tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7704583061723470804.post181168409509711045..comments2024-03-10T07:42:17.071-04:00Comments on The Film Doctor: The Superhero FilesThe Film Doctor http://www.blogger.com/profile/03073505923746994988noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7704583061723470804.post-69078256013146334252016-04-02T12:36:10.952-04:002016-04-02T12:36:10.952-04:00Some entertaining views, I'm wondering quite h...Some entertaining views, I'm wondering quite how Derek forms that impression of a bygone creative idyll though. Understanding super-heroes is tough business I suppose, there must be a few wtf moments for those not inculcated into the conventions. That prospect puts me in mind of the audition scene in Mystery Men, which had me on the floor laughing. I suppose the first mistake is thinking of the super-hero scene exclusively as a genre, it is a genre but it's also a template, an idiom for dramatic and thematic expression. Someone told me or I read it somewhere, that most classical Japanese drama came through the Bunraku tradition. I've no idea how true that is but as an idea, it's quite a useful analogue to apply in this instance.<br /><br />Super-heroes rose to prominence within the comic medium as means to circumvent, or acquiesce if you like, to censorship. Before 1954 comic artists and writers were tackling topics more grounded in reality, drugs, prostitution, political extremism. The instance exploited so salaciously by that charlatan Fredric Wertham, the woman apparently being stabbed in the eye with a needle, is a reasonable example. Prior to that, super-heros were in steady decline from there heyday in the 30's and 40's, during which time, they represented an ideal in the face of corruption and the reality of war.<br /><br />So what's the commonality between those two periods, the first, when super-heroes represented a retreat from reality and the second, when reality became off limits for the medium? The real world of course. Why should that be relevant today? Read the papers, watch the news, what's missing tells you as much as what they let you see.DeadSpiderEyehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07687178085803686186noreply@blogger.com