Tuesday, July 24, 2018

Phil Hoad — TV's new lesbian Batwoman joins growing numbers of diversity-friendly superheroes

Batwoman and Dreamer join a recent spate of comic book adaptations for cinema and television that has wised up to the fact that today’s most culturally dominant genre has to mirror modern society better. In February, Marvel’s Black Panther film became a landmark event. It was the US’s third highest-grossing film, not only breaking a ceiling for black cinema, but riding on the back of a nuanced understanding of African-American history to become the series’ best yet.
Pop art as leading indicator of cultural change. Pop art follows the money, unlike fine art as "art for arts sake." Economic liberalism in this case is interacting with social liberalism to produce rapid change. This is concerning to many traditionalists, who see the the world as they see it threatened. This is an aspect of the historical dialectic at work.

World Economic Forum
TV's new lesbian Batwoman joins growing numbers of diversity-friendly superheroes
Phil Hoad

6 comments:

Konrad said...

”Batwoman and Dreamer join a recent spate of comic book adaptations for cinema and television that has wised up to the fact that today’s most culturally dominant genre has to mirror modern society better.”

NO. I call total bullshyte. There is no government law or cultural law which says that movies must be loaded with politically correct filth and social justice warrior depravity.

On the contrary, movies bomb when they indulge in PC trash in order to cover up lousy stories, lousy characters, and lousy cinematography.

It’s like running a black, female, neoliberal political candidate. If you don’t like her neoliberalism, it’s because you are a “racist” and a “sexist.”

Three PC movies that come to mind are Ghostbusters: Answer the Call (2016; a bomb), Ocean’s Eight (2018; a bomb) and Star Wars: The Last Jedi(2017), which was not a bomb, but which so infuriated Star Wars fans with its lousy story and its political correctness that it killed the Star Wars franchise. As a result, the next movie (Solo: A Star Wars Story) bombed.

Solo took political correctness to whole new levels of depravity, in which mascot “droids” become lovers with humans, complete with sex.

If audiences enjoy a movie’s story and characters, then audiences don’t care about characters’ races, genders, or sexual orientations. Wonder Woman and Black Panther made fortunes at the box office. People who like actor Denzel Washington, for example, do not watch him because he’s black. They watch Denzel Washington because they like Denzel Washington.

The truth is that Hollywood now uses PC militancy to justify shi**y movies. If you don’t like shi**ty movies, then you are a racist, sexist, homophobe, trans-phobe, etc etc.

The article above is an example of this PC militancy.

“Pop art is leading indicator of cultural change. Pop art follows the money…”

Yes, and the money says that PC trash is a money-loser. People refuse to pay for it. That’s why Solo bombed.

In a war between PC on one hand, and people’s wallets on the other hand, the wallets ultimately win. Disney paid $4 trillion to buy the Star Wars franchise, and now Disney is losing billions for making Star Wars PC. And the more money Disney loses, the more militant the social justice warriors become.

Meanwhile men watch Catwoman to see her body in a skin-suit. Now that Catwoman is a lesbian, all sales will bomb.

The Miss America pageant will no longer have a swimsuit competition. Again, all sales will bomb.

Each year the Academy Awards become more militantly PC. Consequently each year the number of viewers plunges farther than ever.

No, movies do not have to be PC, unless studios are intent on losing money.

peacefulposter said...

Well said, Konrad.

A company cannot serve two masters. Social Justice and Profits do not mix, as you eloquently outlined above.

There is a huge market opportunity for comics and movies featuring new superheroes with traditional values.

Some folks are already working on it. See Arkhaven Comics, for example.

GLH said...

With the shit that the studios make and call movies they deserve to lose everything. I have only gone to a theater to see one movie in the last decade to see a movie and that was a remake of "Overboard." It was complete bullshit.

Matt Franko said...

“Meanwhile men watch Catwoman to see her body in a skin-suit. Now that Catwoman is a lesbian, all sales will bomb. ”

What planet are you living on?

Ryan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Konrad said...

What planet are you living on?

My bad. I forgot you were a lesbian.

Incidentally, two top executives at Marvel Comics admitted that sales of the comic books have plunged for two years because of the injection of militant political correctness into their comic books. They admit that readers don’t want militant “diversity” (i.e. homosexual “super-heroes”) and man-bashing feminism.

Even though political correctness kills sales, the executives will keep it up. Clearly they are almost as stupid as you are.

https://variety.com/2017/biz/news/marvel-exec-blames-diversity-women-comic-sales-slump-1202021440/