ok so. little anecdote before i start
back when guardians of the galaxy came out i went and watched it. bear in mind this was the first marvel movie i watched since thor. the first one. so naturally, when the credits rolled, i got up. immediately, the entire theatre started laughing at me and taunting me for missing the post credits scene. which was. you know. very fun for an autistic kid with massive social anxiety but i digress
my point is that, in order to consume marvel content, you have to have watched literally everything that came before the film you want to watch. there are lists and arguments and timelines consisting of i don’t know how many movies so the barrier of entry is *massive*. it’s so self selecting because literally only people who are committed will sit down to watch all of this stuff and god forbid you’re a casual who just wants to watch the one movie.
now i don’t have a problem with movie franchises or even movies that lean on other previous movies for an overarching narrative. but the marvel movies are exhausting mainly for these reasons:
1) they are blatantly a money making scheme. on a certain level, all movies are, naturally, but the marvel movies have such a disdain for their audience, for the people these characters are for and for the characters themselves that they will completely kill any given character’s arc - thor ragnarok did so much character development for thor and it was immediately undone the very next movie. characters are not allowed to have a consistent narrative or a satisfying ending and god forbid you’re someone who is invested in a character
2) marvel doesn’t trust its audience to put things together. everything is explained and explained again, we are on movie #4567 of collect the action hero without thought nor care for their arcs or their feelings or the things that make them themselves - the blatant whitewashing, the ableism in the treatment of characters like hawkeye, to name a few. it feels like most of the writers consider their average audience to be too stupid to follow a narrative thread without having their hand held
3) their spoiler culture. i don’t know if marvel introduced the idea that spoilers are a unique evil but GOD can it go die in a fire. not giving your actors full scripts, costumes, sets or context to play off of and then laughing at those *stupid* actors for being upset about that? the notion that the only reason to watch a movie is for the plot?
i don’t know about you, but if a spoiler can ruin your movie, it’s a fucking shit movie. even movies like gone girl or rebecca, which hinge upon their plot twists, are enjoyable EVEN IF YOU HAVE BEEN SPOILED. this enables marvel to withhold pay from actors because they are not aware how big a role they’re playing.
A PLOT TWIST SHOULD BE HINTED AT! if a few of your viewers figure it out that’s a good thing!!! a plot twist is not something that hits you out of nowhere with no hints or no possibility to figure it out by yourself! there is no merit whatsoever in punishing your audience for figuring out your plot twist (cough wandavision cough)
4) the way marvel has monopolised superhero movies. it’s not a strict monopoly, but marvel has managed to become synonymous with superhero movies and sets the standard for the way they are consumed. there are so many people whose media diet consists almost exclusively of marvel movies or movies like them, which teaches them to just accept what is thrown at them in disdain. so when they are shown a movie that doesn’t spell everything out, that is artistic or queer or up for interpretation, they get angry at the movie for not holding their hand. when you only know a very specific sort of media that never lets you think for yourself and that just keeps churning out more and more derivative content (i watched the last spiderman movie when my bf was here. not only did you need to watch ALL THE MARVEL MOVIES BEFORE, you also had to watch BOTH SPIDERMAN FRANCHISES in order to understand what the fuck is going on) that gatekeeps people who are NOT ENTERTAINED BY THIS BULLSHIT and creates a self reinforcing bubble
5) the way the movies broke apart and sanitised so many of their characters under the guise of expanding their appeal - in the most blatant example i can think of, they made PETER PARKER AT LEAST MIDDLE CLASS AND TIED HIS ORIGIN EXPLICITLY TO TONY STARK. like that is not the point. the people who write the characters don’t care about them and it shows and it is so, so exhausting.
marvel paved the way for massive, long series that get more and more difficult to enter as you go, unneccesary plot twists that literally gut punch you because you cannot have seen them coming, spoiler culture as it exists today while teaching their viewers that it’s okay to never ever have to think critically about media, just buy the next ticket for iron man 545 and no matter what we show you in it, you’re gonna be happy because it’s MARVEL
as a writer it legitimately makes me want to CRY
