But I'm also fascinated by the reasons people don't like stuff. And what it can tell us about the ways we engage movies, all to help move the overall dialogue forward by addressing core misunderstandings.
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And the one criticism that I'm seeing pop up again and again with Black Panther is a "just a comic book movie" and people are just reading in too deep." To which I have a few thoughts.
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The first is that every single piece I've read this far has been semiotically responsible and referencing the text. Which is sort of remarkable. I'm hard pressed to think of a movie that's actually inspired THIS much 1:1 analysis and it makes my heart happy.
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Meanwhile, this sort of "just a ___" criticism is inane. People use the same lgoic with "it's just a movie!" to discount cinema as artform all together, so by all means, don't be quick to line up your thought process with that.
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You could boil it all down to "don't judge a book by it's cover," but the grim truth shades of the sentiment has still been expressed time and time and time again throughout film history as a way of dismissing genre, especially when you look at oscar voting.
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Hell, people used to call film noir and detective stories meaningless fluff without realizing it was changing the language and artistic capacity of cinema. What's hilarious is how many people would confidently scoff at that notion today in "a marvel movie! impossible!"
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And the truth is I could care less about predicting the future. I'm not here to say comics are the new noir (after all, most of them are... not good), nor here to even compare. The truth is I just see what's in front of me and the merits of the result.
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And I see so many genre / popcorn movies in the last few years that are full of life and meaning and complexity and empathy and powerful expressions of the world around us.
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Sure, sometimes that power comes in the form of BIG IMPORTANT DRAMAS, sometimes they come in the form of fun-as-hell popcorn flicks. But never mistake "serious texture" for actual thoughtfulness - and that also gets to the hilarious catch 22 of all this...
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People love to lambast low-art / high-art, but having seen the process that goes into them and pleasing an audience, I can tell you which kind of film is absolutely harder to craft as an artist... There is nothing that is "just a _____."
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Now, on the flipside, what I love is that Black Panther is also producing my favorite kind of response criticism. And that's pieces that take the subject extremely seriously and dive into the larger truths as they see them.
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For instance this piece by @kailanthropie tackles the way the film seems to misunderstand black radicalism and does so beautifullyhttps://thebaffler.com/latest/black-comic-universe-philo …
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Do I still think the core messaging of duality and identity work great in BP? Absolutely. But this is just highlighting a world and scope and perspective beyond the vision of the film itself.
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Which I see less as less direct criticism of a film, and more of inspired reflection. And more importantly, I would LOVE to also see the film the dramatizes the perspective in this piece.
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When it comes to criticism I could hardly care whether someone liked or disliked a given movie. I care what it made them think about. I care if it evolved their thoughts. I care if it inspired a greater notion. Because in the end, there's only what we take away.
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End of conversation
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