Thread by @StorySlug

I think the big problem is that art is a conversation, and a lot of stuff stops making sense or being interesting when it becomes so dominant that the stuff it's in conversation with goes away.

https://twitter.com/xoxogossipgita/status/1617630879836438528

For a long time superhero movies were SUPER self-important. DC is still kind of stuck in that mode, with each Batman movie getting darker and edgier than the one before it, but for a long time that was THE way to adapt a superhero property.

Stories about magic, vampires, destiny, chosen ones, those were the same deal. Plodding, serious, self-important. In THAT cultural context, Buffy the Vampire Slayer seemed like a breath of fresh air. People in a crazy situation who were suddenly allowed to acknowledge that.

Like how when people make zombie TV shows and the characters have to pretend they've come up in a world that never had zombie movies so they have to call them "walkers," "the risen dead," whatever. It makes part of your brain itch, this kind of disconnect.

If you were there, you'd say "these are obviously fucking zombies so we have to shoot them in the head, and also WHAT THE FUCK how is this happening?"

Characters in Joss Whedon shows did that, and it felt new and novel.

The problem is, it only works in that broader context of other properties taking it super serious and super-sincere. As soon as EVERYBODY is doing it, as soon as it becomes the dominant cultural THING, it stops feeling novel and starts feeling oppressive.

Part of that is, yes, the diminishing returns that come from imitation. In the 90s, before there were all these superhero movies, it was Tarantino knockoffs. Hitmen with weird inner lives swapping profanity-laden tirades about pop-cultural properties in theatres every Friday.

Like, when Tarantino did it it was mind-blowing. But you eventually get tired of Smokin' Aces, Lucky Number Slevin, Go, The Big Hit, 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag, Very Bad Things, Intermission, Reindeer Games, etc.

Anyway, if you watch a bunch of Batman movies the Marvel vibe starts to make sense again. Characters who can acknowledge the weirdness of wearing a costume and fighting robots feels like a scratched itch. But there's too much of it.

Marvel's phase 1 knew this, incidentally, and tried to avoid it by making each movie a different genre. Captain America was a WW2 propaganda film. The Hulk was a monster movie. Thor was going for 50s sci-fi vibes. They wanted to avoid fatigue for their product.

The relentless crossovers wore down the walls between the various series, though, in favor of an overarching, homogenous "house style" that's starting to choke them out with oversaturation of this one kind of thing.

It's just like any other kind of consumption, really. Eat pizza for every meal and it's not that pizza stops being good, it's the same food it always was, but you start developing a taste for something else. But eating nothing but tacos won't help you either.

And after three weeks, when everybody's complaining about how they're getting nothing but tacos, it's gonna sound more and more like they're saying "tacos suck" because they've forgotten how good a taco tastes after three weeks of pizza.

Big entertainment companies often hope to keep trends continuing forever, that they've finally unlocked the secret to the one thing you'll always want to consume.

But food is, again, instructive, with stuff like Soylent.

Soylent is incredibly bland stuff, even the flavored varieties, because anything you're going to eat every day has to be kinda bland if it's going to give you what you need, avoid upsetting your stomach, appeal to a broad range of palates.

The earliest Marvel movies weren't for everybody, and they were always going to see if they could make Marvel movies that WERE. The superhero movie you could eat every day, without heartburn or getting sick of it.