[2022 has been a lot. A lot a lot. So for my annual Year in Review series, I wanted to focus mostly on somewhat lighter, pop culture kinds of topics, with just one much more serious exception. Here’s to a better year to come!]
On why the complaints about
Marvel’s new phase are silly, and why they’re a lot worse than that.
As was the
case with yesterday’s post, a good bit of what I’d want to say about the
question of whether Marvel shows and films have become too “woke” was addressed
in a prior post, this
one from last year’s Year in Review series, on the TV show The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. So check that out if you
would and then come on back.
Welcome
back! As I hope that post made clear, I think the idea that Marvels shows or
films can’t be simultaneously entertaining as hell and engaged with social and
political issues is profoundly silly, and not at all borne out by the actual
evidence provided by works like Falcon.
Indeed, I would go further—if you go back to the film that launched this entire
run of Marvel stories, Iron Man
(2008), you find a film about a weapons
manufacturer and arms dealer coming to grips with the global as well as
personal realities and effects of his work and life, and doing so first and
foremost in one of the most
conflicted global hotspots (Afghanistan) to boot. Obviously Marvel films
and shows haven’t always been so directly tied to social and political issues—but
I would argue that most of them (and certainly the best of them) have dealt
with complex themes alongside the entertaining superhero storytelling, and
those themes have included such contemporary issues alongside lots of other
(and interconnected) questions of identity, heroism, community, and more. Folks
are certainly entitled to their own opinions about the current slate of Marvel
stories, but to criticize them as suddenly “woke” is to reveal at least a
limited perspective on the entire series to date.
I say “at
least a limited perspective” to give those folks the benefit of the doubt. But
the truth is, when someone uses “woke” as a criticism of an individual cultural
work, they’re playing into a much broader and more destructive political
narrative (whether they realize or like it or not). I haven’t yet performed the
scientific research on this phenomenon, so this is simply an estimate at the
moment (if an educated one to be sure), but I believe something like 97.4% of
the time, the
descriptor “woke” means “featuring main characters and storylines that aren’t
predominantly white and male.” (This is quite similar to what “politically
correct” meant in an earlier iteration of these arguments; plus ça change and all that.) Of
course diverse characters and stories aren’t immune from criticism, any more
than any artistic choices are or should be—but when the diversity itself is the
basis (or at least the starting point) for that criticism, that reveals a great
deal more about the perspective of the critic than it does about the text being
criticized. For a long time, the powers that be at studios like Marvel
genuinely doubted whether characters like Black
Panther or Black
Widow could carry their own film—if it’s “woke” that we’ve learned not only
that they can do so, but that diversification leads to infinitely more
enjoyable storytelling, then let’s never go back to sleep.
Next 2022
reflection tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What
do you think? Other parts of 2022 you’d reflect on?
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