'Watchmen' creator Alan Moore says superhero stories 'perfectly fine' for youngsters but adults should 'rethink'
'Watchmen' creator Alan Moore has said superhero stories are perfectly fine for the younger generation but adults, however, may have to think again. In a 2017 interview with Brazilian newspaper Folha de São Paulo, details of which were just released, Moore spoke at length about the superhero culture and its impact. According to the legendary comic writer, while the superhero characters were originally suited to "stimulating the imaginations of their twelve- or thirteen-year-old audience", they seem to serve a "different function and are fulfilling different needs" when it comes to adults.
"I think the impact of superheroes on popular culture is both tremendously embarrassing and not a little worrying", he said.
"Primarily, mass-market superhero movies seem to be abetting an audience who do not wish to relinquish their grip on (a) their relatively reassuring childhoods, or (b) the relatively reassuring 20th century", he said. He also remarked the rising popularity of these movies suggests a "kind of deliberate, self-imposed state of emotional arrest, combined with a numbing condition of cultural stasis that can be witnessed in comics, movies, popular music and, indeed, right across the cultural spectrum."
The criticism trickled down to creators as well. "The superheroes themselves – largely written and drawn by creators who have never stood up for their own rights against the companies that employ them, much less the rights of a Jack Kirby or Jerry Siegel or Joe Schuster – would seem to be largely employed as cowardice compensators, perhaps a bit like the handgun on the nightstand."
"I would also remark that save for a smattering of non-white characters (and non-white creators) these books and these iconic characters are still very much white supremacist dreams of the master race." Moore felt a compelling argument could be made for D.W. Griffith’s 'Birth of a Nation' as the first American superhero movie, and the point of origin for all those capes and masks.
The superhero movies debate has been making the headlines for some time now with filmmaker Martin Scorcese remarking Marvel movies must be considered something other than cinema. Talking to Empire, the 'Taxi Driver' director said, "I don't see them."
"I tried, you know? But that's not cinema. Honestly, the closest I can think of them, as well made as they are, with actors doing the best they can under the circumstances, is theme parks. It isn't the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being."