money to see a movie called “Robin Hood.” So if Moore’s problem with Iron Man’s movies is that he’s still a superhero after 60 years, well, I can’t relate. That’s not a bug IMO, that’s a feature.
As far as the movies themselves are concerned, the major characters all have very clear character development and progression. Tony Stark, for instance, goes from self-absorbed bon vivant to paternal figure and martyr between “Iron Man” and “Endgame.” So even if the comics are stagnant in terms of character growth, that’s really not a charge you can fairly level at the films.
He’s right, of course
He seems pretty bang on with “tremendously embarrassing” part. But holy crap in what sense was the 20th century relatively reassuring compared to the 21st??? Aside from maybe the first and last 10 years it was a ceaseless clustercuss of horrors!
Read your own IPCC report, for starters.
“The continuing popularity of these movies to me suggests some kind of deliberate, self-imposed state of emotional arrest, combined with an numbing condition of cultural stasis that can be witnessed in comics, movies, popular music and, indeed, right across the cultural spectrum”- says the man who worships a Roman diety snake god named Glycon who he admits as a hoax and worships anyway because imagination is just as real as reality.
Moore’s comments re:Birth of A Nation(1915) seem pretty accurate, prophetic even, considering the final battle sequence from Endgame(2019) is as direct an homage to Birth of a Nation(1915) as you can get
Nah.
Is the 20th century now viewed as “reassuring”? By historical standards, it was anything but reassuring, unless you were a kid at the tail end of it and thus mostly shielded from everything going on.
Compared to every century prior and the one we’re now staring down, yes.
I was born in 1983 and so was in the middle of my teenage years when the 20th century ended. There was nothing especially reassuring about it to people my age.
Maybe a guy who made a comic series about teenage girls having sex when he was in his 50’s shouldn’t be lobbing around insults at other people’s tastes, right? We get it, the self-proclaimed anarchist wizard is upset because people aren’t playing his preferred dark and gritty version of pretend. He’s angry at the world, and I probably would be too if I was 75-years old and completely unable to relate with the last thirty years of mainstream popular culture.Watchmen is an all-time classic of the genre. It came from space.
Continuing adventures in people making cultural observations and the people who don’t like it when it happens.
Damn Al. That’s cold. But, probably not too far off target.
It’s almost an endorsement of the Watchmen TV show though.
Looking at that picture, I want his thoughts on the Beard Hunter from Doom Patrol.
I love his writing, but Moore needs to understand that not everything after the age of 15 is weird sex mixed with psychosis.
…imagine his critique of roller coasters or dogs.
So Alan Moore thinks that superhero movies help you not to grow up, and he thinks this because 1) our culture is stagnant and 2) superhero movies are popular. I don’t exactly disagree with him. I like superhero movies, but I’m also a savvy media consumer, and as a savvy media consumer, society can trust that I will come out of a superhero movie and not try to act like a superhero. It’s not the movie’s fault that all I want from Iron Man is to watch him blow up two hours of my time.
Shut up, grandad!
this is what happens when you smush everything into a monoculture.there are no niches anymore. everyone has to fight for attention in the same spaces. like a bookstore with one big aisle that just says “Everything”. naturally the poets and novellers are gonna sweat losing space to the self-help gurus and celebrity tell-alls.
“Noted curmudgeon has harsh opinions on films he has never actually watched, and the people who watch them.”Seriously, I’ll always respect Alan Moore for his creative contributions to the world, but there’s nothing interesting about his takes on this stuff any more. And Salon gave us the “Superheroes = FASCIST POWER FANTASIES?” thesis already, back when The Dark Knight Rises came out.Alan, by his own willing admission, doesn’t watch these movies, nor does he watch adaptations of his own previous work, so at some point you’re just tuning into his thoughts for the spectacle of his latest rant.
Remember when Simon Peg suggested something similar to this and the internet raged hard enough to make him back track so he wasn’t canceled. “Part of me looks at society as it is now and just thinks we’ve been infantilised by our own taste,” “Now we’re essentially all consuming very childish things – comic books, superheroes. Adults are watching this stuff, and taking it seriously… It is a kind of dumbing down.”“We’re walking out of the cinema really not thinking about anything, other than the fact that the Hulk just had a fight with a robot.”Maybe there’s some truth to what these people are saying because the outrage over it really does resemble a temper tantrum.
I’d be more sympathetic to Pegg’s take on this if not for the fact that he’s doing the Rich Boy version of the same thing he’s criticizing by starring in the completely vapid (if very fun) M:I and Star Trek reboots as well as motherfucking Ready Player One, the mother of all cultural regurgitation that has absolutely nothing to say.Yes, fandoms suck, but maybe Pegg should consider for a while that he’s contributing to the very culture of dumbing down that concerns him so much.
The difference is that Moore has demonstrated (at length) that this opinion is part of a coherent, principled and intellectually robust worldview, backed up by long personal experience in the area he’s criticising.I mean, he may be wrong, but he’s worth taking seriously. But you have to establish your credentials if you want to speak heresy and be listened to…
It’s like this man put my thoughts into words better than I ever could.
I’ve been puzzled ever since this brouhaha began, but now with Moore’s old comments, about how much this discussion could apply to most older film genres, e.g. westerns. Most of the genres, especially action based genres, began as more one dimensional stories and characterizations (check out John Wayne’s Three Mesquiteers series). In fact, westerns and serials were explicitly marketed to a juvenile audience. But that did not stop George Lucas from employing techniques from serials in both his Star Wars and Indiana Jones films. Meanwhile, “Unforgiven” would have far less of an impact (or maybe not even have gotten made) if it weren’t for all of the western dime novel traditions that continued into film so that the commentary about the expectations of western “heroes” and violence could be brought to light.Scorsese continues to turn to gangsters and criminals for story material and finds new characters to dramatize with essentially the same base plot: criminals are bad. Superhero movies are relatively young and only now starting be approached as a genre where who is a hero and who isn’t even when they are fighting for the same goals is just being explored (Winter Soldier and Civil War did touch of these very topics).Alan Moore is a good writer but, I think, a bad interview. He spends too much time grumping about a topic that gave him an intro into an industry and mixing his feelings about ownership and content into one big stew.Different people will certainly have differing opinions about what validates an art form and what does it no real service and all of the in-between but a guy who keeps making essential the same film over and over, a guy who hasn’t had a critical success, let alone a financial one, in decades and a guy who doesn’t like to discuss his most famous work much anymore don’t lend a lot of credibility to their opinions if they don’t also view the works first. Much ado was made about “Monty Python’s Life of Brian” by people who had not seen the film or only portions of it so I think the MCU will survive this.
Moore’s take of “superheroes = fascism” was an interesting one to follow in ‘Watchmen’, but it’s not the be-all and end-all of analysis for the genre. There are other aspects to it that I think it’s just contrary to ignore.
such as?
He’d lighten up if he watched Ant-Man.
“I think the impact of superheroes on popular culture is both tremendously embarrassing and not a little worrying,” he begins. “While these characters were originally perfectly suited to stimulating the imaginations of their twelve or thirteen year-old audience…”So The Killing Joke was aimed at twelve and thirteen year olds?
Christ, what an asshole!
I’d take this a bit more seriously if it were a less problematic creator than Alan Moore.
Or — let me propose a crazy idea here — we could focus on the man’s career since the 1980s and not ask him to weigh in on the same issue every single time one of his old works is adapted. We don’t need to go find a three-year-old interview where he bitches about the comics industry again. We didn’t need to ask him that three years ago. His thoughts on this issue are not unclear and have not changed.Move the fuck on. Ask him about Jerusalem. Ask him what he’s working on now. Talk to him about his brilliant/insane ideas about psychogeography. Let him talk about Show Pieces or The Show or Iain Sinclair or Austin Osman Spare.Of course Moore’s a curmudgeon. Almost every interview goes over the same ancient territory again and again.
The Bumper Book of Magic has been “coming soon” on Top Shelf’s sales page for nigh on a decade now. I know Steve (no relation) Moore is dead, but come on! There’s literally no other book like what that one’s promised to be, and literally no one else in the entire world who’s qualified to finish it.
I genuinely believe Moore is being *gentle* on the arrested-development crowd here – he is very capable of being a lot harsher. I suppose being *right* has gentled him down some.
Why would it ever be a good time to revisit Moore’s opinion on anything ?
I can give it to you, it’s always gonna be “I don’t like it”, for everything. Including his own work.
Don’t have a problem with Moore’s opinion, because he’s been a part of superhero storytelling. I thin the reason so many people had a problem with Scorsese’s is because it’s just another example of an outsider pointing a finger, laughing and calling us stupid nerds for liking the thing we like instead of the thing he likes. For someone who’s entire film career has nothing indicating the need or even the desire for the kind of escapism that many superhero movies have at their core to assume he knows enough about them to basically declare them all trash is pretty guaranteed to piss people off. The situation with Moore and his opinion is completely different.
wtf is with all these snark-ass takes that conflate the definition of art with liking/disliking shit?Entertainment writers should fucking know better. For shame.
HELL YES. Enough with the savior fantasies.
Not willing to stop without expressing the fullness of his opinion, Moore completes his answer by saying that “save for a smattering of non-white characters (and non-white creators) these books and these iconic characters are still very much white supremacist dreams of the master race.” By way of a finale, he adds: “In fact, I think that a good argument can be made for D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation as the first American superhero movie, and the point of origin for all those capes and masks.”I read the linked article, and there’s literally no more context for why he believes that somehow these modern MCU characters are “white supremacist dreams of the master race”. This is such a wild opinion that I can’t believe there wasn’t any sort of follow up on that. How is Captain America (just for example) a “white supremacist dream” when his origin is in fighting literal Nazis, plus he’s best friends with (and passed his shield onto to carry the CA title) a black dude and always stood up for the underdog? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, after all.
Alan Moore in ACTION!: