For years there has been a fairly heated discussion about the value of superhero films. No wonder, because there are more than ever before – and now there is also a boom in high-quality series. While on the one hand there are the super nerds who get involved in the depth dimension of the stories, and there are also good (psychological) reasons for the existence of these films, others can hardly bear the hype anymore.
This includes, of all people, “Watchmen” creator Alan Moore, who announced his retirement from the comic world some time ago. Now he follows up with a fundamental criticism of the superhero epics on the big screen.
In a new interview with the Guardian, he said with great seriousness that the “infantilization” of adults who love and adore all these films may well be “a precursor to fascism.”
Moore: “I said back in 2011 that I believe that if millions of adults queued up to see Batman movies, there would be serious and worrying consequences for the future. Because that kind of infantilization—which expresses a nostalgia for simpler times and uncomplicated realities—may well be a precursor to fascism.”
Donald Trump and Superhero Movies
As evidence, Moore pointed out that the interim peak of the superhero movie craze was in 2016, when Donald Trump was elected President of the United States. For the writer it was almost a kind of exit from regulated politics – with all the well-known consequences.
While Moore has credit for targeting adult comics like V for Vendetta, he seems keenly aware of who the real audience is for all of these superhero worlds. “Adults want to see characters and situations because they were created to appeal to 12-year-old boys – and they were always boys! – from 50 years ago.”
He himself never believed that all the superhero stories were really “adult fare”. A misunderstanding that, in his opinion, arose in the 1980s (when in fact numerous subjects became darker and more ambivalent in the narrative direction) and for which he certainly bears his own fault, as Moore says. “There were a lot of headlines like, ‘Comics have finally come of age.'”
Moore continues, “I tend to think that comics never really grew up. There were a few titles that were more mature than people were used to. But most comic book titles were pretty much the same as they’ve always been. Comics haven’t really evolved. They actually always corresponded emotionally to the target group they addressed.”
Young men should no longer be ashamed of their infantile love
As far back as 2007 – a year before The Dark Knight started the new superhero movie boom – Alan Moore said that a culture that celebrates such films is “extremely embarrassing”. Such films, he pointed out, symbolized a “self-imposed emotional standstill by the audience.”
Later, the author, who also wrote one of the most important Batman stories with “The Killing Joke” and thus probably also helped the Joker to rise as a pop culture parade figure of anarchist evil, added that the success of the supposedly complex “graphic novel” genre was only was created as an accomplice and the actual dubious side success was that young men no longer had to be ashamed of their love for Spider-Man and Batman.
<!–
–>
<!–
–>