Adults should grow up and stop watching superhero movies.

[Commander Richard]

I found an interesting piece where the author says that adults should grow up and set aside comic book heroes. He also argues that there are better ways to tell smart stories than to use the superhero genre since of course, they're supposed to be for kids. What do you think? Comments elsewhere suggest that this opinion isn't a popular one and that superheroes are simply modern day myths and harmless escapism.

Can we all please grow up? Can we acknowledge that Marvel and DC have scraped right though the bottom of the barrel? Can we call time on superhero films? Films which are too dark for kids the comics were originally written for, yet too dumb for any thinking adult.

The trouble is the source material. In the case of Batman and Superman, this was originally written for ten-year-old boys. A man who can fly with lasers in his eyes. A man who dresses as a bat dispensing justice to bad guys. It’s fun but it’s fundamentally very silly stuff; it has pre-teen built into its DNA.

I know that the stock response to this is that there’s no reason you can’t use superheroes to examine dark, adult themes. No there is isn’t, but just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

I know that suggesting that comic characters might be stupid upsets plenty of people. Well, sod it, in for a penny, in for a pound ... I used to read 2000AD as a kid and I quite liked its epic, six-month-long storylines. But then I turned 14. And comics stopped doing it for me. Yes, even graphic novels. Even The Dark Knight Returns. I put them all in a big trunk and it went up in the loft and there it stayed.

My parents deserve some of the blame for this. Dad was not a fan of comic books. His view was that the second you hit puberty, you put them behind you and started reading John Updike – and you damn well stuck at it until you liked it. And you know what? He was right.

Read the full article here.

 

[Tosk]

Blah blah blah superheroes are for kids, just like cartoons. Same old story. How "adult" is it to stare at people throwing a ball back and forth for hours?

 

[M'rk son of Mogh]

He doesn't like the stories, so he thinks nobody should.
I feel badly for him.

(I posted this after playing a round in a video game... he probably hates those, too!)

 

[dahj]

There was the whole "adults shouldn't read YA books" brouhaha last year, there was the "adults shouldn't play video games" some years prior to that, etc.

Maybe adults should grow up and stop telling other adults what to do?

 

[Avro Arrow]

What do you think?

I think that being an adult should also include not trying to dictate to other adults what they should or should not enjoy, nor how they should spend their own free time.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Some critics/talking heads have had it in for superhero movies since Spider-Man sparked the modern trend. Guess this one decided to stop wishfully predicting their demise and is desperate to help bring it about instead.

We like the films, the studios like our money, shut up.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

How "adult" is it to stare at people throwing a ball back and forth for hours?

It's VERY adult, I'll have you know!

 

[Hugo Rune]

There's a time and place for Madam Bovary and Terrance Malick. A time and place for French Fine Dining and Off Broadway plays.

What there isn't time for is writing 1000 word click bait articles maligning and pissing upon an entire industry and group of enthusiasts who look for entertainment, escapism and the occasional piece of socialogical reflection.

Further to that, as much as he may loathe the notion, these childish comic book films are almost solely propping up the entire cinema industry. Without the Avengers, or the Independance Day 2's many, many of the smaller films would never see the light of day. It's an odd symbiotic relationship, but necessary in an already struggling industry

He's moved on. Keep on moving on sir, right off the the interwebs and back to your copy of The Outsider. You will get more out of it than attempting to debase an entire section of the populous.

Hugo - oh well

 

[MacLeod]

Why can't we all watch what we like without others having to say what we like is stupid./immature etc...

 

[Ovation]

What a narrow minded view. My kids (10 and 14) attend the symphony regularly, enjoy haute cuisine dining and also enjoy video games and superhero movies. Just like dear old (48) dad. Who the hell is this person to dictate at what age one "ought" to do?

 

[Captaindemotion]

Maybe adults should grow up and stop telling other adults what to do?

Just what I was about to say.

 

[stardream]

What difference does it make what we do? Will the sun explode or the planets spin out of their orbits if a grown up spends a few hours watching a super hero movie?

 

[USS Triumphant]

Adequately expressing how I feel about this would earn me at least one infraction. And I'll just leave it at that.

 

[Timewalker]

There was the whole "adults shouldn't read YA books" brouhaha last year, there was the "adults shouldn't play video games" some years prior to that, etc.

Maybe adults should grow up and stop telling other adults what to do?

There's nothing wrong with a book with the YA label as long as the story is good. After my current Darkover binge, I plan to dive back into a stack of YA novels based on Robert Silverberg's novel Up the Line. The premise is that in the 21st century, time travel is a reality and people can sign up for a holiday in the past (escorted by a Time Courier, knowledgeable in the history of the time and also in how to avoid causing paradoxes). The original Silverberg novel is somewhat dated by modern sensibilities, as there are some sexist elements that some modern readers find a bit distasteful. However, this series of YA novels was written by other authors (one of these authors being Greg Cox, who anyone frequenting the TrekLit forum here will be familiar with). I've read one of the novels in the YA series, and it's a pretty good story that fleshes out one of the minor characters in Silverberg's novel, while showing the intricacies of how to make sure that if you have to tie history into a spaghetti knot, you make sure you know how to get it untied so everything happens as it's supposed to.

Sure, they don't have the sexual themes present in the parent novel, but they don't need them, either, to make them fun to read.

 

[Kor]

If the writer doesn't like those movies, then he can just leave us alone and go watch something else.

Kor

 

[Sparkle Fabulosa]

This guy had no friends growing up, right?

I guess his parents never taught him...

"If you have nothing nice to say then keep your comments to yourself."

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Adults shouldn't write troll articles, either.

 

[Set Harth]

Another guy who's decided his parents were right about everything. Great.

A true visionary, that one...

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

What difference does it make what we do? Will the sun explode or the planets spin out of their orbits if a grown up spends a few hours watching a super hero movie?

Yes. YOU can save us all from this dire fate by reading John Updike. DO IT! DO IT FOR EARTH!

 

[JD]

I've never understood why some people have such a problem with superhero stories. Sometimes a bit of escapism is nice, and they can actually get surprisingly deep at times. I don't really think of superhero stories as being any different from other types of sci-fi and fantasy.
I didn't really start getting into superheroes until I was older. I watched some of the movies and cartoons as a kid, but didn't really start to get interested in them until just the last few years. Up until then the only comics I had read were a few Sonic the Hedgehog and Star Trek issues.