No, Studios are Not Excluding 'Non-Fans' from their Franchises
On June 29, 2017, MTV'S chief TV critic Inkoo (pronounced in-goo) Kang, a master of the hot take and all around smart person published a guest column in The Hollywood Reporter called "The Fans Have Inherited the Film Industry — and It's a Problem for the Rest of Us". Her argument is that as studios focus on building cinematic universes, they're excluding people who don't keep up with every franchise entry.
She uses the Marvel Cinematic Universe as an example, claiming that "viewers who don’t keep up with Marvel’s annual output are at risk of being confused when they do drop into the overstuffed “cinematic universes,” or of being shut out of a significant chunk of pop culture altogether." That, she says, makes our fan-centric culture "a raw deal for the rest of us."
And in some ways, she's right. Studios are focusing on building expensive cinematic universes, and yes, it has stolen focus away from producing mid-budget original films. But I also think Ms. Kang is giving the average audience member a little too much credit here. I'm no anthropologist, but I've sat in enough movie theaters to know we should never underestimate the human ability to enjoy two hours of audiovisual brain candy in air-conditioned comfort. Most people are content to laugh at Iron Man's quips and not know jack shit about the Chitauri invasion as long as they can eat their Raisinets unmolested and check their smartphone from time to time.
All right, that was a little mean. But you know there's truth here — a lot of people are content to walk into movie 10 or 15 minutes after it's started and proceed to enjoy the rest of it. That assumes, of course, that they didn't have a flat tire or some other unplanned inconvenience that robbed them of their punctuality. But I'm the type that'd rather catch a later showing than be ten minutes late.
Okay, so maybe I'm a snob. But I don't have too much contempt for the normal audience. In many ways, I envy them. Your average Jane or John moviegoer (and your average theater employee, apparently) neither notices nor cares about many of the problems a critic perceives. The movie is just a smidge outta focus? They either don't notice or don't care. Some buttnut left the light on in the projection booth? Whatever!
Those things don't amount to a hill of beans for John or Jane moviegoer, but that's the kinda shit that makes it hard for me to have a good time at the movies. And that's just the stuff off the screen. Most of the folks in their reclining chairs are content to not worry about how Tony Stark somehow treated his crippling PTSD by fighting a glowing Guy Pearce. People like me and Inkoo Kang can't not worry about why that character arc is so downright baffling.
And for all the hand-wringing about how fan culture has impacted cinema, Ms. Kang hasn't acknowledged that perhaps the reason it feels like so much work to keep up with the canons of these cinematic universes is that it is literal work. It's her job to pay attention to that kind of stuff. And yeah, it's a lot. Especially when you're a TV critic and have to keep the long-running plots of many, many TV shows rattling around in your brain. Details like why they're still cleaning up the ruins of the Triskelion in Spider-Man: Homecoming matter more to her than your average audience member. That kind of attention to detail is why she does what she does.
Y'know, come to think of it — her focus on TV might make her better at dealing with franchise filmmaking than most critics. The MCU's serialized nature and homogenized visual style makes it a lot like television. It even has "seasons," but Marvel calls them phases. The Avengers movies are season finales. So maybe Ms. Kang just has to recognize that these franchises dominating the cinemas just aren't her cup of tea. Maybe she doesn't like watching CGI space-raccoons or seeing folks fly around in capes. And that's okay.
Free free to sit this one out. You'll be fine.
So this isn't an attack on Inkoo Kang. And don't go getting the idea that you have to punish or harass anyone for their sentiments on movies. I just so happen to disagree with this particular view. At the same time, I get it. I don't want to have to watch seven Fast and/or Furious movies just to have an opinion on the eighth. I'd love to be able to enjoy these movies as much as the rest of the world seems to, but I can't find the energy to pull the trigger on them. The studio hasn't shut me out — I'm choosing to sit out here. But if I were a professional critic who had to review The Fate of the Furious, you bet your sweet bippy I would've done the research to write about the latest adventures of Muscles McDriveFast. Would I have enjoyed it? Probably not, but I'm not the Muscles McDriveFast type.
And I'm not gonna pout about it, because franchise cinema isn't nearly as exclusionary as it might seem. It's not even as exclusionary as most serialized TV. The opening shot of War for the Planet of the Apes features expository title cards that not only tell you what happened in the last two films but also use the words "rise" and "dawn" to remind you of the titles. That's admittedly generous — even more generous that the Star Wars title crawl. But Marvel movies and other serialized franchise don't follow that model. If you want the full experience, they expect you to keep up.
So I can see why Inkoo Kang and other critics may feel that studios are building an ever-higher wall that keeps the disinterested out of their franchises. But by and large, these movies are made so that the average viewer can walk in, grab their Raisinets, recline their chair, and enjoy two hours of brain candy in the air-conditioned dark. You shouldn't have to know anything about Thanos or the Infinity Stones to enjoy Spider-Man: Homecoming. Luckily, you don't have to.
