Alisha Week #3 - Identity for a Giant
In case you haven’t heard it yet, Avengers: Encore is officially out now internationally. All for four glorious minutes of added footage. Four minutes that it is apparently imperative one watches before seeing any new projects.
Now, I, as I assume most of my fellow classmates did, grew up with Marvel movies. The franchise was really successful in that way, able to reach the casual fans without needing them to drop hundreds of dollars on comics. (I generally prefer DC characters, but Marvel’s strategic placement in my childhood and growth from the brink of bankruptcy are incredible.) They have always appeared to have been the perfect adaptations, meticulously planned and painstakingly crafted as masterpieces of the seventh art. An inspiration to the youth about kindness and bravery—a primary example of what the genre is at its core. But now they have retcons so bad they may as well be DC's New 52 run.
Clearly a lack of planning has resulted in this desperate plot shuffling, and now the identity of the entire cinematic brand is at stake. There was clear public backlash from the beginning: cinematically unintroduced characters getting full TV shows, horrendous casting scandals ranging from sexist pay gaps to domestic abuse, and an overt lack of communication about the plan for the phase beyond “Just trust us.” Nobody listened, and we end up with situations where entire projects are cancelled on a whim, movies nearly a decade old are getting edits so that they can fit in the new storyline, and there are countless pleas to the fans to ignore Kang the Conqueror’s cancelled supervillain arc entirely. The only recent success would be Brand New Day, and that’s because of Sony, not Marvel.
Beyond just basic etiquette, this has a terrible influence on younger audiences. When we were young, these movies taught us life lessons through entertainment. Now all it teaches kids is that you can avoid communicating entirely, pull some last-minute strings while claiming it's planned, and spend your entire life avoiding genuinely compelling narratives. A brand identity reliant on blind fan-following isn’t a brand, it's a cult.
I’m still going to go see the new movies. I’m going to call my cousins to talk about Loki’s role and complain about how Sam Wilson is being shoved to the side. I’ll do marathons with friends for all the Ant-Man films, even Quantamania, while laughing at the poor dad. But I will do this with no trust left for Marvel, something no amount of Moon Knights could ever bring back. Identity is fragile, whether you are a person or a company, and a lack of authentic connection can change everybody’s perception of it forever.
Hi Alisha! I grew up watching Marvel movies, it was practically my entire childhood. I loved Marvel so much that when the pandemic hit, I rewatched the entire string of movies that were available to me on Disney+ (with the exception of the animated films.)
ReplyDeleteAs I have aged, I have shifted more towards movies with more emotional drama; you know, the kind where people fight with their words and not their weapons. However, Marvel will always hold a special place in my heart.
The plots have definitely gotten messy, and I did not even know about the edits to the old Marvel movies or the actor scandals. I watched Brand New Day, which was lovely but as you said, they failed to mention exactly how X-Men got into the realm of Avengers.
I admit there is part of me that is still equally as excited now to watch the new films that are coming out, even if they are trashy and don’t exactly make sense.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and knowledge on Marvel, and I definitely learned a lot from your blog!
Hi! I really enjoyed reading your blog and how you explained Marvel's changes over time. I found your point about how a lack of communication can affect the audience's trust especially interesting. It also made me think about how companies can lose their audience's connection when they stop meeting their expectations.
ReplyDeleteI liked how you mentioned that you'll still watch the new movies despite your disappointment, because it shows how complicated people's relationships with things they enjoy can be.
Hey Alisha! You focused on how the company’s decisions have affected the relationship between Marvel and its audience, especially the idea of trust. This is one of the strongest parts of the argument as a company can recover from a bad movie, but losing the audience’s trust can be much harder to fix. You pointed out that movies can teach others lessons about life and behavior made me think about how much influence entertainment can impact someone. I liked how you connected Marvel’s lack of communication to the message it may send to the younger viewers. I appreciated your honesty about continuing to watch Marvel movies even if you no longer trust the company as much. Your personal examples about watching the Ant-Man movies and discussing Loki also show that your criticism comes from being a long time fan.
ReplyDelete