Month: October 2019

Scorsese vs. Marvel: Cultural Divides and Toxic Fandom

Scorsese vs. Marvel: Cultural Divides and Toxic Fandom

Earlier this month, Martin Scorsese compared Marvel movies to “theme park rides”, stating that they are not what he considers to be proper “cinema”. Social media reaction was, as you could imagine, well thought out and nuanced. LOL JK! For real, the shit hit the fan with many bemoaning this “hackneyed, old curmudgeon fuck-face” for not being with “it”. Okay, I’m paraphrasing but it was embarrassing to read the amount of comments I did with people unfavorably comparing his movies to Marvel’s. Don’t get me wrong! I enjoy all the Marvel movies. But Scorsese has directed Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and Goodfellas, among many other original greats. In some cases, sure, it’s a matter of opinion but beyond this, what became apparent to me was how vitriolic and nasty these people were in their comments. This has become the norm, all too readily, when an unpopular opinion is shared, even in a matter as insignificant as this.

On some level, I think Scorsese was being picked a part for not speaking as delicately as he should have. I don’t actually agree with his opinion and would note that these Marvel movies are keeping cinemas alive, to an extent. Plus, there is some proper acting, directorial creativity, and emotion to be found in them. You could even argue that the magnitude of a shared, albeit commercially-driven universe, like the MCU, is a bold and ambitious experiment in modern cinema. On the other hand, I want to back Scorsese because his knowledge of cinema is second-to-none (or very few), he has helped restore many great movies, and has a point when he says we’re being “invaded” by these kind of movies. There are too many of them and on some level, it feels like a factory-churning process. For instance, Captain Marvel came less than two months before Endgame which was followed by Spiderman: Far From Home, just over two months later. We knew Spiderman was fine after the snap in Infinity War before we’d even seen its sequel. Furthermore, there seems to be no end in sight. Disney have already filled their calendar for the next three years with an array of shows, sequels, and new additions to the MCU. It really is an all-consuming empire.

So, you can go back and forth on this. You may not like Scorsese. You may think superhero movies are for children. What’s so desperate about this all is how hard it is to even have a conversation without great offense being suffered. That’s where I admire Robert Downey Jr., who simply left it at “appreciating” Scorsese’s opinion (which has been edified slightly since to acknowledge them as a different/new kind of “art”, if not proper cinema- I don’t know, it was kind of vague). Downey Jr’s latter-day career has been built on the legacy of Iron Man and he’s made a ton of dough from it but he’s not arrogant enough to disregard what one of the true greats has to say. Interestingly, he compared the Marvel phenomenon to a  “stomping beast [eliminating] the competition”. When things like that happen, as with the Westerns’ craze in the 1950s, there’s naturally going to be some push back. Sometimes, a spanner needs to be thrown into the works to get things interesting again. Punk did that for music in 1976 and the likes of Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola did that for cinema that same decade.

Thanks to social media, cults of fandom have been given a voice most people used to ignore. We can all, in some sense, be producers of the franchises we love and consume. For instance, notice how the trailers for The Rise of Skywalker are steering things back from the divisive reaction to The Last Jedi? Disney listens because Disney has a product to sell. That doesn’t mean their movies lack artistic integrity but it does color the picture, if only a little bit. It’s gratifying for fans to have their voices heard but when you pay too much due diligence to popularity, you appropriate credibility in turn. That’s why there’s such a sense of entitlement in these fans’ expectations of these franchise movies and why more unique, original projects are so lacking today. I suspect the directors of old, like Scorsese and Coppola, feel this way, which is why they are so hostile to the way industry has gone recently. The culture has changed.

Now since, we’re here- my top five MCU movies:

  1. Avengers: Infinity War
  2. Captain America: Civil War
  3. Spiderman: Far From Home
  4. Thor: Ragnarok
  5. Avengers: Endgame

and my top five Scorsese movies:

  1. Goodfellas 
  2. Taxi Driver
  3. Casino
  4. Raging Bull
  5. The King of Comedy

 

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Alienating Centrists

Last week, I took a political profile quiz to determine which camp I belonged in. Somewhat to my surprise, I was labelled a liberal with ideologies not so dissimilar from Gandhi’s. Strange, I thought, I’m far too stubborn and curmudgeonly for that kinda stuff. The quiz, for all its comprehensiveness in the issues addressed (and actual issues at that too, such as health care and education) was flawed though. Firstly, it was based on the rather limiting agree/disagree dichotomy (with the somewhat unnecessary “strongly” accords), which doesn’t pave way for much nuance. Secondly, it failed to grasp the actual tone of liberalism/conservatism so rampant in today’s media and social landscape.

I consider myself a liberal of a vague and tepid persuasion; sometimes a centrist for kicks (though on a couple of occasions, people have charged that that’s what conservatives always say???). I believe in universal health care, a good measure of gun control, tackling climate change with the utmost expense, free speech, and equal rights. In fact, I think most Republican measures in the last thirty or so years have been reprehensible and guided by mostly terrible leaders. With that said, I admire President George H.W. Bush a lot, I think a balanced budget is important, and in certain cases, Democrats do over-legislate (e.g. in 2017, there was a proposed law to fit alarms into cars to prevent children being left in hot conditions; this is really a parent’s responsibility in my opinion). These are to many, minor concessions; an olive branch of a feeble sort to the other side. Increasingly however, these considerations have become all the more necessary, if toxic.

It’d be foolish to fully comply with the notion that you can’t be a Republican who believes in gay marriage or that you can’t be a liberal who wants to protect the 2nd Amendment. For one, it’s inherently stupid and two, you’d always find some smart-ass commentator picking a part your language specifically. But at its essence, I think most people are finding a conversation between both sides increasingly frustrating and pointless. Conservatives think liberals promote a decaying state of morality whereas liberals think conservatives promote every kind of prejudice with every sentence they utter, etc, etc. To a degree, we’ve come to expect this from the GOP with their arsenal of attack ads, in play since the Reagan era. What’s so disappointing is how bad the left has gotten in recent years.

What do I mean by this? I mean the manner in which certain peoples’ opinions are smeared across every edifice of our culture. We can’t watch the new Joker movie without some question mark wavering over whether it’ll inspire alienated white men to grab up arms. We can’t cast a new film or TV show without accounting for a strict diversity quota. We can’t watch old films without a moment of silence for the lack of wokeness at play. We’re told to hold certain opinions over certain matters because they’re politically correct, before examining whether they’re intellectually sound (indeed, reports have shown conservative students reluctant to speak out in their liberal universities). And if you disagree and think, Caitlyn Jenner’s not a hero or that female-reboot of Ghostbusters was lazy pandering, the chances are you’ll be called a trans-phobic or sexist individual by someone in the comments section, no matter what the argument.

This is by no means a rallying call to be politically incorrect for the sake of it or rude or sexist/racist/transphobic, etc. I’m not trying to provoke anyone in saying these things. For the most part, these liberals have admirable intentions. The problem is, in their plea for open-mindedness, they fail to open their own to the possibility of reproach; because racism is so entrenched in society and so historically destructive, they aim to stamp out anything even approaching intolerance. But it’s not that easy and it’s not that clever because when you try and enforce your values on somebody, no matter how sensible or decent they are, you push them away. Calling someone an idiot does not make them change their mind, it only paints you in a negative light. You want to get Trump re-elected in 2020? Start promoting the most pious and patronizing Democrat available.

The Democrats have the right ideas and a good chance of winning in 2020. Let’s not squander that opportunity by alienating centrists or soft right-wingers who don’t agree with us on everything or perhaps liked an off-color joke back in 2004. Let’s get back to focusing on the important issues which should define our political persuasion, as in that quiz, and not the petty minutiae of woke culture. It seems a redundant statement but people aren’t good or bad, left or right, liberal or conservative. They’re a blend of various factors and while I personally thought The Last Jedi was the worst Star Wars made, that does not mean I hate women in power (#warren2020).