Don't Like - The Faddish Critique Cycle
Chances are by now you’ve someone (maybe me but also maybe someone else like one Scartin Morsese) bemoan Marvel movies (the MCU) and their effect on the filmgoing public. If you haven’t, the basic idea is that these movies are dumb, cost a ton of money but also make a ton of money, and have such a stranglehold on movie theaters that they don’t show any other movies for longer than a month. They’re a genuine problem, but one that seems to be getting better (or worse if you’re Marvel). However, critiquing Marvel movies now is passé. Lauren Oyler was recently ridiculed for critiquing them in a brief passage of her new book No Judgment because her point was so obviously passé. How fair this criticism is, is up for debate. If you’re a detractor, a Marvel critique isn’t exactly new. Mark Harris wrote an important piece about the topic in 2014 that has reverberated ever since. If you go back and read it, its diagnosis will feel prescient considering what’s happened since it was published. So why rehash its arguments? Well, perhaps because those critiques are still important and relevant. Sure, maybe Marvel isn’t what it was five or so years ago but the critiques are still good, especially as the next MCU (the Mattel Cinematic Universe) is in development. But this kind of cyclical criticism is found in many places. For instance, last night at dinner a friend brought up the concept of “dope art,” which is the kind of gaudy trash art found in Steve Aoki’s home. It’s dumb and stupid art but some would suggest that critiquing it at this point is pointless. Like, yes we know. But the thing is, this art, just like Marvel movies, is still being made. To move on from it or declare it boring for the sake of intellectual novelty is surely a mistake.