I am technically on vacation. This means that my blog post for Tuesday is a day late and I’m writing less-regularly than normal. Apologies for the delay. I am also in a mood, and that’s probably not a good thing to be in when trying to write a blog post, but I’m going to post this anyway, because it’s that kind of mood. You have been warned.
My son and I went to see Captain America about two weeks back, and it was as enjoyable and delightful a trip to the movies as I can remember in years. My days as a bitchy critic of cinema are long past, mind you, and I’m not interested in posting a review. I could do that. I once did do that. I stopped doing that 20 years ago. The proliferation of people who mistake their opinion for criticism made me stop. We enjoyed it tremendously, and that’s enough. Given the current state of cinema, it may be more than enough.
Rick and I did an interview on Monday for The Long and Shortbox of It with Jon Gorga and Josh Kopin, and over the course of the conversation, we ended up discussing the continued slavish devotion to that which is labeled “dark” and “gritty” in super-hero comics. You’ll get an earful on this when you listen to the podcast, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about off and on for a while now, and this seems as good a time as any to get something off my virtual chest, so to speak.
When I was working on 52, I half-jokingly asked Geoff Johns what it was with him and decapitations. If you’ve read his work, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Black Adam, in particular, had a penchant for removing the top, so to speak. His response was that he’d grown up playing Mortal Kombat. Fatalities were common, as he put it; a decapitation was de rigueur. Me, I was in college when Narc came out. Late formative years, and I still remember being taken aback the first time I watched the animated pitbulls tearing me apart on the screen.
Rick and I want Lady Sabre to be fun. Stealing a page from the Clevinger-Wegener manifesto, if it’s not fun, it’s not worth doing. If it’s not fun, we’re doing something wrong.
Captain America was fun. It was pure, and it was sincere, and it never once apologized for being either of those things, and in fact, that was why Steve Rogers was chosen to become the First Super Soldier. I credit an enormous amount of its success to these factors.
Here’s the thing: I am sick and tired of super-heroes who aren’t super and aren’t heroes, but more, I’m sick and tired of Hollywood blaming us for their failures. I am sick and tired of hearing various Hollywood studio execs who are as disconnected from the reality of middle-American taste as Rick Perry is from Christianity excusing the poor performance of their ill-executed product by tacitly blaming you, me, and everyone else of us who didn’t pay to see their garbage. Catwoman fails? Instead of, perhaps, just perhaps, acknowledging that the movie is a piece of excrement unworthy of use as fertilizer, they conclude instead that a female lead can’t open a movie unless her name is Jolie. So now we’re not only guilty of not being willing to pay for 90 minutes of intellectual abuse, we’re all apparently sexist jerks, as well. The problem with Green Lantern’s performance at the box office is that it’s not “gritty” enough? I don’t think so.
Art – and even if that art is commercial art, produced for entertainment – feeds and is fed by the society that consumes it. So I ask you, right now, looking around you, what flavor of escapism will go down best with you? In an era of terror alerts and bipartisan dysfunction, of rising hate and blossoming intolerance, of bank failure and wide-spread, global unemployment and recession, is gritty really what we need?
Look, I like gritty. I write gritty. There is a time and a place for gritty. I’ll take my Batman gritty, thank you, and I will acknowledge that such a portrayal means that my 11 year old has to wait before he sees The Dark Knight. But if Hollywood turns out a Superman movie that I can’t take him to? They’ve done something wrong. Superman is many, many things. Gritty he is not, something that Richard Donner certainly understood.
(Pet peeve time: for the contingent out there who sneer at heroes like Superman and Wonder Woman and Captain America, those icons who still, at their core, represent selfless sacrifice for the greater good, and who justify their contempt by saying, oh, it’s so unrealistic, no one would ever be so noble… grow up. Seriously. Cynicism is not maturity, do not mistake the one for the other. If you truly cannot accept a story where someone does the right thing because it’s the right thing to do, that says far more about who you are than these characters.)
This is not an argument of era or audience sophistication. Sophistication does not negate sincerity, nor does it even deny it, as the Captain America movie proves. Sophistication demands better storytelling, clearer motivation, purer intention. “Gritty” is an apologist word in this sense, used in the place of “realism.” We don’t go to the movies for “realism.” This is why documentaries aren’t the major product in the theaters. Sophistication does not demand realism; it demands smart.
I can think of no other industry where the consumer is made to bear the blame for the product’s failure as much as Hollywood. Seriously, let’s think that one through. The movie didn’t perform, therefore it’s our fault? You got food poisoning eating the fish they served and you paid for, it’s your fault? The brakes on your new car crapped out and you wrapped it around a tree, it’s your fault?
Here’s a crazy thought.
Maybe you made a bad movie.
Hold fast.
Greg
Bravo! You said what I’ve been saying & thinking so much more eloquently. Guess that is why you’re the writer and I’m not! Thank you.
“If you truly cannot accept a story where someone does the right thing because it’s the right thing to do, that says far more about who you are than these characters.”
ILU. Thanks so much for making me not feel like a naive hayseed.
Preach! You have synthesized what a lot of us have felt for a long time. For the last few years entertainment business has been the hottest concentration at NYU Biz school…freshly minted MBAs run out to hollywood to make movies…yeah, that probably has nothing to do with how horrible a lot of movies are.
Amen, G. Or, as I always say, “If you’re not having fun, you’re just not doing it right.”
I thought that was Mae West.
Is it weird for me to be giving a standing ovation to my iPad right now?
Well done, sir.
And let me add an AMEN to that!
So say we all!
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Rucka, all I can say to you is that I feel sad every single day that you are not still a leader at DC Comics. They need you. Now more than ever. You are one of the sole voices of MATURITY in medium of men who act like little boys. You give me hope. Thank you.
Unfortunately, the apologists will just say “Yeah, yeah, whatever… hater. :rolleyes”…
So you’re fine with a Batman movie you can’t take your kid to, but it’s totally wrong somehow for a Superman movie you can’t take your kid to?
That’s strange because far as I know, both characters were created for the same target demographic. Personally, I think a Batman movie you can’t take a kid to is just as big a failure as a Superman movie you can’t take a kid too, even if Batman is supposed to be aesthetically “darker.”
I’m not sure I disagree, but I would argue that Batman is a more psychologically driven character and mythology, and thus deals by necessity with darker themes, as evidenced by his rogues gallery. Batman more easily straddles the divide – we have The Brave & The Bold, for example – whereas I feel, personally, that Superman’s character never – even in his darkest moments – approaches the same.
I disagree that Batman is all that much more psychologically driven than Superman. I think there are a ton of fascinating psychological dimensions to Superman. Issues of abandonment, adoption, not fitting in, being an alien, never really knowing his family, losing his heritage, living a double life, being the ultimate outsides, etc…For example check out Alan Moore’s “For the man Who Has Everything” and see the deepest fantasies of Superman that Mongul brings to life and you’ll see a perfect example of how psychologically rich the Superman mythos can potentially be.
Also, even if Batman is psychologically deeper, I don’t see why that means it has to lead to a movie that’s off limits to kids. Pixar has done a pretty good job at bringing to life psychologically rich and even traumatizing issues in a kid friendly way.
I agree that an ultra grim and gritty Green Lantern isn’t the way to go, and I also agree that Batman is a character that can support grim and gritty much better than Green Lantern and Superman. I just don’t think it is a property that should go so far in that extreme that kids can’t see a Batman movie. To me that’s not only a fail but as big an example of mistaking cynicism for maturity. Dark Knight was a horribly cynical movie through and through.
You mistake me. I do not argue that one character is deeper than the other, or has more merit than the other, or even is more complex than the other. The most simplistic – appallingly simplistic, I admit – way to put it, for me, is that Batman works in the darkness, Superman works in the light. Thus, I am more ready to accept Batman stories that veer to the darker places – the implicit rape in Ivy’s origin, the madness of the Joker, the pathos of Bruce himself. You further mistake me in taking my acceptance of a Batman movie I can’t take my son to as approval; it’s not. It’s acceptance, nothing more, for better or for worse. And I cannot accept a Superman movie that does the same.
This, as always, is my opinion, nothing more.
Fair enough. Thanks for the feedback and being a good sport.
Greg, you’re the best. And it’s great to hear it from you because you DO do gritty. But you haven’t just done gritty. I think you’ve always done smart though.
Well said.
Thank you, Mr. Rucka. It’s a pet peeve of mine as well, especially when people put Batman up on a pedestal and disparage Superman at every opportunity. Personally that why I read comic books, because I need a bit of escapism and superheroes give me an ideal to believe in. Not that I don’t think realism is a bad thing but both it and idealism each fulfill a specific need.
Oh, and the Magical Platypus loves your work by the way.
Platypuses (platypi?) are awesome.
I applaud you, Mr. Rucka. If people in the entertainment biz took the time to actually LEARN from their mistakes, listen to what the public want, and stop paying attention to a bunch of idiotic yes men and clueless marketing suits, it would improve greatly as a business and an art form.
Thank you.
nice read. good points. now write a good GL movie.
Bravo. Make fun movies that people want to watch, Hollywood. Don’t blame us for not being interested in garbage.
I like gritty movies when they make sense and fit the character. I didn’t watch GL because it “wasn’t gritty.” I didn’t watch it because they picked the wrong approach to Hal (I swear every time I looked at a trailer, I could see Kyle trying to PRETEND to be Hal), and because it wasn’t a space opera (which GL should be). As for Superman, as long as he’s still a nice guy at heart in Man of Steel, I’ll watch it. They’re not making him fight a (ugh) mountain this time, so they’re already taking a proper step.
Sorry but as much as you may have a point, I need to say your Superman run left a lot to be desired. You wrote a hypocrite and someone who acted like a over sanctimonious p***k to his friends and then saying stuff like Superman is so good you can’t write a story worthy of his goodness? A cop out there too, Greg. But you you had your own agenda. Your Superman had no sophistication cause you saw him as someone who was not good as Batman.
You didn’t like the run, you didn’t like the run, that’s your right. However, you are absolutely wrong about how I view Superman, and your comment about me thinking he’s “not as good as Batman” is absurd. Simple as that.
mk -
I cannot speak to your response to Greg’s writing. That is, of course, your opinion, and you’re entitled to it.
But I can speak to how Greg sees Superman and how Greg sees Batman, a subject on which you have no ability to speak.
I have worked with Greg on both characters (albeit much more briefly on Batman) and have discussed superheroes with him, in general terms and in specific character terms about these two characters, for 23 years.
Trust me when I say that Greg does not think Superman is “not (as) good as Batman.” He has love for both characters and sees each as heroic in their own way.
Greg has told me (and said in interviews, I believe) that for him, Superman is harder to write than Batman. But most people who have ever tried to write these two characters have had to discover that.
So, short version of that long comment? Hate his work on Superman if it rubbed you the wrong way, but you have no idea what you’re talking about when you decide how he views the two characters.
Lastly…? You absolutely do not “need to” say what you thought of his run. He was talking about a) grittiness in superhero storytelling and b) Hollywood blaming the viewer for its own failings.
If you agreed with that point, you could have simply said that. If you hadn’t, you could have said that, as well.
But how, exactly, did you “need” to share your opinion of Greg’s Superman run, when this post (and this blog in general) isn’t at all about that?
Thanks Greg for clearly articulating what’s been boiling in my gut every time some geek says he wants his heroes “dark” when he’s never left the safety and security of his own little suburban, consumerist world. I’ve met real heroes, and they weren’t “dark” or “gritty” people, mumbling weird, cynical stuff. They were often the funniest, most optimistic people in the room.
Marvel had faith in the heroic core of their heroes, which is why Thor and Cap succeeded. Hopefully, DC will wake up and do the same.
Great read! I couldn’t agree more, it’s a matter of creating smart works dark or not. I think that even if the industry shifted toward a light-hearted tone, as much as they use “gritty” now as a subtitute of realism and maturity they could use “light-hearted” as a synonym for “fun” and “joy” and we would end with another batch of problems.
Brilliant. I hear too often that Superman is “uninteresting” because of the lack of darkness inherent. Let’s see: Orphaned. Only one left of his kind (until Supergirl leads the parade of fellow kinfolk, but I digress…). Adopted into a world where he always knows he’s different and has the enormous pressure of being expected to save said world constantly. And yes – he always strives to do the right thing. Yup, nothing dark about that story. Also: shouldn’t we ALL root for that guy? Shouldn’t we all seek to emulate that?
Good thoughts. For me, it’s a conundrum of being an adult who grew up on good people, doing the right thing—by dressing up in spandex and keeping a high moral code against excessive violence. As a kid, I could look up to that and aspire to that. As an adult, I realize someone who was really in that situation would never be able to keep that code–much less keep a secret identity. My willing suspension of disbelief gets less willing the more “realistic” we try to make superheroes. As comics became “grittier” in the 90s (in an attempt at “realism”), I grew less interested in superheroes. The more “realistic” they became, the harder it was for me to believe that no one picked up some DNA samples in The Dark Knight and ended Bruce Wayne’s madness. Forget about Clark Kent’s glasses.
Greg, I’ve respected a lot of your writing (not that I’ve read everything you’ve produced) and the humanity you bring to superheroes is my favorite part of what you do. At the same time, as interesting as it may be to explore the ramifications, putting Wonder Woman in the position where she had to kill Max Lord is part of what I dislike about superhero comics. Note that I don’t find your WW story necessarily wrong or poorly written. I simply think it does a bit of what you’re decrying in your essay above—it creates a comic that isn’t really what I want to hand to a child, featuring a character that should appeal to a child.
I love comics for adults. Make no mistake. I love the comics medium, period. And there have been some great comics made around superheroes written for adults. (You’ve written some of them.) But . . . it’s a conundrum for me as an adult who grew up on a different kind of comic, comics that were still aimed at early teens, at best.
I’m not commenting on your main point. Yes, a Catwoman movie made with an actual script is what is needed, not movie that is just called Catwoman. It’s not the audience’s—or the character’s—fault for failure. Hollywood could take some responsibility for poorly performing movies with females leads by recognizing that they make bad movies with female leads.
But that’s not the part of the discussion that animated my imagination tonight. I think you hit, in part, on why I no longer follow superhero comics.
I’ve been on both sides of this, and now we’re talking about comics rather than movies, which I think is a similar, but crucially different point than the one I was making in the blog post. The Wonder Woman story you cite is a fair example of comics for adults still wearing kids clothes, and you’ve no idea how much I wish I’d been able to take that story to its end. When the act itself is made into the story, the story suffers, and it certainly did in that case – an instance where I wrote something as part of a larger work, and then was fired from the book before the end could be told. Viewing that issue alone, I absolutely agree with your point; viewing that issue as I part of the story it was always intended to be, I think, would have put it into a larger context, and allowed for an honest (and note I do not say “real”) examination of what happened, why, and – most crucially to me – the repercussions and responsibilities therein.
I really, really want to know how the rest of your Wonder Woman run was gonna play out, and am sad I’ll probably never find out.
I second Daniel C.’s comment, I would kill to find out how you would have continued Wonder Woman after her confrontation with Lord. Personally, I found your Wonder Woman run to be one of the most enjoyably consistently good books I’ve ever read, and among the few works that surpassed it in those terms, your name shows up on the byline more often than anyone else, except maybe Mark Waid or Matt Wagner, so I would really enjoy finding out how it would have ended.
“The more “realistic” they became, the harder it was for me to believe that no one picked up some DNA samples in The Dark Knight and ended Bruce Wayne’s madness. Forget about Clark Kent’s glasses.”
Getting DNA samples from a mysterious man encased in armor doesn’t sound very realistic to me, my friend.
And while we’re on the subject of grittiness in comics, I think too many people confuse “gritty” with “unbelievably violent, and angry.” To me, gritty storytelling is all about having a little bit of tough truth in a piece of art or entertainment. Be it the nature of violence, or human suffering, or the fact that sometimes life doesn’t go our way. What doesn’t come to mind, however is stuff like this.
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.comicsalliance.com/media/2010/06/arsenal4.jpg
I hope someone big people in the industry reads this article of yours Mr. Rucka.
Agreed a billion percent. I can’t speak to “Green Lantern,” since I haven’t seen it yet (busy summer), but I’ve always said that movies – especially these kind of movies – run into problems when the creative decisions are made by the beancounters. Take the Spider-Man trilogy. 1 & 2 were great, quite possibly the best super-hero films since “Superman”, but 3? Horrible. Why? Because a lot of the creative decisions in that movie weren’t made by Sam Raimi. “Oh, we need to get Venom in there. We can sell a lot of toys. Make the movie more marketable.” It’s why we’re getting a reboot instead of a fourth film.
Also, it drives me crazy when people question whether or not a Superman film will be successful in this age of cynicism. I’d like to remind those people that the original “Superman” came out four years after Nixon resigned and three years after the end of the Vietnam war. Hell, Superman himself was created towards the end of the Great Depression and near the beginning of World War II. I say that makes him MORE relevant.
I cannot agree more about your comments regarding Captain America, Wonder Woman, etc, being characters who do what is right simply because it is right. When I look at my list of favourite character (Captain America, Hawkeye, the Thing, Martian Manhunter, Thor, etc) they are all characters with a strong moral core, who help the helpless (sorry Angel) simply because they have the ability to do so.
I have yet to see Green Lantern (with a 4 month old and a 4 hour round trip to the theatre it’s tough to get there, and of the 4 superhero movies I wanted to see Thor & Captain America took precedence), but when I heard that Warner thinks they need to go grim and grittier I cringed. They said the same thing about Superman, and for both characters that can’t be further from the truth.
Grim and gritty works for Batman. If they did a movie about Green Arrow & Black Canary I could handle that approach, or the Question, but not for guys like Superman. Superman is a bright, shining example of good that people should strive to be like. If you’ve read Roger Stern’s novelization of The Death and Life of Superman, I look at what he did with Mitch, the kid whose house was destroyed by Doomsday. He thought Superman was a big goody two-shoes boy scout, until Superman stopped fighting Doomsday to return to help his family. After that Mitch realized what Superman was all about, helping people, and that turned his whole life around. That is the Superman I want to see on the big screen.
I will say this too.
It kills me when I can’t buy my kid a Green Lantern COMIC because it’s got arms being ripped off and massive amounts of unnecessary gore. There should be some comics that are between Tiny Titans and the rest of the line. Things that are part of the shared universe and fit in, but where there’s some effort made to make them all ages (not kid’s comics, but all ages comics).
Hear, hear!
Boy, I leave town for a few days and brouhaha erupts. Am I gonna have to come home and–oh, wait! Here comes hurricane irene! Talk to you later–
HERE, HERE! I’ve been saying this for years and couldn’t not have said it better. Thank you.
Excellent post. Made my night.
Amen Greg!! When Alan Moore was doing his stuff, it was from a more exploratory path, NOT an immature way that all the copycats have taken the books too. I like Johns’s writing but the gratuitous violence irks me.
Thank you !! It’s like finally we have another grown up to talk to. Cap was a great movie because he was a hero before beeing SUPER. GL on the other hand was affraid to be a hero ( as seen to be the normon superhero movies, we get the reluctant hero). What we see in our heros says a lot about us, as individuals and society (thats plato in his republic not me). Why spidey can be married to have good stories ? Why superhero must be reluctant and behave like overpowered teenagers ? So on….. Again, thanks for your honesty. Regards from a brazillian fan
That’s a great point. Hollywood has the dumbest logic based around false conclusions. Well stated.
You can’t expect people as disconnected from reality as studio heads are to actually consider their own faults as even possible. To do such a thing would make them like poor people.
I must say, this piece is yet another reason why I will always love you Greg! You tend to write things I only wish I could express.
Greg, a brilliant Blog thank you. Completely agree with you on what you have said, thanks for putting it out there – if only Hollywood would listen!
I’m with you 100%!!
I didn’t know anything about Captain America, went to see it because the trailer reminded me fondly of the Joe Johnston helmed 1991 film The Rocketeer, and I absolutely loved it. And I did so for all of the reasons that you mentioned. It was absolutely 100% an fun, entertaining and enjoyable time at the movies where I left the theater feeling good.
I know the internet criticized the heck out of Smallville, but to me they got the spirit of the key characters (Clark, Lois, etc.) right on the money. Was it perfect? No. Did it have problems? Yes. But especially in the last two-three years, it really showed Superman as a symbol of hope in a dark world. His way inspires others and makes you wanna do good as well. And for my money the best comics, shows and movies are the ones that stay true to the characters at their core, not the ones that are most slavish to a timeline or to a pop-culture trend.
Now we’re apparently getting in books a Superman with no parents, no wife, and more “grit” and “darkness”. Again, “realism”. It’s an alien who flies and shoots laser beams out of his eyes. There was never any realism in that! You gain relatability in the fantastic by making real full-fledged characters in a fantasy world, not by placing said characters in the real world and betraying their core characteristics to shove them into a world they don’t belong in.
For me superhero comics/movies/shows are supposed to at heart be fun and escapist entertainment. Not joyless. A story can still be good and relevant without having half the characters die horribly and having people miserable most the time. In fact I’d argue that these days “gritty” and “dark” is another word for “lazy”. I personally am tired of it when it is applied to all properties Hollywood wants to sell as a cure-all.
I hate that anything fitting those terms has some sort of “street cred” yet anything full of “hope” or “optimism” has an uphill battle against being called “campy” or “lame”. There’s a proper place for all kinds of storytelling, dark and light. But heck yes not EVERYTHING has to become a chore to even sit through just because The Dark Knight broke box office records, so ergo make everything “grittier” and “darker” and it’ll make money. And if it didn’t then it wasn’t “gritty” enough. Nope, it didn’t make money because it sucked. Right On!
Great write up Mr. Rucka, definitely agreed with many of the points you raised. I think that Waid’s current Daredevil is a great example of a sophisticated, psychologically dense story that is also incredibly fun to read. I think that a “gritty”/”Dark” aesthetic fits certain characters more than others. I was a bit thrown by it as I was raised on Miller’s DD and all his future acolytes. Many I know were put off by the fact that no one sexually assaulted Matt or canibalized his girlfriend. Me? Well I was genuinely happy to see Matt on panel and not wonder when he’d eat a bowl of buckshots for breakfast. As far as films go I totally agree with you. I want my Batman films to be Dark Knight not Batman and Robin. But if a Superman even ventures into that territory I couldn’t accept it and would find it absolutely revolting. It’s just not implicit or necessary to the character. I also wholeheartedly agree that Dark does not = sophisticated/Mature…need I remind us of the 90′s? Azbats, people…AZBATS!!!
Great post! I especially like what you had to say about cynicism. I’m in my mid-30′s now, and I’ve pretty much out grown my cynicism. It just isn’t cool anymore. The lack of caring, the affectation that nothing matters, it’s just crushing if you hold on to it too long. I’m leading a reading group on Graphic novels this semester, and we’re starting with “Watchmen” ’cause I wanted them to see an important example in the genre. I’m disturbed by how undisturbed my students are at the violence, near-rape, etc. in the book. I wonder how they’ll take the ending!
That said, I’m with you on the gritty, too. I do believe there are people who do the right things for the right reasons, just because it is the right reason. But I also wonder if “gritty” can’t show us the times where that choice is difficult because “the right thing” and “the right reason” and, indeed, “right” at all is difficult to discover. How do you do the right thing when right and wrong aren’t clear? Or when the price of right is so high that anyone would get vertigo? I think those are the places where gritty is at its best. Or at least can be.
I thought Thor (movie) did a good job of enforcing ideas of “because it is the right thing” and, especially, the right attitude. Along with Captain America its hero was, by the end, simply good (if that makes sense). A good man, doing good things.
Gritty is also a good place for redemption. For character that, regardless of the good they do, often don’t think of themselves as good. For example Humphry Bogart’s Sam Spade in The Big Sleep (v. diff than the book) or Rick Blaine in Casablanca. Early, not gritty by today’s (cynical?) standards, but somewhat redemptive stories (esp. Casablanca).
Anyway, really good points!
You are so right. I’m almost in tears because this is exactly what I was trying to explain to my roommate. She complained that the Captain America movie was super lame. This totally threw me off because I thought it was a fun and fantastic portrayal of Cap’s story. When I heard Hollywood is trying to remake Superman again, I cringed, mostly because I don’t think that America is open to who Superman really is. They don’t believe in selfless beings interested only in working for others. Everyone loves Batman, but his main motive may ultimately just be revenge, not the most noble of traits. America needs to believe in heroes again, real ones.
I love your point about Hollywood, that they can’t make a movie true to the essence of these characters. I did not realize that Hollywood blames the writers for its shortcomings. That is not fair at all! Obviously people love the story in the pages of the comic book.
I haven’t followed comic books since I was a teenager and it turned out Peter Parker was the clone. So, until today I had never actually heard of you (I don’t think). That being said, I think this piece is one of the best things ever written on the subject, if not the best, and I will be quoting you for a long time to come. So, thank you a thousand times.
You’ve summed up something I’ve been going back and forth on for a few weeks now. Although you did it in a far more eloquent manner than I could begin to muster.
Hey, Jamal! Nice to see you here! Sterling and I were praising you to the skies this very evening!
I think the problem is that people have equated, “Gritty,” with, “Truthful.”
There are, as you’ve pointed out, narratives where a sort of grimy aesthetic and a darker view of things is appropriate and necessary. TDK/Batman is definitely that place. V for Vendetta is that place. 300 and Sin City and any number of other narratives are that place. X-Men has room for it, although it also has room for the blatant heroism that seems to be falling out of favor in filmmaking. I think you’re right that in a bleak reality, there is also a place where movies and comics are particularly suited to showing their audiences that heroism and selflessness are possible. That we can rise above and reclaim the world we live in from the encroaching darkness, is a message that can stir us all to see outside ourselves and to see ourselves in a light where we can be heroes. From LoTR and Harry Potter to Spider-Man and Superman: we need to be inspired to be, as the Doctor (Doctor Who) says, “The best of humanity,” after all, “We’re all stories in the end. Just make it a good one, eh?”