A number of years ago, I concluded that the superhero appeal came from the same place that made mythology so enduring. Replace the word "Superhero" with "demigod" and you've got Hercules. A little later, I discovered that Joseph Campbell said the appeal of Star Wars was because it tells a story we never ever get tired of - the hero's quest. King Arthur is a variation on that same thing.
Something may ultimately kill the profitability of DC, Marvel, Star Wars, and Disney itself, but these fantastic stories of epic characters on heroic quests will most likely never die. They might just move out of the movie realm and into VR once the bugs are worked out.
It isn't Netflix, but you could argue Amazon has take two shots of this kind with "The Expanse" (which was Netflix) and more importantly "The Boys".
"The Expanse" can be viewed as yet another in the long line of sci-fi franchises, but it's contrast to Disney Star Wars and more recent Star Trek (another franchise that needs to be retired, and I say that as someone who wore a Captain Kirk uniform shirt to school at least once a week in the mid-70s) is very much the everyman who you come to admire.
"The Boys", though, turning supers into yet another corporate manipulation, could put a knife through the genre. The wide variety of people I've seen embracing the latest season, many of them openly sick of Marvel at this point, indicate it might be the first shot of what you're describing.
I remember thinking 'what will it take to kill the HAIR BANDS?' I would say the (slightly misnamed) 'Hair Metal' genre ruled the rock world from around the first Van Halen album in 1978 until Extreme's 'Pornografitti' in 1991, which is a pretty great run. One would think that the appearance of the archetypal mockumentary 'This Is Spinal Tap' in 1984 (filmed during the creation of Van Halen's biggest album '1984') would have been the beginning of the end, but the genre continued to pick up steam, showing no signs of slowing down even as the '90s dawned. I was personally flabbergasted by this as a college-aged music fan who couldn't wait for that era to meet its Waterloo. I knew Guns 'n' Roses wasn't going to be it, despite all the hype--they had less reverb on the drums and a refreshing old-school swagger, but also a lot more Hair Band in their soul than anyone cared to admit, then or now.
We all know what happened. Every aspect of Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit,' including the whole aesthetic of the song's video, was an announcement that the time of the dinosaurs was over and the Asteroid was here, in the form of a bedraggled-looking young man in a thrift store sweater with a then-unfashionable '60s Fender Mustang. Within a few months, all the Seattle bands were being aggressively signed and promoted, and it became illegal to play virtuosic weedly-deedly guitar solos while a spandex-clad singer pranced around in makeup and Aqua Net. Grunge wasn't just a musical style. It was, even more than punk before it, a nuclear bomb.
As Mr. Gioia states, sometimes the world is just waiting for something more interesting and complex to latch onto, whether it's Cobain or Cervantes. I don't know about the end of Star Wars and Marvel, but when it comes to music I feel we're overdue for an extinction-level event.
Darth Vader already won the Nobel Peace Prize. It was in 1973 and he was then operating under the pseudonym Henry Kissinger.
Ridicule doesn’t always kill off tired stories. Westerns survived Blazing Saddles. Airplane! didn’t kill off the pathetic Airport series of disaster movies. Hollywood still makes sci-fi thrillers despite Spaceballs. And against my best hopes Heavy Metal wasn’t euthanized by This is Spinal Tap.
Wouldn’t it be safer — and more accurate — to say the public gets bored of everything eventually and moves on to some new new? Someday even the Big Mac with fries will drop off the McDonalds menu.
This dovetails in a complex way with your previous entries about the current lack of a recognizable counter culture. Don Quixote was counter culture par excellence, until it was all the rage.
An interesting post. I would make a couple of qualifying points. First, hero narratives obviously serve a psychological need, and its not just the psychology of the individual but that of the larger society. "Star Wars" appeared after a decade or two of anti-heroes dominating the screen. Westerns and war movies, for instance, had soured on traditional heroics at a time when the American public's faith in public and private institutions was flagging. The idea of taking cheesy Flash Gordon stories and turning them into operatic tales of heroes and villains clearly filled a need.
Second, Cervantes lived in a very different world from the one that had produced the Arthurian legends. The social, political, and economic realities of Europe were transformed during the 13th through 16th centuries. Much as I would like to believe otherwise, I don't think any parallel transformation will arrive anytime soon.
Don’t know of you’re familiar with Jane the Virgin, but it’s the Don Quixote of telenovelas (Latin American soap operas), so over the top and ridiculous it kills the genre while creating a new fun type of comedy. Also reminds me of Alan Moore’s Watchmen which totally challenged the super hero concept as dangerous vigilantes with god complexes.
"Before the superheroes disappear, they first get turned into a joke. As far as I can reckon, they’re almost at that point already."
I think it's safe to say we've been at that point for a while now. That said, the audience is partially to blame as well [for stale storylines/characters/franchises, etc lingering on into zombie status].
Another great read from The Honest Broker this rainy Thursday spring morning in Adelaide. Perfect with a cup of fine brewed coffee in my mug. Thanks Ted.
An amusing and persuasive parallel between the dominance of romances (not just Arthurian ones; see Amadis of Gaul, Don Quixote's favorite book) and the dominance of contemporary movie franchises. I draw a different conclusion than you do, however. The lesson of Don Quixote is not to abandon dominant, money-making narratives. It's to make as much money from them as you can while you still can. To make hay while the sun shines because night is sure to follow.
Fascinating. I wonder -- was Beowulf the equivalent for Norse heroic literature? i.e. making fun of the tragic fall of heroic prowess into crass commercialism (Beowulf goes from naked, Grendl-bashing badass to old, armored dude trying to steal dragon gold for dwarves).
But does parody always means death of a genre? If so, then horror should have begun its death with the Scary Movie franchise (perhaps it too is also dead, or at least is dying, though I'm not learned enough in this genre to comment further).
This has as much to do with humor as a weapon of mass-culture destruction (or reformation). I wonder, then, what Dr. Demento and Weird Al were trying to mock/destroy...
You know, I've heard it claimed, in a similar way, that Blazing Saddles killed westerns. And maybe it did, in some sense.
And yet, some of the best westerns ever made were made after Blazing Saddles. I'm thinking of Silverado, 3:10 to Yuma, and Unforgiven. Granted, they all deviated from formula in some important ways, but nobody would decline to call them westerns.
I'm a big fan of the MCU. I am unapologetic, but tolerant of those who aren't. What I am less tolerant of is an attitude of "this is beneath us".
No. No it isn't. Humans have loved this kind of story since the days of Gilgamesh. The Greek heroes are in this. The Norse tales of gods and heroes. King Arthur. Frankly, Shakespeare delved into this kind of thing. Think The Tempest, or heck, Macbeth, with its witches and ghosts.
Yes, any specific collection, such as Star Wars or the MCU or even Middle Earth is tied to the culture it sprang from in some important ways, and will lose its punch when the culture shifts. We don't watch all those Tarzan movies I used to watch as a kid any more. And for good reason.
So any particular form of the heroic story is going to age out eventually. But the heroic story itself will never age out, because its about us.
A number of years ago, I concluded that the superhero appeal came from the same place that made mythology so enduring. Replace the word "Superhero" with "demigod" and you've got Hercules. A little later, I discovered that Joseph Campbell said the appeal of Star Wars was because it tells a story we never ever get tired of - the hero's quest. King Arthur is a variation on that same thing.
Something may ultimately kill the profitability of DC, Marvel, Star Wars, and Disney itself, but these fantastic stories of epic characters on heroic quests will most likely never die. They might just move out of the movie realm and into VR once the bugs are worked out.
Time for Spaceballs 2?
It isn't Netflix, but you could argue Amazon has take two shots of this kind with "The Expanse" (which was Netflix) and more importantly "The Boys".
"The Expanse" can be viewed as yet another in the long line of sci-fi franchises, but it's contrast to Disney Star Wars and more recent Star Trek (another franchise that needs to be retired, and I say that as someone who wore a Captain Kirk uniform shirt to school at least once a week in the mid-70s) is very much the everyman who you come to admire.
"The Boys", though, turning supers into yet another corporate manipulation, could put a knife through the genre. The wide variety of people I've seen embracing the latest season, many of them openly sick of Marvel at this point, indicate it might be the first shot of what you're describing.
I remember thinking 'what will it take to kill the HAIR BANDS?' I would say the (slightly misnamed) 'Hair Metal' genre ruled the rock world from around the first Van Halen album in 1978 until Extreme's 'Pornografitti' in 1991, which is a pretty great run. One would think that the appearance of the archetypal mockumentary 'This Is Spinal Tap' in 1984 (filmed during the creation of Van Halen's biggest album '1984') would have been the beginning of the end, but the genre continued to pick up steam, showing no signs of slowing down even as the '90s dawned. I was personally flabbergasted by this as a college-aged music fan who couldn't wait for that era to meet its Waterloo. I knew Guns 'n' Roses wasn't going to be it, despite all the hype--they had less reverb on the drums and a refreshing old-school swagger, but also a lot more Hair Band in their soul than anyone cared to admit, then or now.
We all know what happened. Every aspect of Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit,' including the whole aesthetic of the song's video, was an announcement that the time of the dinosaurs was over and the Asteroid was here, in the form of a bedraggled-looking young man in a thrift store sweater with a then-unfashionable '60s Fender Mustang. Within a few months, all the Seattle bands were being aggressively signed and promoted, and it became illegal to play virtuosic weedly-deedly guitar solos while a spandex-clad singer pranced around in makeup and Aqua Net. Grunge wasn't just a musical style. It was, even more than punk before it, a nuclear bomb.
As Mr. Gioia states, sometimes the world is just waiting for something more interesting and complex to latch onto, whether it's Cobain or Cervantes. I don't know about the end of Star Wars and Marvel, but when it comes to music I feel we're overdue for an extinction-level event.
Darth Vader already won the Nobel Peace Prize. It was in 1973 and he was then operating under the pseudonym Henry Kissinger.
Ridicule doesn’t always kill off tired stories. Westerns survived Blazing Saddles. Airplane! didn’t kill off the pathetic Airport series of disaster movies. Hollywood still makes sci-fi thrillers despite Spaceballs. And against my best hopes Heavy Metal wasn’t euthanized by This is Spinal Tap.
Wouldn’t it be safer — and more accurate — to say the public gets bored of everything eventually and moves on to some new new? Someday even the Big Mac with fries will drop off the McDonalds menu.
This dovetails in a complex way with your previous entries about the current lack of a recognizable counter culture. Don Quixote was counter culture par excellence, until it was all the rage.
An interesting post. I would make a couple of qualifying points. First, hero narratives obviously serve a psychological need, and its not just the psychology of the individual but that of the larger society. "Star Wars" appeared after a decade or two of anti-heroes dominating the screen. Westerns and war movies, for instance, had soured on traditional heroics at a time when the American public's faith in public and private institutions was flagging. The idea of taking cheesy Flash Gordon stories and turning them into operatic tales of heroes and villains clearly filled a need.
Second, Cervantes lived in a very different world from the one that had produced the Arthurian legends. The social, political, and economic realities of Europe were transformed during the 13th through 16th centuries. Much as I would like to believe otherwise, I don't think any parallel transformation will arrive anytime soon.
Don’t know of you’re familiar with Jane the Virgin, but it’s the Don Quixote of telenovelas (Latin American soap operas), so over the top and ridiculous it kills the genre while creating a new fun type of comedy. Also reminds me of Alan Moore’s Watchmen which totally challenged the super hero concept as dangerous vigilantes with god complexes.
"Before the superheroes disappear, they first get turned into a joke. As far as I can reckon, they’re almost at that point already."
I think it's safe to say we've been at that point for a while now. That said, the audience is partially to blame as well [for stale storylines/characters/franchises, etc lingering on into zombie status].
Another great read from The Honest Broker this rainy Thursday spring morning in Adelaide. Perfect with a cup of fine brewed coffee in my mug. Thanks Ted.
Everything Everywhere All At Once has already written the Don Quixote you’re talking about.
An amusing and persuasive parallel between the dominance of romances (not just Arthurian ones; see Amadis of Gaul, Don Quixote's favorite book) and the dominance of contemporary movie franchises. I draw a different conclusion than you do, however. The lesson of Don Quixote is not to abandon dominant, money-making narratives. It's to make as much money from them as you can while you still can. To make hay while the sun shines because night is sure to follow.
Fascinating. I wonder -- was Beowulf the equivalent for Norse heroic literature? i.e. making fun of the tragic fall of heroic prowess into crass commercialism (Beowulf goes from naked, Grendl-bashing badass to old, armored dude trying to steal dragon gold for dwarves).
But does parody always means death of a genre? If so, then horror should have begun its death with the Scary Movie franchise (perhaps it too is also dead, or at least is dying, though I'm not learned enough in this genre to comment further).
This has as much to do with humor as a weapon of mass-culture destruction (or reformation). I wonder, then, what Dr. Demento and Weird Al were trying to mock/destroy...
Interesting- it seems like the same thing played out with westerns and Blazing Saddles.
You know, I've heard it claimed, in a similar way, that Blazing Saddles killed westerns. And maybe it did, in some sense.
And yet, some of the best westerns ever made were made after Blazing Saddles. I'm thinking of Silverado, 3:10 to Yuma, and Unforgiven. Granted, they all deviated from formula in some important ways, but nobody would decline to call them westerns.
I'm a big fan of the MCU. I am unapologetic, but tolerant of those who aren't. What I am less tolerant of is an attitude of "this is beneath us".
No. No it isn't. Humans have loved this kind of story since the days of Gilgamesh. The Greek heroes are in this. The Norse tales of gods and heroes. King Arthur. Frankly, Shakespeare delved into this kind of thing. Think The Tempest, or heck, Macbeth, with its witches and ghosts.
Yes, any specific collection, such as Star Wars or the MCU or even Middle Earth is tied to the culture it sprang from in some important ways, and will lose its punch when the culture shifts. We don't watch all those Tarzan movies I used to watch as a kid any more. And for good reason.
So any particular form of the heroic story is going to age out eventually. But the heroic story itself will never age out, because its about us.
Would the Guardians of the Galaxy movies count as the sort of Quixote-type move "against" the Marvel/superhero industrial complex?