The Marvel-ous Debate

One of the reasons I hit burnout this month was that my lifestyle left plenty of room to get mad over nothing. This, unfortunately, hasn’t changed. Be it the world continuing to frustrate and disappoint me, or having way too much free time, I’ve resolved to not write something for the duration of the month unless it really bugs me. This is that.

I’m sure you know of the exchange between Martin Scorcese and James Gunn by now. I briefly touched on it, but it hasn’t exactly mellowed. We’ve since had Francis Ford Coppola double-down in his defence of Scorcese, Gunn get defensive again and Bob Iger, CEO of Disney, make everything worse. It’s exhausting, and it refuses to go away.

Now, I’m an MCU fan, having criticized its detractors frequently. But what makes this unique is that Scorcese and Coppola aren’t young snobs who want to put down what they deem “lesser”. These are two of the most-important directors of the last 50 years, introducing new directing techniques and refining old ones. They aren’t slouches, essentially. So when they open their mouths, you’d better believe the world listens.

That said, they shouldn’t get a free pass simply because they’re well-respected. On one hand, I get it. When you get older, your filters become faulty, so you say stuff you wouldn’t have said earlier. I have two living grandparents, so I see that a lot. But while seniority might explain their remarks, it doesn’t excuse bigotry or ignorance. Nor does it exempt them from pushback.

This especially applies to film veterans like Scorcese and Coppola. They may not deserve to be shamelessly bashed by Marvel fanboys, that much is true. But I don’t think a blind eye should be turned, either. Because, like Steven Spielberg and Netflix, their remarks on The MCU are incredibly ignorant and ill-conceived. And that’s getting lost in the crossfire.

I’m not saying that either director has to love every kind of film. I’m not big on sports movies myself. But that doesn’t mean that I automatically get to write them off, because that’s ignorance. Rather, it means that sports movies have to try much harder to impress me.

And, to be fair, some have. I’m not big on racing, but Rush was an excellent character study. I think baseball’s boring, but I loved how 42 dissected the sport’s racist past. Even Battle of the Sexes, which is about tennis, managed to serve a mean game about sexism. Sports movies usually don’t interest me, but I keep an open mind anyway.

That’s what Gunn was arguing in his rebuttals to Scorcese and Coppola, by the way: that they shouldn’t be so quick to write these movies off because they’re not Goodfellas or Apocalypse Now. They’re definitely “not on the same level”, but they don’t lack artistic merits. If art’s sole purpose is to invoke feelings and spark conversations, even if it’s not always good, then shouldn’t The MCU, which does both for many people, qualify? This argument can even be thrown back at Scorcese and Coppola: I think Scorcese’s best work is experimental, while I’ve yet to see anything Coppola’s done. That doesn’t make either of them “bad”, though, because they’re inspiring their intended audiences.

You know what doesn’t help? Iger’s response to this whole mess. In recent a statement, the Disney CEO had this to say:

“I’m puzzled by it. If they want to bitch about movies it’s certainly their right. It seems so disrespectful to all the people who work on those films who are working just as hard as the people who are working on their films and are putting their creative souls on the line just like they are…[a]re you telling me that Ryan Coogler making Black Panther is doing something that somehow or another is less than anything Marty Scorsese or Francis Ford Coppola have ever done on any one of their movies? Come on.”

Make of that what you will.

It’s become pretty clear by now that the debate will never resolve itself. To quote my cousin, everyone has an opinion, it’s incredibly divisive, and we’re all shouting over one another without hearing what people actually have to say. Personally, it’s also exhausting to listen to. Because the film world has real issues, and arguing over which movies are true art isn’t one of them. If it is, it’s pretty low-ranking.

I’ll spare my “this is why everyone’s wrong” rant. It’s pointless, it adds nothing to the conversation and it’d be me repeating myself. But, like how biopics are often unfairly slammed because they’re “awards movies”, superhero films, particularly Marvel movies, get routinely shafted because they’re fluff pieces. They’re mostly not all that deep, their stories are paper-thin, their plotting is littered with holes, and they’re frequently overlong. But that doesn’t mean they’re “not art”, especially when they manage to please filmgoing audiences.

Yes, your ideal diet of movies shouldn’t end at superheroes. (Nor should it end at dramas.) I’m a film omnivore, I’ll consume whatever interests me, yet even I know that arguing the technical merits of the franchise that Iron Man birthed in 2008 isn’t only unhelpful, it’s reductive. We already have enough issues in the world without debating something that’s this trivial. Not to mention, my poor head can’t take it anymore.

Now then, if you’ll excuse me...