The way of the Western

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately about the superhero genre in film and television and noticed how it's much like the Western films and television boom of the early 20th century

I think it would be interesting to take a look and analyze how these two genres are very similar. 

Steven Spielberg said in an interview in 2015 that the superhero genre is much like the Western genre and I have mentioned this interview before in a previous blog post. In the interview with The Associated Press, he said that “We were around when the Western died and there will be a time when the superhero movie goes the way of the Western. It doesn’t mean there won’t be another occasion where the Western comes back and the superhero movie someday returns.” 

I agree with Spielberg. Back in the 1940s through the 1960s, Westerns dominated the box office. Everyone wanted to be the Lone Ranger or John Wayne. Television shows like Gunsmoke and Bonanza, along with shows like The Rifleman and Wagon Train were must-watch television. It wasn't until 1964 when the Spaghetti Western began to appear that the genre began to change, especially after A Fistful of Dollars starring Clint Eastwood. No longer was it just cowboys and outlaws, there were now shades of grey. The 1960s was also the height of the Space Race, so people's focus shifted away from the untamed land of the west to the untamed sky. People wanted to see stories about alien races, astronauts, and other sci-fi conceptions.

I think the final blow for the Western genre came in 1979 when John Wayne died. He was the flag bearer for the genre. When anyone thinks of a cowboy, they think of John Wayne. By, the 1970s films had all but shifted away from Westerns.

The current boom for superhero films started in 2008 with the release of The Dark Knight and Iron Man, with the latter helping to kickstart the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In the past few years, there have been talks of fatigue from directors, actors, and fans. Emily Blunt spoke on Howard Stern recently and talked about her possibly being cast as Sue Storm in the new Fantastic Four movie, and she went on to say, that, "I don’t know if superhero movies are for me. They’re not up my alley. I don’t like them. I really don’t." She explained further, "It’s been exhausted. We are inundated—it’s not only all the movies, but it’s also the endless TV shows as well. It’s not to say that I’d never want to play one, it would just have to be something so cool and like a really cool character, and then I’d be interested."

In the last couple of years, studios and streaming services have been trying their hand at the superhero game. Heck, the comic book game in general. Marvel created this beast and now executives are seeing comics as this new cash cow. Studios and streaming services are bidding on properties constantly releasing new content from the genre.

I think what we are seeing from this though and what many, like Emily Blunt is talking about, is the mediocre or plain bad content that is coming from this. Things like Thunder Force, an original movie from Netflix, starring Melissa McCarthy that cashed in on the superhero genre, but received terrible reviews from critics and audiences, or Jupiter's Legacy, an adaption of a comic from Image that was just so-so. 

Even DC could be looked at as producing things that are confusing or content that doesn't meet expectations. An average viewer may not understand why we went from Ben Affleck as Batman one day to Robert Pattison the next, or why Warner Bros. decided to release a four-hour cut of Justice League.

Westerns attempted to make a comeback in the 1990s with films such Young Guns and its sequel, Unforgiven, Tombstone, and The Quick and The Dead. As much as those films were successful and did well, the genre just couldn't rekindle the fire it had.

Just like Westerns, I think there will be a shift in the genre that will cause people to turn away from superhero films. Don't get me wrong, I love comic books and superheroes and I hope this doesn't happen anytime soon. But I think there will be. Whether that's fatigue from a constant barrage or a lack of quality content.