How is kindness a bad thing? I thought that was universally agreed to be a good message to have in a piece of media. I guess the excuse is they don’t want media to have messages at all but like, how would you even have a movie where the hero has no values that they stand for?
If you’re going to use a movie to deliver populism and morality, it better be a good movie or you’re just handing ammunition to the world’s worst piles of shit.
We need to all collectively admit to ourselves that Superman is tired and over and from a different world. We can write new stories that will connect with and give hope to a far more apathetic and cynical population.
Yeah the value of art is that it can express or show things about the world that are hard to express in words. And we desperately need a new way and clarity about the failure of the old ways, because that is what leads to the cynicism and hopelessness. So either keep politics out of it and produce harmless entertainment, or have a bloody brilliant take on politics that provides actual artistic value.
I quite like superhero movies as escapism, like a fantasy world where clear definitions of good vs evil exist. But I can’t stomach biopics or docudramas that mix this fantasy with real world propaganda, like some nostalgic fantasy about US politics or journalism any more. It feels like they all want to recreate the beautiful fantasy of Sorkin’s “The White House” or the classic thriller take of “a bad apple in a good system” but today that is a dangerous lie.
The best example of how the world has changed and changed us is by rewatching The West Wing. A show that if aired today, would probably end up with the production studio burned down.