What are these films saying?
Beyond “whap,” “screech,” and “boom” . . . not much, but for pure low-brow pleasure?
They are the In-And-Out of low-cuisine, the new car smell, and the first moment you open your new computer box.
They are innocent, child-like pleasure.
Just sit in the “comfortable stadium seating” (reading theater ads makes the experience that much more fun . . . though the emphasis on the size of the chairs reminds me of the uncomfortable fact that we are getting fatter) . . . a diet Coke is in your right hand . . . your best girl’s shoulder fills your left hand. You sit as the previews role . . . cell phone happily off . . . and nothing in all the world can disturb you for three hours.
The Greeks had their symposium . . . we have the summer-block-buster.
What do these films say about us?
(Warning: to ask this question in the film runs two risks. First, if said aloud one loses all contact with decent humanity. Second, even if merely thought during the film, the experience is ruined, the money wasted . . . a category error crashes the system as surely as it does in the idiot waiting eagerly for the car chase in Carmen.)
Nobody much is thinking in a summer blockbuster and any analysis that is too robust runs the risk of being simply bad hermeneutics.
You don’t pour over a Harlequin romance novel looking for the secrets of the age . . . and you don’t watch Spiderman hoping to catch a glimpse of the Holy Grail.
Still . . . they reveal something . . . and at least some of that something is Good News. In a world where . . . but that is to start like a summer block buster movie preview . . . in a time when . . . well in a time when terrorists attack the Free world, a president is embattled, and . . .
Let’s try again.
Summer blockbusters show that the importance of post-modernism to the next generation is as much overrated as the first Matrix film.
In fact, I have come to disbelieve in popular postmoderism entirely.
Post-modernism does not exist as a powerful, popular cultural force.
There I said it . . . and however overstated it may be I think it closer to the truth than the opposite. This is despite worried or breathless (or both) people wanting to destroy it or marry it or turn it into a late night television show.
Apologetics may be ga-ga about refuting it . . . but the fact that theaters are still packing them in for plots drawn straight out of the non-ironic parts of the 1960′s suggests that Stan Lee may be more influential in this generation than Derrida.
People still like heroes, happy endings, and good guys defeating bad guys. The pirates aren’t . . . the bad guys are obvious . . . and unlikely events still show up to save the day. We are positively (he says with glee!) Medieval!
Second, comic book movies (to tag the whole genre of summer blockbusters) demonstrate that there are still some things “old media” and the United States do well. The amount of talent that goes into a film like Spiderman or Pirates is stunning. The next door boy genius at You Tube isn’t going to be making such films in his basement anytime soon.
All of France cannot do it either.
I believe in the power of New Media . . . and in its importance . . . but when many, many human beings are organized around a big project they can build the Pyramids or making Spiderman III . . . and that kind of Big Project will never be replaced. It is true that nobody over twelve is likely to declare Pirates on the Seven Wonders of the Modern World . . . though my daughter thinks Orlando Bloom might count . . . but such films when done well are still an amazing synthesis of what science and the arts can do when they are joined by intelligent design.
Finally, comic book movies believe in Romance.
Darwinists tell us that we are selfish genes looking for other selfish genes. Hedonists replace flirting with their credit cards and a living person with a web site. Some lonely people hook-up to avoid hitching up for life.
And yet still romance survives. We want to believe love conquers all . . . we want to believe in true love . . . and we still want a last kiss in the closing credits. Bad boys are players . . . and good guys are still true . . . and there is great hope in that.
Our stories are still Christian as long as the begin like Genesis with once upon a time . . . and end like Revelation with happily ever afters.
