Cowboys vs Superheroes

Sultan Knish ^ | July 2, 2011 | Daniel Greenfield

[expat1000]

To walk into a movie theater today is to notice one obvious thing. Aside from the inflated ticket prices, and the resort to gimmicks such as 3D by a film industry unable to compete with newer more immersive forms of entertainment, is that a genre which hardly existed 50-60 years ago dominates the box office, and a genre which was omnipresent then, is all but absent now

.....But there is a dramatic shift that takes place between the two genres. And it is a revealing shift. The cowboy is human. The superhero is increasingly inhuman.

[Berlin_Freeper]

Cowboys vs Astronauts

[Prole]

The author clearly does not like the idea of comic book icons taking the helm in mainstream film success these days, but let's face the facts here. How about we address current themes for the films out this summer, as well as last year?

1.) Heroes like Iron Man and Captain America fight villains that are interested in destruction, crime and the subsequent harm toward innocent people. There is nothing wrong with admiring the heroics of these guys, especially when they are inspiring the imaginations of children everywhere.

2.) Heroic, self-aware robots called Autobots come to the planet earth to save it from evil robots who would otherwise enslave humanity and steal the planet's sources of energy. What's wrong with cheering for the Autobots who voluntarily risk everything to save humanity?

3.) Cowboys, outlaws, sheriffs and train robbers may be things of the past, but they inspire today's writers in many ways. Han Solo, a central character and hero from the Star Wars saga, is based loosely on the rebellious, yet heroic outlaw type of personality. Same thing can be said of the primary characters in Indiana Jones, Big Trouble In Little China, Rambo, Die Hard, etc...

The writer needs to chill out, and let today's heroes continue to inspire and provide something to cheer for.

[Gothmog]

What a load of navel-gazing garbage. Gosh, gee willikers Lassie, do you think US media preferences have developed in pace with it’s subsequent development? Quick, call the Beaver!

To answer the author’s much-beleagured question: Yes, over the past 100 years or so the US has shifted from a more agrarian to a more industrial civilization.

To the surprise of primarily the author of this crap (but to no one else with a brain), the stories/mythology have changed scenery. Overall, the stories remain the same. So what’s the problem?

[Opinionated Blowhard]

I agree that this guy is reading way too much into the two genres. However, superhero storylines can very easily lead to lazy storytelling. How does the superhero resolve a problem? With some super power. Human storylines can't rely on that as much.

[Waverunner]

It’s agenerational thing, my dad grew up on cowboy movies at the theater and cowboy radio shows. I grew up reading marvel and dc. For myself, I’m finally glad to see the movie technology able to do a decent job of living up to my expectations. After all if you look at comic books, tey are simply the stryboard for a movie. As a kid, we just had to fill in the action with our imagination. BTW, we also played cowboys and indians, combat ( us vs the nazis), 007, man from uncle, and superheroes.

[LS]

Absolutely agree. There is a psychological reason that superheroes were so big in the 1940s-1960s, then tended to disappear in the Reagan years: when you have REAL heroes, people don't need to make them up.

This tells me that in very large numbers, people do not see anyone on the leadership scene at any level who inspires confidence.

I'll go one further. As a big X-Men, FF, and Avengers fan---even JLA if they got rid of Batman and Superman---what made those teams so appealing and all-American was that each person had distinct talents that were entirely individualistic, but not super-powerful. To defeat the bad guys took team work, but not communist-style teamwork, American individualistic team work. You NEVER forgot the Human Torch's individuality, or the Angel's appealing arrogance, or Iron Man's secret weakness. Usually, the movies captured this in their first iteration.

Comics lost me when the villains got to be so titanic, so (literally) galactic that really no combination of human effort could stop them and it was only intervention from god(s) like the Silver Surfer that people gained victory.

BTW, "Cowboys vs. Aliens" looks terrific, with or without 3-D.

[Olog-hai]

---

Comics lost me when the villains got to be so titanic, so (literally) galactic that really no combination of human effort could stop them and it was only intervention from god(s) like the Silver Surfer that people gained victory

---

Hmm. Is this a reference to Galactus? He appeared in 1966, so you've been off superhero comics for 45 years in spite of being that big of a Fantastic Four fan as you claim? And Norrin Radd was not a "god" in the comics at all (and was quite powerless compared to his master Galactus), although Thor was supposed to be (i.e. one of the Aesir)—his debut was in 1962.

And Superman, who appeared way back in 1932, was a space alien from planet Krypton—not human at all!

[LS]

Glactus was just one, and yes, the FF flirted with him, but also the "Infant Terrible," and no, I haven't been "off" comics that long---gave up probably in the 1980s (though as a serious collector I gave up when I was broke in the rock band in the early 1970s. But I had a great collection of X-Men, Avengers, FF, and Spiderman, all (except Avengers) dating to #1.

Correct, SS was not a "god," but sure seemed to have god-like powers. The point was, no longer could humans defeat the enemy. Now it required alien intervention. As for Superman, never a fan, but his appeal was almost entirely that he was viewed---and operated---as a HUMAN and took on the mantle of the USA.

[Hatteras]

I’m interested in seeing Cowboys & Aliens myself but I just can’t deal with the noise they blast out in the theatres. And a lot of the action scenes in the trailer just seem waaay to fast and confusing.

(Dang.... I’m turning into my old man as I speak!)

[swatbuznik]

then tended to disappear in the Reagan years:

In my experience, comics hit their peak and then began to decline in the early 90's, during the Clinton years.