Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Superheroes a 'cultural catastrophe', says comics guru Alan Moore [2014]

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 112 posts

Re: Superheroes a 'cultural catastrophe', says comics guru Alan Moore [2014]

#51

Post by maxerickson »

humanrebar wrote: post #33
hguant wrote: post #19

I don't see how this is news. Alan Moore has been decrying and hating on superheroes for the entirety of his career, for largely the same reasons throughout. This is great when it's communicated through his work - showing what comics could be without superheroes, or critiquing the genre from within (Watchmen and Marvelman/Miracleman reboot come to mind), but his personal disdain for the consumers of his products is o…

> I think that comics are a retreat from that... Except most comic book stories are about heroes that are morally compromised in various ways: their pasts, their methods, the unintended consequences of their actions, etc. What's more, outside of issue films, I have a hard time thinking of much popular film these days that is black and white.

It doesn't quite fit into the black and white mold, but most modern action heroes are 100% righteous, which is a similar thing.

Take the incredible scene in Iron Man 1 where Tony Stark flies halfway around the word, kills a bunch of men (probably for good reason) and then almost kills an allied pilot. These events weigh so heavily on him that he cracks wise with his buddy on the phone while they are happening.

Re: Superheroes a 'cultural catastrophe', says comics guru Alan Moore [2014]

#52

Post by maxerickson »

humanrebar wrote: post #49
maxerickson wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Superman is pretty much Hercules for the jet age. Born special, good at trying, wildly powerful, noble, etc.

Murders his family in a rage and tries to earn penance through acts of strength and valor... no, wait...

Man of Steel (the movie) kind of writes that in, his earthly pops dies so that he can stay hidden.

Re: Superheroes a 'cultural catastrophe', says comics guru Alan Moore [2014]

#53

Post by taneq »

Theodores wrote: post #3

It sounds like Alan Moore has had enough of the media and journalists. Well meaning that they may be individually they are collectively like a passive-aggressive narcissist eager to latch on to the slightest thing to bring the man down. It sounds to me that he just wants to get out of this abusive relationship and get on with his life. The point of the article - that there is something weird about grown adults and th…

> as if it was serious art

When you start talking about whether things are "serious" or "real" art or not, you've lost sight of what art really is.

Re: Superheroes a 'cultural catastrophe', says comics guru Alan Moore [2014]

#54

Post by CommentCard »

simonbarker87 wrote: post #5
Theodores wrote: post #3

It sounds like Alan Moore has had enough of the media and journalists. Well meaning that they may be individually they are collectively like a passive-aggressive narcissist eager to latch on to the slightest thing to bring the man down. It sounds to me that he just wants to get out of this abusive relationship and get on with his life. The point of the article - that there is something weird about grown adults and th…

Could it be because the kids who these stories were initially aimed at, grew up and became adults, DC/Marvel realised they could “adultify” the plots and appeal to the same audience now 20-30 years older to expand their demographic leveraging nostalgia and thus make more money?

I'd argue that the vast majority of superhero movies are engineered through focus-group testing to be as palatable to as many people as possible that they become bland.

Logan was the only genre movie in recent memory that eschewed this formula and confronted the messy topic of the senescence of the age of the superhero.

Re: Superheroes a 'cultural catastrophe', says comics guru Alan Moore [2014]

#56

Post by samirillian »

humanrebar wrote: post #29

Moore says: > I would also observe that it is, potentially, culturally catastrophic to have the ephemera of a previous century squatting possessively on the cultural stage and refusing to allow this surely unprecedented era to develop a culture of its own, relevant and sufficient to its times. And Tolkien said: > There was Greek, and Celtic, and Romance, Germanic, Scandinavian, and Finnish [mythology] (which greatly…

I feel like you're missing his whole point, which is the use of superheroes as a kind of escapism from the complexities of life. Citing superficial similarities to mythical figures is just a way of sidestepping his actual arguments.

Re: Superheroes a 'cultural catastrophe', says comics guru Alan Moore [2014]

#57

Post by QAPereo »

brad0 wrote: post #22
hguant wrote: post #19

I don't see how this is news. Alan Moore has been decrying and hating on superheroes for the entirety of his career, for largely the same reasons throughout. This is great when it's communicated through his work - showing what comics could be without superheroes, or critiquing the genre from within (Watchmen and Marvelman/Miracleman reboot come to mind), but his personal disdain for the consumers of his products is o…

I think his problem is more along the lines of: Rather that an entire country or group of people getting angry because people in power are morally corrupt they're just watching the latest Iron Man and discussing pointless things like Art Direction and the Actresses Performance.

At least the distraction now isn’t blood on the sands of the arena, or burning witches. Most people want to be distracted most of the time, with sports, sex, drugs, music, movies, tv, books, learning new things, family... it’s called living. We can’t all be joyless pricks like Moore, who haven’t learned even the simplest lessons or history.

“There can be no disputing matters of taste.”

Re: Superheroes a 'cultural catastrophe', says comics guru Alan Moore [2014]

#58

Post by sirspacey »

Reading this again, I cannot miss the irony that Alan is accusing our culture of the very thing he has done - retreat from the complexities of conflicts in our modern culture. Racism and sexual violence are at the top of that list. FWIW, discussing either of those topics as a white, middle-class, middle-aged male doesn't come with a lot of natural/implied moral authority. For the philosophically inclined among that group, in which I'll include myself, we are used to starting these kinds of discussions with the premise of our natural-born right to contribute (as he argues for - i.e. otherwise all identity politics excludes those without the identity, effectively killing the concept of political discourse). For my part, I've come to the conclusion that the greatest good we can do is support the voice of those who clearly have a natural right to speak about those issues by virtue of experience. One way to do that is to be the listener as they take the pulpit. Not because what they have to say is inherently the correct view, or ours is inherently not, but because they do deserve the forum to figure out an answer to these problems that can work for them and society- a forum they have been denied. I share Thomas Jefferson's view that the principles we cherish, that were developed over millennia, were formed through vigorous debate amongst those with a natural-born right to the outcome. I'm more curious to learn what is invented when we support the forum vs. position ourselves as a group being victimized by the vehement demand for our silence. While the vehemence is off-putting, it may also be a signal of how great a wrong has been done. We cannot exclude the later if we are unwilling to be patient with the former. I'm reminded of my gratitude for how many second chances society has given me. It seems common decency to pay it forward.

Re: Superheroes a 'cultural catastrophe', says comics guru Alan Moore [2014]

#59

Post by rcthompson »

humanrebar wrote: post #29

Moore says: > I would also observe that it is, potentially, culturally catastrophic to have the ephemera of a previous century squatting possessively on the cultural stage and refusing to allow this surely unprecedented era to develop a culture of its own, relevant and sufficient to its times. And Tolkien said: > There was Greek, and Celtic, and Romance, Germanic, Scandinavian, and Finnish [mythology] (which greatly…

> in a thousand years, when Superman and Wolverine are aged and in the public domain

Are we sure Congress won't just keep extending the term of copyright for the next thousand years?

Re: Superheroes a 'cultural catastrophe', says comics guru Alan Moore [2014]

#60

Post by ubernostrum »

samirillian wrote: post #56
humanrebar wrote: post #29

Moore says: > I would also observe that it is, potentially, culturally catastrophic to have the ephemera of a previous century squatting possessively on the cultural stage and refusing to allow this surely unprecedented era to develop a culture of its own, relevant and sufficient to its times. And Tolkien said: > There was Greek, and Celtic, and Romance, Germanic, Scandinavian, and Finnish [mythology] (which greatly…

I feel like you're missing his whole point, which is the use of superheroes as a kind of escapism from the complexities of life. Citing superficial similarities to mythical figures is just a way of sidestepping his actual arguments.

Do you believe one of the uses of mythology and epic cultural sagas in earlier ages wasn't "a kind of escapism"?
Post reply on HN