What James Cameron Doesn't Get About Superhero Movies

In a recent interview with Indiewire, James Cameron came down pretty hard on the superhero genre, hoping for audience “Avenger fatigue,” and describing superhero stories as “hypogonadal males without families doing death-defying things for two hours and wrecking cities in the process.”

While I do get his point, it’s an odd comment to come from the director of Avatar. But it’s also fairly disingenuous to dismiss superhero stories as nothing more than orgies of mindless destruction – that was just Batman V. Superman.

But Cameron isn’t the only director who looks down at the superhero trend; Jodie Foster was far more blunt, stating to Radio Times that: “Studios making bad content in order to appeal to the masses and shareholders is like fracking – you get the best return right now but you wreck the earth. It’s ruining the viewing habits of the American population and then ultimately the rest of the world. I don’t want to make $200m movies about superheroes.”

Even comic book legend Alan Moore appears to outright despise modern-day superhero movies, telling Vulture: “What are these movies doing other than entertaining us with stories and characters that were meant to entertain the 12-year-old boys of 50 years ago? Are we supposed to somehow embody these characters? That’s ridiculous. They are not characters that can possibly exist in the real world.”

All of these people I quoted aren’t exactly wrong in their assumptions – a bad superhero film is a messy blur of CGI, held afloat by fanboys who are (understandably) ecstatic to see their childhood heroes on the big screen.

And I’d argue that the early Marvel films were almost exactly as Cameron describes them. But we’re beginning to see superhero films grow in complexity, evolving way beyond simple spectacle and good vs. evil conflicts. These days, a mere power fantasy isn’t enough, because it’s been done many times before, and done well.  

Justice League relied on little more than fan loyalty to sell tickets, and was penalized at the box office. The equally bland Age of Ultron was technically a success story, but nobody really talks about that movie; they talk about the complex conflict it foreshadowed – Captain America: Civil War.  

That story snuck a thoughtful argument into a popcorn movie, raising difficult questions about the right to intervene, friendly fire, and mused on the morality of regulatory oversight. Black Panther was not only a cultural milestone, but boasted the most complex and sympathetic comic book villain ever, as far as I’m concerned.

Thor: Ragnarok certainly wasn’t aiming to be profound, but the film marked a major step forward for comic book adaptions, in that it seemed to understand the world of superheroes better than any other. A Norse god fighting an irradiated giant on a distant alien world, under the tyrannical command of Jeff Goldblum? That bizarre blend of fantasy and sci-fi, that “anything goes attitude,” is the real power of the superhero genre, because it is brimming with metaphorical potential.

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In a recent interview with Indiewire, James Cameron came down pretty hard on the superhero genre, hoping for audience “Avenger fatigue,” and describing superhero stories as “hypogonadal males without families doing death-defying things for two hours and wrecking cities in the process.”

While I do get his point, it’s an odd comment to come from the director of Avatar. But it’s also fairly disingenuous to dismiss superhero stories as nothing more than orgies of mindless destruction – that was just Batman V. Superman.

But Cameron isn’t the only director who looks down at the superhero trend; Jodie Foster was far more blunt, stating to Radio Times that: “Studios making bad content in order to appeal to the masses and shareholders is like fracking – you get the best return right now but you wreck the earth. It’s ruining the viewing habits of the American population and then ultimately the rest of the world. I don’t want to make $200m movies about superheroes.”

Even comic book legend Alan Moore appears to outright despise modern-day superhero movies, telling Vulture: “What are these movies doing other than entertaining us with stories and characters that were meant to entertain the 12-year-old boys of 50 years ago? Are we supposed to somehow embody these characters? That’s ridiculous. They are not characters that can possibly exist in the real world.”

All of these people I quoted aren’t exactly wrong in their assumptions – a bad superhero film is a messy blur of CGI, held afloat by fanboys who are (understandably) ecstatic to see their childhood heroes on the big screen.

And I’d argue that the early Marvel films were almost exactly as Cameron describes them. But we’re beginning to see superhero films grow in complexity, evolving way beyond simple spectacle and good vs. evil conflicts. These days, a mere power fantasy isn’t enough, because it’s been done many times before, and done well.

Justice League relied on little more than fan loyalty to sell tickets, and was penalized at the box office. The equally bland Age of Ultron was technically a success story, but nobody really talks about that movie; they talk about the complex conflict it foreshadowed – Captain America: Civil War.

That story snuck a thoughtful argument into a popcorn movie, raising difficult questions about the right to intervene, friendly fire, and mused on the morality of regulatory oversight. Black Panther was not only a cultural milestone, but boasted the most complex and sympathetic comic book villain ever, as far as I’m concerned.

Thor: Ragnarok certainly wasn’t aiming to be profound, but the film marked a major step forward for comic book adaptions, in that it seemed to understand the world of superheroes better than any other. A Norse god fighting an irradiated giant on a distant alien world, under the tyrannical command of Jeff Goldblum? That bizarre blend of fantasy and sci-fi, that “anything goes attitude,” is the real power of the superhero genre, because it is brimming with metaphorical potential.

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