Everything
Last month, Martin Scorsese came under fire after he said in an interview that Marvel is “not cinema”. Whether you’re lead to agree with the filmmaker or not, it caused uproar with superhero fans. But thanks to world wide web and a little digging into the archives, it appears that Watchmen writer Alan Moore has harsher opinions to give – and it starts with dissing the intelligence of every superhero fan, ever. Ouch.
A fan site devoted to Moore, Alan Moore World, uncovered a 2016 interview with Brazlilian writer and editor Raphael Sassaki for his latest book Folha de São Paulo. During the talk, Sassaki asked Moore on his opinion of the aforementioned film genre and its impact on modern pop culture. “I think the impact of superheroes on popular culture is both tremendously embarrassing and not a little worrying.” He goes onto explain while it’s fitting for children, the films for adults are serving “different needs”.
“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. The continuing popularity of these movies to me suggests some kind of deliberate, self-imposed state of emotional arrest, combined with an numbing condition of cultural stasis that can be witnessed in comics, movies, popular music and, indeed, right across the cultural spectrum.”
Moore also looks to the creators and their employers as “cowardice compensators” that are merely and unwillingly contributing to the continuation of superhero films.
And yes, I know what you’re thinking: isn’t Watchmen a comic book series. Well, when the Brazilian author questioned Moore on whether his own comic would provide lasting impact to the culture, his response was bitter to say the least. “Frankly, I don’t think about comics that much, I don’t think of Watchmen at all, and the lasting impact of one upon the other is really no longer my concern.”
Awkward.
