Since when did superheroes turned into villains?
Just one day after director Dan Gilroy's decided that the best way to rouse
up the Independent Spirit Awards was to take a cheap shot at movies based on
comic books, it was the turn of the Academy Awards, which just last year
saluted them.
Last night at the Oscars, Jack Black took to the stage during Neil Patrick
Harris opening number to also slam the genre by singing "Now
it’s market trends and fickle friends and Hollywood baloney. Believe me, Neil,
you’re better off just polishing your Tony. This industry’s in flux, it’s run
by mucky-mucks pitching tents for tentpoles and chasing Chinese bucks. Opening
with lots of zeroes, all we get are superheroes: Spider-Man, Superman, Batman,
Jedi Man, Sequel Man, Prequel Man, formulaic scripts! And after Fifty Shades of Grey they’ll all have leather whips! In a
world where our greens dropping common machines, only screens we’ll watch them
on are the screens in our jeans. Screens in our jeans! Screens in our jeans!
The only screens we’ll watch them on are the screens in our jeans! "
It's supposed to be a funny song I get it, but in an award ceremony that is
according to them a celebration of film and industry, knocking comic book
movies because they are perceived by some as nothing more than cash grabs is
just absurd, besides it's what keeps the industry at float. I'm sorry but it's
true. I loved Whiplash, and Nightcrawler, but the thing is that even if there
weren't superhero movies those films would still have a hard time getting made,
and distributed. Plus "half" of the nominees and attendees have at
one point or another appeared in one of such movies. Benedict Cumberbatch, Rene
Russo (Gilroy's wife), Michael Keaton, Edward Norton, Marion Cotillard, Bradley
Cooper, Ben Affleck, Mark Ruffalo, J.K. Simmons, Emma Stone, Jared Leto, Margot
Robbie, Will Smith, Felicity Jones, Jamie Foxx, James Franco, Christian Bale, Anthony
Hopkins, and I could on, and on, and on, even Al Pacino wants in. This segment
wasn't really thought out was it?
In any case, director James Gunn also had a few smarter words to share.
I didn't really find the Jack Black superhero jokes offensive, did you
guys? It was, like, a joke. I'm not sure if you guys noticed, but the writing
on the Oscars didn't seem to be all that well thought out.
As far as Dan Gilroy saying that attendees of the Independent Spirit Awards
have survived against a "tsunami of superhero films" - well it seems
a bit weird coming from a guy whose wife has acted in two Thor films - really,
that seems like you've drowned horribly in that tsunami. But I know I just kind
of make up stuff as I go along on these awards shows, so I'll give him the
benefit of the doubt.
Whatever the case, the truth is, popular fare in any medium has always been
snubbed by the self-appointed elite. I've already won more awards than I ever
expected for Guardians. What bothers me slightly is that many people assume
because you make big films that you put less love, care, and thought into them
then people do who make independent films or who make what are considered more
serious Hollywood films.
I've made B-movies, independent films, children's movies, horror films, and
gigantic spectacles. I find there are plenty of people everywhere making movies
for a buck or to feed their own vanity. And then there are people who do what
they do because they love story-telling, they love cinema, and they want to add
back to the world some of the same magic they've taken from the works of
others. In all honesty, I do no find a strikingly different percentage of those
with integrity and those without working within any of these fields of film.
If you think people who make superhero movies are dumb, come out and say
we're dumb. But if you, as an independent filmmaker or a "serious"
filmmaker, think you put more love into your characters than the Russo Brothers
do Captain America, or Joss Whedon does the Hulk, or I do a talking raccoon,
you are simply mistaken.
What do you think?
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