Straight to Hell
Categories: uncategorized
Tags: sequels remakes 2011 Hollywood moviegoing Vanity Fair superhero movies
A reaction is warranted, methinks, regarding the article in the new Vanity Fair and its various hype-permutations in the pre-Oscar media (including, prominently, on NPR), regarding the Hollywood onslaught of 2011, how it is 98% sequels and remakes, and how, the author figures, we have come to such a sorry position, sucking relentlessly on the same formulaic teats, and allowing the 12-to-25 demographic to completely rule our movie universe.
It’s true, and simultaneously an old argument – the remake/sequel cataract has been building slowly since the ‘80s, before which sequels were cash-in also-rans, not an accumulating crescendo of ever-profitable emptiness and repetition. I’m more frankly fed up with the demographic blinders, which pablum-ize everything just so attention-attenuated teenagers can feel juiced by it regardless of what’s actually going on, and which place us now in a position of having our entire movie culture dominated by huge-budgeted, hugely profitable superhero movies, and, what’s more, superhero movies adapted from decades-old comic books. I know it’s common to decry how stupid we’ve become in toto, and equally common to prove the position wrong by comparing the pop culture of the ‘50s to ours today. Fair enough, but imagine how your parents and grandparents might’ve reacted if you’d told them that in five decades’ time the art form and American life in general would evolve into a universalized obsession with superhero movies. Which were, back then, the kinds of movies that only kids watched, along with cheap giant monster thrillers and beach romcoms. The adults had something else.
Today we don’t, not if we want to go to the movies. The Vanity Fair article explores the nexus of causes for this dilemma, and it’s a familiar list, beginning with marketing costs and market research. But there really is no one to blame ultimately except the ticket-buyer. If my students tell me the last Transformers or X-Men or Twilight film was as pleasurable as drinking lye, I tell them it’s their own fault – they bought the tickets knowing what was coming, and therein ensured the production of the next sequel or sundry ripoff. Perhaps the issue with all of this willy-nilly ticket-buying is the money itself – as in, where do all of these teenagers get all this money, so they can outspend the rest of us by a wide enough margin to change the industry? They’re not all working at nicely paying jobs, that’s for sure. Parents, stop handing out cash and start handing out chores. Make those brats scrub toilets before they can go out and spend your hard-earned income.
But let’s pretend the 12-to-25-ers are responsible for their own finances, because they can be if we make them. Besides, no one stays "young" (25 and under, as opposed to "old") forever, and at this rate the idea of a Hollywood movie made for American adults will seem absolutely antique and obsolete within the decade. Face facts: the world’s central entertainment capitol has winnowed down its output to what fleetingly pleases the brain stem of undereducated (given the latest stats, it’s a fair generalization), hormone-zonked, sensation-addicted teenagers, and most of them will be overseas and tolerant of only the sparest amount of dubbable dialogue. Could you have said this 25 years ago? Yes. Is it worse now? Yes.
What’s to be done? If most of us could agree that big-ass Hollywood movies simply suck nowadays, and I think we can, then we need to simply boycott them. Do what loads of people did this past three-day weekend to would-be-franchise-ripoff I Am Number Four – don’t go. Use Facebook and Twitter – if we can ‘Net-organize enough to overthrow ironclad dictators, we can certainly join forces and resist the wailing crescendo of publicity, marketing and advertising that accompanies movies every week that everyone, even the slowest Slovenian teenager or laziest Wisconsin cellar-dweller or geekiest Japanese schoolkid, knows will just suck. Don’t go. Don’t go. This summer, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Kung Fu Panda 2, The Green Lantern, X-Men: First Class, The Hangover Part II, Transformers The Dark of the Moon, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II, Captain America: The First Avenger, The Smurfs, Conan the Barbarian, Spy Kids 4, Final Destination 5? Don’t go.
Why berate and bemoan teenagers, when we have professional reviewers like the nearly 50-year-old Stephanie Zacharek of MOVIELINE, for example, still to this day going into raptures and ecstasies over the likes of PRINCE OF PERSIA, THOR, and SALT (while also constantly sneering at more ambitious, less formulaic movies)? Thanks to Pauline Kael's enormous influence, we've had several generations of smug, preening, solipsistic Paulettes bound and determined to prove their hipster credentials by praising as much pulp and trash as they possibly can. Ultimately it's probably true that the fault lies primarily with the ticket buyers, but reviewers (adolescent in mind if not body) don't do us any favors either when they insist on treating trash like gold, and gold like trash.
Critics might not praise Kung Fu Panda 2, but take a good hard look at Rotten Tomatoes scores: most superhero movies get a kind reception from the majority of reviewers. Unless the thing is an absolute dog, most reviewers tend to be quite generous to tentpole releases.
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Thank you for stating the obvious. I have been scratching my head a bit over SOPA and PIPA because MPAA has produced nothing worth buying in years. The way I see it is that it's the kids.... again. So SOPA and PIPA are directed at American youth. If you can't remove them from job competition with a marijuana felony, hit them with a bad movie felony. Nice country we live in.
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