Current Events > Adults Loving Superhero Movies Is Infantile and can be a Precursor to Fascism

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/oct/07/watchmen-author-alan-moore-im-definitely-done-with-comics

I'm not gonna take Alan "worships a snake god" Moore seriously

I love the man's work, but he always seemed like he hated his own readers.

How much did Scorsese pay for this to be written?

Alan Moore with a correct take yet again

Alan Moore's word is law.

Why are comic book movie fans so insecure? Any semblance of criticism, they come out of the woodwork with the same talking points. Everyone knows these movies are meant for small children.

Holy based. This is like Miyazaki coming out against otakus

Gobstoppers12 posted...

I love the man's work, but he always seemed like he hated his own readers.

That's never been the case. He just despises the mainstream audience's overindulgance with escapism which has repeatedly resulted in governing bodies exploiting their ignorance, that's all.

And he's right because there are folks who care more about capeshit than abortion rights, healthcare, and our individual freedoms.

Yeah, we should be adults like him and make comic books about child storybook characters having sex.

No one gives a shit what that old nutcase has to say.

CRON posted...

Why are comic book movie fans so insecure? Any semblance of criticism, they come out of the woodwork with the same talking points. Everyone knows these movies are meant for small children.

I would say the Watchmen and Man of Steel are for children, but I went to college.

CRON posted...

Why are comic book movie fans so insecure? Any semblance of criticism, they come out of the woodwork with the same talking points. Everyone knows these movies are meant for small children.

This isnt simply criticism. He is saying its a direct link to fascism. I love super hero movies because as a kid my friends and I fantasized about how cool Iron Man would look on a movie screen.

Jagr_68 posted...

That's never been the case. He just despises the mainstream audience's overindulgance with escapism which has repeatedly resulted in governing bodies exploiting their ignorance, that's all.

And he's right because there are folks who care more about capeshit than abortion rights, healthcare, and our individual freedoms.

Escapism is a near universal thing and frankly there are several bigger and mostly worse sources l(Alchohol, and Drugs are the clearly worse ones while Video games and the internet dwarf Superheros or movies vastly in scope)

Also the ignorance is based more in poor education, religion, propaganda and apathy then escapism lol. And the apathy results from decades of institutional, and educational rot and being burnt and stressed out of giving a fuck from economic inequality and jumping from crisis to crisis

Escapism being treated as the issue is insane. Excessive Escapism is a symptom of far larger sociopolitical issues.

Also don't make me post the fucking C.S Lewis qoute.

Jagr_68 posted...

That's never been the case. He just despises the mainstream audience's overindulgance with escapism which has repeatedly resulted in governing bodies exploiting their ignorance, that's all.

And he's right because there are folks who care more about capeshit than abortion rights, healthcare, and our individual freedoms.

Oh, go home.

People have lives outside of politics. You are putting individual freedom in direct opposition to someone's hobby. Shut the fuck up.

Jerry_Hellyeah posted...

Oh, go home.

People have lives outside of politics. You are putting individual freedom in direct opposition to someone's hobby. Shut the fuck up.

Well you sound upset as hell. There are various degrees in moderation of any form of escapism is the point I'm using to explain why Moore says what he says.

Uh this has been Alan Moore's views since forever lol dunno why this is making its rounds now. People really didn't get the Watchmen.

"Superhero movies are very popular right now. Fascism is on the rise in the US and across the globe. Therefore, superhero movies are leading to a rise in fascism"

Brilliant

Jagr_68 posted...

Well you sound upset as hell. There are various degrees in moderation of any form of escapism is the point I'm using to explain why Moore says what he says.

"Annoyed" is a little closer to what I was going for.

You're not just observing his statement, you're providing your own along the same self-serving lines. Talking down to millions while making light of fascism is pretty annoying, in my little baby opinion.

HylianFox posted...

"Superhero movies are very popular right now. Fascism is on the rise in the US and across the globe. Therefore, superhero movies are leading to a rise in fascism"

Brilliant

Does this mean that spy movies and TV shows were responsible for the Cold War?

Adult comic books for the past 30+ years has basically been:
Alan Moore: "idolatry of superheroes leads to fascism and that's bad."
Frank Miller: "idolatry of superheroes leads to fascism and that's good." Lol

His fallings out with DC Comics (among others) are the stuff of industry folklore. Im definitely done with comics, he says. I havent written one for getting on for five years. I will always love and adore the comics medium but the comics industry and all of the stuff attached to it just became unbearable.
And he now looks with dismay on the way the superhero genre in which he once worked has eaten the culture. Hundreds of thousands of adults [are] lining up to see characters and situations that had been created to entertain the 12-year-old boys and it was always boys of 50 years ago. I didnt really think that superheroes were adult fare. I think that this was a misunderstanding born of what happened in the 1980s to which I must put my hand up to a considerable share of the blame, though it was not intentional when things like Watchmen were first appearing. There were an awful lot of headlines saying Comics Have Grown Up. I tend to think that, no, comics hadnt grown up. There were a few titles that were more adult than people were used to. But the majority of comics titles were pretty much the same as theyd ever been. It wasnt comics growing up. I think it was more comics meeting the emotional age of the audience coming the other way.

Pretty reasonable of him to say -- basically, that there's not a lot of literary or otherwise value in the most financially successful comics despite the expansion of the medium's ceiling with works like Watchmen.

Alan Moore and Garth Ennis seem like they hate their own medium.

Jerry_Hellyeah posted...

"Annoyed" is a little closer to what I was going for.

You're not just observing his statement, you're providing your own along the same self-serving lines. Talking down to millions while making light of fascism is pretty annoying, in my little baby opinion.

I can see why I come off like that but just reading between the lines he's not blaming the genre as the sole reason for society's ignorance, he's putting a spotlight on it as PART of the problem because it happens to be relevant to his work as a writer.

This isn't an overzealous statement to get angry at people for liking what they like, but living deep into fandoms tend to have real life consequences. You can say that about anything really but again, he's a graphic novel writer so that was the subject matter chosen to discuss.

Artists, writers, and actors who resent their own audience always rubbed me the wrong way. Bro, those are the people who made you rich.

The Boys comes to mind.

Also, who says kids being into heroes is any better?

How does enjoying the Reeve Superman movies turn me fascist?

Kind of agree. It wouldn't surprise me if a BvS nut slurper also supported giving asylum seekers foil blankets on a concrete floor for "breaking the law".

I said round about 2011 that I thought that it had serious and worrying implications for the future if millions of adults were queueing up to see Batman movies. Because that kind of infantilisation that urge towards simpler times, simpler realities that can very often be a precursor to fascism.

I disagree with this take, but it's not unreasonable

Alan Moore is certifiably insane.

Super hero stuff is very liberal in general. They literally fight fascism.

First of all, holy shit the author of that article pads out his word count.

This was the most relevant quote:

He thinks thats not just infantile but dangerous. I said round about 2011 that I thought that it had serious and worrying implications for the future if millions of adults were queueing up to see Batmanmovies. Because that kind of infantilisation that urge towards simpler times, simpler realities that can very often be a precursor to fascism. He points out that when Trump was elected in 2016, and when we ourselves took a bit of a strange detour in our politics, many of the biggest films were superhero movies.

Superman, the creation of working-class Jewish kids, was originally very much a New Deal American but he got co-opted, just as the early spiky, anarchic Mickey Mouse was very quickly modified into a suburbanite who wears short-sleeve shirts and has two nephews.

Basically really reducing Superman and Batman, and we know how popular those movies are relative to the MCU, and conflating their history for what they currently represent.

And I do think it's true, to some extent, that hero worship and fantasy create an environment that can foster fascism. That's literally how nazi propaganda functioned, it created "heroes" and personalities to rally behind while erasing "the other." But that's not how most superhero movies work, although you can draw connections. Some movies are worse than others, too, like Transformers is much more pro-America than The Dark Knight. But even worse are TV news and copaganda that actually deludes huge swaths of people into a pro-White, pro-police, anti-immigrant universe that just doesn't exist in reality outside the bubble.

But it's really hard to tell what the hell Alan Moore is saying considering the quality of the article.

Smashingpmkns posted...

Adult comic books for the past 30+ years has basically been:
Alan Moore: "idolatry of superheroes leads to fascism and that's bad."
Frank Miller: "idolatry of superheroes leads to fascism and that's good." Lol

Rob Liefeld: "yo what the fuck is a skeleton "

ChocoboMog123 posted...

copaganda

Wow that's a new one. How long did it take to come up with that?

He's not entirely wrong. Something I notice with a sizable portion of adult superhero fanbases are pretty absolutist ideas about morality and virtue.

But I also think he's giving comic books too much credit. He's using 2016 as an indicator of the world's political turn, but the modern superhero boom can honestly be traced back to the early 2000s with Spider-Man and the X-Men movies.

And then 2008 had both TDK and Iron man which is when they blew up.

I mean I'm sure a smarter person than me could probably find some interesting connections between 9/11 and the early rise of blockbuster capeshit, and between the Obama administration and the pop culture explosion of the MCU, but... >_>

Gut tells me that the hero fascination is probably more symptomatic than a direct cause of anything.

Doe posted...

Pretty reasonable of him to say -- basically, that there's not a lot of literary or otherwise value in the most financially successful comics despite the expansion of the medium's ceiling with works like Watchmen.

The critics and auteurs will look up and shout "don't you want deeper meaning in media?", and I'll look down and whisper "no".

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/6/3/9/AAXf1yAADyV_.jpg

CRON posted...

Why are comic book movie fans so insecure? Any semblance of criticism, they come out of the woodwork with the same talking points. Everyone knows these movies are meant for small children.

Then why are they framing adult loving Superhero Movies Is Infantile and can be a Precursor to Fascism.

TheoryzC posted...

Here's what actually happened:
Moore: "Superheroes are pretty much just super-assholes."
Comic-book writers, in the 90s: "Fuck yeah, let's run with that!"
Moore: "You missed the entire damn point."

Takes like this are why mainstream American comics are pretty much dead, it's like the only medium where the mainstream has absolutely zero escapism at all, it really needs the escapism back otherwise crowdfunded indies and manga will keep kicking their ass.

I'm with the idea of "Moore is right but what's with this article."

Also wtf at the couple folks trying to counter his arguments with "but it makes money!"

TheoryzC posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/6/3/9/AAXf1yAADyV_.jpg

lmao

CyricZ posted...

I'm with the idea of "Moore is right but what's with this article."

The guy has been fucked over by industry basically every time he does anything. Let him be angry and ranty about it.