Why People Will Still Love Marvel When We’re All Dead
By the end, this will actually inspire you
Marvel Studios is the current box office king. And like most kings, it’s loved by some and hated by others. But, in my personal experience, I’ve found that even people who love Marvel movies tend to dismiss them as “not art.”
I think that’s a mistake. I think it’s a mistake as a basic matter of classification. We have terms to distinguish between good, bad, lowbrow, and highbrow art precisely because all of them are art.
But I also think it’s a mistake because Marvel movies are pretty dang good. Specifically, the kind of good that might survive for a long time to come.
And I’m here to prove it with reason and statistics.
Rage for the Machine
And the first point to keep in mind is that this isn’t new. Corporations dictating art isn’t just late capitalism or the death of cinema or people being idiots these days. I mean, I fully support breaking up Disney, I’m not saying there isn’t a scale of better or worse. But the basic principle is constant to some extent or another.
And good news: A lot of great art has been made with sponsors of one kind or another. Michelangelo didn’t want to paint. He preferred sculpture. The Sistine Chapel was for the…
