Justice League - Why The General Audience Will Not Strike Back
Warner Brothers Pictures
The Importance of being average
This Friday, I attended a screening of Justice League amongst an opening weekend crowd. The film was complete garbage. While my interests in the film lie more on it’s production history and intriguing switch of directors, I do not think that this is the case for 99% of the movie-going audience.
JL will probably be in theatres for about three or four weeks and will have sellout crows for at least it's opening weekend. But why? Surely, it is not because Justice League has realistic and compelling characters infused with emotional conflict or that it exhibits much artistic merit. Therefore, I must say that my take on the film results in this conclusion:
The general audience is dumb, and doesn’t like to be challenged intellectually or emotionally. We like the familiar and gravitate towards things that feel safe and non-confrontational. Whether it is emotional familiarity, vicarious fantasy, simple adventure and excitement, sci-fi action or cheap thrills and laughs, this is the movies! and this is what people love about them: The ability to vicariously transport themselves into a fantasy world away from their boring day jobs. But it’s not just emotional escapism, the success of movies often comes in their simplicity, just like how most newspapers are written in the 6th grade reading level. You see, the average human IQ is 100 so if you want your film to make money you’ve got to aim for average.
Just look at the top box office films of all time: And then maybe consider suicide...
Exceptionalism is the exception.
Directors like Joss Whedon and James Cameron are masters at pulling on simple but all important heartstrings. With some exceptions, they are the makers of the movie versions of MacDonald's Fast Food, Holiday Inn Hotels and The Ford Motor Company. The brilliant, complex and challenging films fall to the wayside, while the safe and the familiar is the norm. And so, the reason why people will come to hate Justice League will not be because it is a terrible movie but, It will be because it aimed for the middle and missed the mark.
Finally, while watching Justice League you can't help but step back and look at the bigger, more depressing picture: That we are mostly creatures of habit, aimlessly wandering into theatres to be vicariously entertained by pictures of ever diminishing significance. In other words, that we are all, collectively, average.
Here's hoping...
So if the audience is not going to punish the mediocre and garbage releases, who will? Could there be a way to level the plainfield between dumb blockbusters and films of merit? The rise of New Wave movements has always been linked to social, technological an economic changes and so... Here's hoping for interesting times.
London, 2017
The fist two sections are heavily inspired by Mike Stoklassa's essay on averageness.