And while its protagonist, Indiana Jones, was an indestructible superman, he also has discernible human characteristics. Raiders of the Lost Ark, one of the most influential of all blockbusters, is almost quaint now in its fealty to the idea of one hero, one villain, a heroine, a few colorful supporting characters, a MacGuffin, and a story that tied all these elements together with pleasurable simplicity. Their plots might have been recycled and disposable, but they had plots, and some of them had ineffably powerful images. People have short cultural memories, but blockbusters used to occasionally be enjoyable. Unending exclusion is dull and estranging.
As a critic, I’m not immune to this manipulation. Audiences still desire a feeling of inclusion at the movies, bucking our culture’s inexorable move toward streaming everything in the cocoon of one’s home, and studios are exploiting that yearning by imposing a sort of blockbuster monopoly: buy a ticket to this Disney super-production, or be out of the loop. Mainstream audiences don’t want to hear about alternatives to Marvel, Star Wars or Pixar (all owned by Disney) about movies as free-associatively erotic as Neon Bull, or even as sharp and sensual and rowdy as Everybody Wants Some!!, because such projects are barely screened in cinemas anymore, unless you live in a big metropolis. But try telling people this sort of thing about a Marvel production and you’re a snob. Works of art are like people: to hate either, one must be accorded a glimpse of their personality first, and a failure to exhibit personality provokes a muffled, low-risk indifference. “Disliking” rather than “hating”, because to inspire such a passionate response as hate would require more than a preordained blockbuster usually offers. Contrary to a cliche that dogs film critics, I don’t enjoy disliking nearly every movie that earns a significant amount of money.
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