The Debate Over High / Low Culture In Movies Is Kind Of Stupid But Also Kind Of Important

There's far more stupid in the world today than necessary, so can we put the whole "Marvel and Star Wars movies aren't really movies" thing to bed?

Yes, they are trite and formulaic.  But there is world enough and time to appreciate "easy" movies as well as, say, the latest Yorgos Lanthimos or Claire Denis.

Same thing for books.  Or music.

I think what's really going on behind these arguments (remember Roger Ebert and video games?) is just territorial marking.  And it's mostly harmless.  Stay in your lane, nerds, and don't taint our supposedly superior cultural norms and forms.

It is elitist as hell to say only critically accepted directors (almost entirely white men) are allowed to create something called "art," and I'm fine with those arguments getting Twitter-mobbed by the nerdly, neck-bearded masses.  (I have little bad to say about Scorsese other than he's slightly over-rated but woo-boy, Coppola has made some genuine crap in his career.  I'll take B-level Marvel over Jack any day.)

At the same time, so much nerd and sci-fi culture has been bought up by Disney now that what used to be healthy, enthusiastic, and sometimes subversive fandom is now basically rooting for Mega-Corporations.  And these corporations can never be criticized for putting out tepid, obviously soul-less shit, but god forbid they write in a chick or a black dude or a gay couple.

Blindly self-identifying with corporations is always dangerous, even if they happen to put out the more easily digestible comfort culture that you love.  But not being willing to recognize that nerd shit has broken through to a wider audience of people who don't always look like you, who identify differently than you, is also dangerously stupid.

And to bitch and moan otherwise makes you look like the entitled bigot you may have been all along, not so much the misunderstood cultural outsider you wish you still were and can never be again.