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

theguardian.com

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

#61

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #50
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…

>This has been a half formed thought bouncing around in my head, but I think part of the reason for the resurgence of comic books and superheroes is the simple fact that we live in a complex world where there are very few instances of Good and Evil. We live in a subtle, complex, and nuanced world, where if you take the time to dig in to an issue, you find more complexity...and a lot of really morally compromised peop…

>> It's mythically important that a Nazi piece of shit gets punched in the face by Just a Kid from Brooklyn.

But is it as mythically important that a sandal-wearing goatsherd from Helmand province (AK-47-totting or not) gets punched in the face by Just a Kid from Brooklyn?

What about Captain America punching civilians in Sarajevo, as the Sarajevo TV building is being bombed in the background?

Iraqi soldiers confronting the invasion of their country by the US army, being punched in the face by Cap?

Cap punching little Vietnamese women and children in My Lai?

What I mean is that the world itself has changed quite a bit since the time of the Nazis. In terms of dramatic evil, no modern "bad guys" can do unambiguous, demented evil as well as the Nazis used to. And the good guys don't look that unambiguously, selflessly good themselves anymore, either. In fact, if you ask me (and I'm a westerner) they look more and more like the bad guys themselves.

Maybe comics can't just go on pretending the world is all black and white, when most of us can see around us that this is not the case.

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

#62

Post by humanrebar »

maxerickson wrote: post #51
humanrebar wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> ...most modern action heroes are 100% righteous, which is a similar thing...

That's too postmodern for my taste, but it's a perspective I hadn't considered yet. Thanks for the elaboration.

In my mind, this should be contrasted with Superman battling a scenery-chewing mad scientist who unleashes Destruct-o-bot to enslave Metropolis. All of golden-age Superman villains were clearly in the wrong and Superman invariably did an admirable job of cleaning things up. The narrative wasn't about how hard it is to do the right thing, how cleaning up messes made more messes, or the tension between vigilantism and justice.

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

#63

Post by ghaff »

the-dude wrote: post #37
megaman22 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Westerns were relatively cheap to produce, at the time. Lots of open spaces to film in not far from Hollywood, lots of horses still easily obtainable, cheap costumes, not much in the way of special effects.

Notable westerns were shot in Spain ( Once upon in the west comes to mind ). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_shot_in_Almer%C3...

See also spaghetti westerns. They were low cost but obviously if you crank out many hundred films of a genre there’s obviously a demand for them.

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

#64

Post by endgame »

insickness wrote: post #11
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…

> it has been much too easy to hide away and watch these comic super-hero movies than endure what has been going on in the world. The same could be said of literally any fantasy fiction. We love it precisely because it is an escape from reality.

And sometimes also because it can cut away reality, help people see the crux of a situation or debate and take that perspective back into the real world.

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

#65

Post by branchless »

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.

It's interesting the way films like the original superman had a very clear hero "doing good". And now we have superheroes with clear flaws, wresting with their conscience and shades of gray. This mirrors the USA fall from hegemony.

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

#66

Post by toyg »

ubernostrum wrote: post #60
samirillian wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"?

Yes, but when you look at the ratio of escapist material to material that was used to directly make sense of the world around the audience, older material seems to have a smaller amount of fluff. However, this is probably just a function of historical preservation; we only know of the masterpieces that were passed down because of them being key to philosophical research, while tons of "lighter" material has simply been lost (and keeps being lost every day).

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

#67

Post by humanrebar »

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.

> Citing superficial similarities to mythical figures...

I think you missed why I quoted Tolkien. There's something compelling about a common mythology for a culture. The modern cosmopolitan culture, American especially, doesn't have an ethnic, racial, or language identity to fall back on when exploring identity, struggle, the merits of sacrifice, moral issues, etc. Mythological figures allow us to explore these themes in a less traumatic way.

You can call that "escapism", I guess, but I think The Dark Knight was one of the few films that wrestled with the War on Terror in honest ways. It had to be a mythological film (Batman v. Joker) because the same subject would have gone over rather poorly in one way or another if it were an actual terrorism/spy thriller or something.

Anyway, I think Tolkien wasn't exactly wrong to pine for an exploration of culture, language, and identity through mythological archetypes. He, in particular, wanted non-borrowed ones. We are sort of in the same boat since nearly all content is borrowed in a global market.

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

#68

Post by junkscience2017 »

jblow wrote: post #46
junkscience2017 wrote: post #42

Alan Moore alternates between trashing mainstream comic companies and cashing their checks. DC is a villain to Moore because he willfully traded away the rights to his greatest creation (Watchmen) and then watched them cash in on it. Moore is a great writer but a poor (contract) reader and he's been ranting about it ever since.

Condescending and unnecessary. How do you know he's a poor contract reader? Compared to whom, you? Do you know exactly what position he was in at that time? Have you ever been in such a position? Do you make art independently for a living, or even try?

it's clear you've decided to chime in on the conversation despite having no familliarity with Moore, which is why you have nothing more to offer than a lame sequence of pointless jabs

DC comics bought the rights to Watchmen fair and square but Moore will never let it go, he made many early claims to want to be the greatest comics writer in history...but he just ended up making someone else money

you could have learned most of this from Google in the time it took you to paste your canned response

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

#69

Post by toyg »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #61
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This has been a half formed thought bouncing around in my head, but I think part of the reason for the resurgence of comic books and superheroes is the simple fact that we live in a complex world where there are very few instances of Good and Evil. We live in a subtle, complex, and nuanced world, where if you take the time to dig in to an issue, you find more complexity...and a lot of really morally compromised peop…

>> It's mythically important that a Nazi piece of shit gets punched in the face by Just a Kid from Brooklyn. But is it as mythically important that a sandal-wearing goatsherd from Helmand province (AK-47-totting or not) gets punched in the face by Just a Kid from Brooklyn? What about Captain America punching civilians in Sarajevo, as the Sarajevo TV building is being bombed in the background? Iraqi soldiers confronti…

> no modern "bad guys" can do unambiguous, demented evil as well as the Nazis used to

The Nazis were complete shits on an unprecedented scale, but there was quite a bit of "demented evil" done by Americans too in WWII, like carpet-bombing European cities and interning citizens of Japanese ancestry.

The world has never been simple. "Black & white" is always a result of hegemonic propaganda more than actual conditions. It so just happens that certain strains of propaganda seem particularly ineffective on the most creative personalities of our age; but it takes very little for things to change. A lot of stuff produced in all media between 2011-09-11 and 2013-03-14 was very black & white, and without that senseless invasion we'd probably have many more monodimensional "Arab baddies" around today.

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

#70

Post by brad0 »

ghaff wrote: post #63
the-dude wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notable westerns were shot in Spain ( Once upon in the west comes to mind ). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_shot_in_Almer%C3...

See also spaghetti westerns. They were low cost but obviously if you crank out many hundred films of a genre there’s obviously a demand for them.

Which comes back to my original point. After all those movies there was still a demand. Where was that demand originating from?
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