While Wonder Woman has been dominating at the box office, the idea of superheroes is clearly on people’s minds. For the crowd that believes everything is political, however, this is a great opportunity to show that they’re humorless troglodytes who can’t actually just enjoy anything without trying to make it uncool for anyone to enjoy it.
Take Wonder Woman, for example. A strong, powerful female lead that is kicking major butt at the box office isn’t enough, nor is the big win by a female director who just set a record for the best opening weekend by any director of her gender.
No, some humorless scold at Salon has decided to take a massive dump on the entire superhero genre by claiming that characters like Wonder Woman are “undemocratic.”
Here’s a joke you haven’t heard: What’s the difference between Wonder Woman and Donald Trump?
One is an moralistic aristocrat with a superiority complex about Western civilization who autocratically thrusts their warped notion of “justice” upon the world. The other, of course, is the president.
Lest you think I’m singling out the hero du jour, I should note that virtually any superhero can be inserted into that joke. Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Thor, Iron Man — with few exceptions, superhero blockbusters read as if they were underwritten by the American Enterprise Institute. That’s because nearly all superhero movies glorify wealth (and the freedom it provides), aristocracy and/or monarchy, militarism, unilateralism, and right-wing fantasies about criminality.
You might object to this harsh critique of America’s most beloved (and profitable) film genre. After all, aren’t these movies little more than harmless summer popcorn flicks?
Not really.
And no, it doesn’t really get any better.
First, keep in mind that this comes from the left, the very same people who elevated Barack Obama from a mere president into a leftist messiah whom they actively wanted to single-handedly reshape the Western world in their preferred image. Salon, which published this screen, had the temerity after eight years of Obama to tag this piece with “The movie genre epitomizes the right-wing idea that we need elites to save us.”
Yeah…with this much projection they should sell popcorn, sodas, and show superhero movies. Seriously.
Second, let’s understand that superheroes are the modern proxies for heroes and demigods from Greek mythology. You’ve heard of the Greeks, right? They only invented democracy.
The fact is, there aren’t really any underlying messages in the genre. If there is one, however, it’s that one man can make a difference. Isn’t that what we tell people when we try to get them to get off their rear ends to go and vote?
If a message like that is undemocratic, then so be it.
Perhaps someday the leftists who write crap like this will learn to sit back and stop trying to make everything political and just enjoy the blasted movies.
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