Media criticism of two pop culture hits
May. 12th, 2012 12:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatAh...someone who was mildly critical of the Avengers flick, and amusingly upset Samuel L Jackson (who I honestly think was joking - seriously, Jackson starred in Snakes on a Plane, this man is no stranger to bad critical reviews.)
NY Times Critic AO Scott's review of the Avengers.
Here's the criticism:
....while “The Avengers” is hardly worth raging about, its failures are significant and dispiriting. The light, amusing bits cannot overcome the grinding, hectic emptiness, the bloated cynicism that is less a shortcoming of this particular film than a feature of the genre. Mr. Whedon’s playful, democratic pop sensibility is no match for the glowering authoritarianism that now defines Hollywood’s comic-book universe. Some of the rebel spirit of Mr. Whedon’s early projects “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Firefly” and “Serenity” creeps in around the edges but as detail and decoration rather than as the animating ethos.
Clearly the critic is a fan of Whedon, just not of the comic book The Avengers. (I'm somewhat the same way, was never much of an Avengers fan. I loved the X-men. But outside of the X-men, group superhero comics bored me. Feel the same way about the Justice League. And yes, it's due to the authoritan aspects of the genre, which Alan Moore famously critiqued in Watchmen. Watchmen is actually a critique of The Avengers and Justice League comics.)
I've read a few Avenger's comics (because they kept crossing over with the X-me) so I know the stories and team. This film is missing a few characters - Scarlett Witch (Magneto's Daughter),
The Wasp, and Antman.
Haven't seen it yet. Just getting this from the various reviews. Flist has been reviewing the Avengers for the past three weeks. I have to keep skipping posts, because I don't want to be spoiled, but I do want a general review.
In other news...I finished The 50 Shades trilogy and have read various reviews and comments on it. Some rather sexist and misogynistic. Someone from SNL stated that they couldn't deal with seeing the middle-aged lady across from them reading this book. Interesting, personally I find seeing a guy reading American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis across from me, far more disturbing, particularly when he's loving it and looks at me over the rim. (I've read the book and Ellis details the psycho's rape of women in an erotic manner that well, makes you mildly ill.) (Clearly they have no idea what is in the book (50 Shades not American Psycho) or that middle-aged ladies can read a lot worse on the internet, I'm sorry, does this come as a shock to you? Internet erotica (aka porn) is not just read or viewed by horny men. Also middle-aged ladies libidio is a bit more active than 20 something libidios..which possibly explains why middle-aged men prefer to date 20 somethings...they can't keep up with women their own age. LOL! See I can be sexist too.)
This is not to say the books are necessarily good or ground-breaking. The media reaction to them however...is bewildering and somewhat offensive, also proof, in case we needed any, that the media looks at sex the same way a 12 year old boy does - will it give me cooties? I'm also tempted to state the media is a tad on the sexist/misogynistic side of the proverbial fence.
The publishing industry's bewilderment over why they are doing well amuses me greatly. Because, yes, a book can sell millions without being gutted. What's good about the book isn't the sex or really the story for that matter. Nor how it is written - the writing is more or less standard pulp fair. But the how the writer plays with it. If you've read fanfic, and almost everyone reading this journal has, you've seen it before. Text messages in the book. Times and dates. About five to six pages in the back showing everything from the guys point of view at the very end of the last book. Detailed description of every part of the romance. Things editors usually cut out, are left intact. The writer is playing, and we don't often see that in published stories, unfortunately. That is a fault of the publishing industry not writers. And with any luck this book might make the publishing industry rethink their tactics - trust readers more, and stop trying to make everything fit an established formula.
The plot which has been reported in the major reviews doesn't factually fit what I read. Here's what I read: 21 year old Anastasia Steele gets roped into interviewing insanely successful multi-billionaire Christian Grey for a college magazine that her roommate edits. Her roommate, Kate Kavanagh got the interview with Grey and persuaded Grey to do it. But comes down with the flu on the day of the interview and persuades her roommate Ana to do it for her. Ana does, and it's lust at first sight. Christian is your typical tortured hero. He's the beast of this tale. It's not Taming the Shrew as many of the reviews have indicated, no, it's Taming the Beast. He wants to engage her as his newest submissive in a BDSM relationship. Being sexually inexperienced, she
resists. He never really gets her to commit to it. Instead she ends up pulling him away from that lifestyle, so although they do have BDSM sex - it's not that much. Ana is on the eve of her graduation. She's taking her final exams when she meets him. And graduates from college when they begin to get together. She moves to Seattle with her roommate, Kate, and gets a job at a publishing company...when she's dating him. So, I wouldn't describe her as a college student.
She also falls in love with him before they really have sex. So it's not a one-night stand thing.
This is more of a romantic fantasy novel with lots of sex than an erotica novel. Erotica novels don't tend to be romantic.
It's not as good as Nauti's Crave. But it is better than a lot of other Everybody's Human fanfics that I've read. If you like that sort of thing - it's fairly cheap on the kindle. You can grab a sample. That's what I did. But I don't really rec it. The first book was the best of the bunch.
The last book was sluggish and plodding at times, and not a lot happens. The second books falls somewhere between the two - better than the third, not as compelling as the first - which is often true in the romance genre. Once the two characters get together...you get bored. All the writer can do is break them up. Which she does at the end of book 1, very beginning of book 2, they get back together...and the rest of it is the battle of the genders - or taming the beast.
Romance novels are in a way - gender battles. Two genders fighting each other. Sex is the fight scene. Or Taming the Beast.
NY Times Critic AO Scott's review of the Avengers.
Here's the criticism:
....while “The Avengers” is hardly worth raging about, its failures are significant and dispiriting. The light, amusing bits cannot overcome the grinding, hectic emptiness, the bloated cynicism that is less a shortcoming of this particular film than a feature of the genre. Mr. Whedon’s playful, democratic pop sensibility is no match for the glowering authoritarianism that now defines Hollywood’s comic-book universe. Some of the rebel spirit of Mr. Whedon’s early projects “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Firefly” and “Serenity” creeps in around the edges but as detail and decoration rather than as the animating ethos.
Clearly the critic is a fan of Whedon, just not of the comic book The Avengers. (I'm somewhat the same way, was never much of an Avengers fan. I loved the X-men. But outside of the X-men, group superhero comics bored me. Feel the same way about the Justice League. And yes, it's due to the authoritan aspects of the genre, which Alan Moore famously critiqued in Watchmen. Watchmen is actually a critique of The Avengers and Justice League comics.)
I've read a few Avenger's comics (because they kept crossing over with the X-me) so I know the stories and team. This film is missing a few characters - Scarlett Witch (Magneto's Daughter),
The Wasp, and Antman.
Haven't seen it yet. Just getting this from the various reviews. Flist has been reviewing the Avengers for the past three weeks. I have to keep skipping posts, because I don't want to be spoiled, but I do want a general review.
In other news...I finished The 50 Shades trilogy and have read various reviews and comments on it. Some rather sexist and misogynistic. Someone from SNL stated that they couldn't deal with seeing the middle-aged lady across from them reading this book. Interesting, personally I find seeing a guy reading American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis across from me, far more disturbing, particularly when he's loving it and looks at me over the rim. (I've read the book and Ellis details the psycho's rape of women in an erotic manner that well, makes you mildly ill.) (Clearly they have no idea what is in the book (50 Shades not American Psycho) or that middle-aged ladies can read a lot worse on the internet, I'm sorry, does this come as a shock to you? Internet erotica (aka porn) is not just read or viewed by horny men. Also middle-aged ladies libidio is a bit more active than 20 something libidios..which possibly explains why middle-aged men prefer to date 20 somethings...they can't keep up with women their own age. LOL! See I can be sexist too.)
This is not to say the books are necessarily good or ground-breaking. The media reaction to them however...is bewildering and somewhat offensive, also proof, in case we needed any, that the media looks at sex the same way a 12 year old boy does - will it give me cooties? I'm also tempted to state the media is a tad on the sexist/misogynistic side of the proverbial fence.
The publishing industry's bewilderment over why they are doing well amuses me greatly. Because, yes, a book can sell millions without being gutted. What's good about the book isn't the sex or really the story for that matter. Nor how it is written - the writing is more or less standard pulp fair. But the how the writer plays with it. If you've read fanfic, and almost everyone reading this journal has, you've seen it before. Text messages in the book. Times and dates. About five to six pages in the back showing everything from the guys point of view at the very end of the last book. Detailed description of every part of the romance. Things editors usually cut out, are left intact. The writer is playing, and we don't often see that in published stories, unfortunately. That is a fault of the publishing industry not writers. And with any luck this book might make the publishing industry rethink their tactics - trust readers more, and stop trying to make everything fit an established formula.
The plot which has been reported in the major reviews doesn't factually fit what I read. Here's what I read: 21 year old Anastasia Steele gets roped into interviewing insanely successful multi-billionaire Christian Grey for a college magazine that her roommate edits. Her roommate, Kate Kavanagh got the interview with Grey and persuaded Grey to do it. But comes down with the flu on the day of the interview and persuades her roommate Ana to do it for her. Ana does, and it's lust at first sight. Christian is your typical tortured hero. He's the beast of this tale. It's not Taming the Shrew as many of the reviews have indicated, no, it's Taming the Beast. He wants to engage her as his newest submissive in a BDSM relationship. Being sexually inexperienced, she
resists. He never really gets her to commit to it. Instead she ends up pulling him away from that lifestyle, so although they do have BDSM sex - it's not that much. Ana is on the eve of her graduation. She's taking her final exams when she meets him. And graduates from college when they begin to get together. She moves to Seattle with her roommate, Kate, and gets a job at a publishing company...when she's dating him. So, I wouldn't describe her as a college student.
She also falls in love with him before they really have sex. So it's not a one-night stand thing.
This is more of a romantic fantasy novel with lots of sex than an erotica novel. Erotica novels don't tend to be romantic.
It's not as good as Nauti's Crave. But it is better than a lot of other Everybody's Human fanfics that I've read. If you like that sort of thing - it's fairly cheap on the kindle. You can grab a sample. That's what I did. But I don't really rec it. The first book was the best of the bunch.
The last book was sluggish and plodding at times, and not a lot happens. The second books falls somewhere between the two - better than the third, not as compelling as the first - which is often true in the romance genre. Once the two characters get together...you get bored. All the writer can do is break them up. Which she does at the end of book 1, very beginning of book 2, they get back together...and the rest of it is the battle of the genders - or taming the beast.
Romance novels are in a way - gender battles. Two genders fighting each other. Sex is the fight scene. Or Taming the Beast.
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no subject
Date: 2012-05-13 12:09 am (UTC)I suspect that is why there is far less vitriolic comments on "Rotten Tomatoes" than some of the other critics.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-13 01:46 am (UTC)There is something to be said though...for critiquing a superhero movie for well being a superhero movie. I mean what do they expect? What did AO Scott expect? It sort of told you it was a superhero movie going into it. If you don't like superhero movies or movies about a team of superheroes fighting a big menace...why would you like this?
no subject
Date: 2012-05-13 06:17 am (UTC)O'Hehir's review was critiqued more because he was really discussing the genre, not the movie and that he was approaching it from a elitist perspective. If memory serves he said he probably should go back to reviewing movies about Lesbian Sheep herders (I'll find the review)
Here: http://www.salon.com/2012/05/02/the_avengers_will_superhero_movies_never_end/
no subject
Date: 2012-05-13 01:28 pm (UTC)Reminds me a great deal of the criticism and reviews of 50 Shades of Grey.
The reviewers critique the book, much as they did Twilight, for not being a literary work of art. And I'm thinking but the writer never intended to write a literary work of art - the writer was writing their "fantasy" and sharing it with others. I mean, hello, 50 Shades is a heterosexual romance novel with a lot of kinky and vanilla sex in it. If you hate that sort of thing - why would you read the book? Let alone review it.
Same deal with The Avengers...it's a fantasy movie. It's not supposed to literary. It's supposed to be fun. If you don't like watching a bunch of people dress in costume, fight bad guys, with lots of big explosions and snappy dialogue...don't see the movie.
You can't criticize something for being what it is. Be like criticizing an orange for having a rind and requiring peeling. It's an orange - sort of goes with the territory.
Granted there are super-hero flicks that sort of jump outside the genre and try to be something else - but I don't think its fair to compare The Dark Knight to The Avengers, any more than it is fair to compare Twilight to
Near Dark or The Lost Boys. The creators aren't after the same things.
And you are right criticizing the genre for being well empty headed pulp...
is elitist and snobby. Sure, it's pulp, we all know that. That's why we love it. Often you can play more with pulp, write fanfic, ship characters, etc. But empty-headed? That's highly subjective. It's like an Opera fan telling a Andrew Lloyd Webber or Bway musical fan that they have no taste. No, they have "different" tastes. One isn't better than the other.
(Sigh, if people had more eclectic tastes and were less tunnel visioned - they would see this.)
no subject
Date: 2012-05-13 02:06 pm (UTC)Someone will invoke the ghost of Pauline Kael to instruct us that movies are meant to entertain, and someone else will suggest that the editors send me back to covering films about lesbian sheepherders made in Azerbaijan.Well, there just isn’t enough output from Azeri lesbian cinema to keep me busy, so here we all are again. Cutting to the chase: “The Avengers” does what it needs to do, absolutely.
He pretty much states - right up-front - yes, I know this is a superhero film and yes it accomplishes what it sets out to do. And I know that criticizing it will most likely get me into trouble.
My problem is less with the movie or its audience or Joss Whedon — although I honestly don’t think being an A-list Hollywood director serves his talents appropriately — than with the penumbra of bratty, entitled coolness that surrounds the whole project. It’s a neat little postmodern trick, actually, to simultaneously position this movie as the most central pop-culture event of 2012 and insist on some kind of edgy, outsider status that renders any and all detractors as pipe-smoking William F. Buckley squares, defending a nonexistent Establishment.
I agree with this comment. The problem with the Avengers ...is it is not new or different, it's just another super-hero movie in an endless string of super-hero movies. (I finally got burned out on the genre, seen too many of the dang things on tv and in the movies, not to mention having read the comic books.) To say it's a huge event, the best thing ever, a huge deal is well, disingenuous. Because it is actually the opposite. It's the same problem I have with media response to 50 Shades and Twilight and to a lesser degree Harry Potter. The media has made these stories out to be more than they are - purely because they've made a lot of money. If something makes millions and millions of dollars it is deemed to be amazing by the media, fantastic, the best thing ever - and OMG, we must all rush out and copy its success, create another movie or book just like it! Because if we create something just like it - it will make millions too!
Art as a business venture or popularity contest. It has to sell millions or it isn't good.
I think what both of these reviewers are trying to say is...you know what, yeah sure Avengers is the biggest blockbuster of all time, but I kinda preferred Buffy and Firefly, which barely made a dime, and were a lot more interesting and memorable. They don't have any problem with "us" enjoying the Avengers or 50 Shades or Twilight, nor do they fault the creators of these works, their issue is with the media marketing machine's reaction to them. Which, I think, is a valid point. At times I think we live in the age of misinformation or babble than in the information age - due to the dumbing down of our cultural media - which seems to be in love with the all-mighty dollar.