Why I’m Annoyed with MCU Detractors

Every now and then, when I hear people complain about Marvel movies, I start feeling defensive. I wasn’t sure why, exactly, so I wanted to think it out. These movies don’t need me defending them, and I don’t really want to. There’s a lot to criticize them over, and as they’re the largest media franchise around and have a hold over pop culture, we have something of a duty to be critical of them. It’s not so much that I see Marvel Studios as some kind of victim, as much as it is that it’s a gateway to other arguments about art and taste that get under my skin. So let’s talk about it!

First off, I want to discuss the superficial reason’s I think it’s dumb for people to decry the MCU as the death of all culture. Like, no, it isn’t? It is the most dominant thing right now, with huge marketing campaigns and a lot of social media discussion, so I get that they feel everywhere and all-consuming. And DC has been trying to ride the wave for a while with varying success, though I still don’t think they’ve really gotten their act together; maybe James Gunn will change that. At the end of the day, those two franchises are the superhero movies, and they each release a handful of films a year. That’s it. There are hundreds, even thousands of movies made a year, most of them being different. Even there, though, I do see a bigger picture complaint. There are fewer romcoms or dramas than there used to be as Hollywood tries to ride the superhero thing; more movies are being made with vibes closer to Marvel Studios, and other studios are trying to recreate the MCU’s success. But that’s not the fault of Marvel Studios. Marvel Comics founded Marvel Studios to take control of their IP in an aggressive market at a moment when they really needed it. They pulled off a commercial and narrative formula no one else had achieved, and to great acclaim. Overall, they’re good movies. That’s why Disney bought them out. Marvel Studios launched at the same time as Netflix was getting big, and Hollywood was getting scared about what streaming meant for them. Because Hollywood is now run by a bunch of MBA bros with poor taste, they decided their survival hinged on big, broad, safe franchises that print money, rather than on doing the Netflix “everything and the kitchen sink” strategy, but effectively. So, an immortal franchise with broad blockbuster appeal like the MCU was a godsend for them. It’s really naïve to think Hollywood would have turned out differently without Marvel, because they can and have done the same thing with other franchises, and could do so with a series of similar, unrelated blockbusters. Marvel Studios didn’t invent Hollywood’s problems, so blaming them for it is misguided, and focusing on them fully misses the actual villains. The MCU disappearing wouldn’t usher in a New New Hollywood era, you know?

So yeah, it’s tiring in that general, superficial sense to me. But dig a little deeper, and there’s the part where I’m a comics fan and a superhero fan, and I’ve been dealing with people condescending to me about my interests my whole life. It’s been wild to see people on social media “discover” all these problems with superhero stories once the movies came out, to see people “realize” all these issues in the way their narratives were structured and the ways the stories themselves are produced. It’s all stuff I’ve been dealing with since I was a kid, so to me, it sounds childish to hear people grapple with the obvious fact that superhero stories don’t have to be for kids, or that they don’t get to actually solve any real world problems, or that they’re corporate-owned IP with a more homogenous cast than they should have. I know, I’ve heard it all before, I’ve dealt with it and come to my own conclusions. There are so many basic concepts about the genre and characters that the common moviegoing masses haven’t gotten to yet due to their inexperience, and now we have to relitigate these things in a larger context with much less nuance, and it’s tiring. And while all of this is going on, the problems people point out with the MCU are things that other movies do all the time, things other genres do all the time. Like I said a moment ago, they didn’t invent these problems. I don’t want to sound like I’m against people having legitimate discussions about it, I just wish there was more understanding, less open hostility, less reductive reasoning, and fewer hyperbolic conclusions.

I’m not just a comics fan, though, I’m also a queer person from the South. Growing up a queer nerd, I decided that I have no patience for people trying to make me feel bad for liking what I like. And I do feel it’s as personal as “making me feel bad” for liking Marvel movies. A common screed on social media is to paint MCU fans as idiots who don’t care about “real art” and who can’t handle anything complex or stylized. Sometimes, they straight up claim that Marvel movies are the literal villains destroying culture, and that anyone supporting them want to Disney-fy all of culture and entertainment. And I know part of that is how social media, especially Twitter, is designed to work, because generating outrage is how they make money. But that doesn’t make it feel less personal when people I look up to talk about the things I like as an infection and how they want “movies for adults,” a phrase I don’t think would have popped up without Marvel Studios’ presence. Fandom runs deep in all of us for one thing or another, and it all feels very personal when we talk about it. I have a pretty thick skin overall, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt when people go beyond saying, “these movies aren’t to my liking,” to instead go on reductive, generalized rants attacking the fans of those movies. Like, I’ve also seen Marvel fans “discover” really obvious, surface level details like they were uncovering the lost city of Atlantis – sorry, Talokan, and it does make them sound unintelligent or like they don’t know how movies work. But you can find dumb-sounding fans of all stories, so don’t paint us all with the same brush. Have some basic empathy.

This is especially considering the hypocrisy of it all. There are so many people who say they hate Marvel movies for being dumb, empty action films, only for their favorite movies to be The Fast and the Furious or Star Wars or Jurassic Park. Clearly, we all like the same things, and simply prefer them in other packages. Why do people go out of their way to trash something so similar to what they like? I get that it’s easy to rip on the popular thing, and the MCU does deserve that treatment. At the same time, ripping on the popular thing has never made the smaller thing you like better. There’s no need to tear one thing down so you can prop another thing up. It’s a behavior that I see a lot on social media, and it always bothers me. And for the people who actually do have different tastes and have less hypocritical favorite movies? It’s the same issue, really. They’d feel terrible if someone dismissed their thing as dumb or unimportant or nitpicked any issue with the movie as a reason it’s not worth discussing. Why would they think Marvel fans feel any different? Because it’s popular? It’s one thing to take issue with the cultural power of the franchise, it’s another thing to personally attack the fans of that franchise in a way that would really hurt you if it were directed at what you love.

And then there’s the discussion of the MCU’s legitimacy as “real art.” I want to start by saying that the whole high art vs. low or pop art framework is classist and racist, and I have no patience for it. All art is valid and there is no requirement that it conform to any particular methodology or philosophy. Art is an experience, and artworks are made for many different reasons. Simple entertainment is as high a purpose as any other art can have, because we all need entertainment in our lives, to bring us joy and a chance to consider new ideas and experiences. And of course, if your purpose is entertainment, then clear communication is key. A painter spends days on a work hoping that someone will gaze upon it for hours and think about it for days, marveling at the meaning and craft involved; comics artists spend days on a work hoping readers only have to look at it for a few seconds, at most, to get the general idea, so they can keep reading unimpeded. It’s not a lack of craft to make something with immediate emotional and symbolic impact, rather than something ambiguous and enigmatic that requires the audience do half the work. In fact, not everyone can make a direct statement well or in a way that sticks with them for the rest of their lives.

Like, let’s take a step back and compare two movies I’ve seen recently as examples, Infinity Pool and Bullet Train. My experience of the former is that it’s a finely crafted movie with a lot to say about society and the human condition. I could go on about a few key features that ultimately kept me from enjoying it, but the larger point is that it’s a more subtle, indirect voice. We as the audience are not supposed to have all the answers by the end, and it did succeed in holding my attention into the next day. It’s more like a watch, with a lot of hidden gears and a sophisticated design. It takes a second to pull it apart, but once you do, you can follow everything back and see how it works. Bullet Train is a bombastic action comedy that you can watch as simple entertainment. The characters spend the movie speaking to various big ideas and themes, and by the end, the hero gives an answer to those themes. But if you take a step back, there’s no real answer, and these themes are actually woven very tightly into the narrative. It’s a messy movie that brings together several perspectives on a crossroad between crossroads, pondering the nature of life. It’s not easy to pull it apart because it’s not meant to be pulled apart. It’s like an abstract painting in that regard, a clash of different ideas that make a kind of meaning and experience without a distinct order. Both things are complex and can be appreciated in different ways. Both are art and take a lot of skill to produce successfully. Please, stop trying to argue that only one of them is art. As a treat, and to look less like a snobby jerk.

Like I said, I do get it. The MCU is a conservative franchise that defends the status quo at all costs, and it’s full of, at times, annoying meta humor that’s meant to beat Honest Trailers to the punch. It does suck that smaller, better movies don’t get the same kind of support from studios, and that they don’t blow up social media the same way. We do deserve better, we do need to be vigilant of the corporate overlords of pop culture, and we do need to fight for the things we love that get lost in the shuffle. There’s a way to do all this without attacking one another, to put love first and focus on positivity. That’s something I’m wanting to focus on in my own life and in my public presence here. I would really appreciate it if more people did, too.