Friday, April 11, 2014

Super Hero Movies

During my usual week check on Rotten Tomatoes, I noticed that the new Captain America movie scraped in 95 million dollars at the box office. It really made me think, why the hell are these super hero movies grossing so much money? What makes them so appealing these days. Well for one thing Super Hero movies are a form of escapism. We love rooting for the underdog, and in every super hero movie the underdog quality is always there. One interesting fact I noticed that the last time super heroes were so big was during their debut in the 1930's. The 1930's was the time of the Great Depression, comics like Superman, Batman, Captain America, and Wonder Women were all made to help people escape via reading during tough times. I find it so fascinating that these films have becomes so popular during tough economic times. "In the 1930s, the American Dream had become a nightmare, and I think comic books and superheroes in particular provided an escapist form of entertainment that allowed the American public to go into a fantasy world where all the ills of the world were righted by these larger-than-life heroes," says Erin Clancy, a curator at the Skirball. Despite weather you like these films are not, they definitely give us a lot of hope during tough times. 

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