There's a dynamic that I'm sure you're aware of but you didn't quite capture in this essay. As Americans we used to have outgroups like the Soviet Union and the Germans. However, as we developed the largest economy and most powerful military in the history of the world, there was no other country or outside entity that made a compelling villain. Emerging to fill the void was the opposing political tribe. Democrats and Republicans are each other's outgroup.
However, there are a few things keeping us in line. First, the two groups are intertwined in the US economy so there's a practical necessity to tolerate each other. Second, many of us have family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, etc who are on the other side, and we might resent them but also probably wouldn't be willing to mow them down in the most brutal and violent way possible. Third, the two sides are fairly even in terms of political power so neither side has much of an opportunity to take down the other side.
Nonetheless, we do tell stories about how the other side is evil, our side is virtuous, and we need to run a scorched earth campaign and utterly destroy those fuckers. I could give plenty of examples but that might get into dangerous territory. I'm sure anyone reading this could at least think of ways their opponents do this.
I enjoy your perspective. You’re right about a lot, too much, actually, and that makes me a bit uncomfy. This is America, the land of rugged individualism. The biggest existential threat to our country isn’t the Mountain People or Orcs or some alien invasion (though wouldn’t it be nice if it were? We could finally bust out those $700 billion a year we spend on the military). No, our true “villain” is much closer…the guy down the street with the opposing yard sign, your cousin who won’t shut up about ivermectin at Thanksgiving dinner… We don’t need an “Other” to hate when we’ve got each other. Every holiday meal in this country is basically Civil War II, only instead of Avengers trading blows, it’s your uncle versus your niece arguing over who ruined the economy. And instead of vibranium shields, we’re armed with bad faith tweets and Facebook memes. But maybe that’s the story our culture is struggling to tell. If you squint through the CGI carnage of D&W, what you’re left with is a group of messy, broken people, squabbling over who gets to define the meaning of their existence. Sound familiar? America doesn’t lack a cause, we just can’t agree on which cause to believe in. Climate change should unite us all, but instead we’re over here splitting into factions like we’re on Survivor (or the Apprentice…). So, D&W, yes, it’s mind numbing and ridiculous, but there’s something reassuring in the way it shrugs at the chaos and keeps going. The nostalgic Green Day montage? It’s not an elegant cultural statement it’s an admission that this is all absurd. And sometimes, when you’re staring down the barrel of existential dread, absurdity is the only reasonable response. So yeah, I laughed at the dick jokes. I let my brain switch off for two hours and enjoyed watching Hugh Jackman beat the living hell out of an army of Deadpools (honestly I was in it for the Wolverine bod *drool). And maybe, just maybe, that’s what we need right now…a little gallows humor while we all sit around the campfire of our crumbling culture, roasting marshmallows over the ashes of the very franchises that brought us here. Fuck it. PS Love your work.
I came out of Deadpool & Wolverine feeling vaguely uncomfortable - thanks for helping me understand why.
This also put a finger on another plot point of the movie that made me unconsciously squirm: that Wade's initial motivation to be a part of something that "matters" and contribute to society is actually a naive weakness to be exploited by a corrupt authority figure. What actually matters is his small social circle and continued ability to consume/reference pop culture. As you point out, the emotional payoff of the heores' willingness to sacrifice themselves must be undermined both during the scene via ridiculous framing of High Jackman's roided-out physique/choral rendition of a pop song and immediately afterwards with a joke. Because sincerity is cringe.
As an older millennial, I'm find myself generally distressed by the gleeful nihilism in pop culture and currentlu dominant political beliefs, as well as younger people's widespread insistence that work is inherently exploitative and unworthy of their full attention and commitment.
I guess that's how I know I'm getting older, since I'm complaining about Kids These Days.
I'm not sure that much of anything you say here about Deadpool v. Wolverine couldn't also be said about Don Quixote. Both are very meta, both take a comedic approach to violence, and both require a fairly intimate knowledge of their genres (in Quixote's case, the romance) to get the in-jokes. A comparison to Quixote is instructive in that the book similarly undercuts stories about "heroism told around the campfire to motivate young people to go out and be heroes themselves." Also Quixote was written in 1605, so if your thesis is that the nature of D&W indicates a "chilling symbol of society's decline," then society has been chillingly declining for 400 years. Not sure of your intent, but that and your citation of a Jim Geraghty tweet suggests to me that you're making a conservative, William Bennett-ish argument here.
Ooooh I love this, because Don Quixote DOES talk about IP management in the second part; addresses it DIRECTLY. So Don Quixote is relaased and becomes a huge hit. And suddenly unauthorized sequels appear (fanfic!) written by ransoms, but a guy name Pedro de Avellaneda stands out. Miguel de Cervantes, the original author, is furious and writes the second part. Early on there is a speech by Don Quixote the character angrily ranting about those shitty fanfics and how this is his REAL sequel. So, IP management! The meta has been with humanity way longer than you give it credit for
I suppose my point was that the whole story is not an abstraction of IP management issue in itself like D&W, but I guess that's irrelevant now.
At the end of the day I guess I am a bit tired of the constant winks and nudges, corporation backed media throws at me, trying to engratiate with the viewer.
But that's neither here nor there and hardly relevant to the convo, I was proven wrong and the only thing I can sort of hold on to is that Cervantes was just a guy and not like...Disney.
I mean no offense, but I'm new to Substack and I'm starting to realize lots of people here need to chill out and touch grass. You don't need to feel existential angst over Disney movies ending civilization or things beyond your control. You should get a dog and go to the dog park every day, meet new people and play with puppies for at least one hour a day. You'll feel better.
Also, the Madonna choral versions on D&W slaps hard.
As usual, this made me think and I almost agree with the premise except...Deadpool is 100% a comedy. This flick is closer to Monty Python or Airplane esthetically, and those films are not diminished by having questionable villians. Absurdist comedies generally have ridiculous or banal villians on purpose.
Unlike Wick, Braveheart, or even most Avengers movies - which aim for emotional gravitas via some moral high ground - D&W never for one second expects you to take it seriously, and so doesn't really suffer from its vapid premise any more than Naked Gun or any Mel Brooks film does. It's just trying to make you laugh.
Looking at the villains in the James Bond franchise backs up your thesis. Early films have traditional villains (Russia etc) but it becomes more nebulous over time with country of villainy either not specified or villains being terrorists without affiliation, acting for financial gain.
I only recently discovered your writing so i haven't enjoyed any of your books. I also don't know the culture of your comments section... So forgive me if i make an ass out of myself.
I think the very idea that a culture "Needs" a uniting enemy is very archaic. Western society is facing "What is the meaning of life?" Head on with limited access to scaffolding like religion, a collective enemy etc.
There are four corners of the psychological "Dark forest" : 1. Death, 2. Life has no objective meaning. 3. We are responsible for our own lives. 4. We are ultimately alone in our skulls.
According to long time counselors, these four realities are the core of most trips to therapist's offices. I can see these four issues hit me at various times and i can see them in people acting out and suffering.
Their is no way to "Solve" these four corners of the dark forest. All we can do is get familiar with them. Whats really next level is when you make your home in the dark forest. Instead of running from these thoughts or denying they exist they become our place of strength. You feel your terror subside and your need for soothing or vice declines. Eventually you come to see the strange liberating beauty in the dark forest. Its your true home... Where no one can evict you.
This is how to be okay. This is what good story should be imparting. An external enemy is a distraction. Getting more people to get comfortable in their dark forest is our true challenge.
Thanks for writing. I appreciate all of your tik toks.
No, not exactly. Its based on the book “Loves exicutioner” which has the four ideas… the author is a therapist who discovered the pattern through years of helping people. i just thought they mapped well to the storytelling idea of the dark forest. The dark forest comes from Arthurian Legend where the knights of the round table were on a quest for the grail and came to the mythical dark forest. They decided the Knightley thing to do would be to each enter the forest where it seemed “Darkest” to the individual Knight. So they each had to be brave to face their personal darkest fear. This became a writing technique to put your character into their own personal unique hell before they learn their lesson. I have a love of screenwriting and therapy. The four corners of the dark forest is a framework that helps me understand my vices, my fears and my triumphs. I use this idea to find meaningful things to write about. Do you have any questions? I love sharing this idea.
Yeah, I don't agree. Maybe on a meta-level, but I sincerely doubt this was the message people tried to convey when writing these scripts and filming these films. They want to pay their mortgages, and thus write stuff that sells.
But the point is that this is the kind of thing you have to tap into in order to pay your mortgage; you have to write a movie that’s in touch with the millions of people who go to see it. And that means your movie has to reflect cultural beliefs about the world, including ones you might just have yourself.
It doesn’t have to be a case of trying to explain these beliefs, or to challenge them. It doesn’t even have to be conscious; usually creating anything successful is a brutally Darwinian process. It’s just saying a successful thing will reflect something about a society in a similar way to a candle guiding moths towards it: the success is hacking into something, whether it intends to influence or not.
This is kind of what people mean when they say all art is political. I’m sure this movie didn’t set out to advance any particular policy in the real world. But it did set out to be successful, which means it must reflect something about the worldview of its audience. And that will mean it says something about the audience, just incidentally
Not a disagreement, just an extension of your points about tribalism as operating system.
"Reason, we are told, is what makes us human, the source of our knowledge and wisdom. If reason is so useful, why didn’t it also evolve in other animals? If reason is that reliable, why do we produce so much thoroughly reasoned nonsense? In their groundbreaking account of the evolution and workings of reason, Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber set out to solve this double enigma. Reason, they argue with a compelling mix of real-life and experimental evidence, is not geared to solitary use, to arriving at better beliefs and decisions on our own. What reason does, rather, is help us justify our beliefs and actions to others, convince them through argumentation, and evaluate the justifications and arguments that others address to us.
In other words, reason helps humans better exploit their uniquely rich social environment. This interactionist interpretation explains why reason may have evolved and how it fits with other cognitive mechanisms. It makes sense of strengths and weaknesses that have long puzzled philosophers and psychologists―why reason is biased in favor of what we already believe, why it may lead to terrible ideas and yet is indispensable to spreading good ones."
oh man. This article reminds me of Cracked, when it lost its mojo and was just an endless repetition of TR was a badass jokes. At least when you were calling yourself David Wong, you fooled people into thinking that you were Asian.
I think it's a bit much to pin all of that on one movie. There are plenty of movies out there that came out this year that killed which had strong themes about family and hope and love. D&W knew what it was doing to appeal to its fan base. And it did it. I loved it. The violence was cartoonish.
The popular genres of any given era will always reflect the cultural fears of the time. During the Red Scare was when narratives of bodysnatchers emerged. During the era when superhero movies were mostly flops, zombie movies were the dominant narrative while the media talked endlessly of illegal immigration and the threat of religious takeover.
For awhile now I’ve wondered what the cultural thread is behind superhero movies. The easiest and most likely explanation would tickle Alan Moore’s sensibilities: that Americans had given up on the system and were willing to hand power over to one person powerful enough to actually save the day. In short, a predilection towards fascism.
As that became closer and closer to our lived reality the hero-worship of Marvel etc started to shift into what you describe now. It is certainly about trying to find a uniting narrative and grasping in an odd place to find it; that at least explains why the content creators are going that way. But why is it working? What cultural fear is it reflecting that the focus on consumption-as-heroism is actually resonating with audiences?
There's a dynamic that I'm sure you're aware of but you didn't quite capture in this essay. As Americans we used to have outgroups like the Soviet Union and the Germans. However, as we developed the largest economy and most powerful military in the history of the world, there was no other country or outside entity that made a compelling villain. Emerging to fill the void was the opposing political tribe. Democrats and Republicans are each other's outgroup.
However, there are a few things keeping us in line. First, the two groups are intertwined in the US economy so there's a practical necessity to tolerate each other. Second, many of us have family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, etc who are on the other side, and we might resent them but also probably wouldn't be willing to mow them down in the most brutal and violent way possible. Third, the two sides are fairly even in terms of political power so neither side has much of an opportunity to take down the other side.
Nonetheless, we do tell stories about how the other side is evil, our side is virtuous, and we need to run a scorched earth campaign and utterly destroy those fuckers. I could give plenty of examples but that might get into dangerous territory. I'm sure anyone reading this could at least think of ways their opponents do this.
I enjoy your perspective. You’re right about a lot, too much, actually, and that makes me a bit uncomfy. This is America, the land of rugged individualism. The biggest existential threat to our country isn’t the Mountain People or Orcs or some alien invasion (though wouldn’t it be nice if it were? We could finally bust out those $700 billion a year we spend on the military). No, our true “villain” is much closer…the guy down the street with the opposing yard sign, your cousin who won’t shut up about ivermectin at Thanksgiving dinner… We don’t need an “Other” to hate when we’ve got each other. Every holiday meal in this country is basically Civil War II, only instead of Avengers trading blows, it’s your uncle versus your niece arguing over who ruined the economy. And instead of vibranium shields, we’re armed with bad faith tweets and Facebook memes. But maybe that’s the story our culture is struggling to tell. If you squint through the CGI carnage of D&W, what you’re left with is a group of messy, broken people, squabbling over who gets to define the meaning of their existence. Sound familiar? America doesn’t lack a cause, we just can’t agree on which cause to believe in. Climate change should unite us all, but instead we’re over here splitting into factions like we’re on Survivor (or the Apprentice…). So, D&W, yes, it’s mind numbing and ridiculous, but there’s something reassuring in the way it shrugs at the chaos and keeps going. The nostalgic Green Day montage? It’s not an elegant cultural statement it’s an admission that this is all absurd. And sometimes, when you’re staring down the barrel of existential dread, absurdity is the only reasonable response. So yeah, I laughed at the dick jokes. I let my brain switch off for two hours and enjoyed watching Hugh Jackman beat the living hell out of an army of Deadpools (honestly I was in it for the Wolverine bod *drool). And maybe, just maybe, that’s what we need right now…a little gallows humor while we all sit around the campfire of our crumbling culture, roasting marshmallows over the ashes of the very franchises that brought us here. Fuck it. PS Love your work.
I came out of Deadpool & Wolverine feeling vaguely uncomfortable - thanks for helping me understand why.
This also put a finger on another plot point of the movie that made me unconsciously squirm: that Wade's initial motivation to be a part of something that "matters" and contribute to society is actually a naive weakness to be exploited by a corrupt authority figure. What actually matters is his small social circle and continued ability to consume/reference pop culture. As you point out, the emotional payoff of the heores' willingness to sacrifice themselves must be undermined both during the scene via ridiculous framing of High Jackman's roided-out physique/choral rendition of a pop song and immediately afterwards with a joke. Because sincerity is cringe.
As an older millennial, I'm find myself generally distressed by the gleeful nihilism in pop culture and currentlu dominant political beliefs, as well as younger people's widespread insistence that work is inherently exploitative and unworthy of their full attention and commitment.
I guess that's how I know I'm getting older, since I'm complaining about Kids These Days.
I'm not sure that much of anything you say here about Deadpool v. Wolverine couldn't also be said about Don Quixote. Both are very meta, both take a comedic approach to violence, and both require a fairly intimate knowledge of their genres (in Quixote's case, the romance) to get the in-jokes. A comparison to Quixote is instructive in that the book similarly undercuts stories about "heroism told around the campfire to motivate young people to go out and be heroes themselves." Also Quixote was written in 1605, so if your thesis is that the nature of D&W indicates a "chilling symbol of society's decline," then society has been chillingly declining for 400 years. Not sure of your intent, but that and your citation of a Jim Geraghty tweet suggests to me that you're making a conservative, William Bennett-ish argument here.
They are not meta in the same way. One is fiction about fiction, and the other one is fiction about IP management.
Ooooh I love this, because Don Quixote DOES talk about IP management in the second part; addresses it DIRECTLY. So Don Quixote is relaased and becomes a huge hit. And suddenly unauthorized sequels appear (fanfic!) written by ransoms, but a guy name Pedro de Avellaneda stands out. Miguel de Cervantes, the original author, is furious and writes the second part. Early on there is a speech by Don Quixote the character angrily ranting about those shitty fanfics and how this is his REAL sequel. So, IP management! The meta has been with humanity way longer than you give it credit for
I should just walk into the ocean.
I suppose my point was that the whole story is not an abstraction of IP management issue in itself like D&W, but I guess that's irrelevant now.
At the end of the day I guess I am a bit tired of the constant winks and nudges, corporation backed media throws at me, trying to engratiate with the viewer.
But that's neither here nor there and hardly relevant to the convo, I was proven wrong and the only thing I can sort of hold on to is that Cervantes was just a guy and not like...Disney.
I mean no offense, but I'm new to Substack and I'm starting to realize lots of people here need to chill out and touch grass. You don't need to feel existential angst over Disney movies ending civilization or things beyond your control. You should get a dog and go to the dog park every day, meet new people and play with puppies for at least one hour a day. You'll feel better.
Also, the Madonna choral versions on D&W slaps hard.
Yes, society has been declining for 400 years
Big fan since Cracked Days!
As usual, this made me think and I almost agree with the premise except...Deadpool is 100% a comedy. This flick is closer to Monty Python or Airplane esthetically, and those films are not diminished by having questionable villians. Absurdist comedies generally have ridiculous or banal villians on purpose.
Unlike Wick, Braveheart, or even most Avengers movies - which aim for emotional gravitas via some moral high ground - D&W never for one second expects you to take it seriously, and so doesn't really suffer from its vapid premise any more than Naked Gun or any Mel Brooks film does. It's just trying to make you laugh.
4 reminds me of that quote, "Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a god, but never without a belief in a devil."
Looking at the villains in the James Bond franchise backs up your thesis. Early films have traditional villains (Russia etc) but it becomes more nebulous over time with country of villainy either not specified or villains being terrorists without affiliation, acting for financial gain.
Agree that our meta culture is infighting with no clearly identifiable threat. Maybe in twenty years?
Disagree that D&W is 4.5 out of 100. It was hilarious and knew what it was and played it’s own meta critique of superhero movies well.
I absolutely love your work. All of it.
I only recently discovered your writing so i haven't enjoyed any of your books. I also don't know the culture of your comments section... So forgive me if i make an ass out of myself.
I think the very idea that a culture "Needs" a uniting enemy is very archaic. Western society is facing "What is the meaning of life?" Head on with limited access to scaffolding like religion, a collective enemy etc.
There are four corners of the psychological "Dark forest" : 1. Death, 2. Life has no objective meaning. 3. We are responsible for our own lives. 4. We are ultimately alone in our skulls.
According to long time counselors, these four realities are the core of most trips to therapist's offices. I can see these four issues hit me at various times and i can see them in people acting out and suffering.
Their is no way to "Solve" these four corners of the dark forest. All we can do is get familiar with them. Whats really next level is when you make your home in the dark forest. Instead of running from these thoughts or denying they exist they become our place of strength. You feel your terror subside and your need for soothing or vice declines. Eventually you come to see the strange liberating beauty in the dark forest. Its your true home... Where no one can evict you.
This is how to be okay. This is what good story should be imparting. An external enemy is a distraction. Getting more people to get comfortable in their dark forest is our true challenge.
Thanks for writing. I appreciate all of your tik toks.
Hey, that's pretty neat. Did you come up with that yourself..? (Googling "Dark Forest" turns up unrelated subject matter.)
No, not exactly. Its based on the book “Loves exicutioner” which has the four ideas… the author is a therapist who discovered the pattern through years of helping people. i just thought they mapped well to the storytelling idea of the dark forest. The dark forest comes from Arthurian Legend where the knights of the round table were on a quest for the grail and came to the mythical dark forest. They decided the Knightley thing to do would be to each enter the forest where it seemed “Darkest” to the individual Knight. So they each had to be brave to face their personal darkest fear. This became a writing technique to put your character into their own personal unique hell before they learn their lesson. I have a love of screenwriting and therapy. The four corners of the dark forest is a framework that helps me understand my vices, my fears and my triumphs. I use this idea to find meaningful things to write about. Do you have any questions? I love sharing this idea.
Yeah, I don't agree. Maybe on a meta-level, but I sincerely doubt this was the message people tried to convey when writing these scripts and filming these films. They want to pay their mortgages, and thus write stuff that sells.
Everything really doesn't need to be navelgazed.
But the point is that this is the kind of thing you have to tap into in order to pay your mortgage; you have to write a movie that’s in touch with the millions of people who go to see it. And that means your movie has to reflect cultural beliefs about the world, including ones you might just have yourself.
It doesn’t have to be a case of trying to explain these beliefs, or to challenge them. It doesn’t even have to be conscious; usually creating anything successful is a brutally Darwinian process. It’s just saying a successful thing will reflect something about a society in a similar way to a candle guiding moths towards it: the success is hacking into something, whether it intends to influence or not.
This is kind of what people mean when they say all art is political. I’m sure this movie didn’t set out to advance any particular policy in the real world. But it did set out to be successful, which means it must reflect something about the worldview of its audience. And that will mean it says something about the audience, just incidentally
Not a disagreement, just an extension of your points about tribalism as operating system.
"Reason, we are told, is what makes us human, the source of our knowledge and wisdom. If reason is so useful, why didn’t it also evolve in other animals? If reason is that reliable, why do we produce so much thoroughly reasoned nonsense? In their groundbreaking account of the evolution and workings of reason, Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber set out to solve this double enigma. Reason, they argue with a compelling mix of real-life and experimental evidence, is not geared to solitary use, to arriving at better beliefs and decisions on our own. What reason does, rather, is help us justify our beliefs and actions to others, convince them through argumentation, and evaluate the justifications and arguments that others address to us.
In other words, reason helps humans better exploit their uniquely rich social environment. This interactionist interpretation explains why reason may have evolved and how it fits with other cognitive mechanisms. It makes sense of strengths and weaknesses that have long puzzled philosophers and psychologists―why reason is biased in favor of what we already believe, why it may lead to terrible ideas and yet is indispensable to spreading good ones."
https://sites.google.com/site/hugomercier/theargumentativetheoryofreasoning
I was exciting about DP1. I was a bit bored by DP2. I will never see DP&W while I have strength left in my body.
oh man. This article reminds me of Cracked, when it lost its mojo and was just an endless repetition of TR was a badass jokes. At least when you were calling yourself David Wong, you fooled people into thinking that you were Asian.
https://www.amazon.com/Sugarplum-Zombie-Motherfuckers-Tim-Lieder-ebook/dp/B01LZWTZ5E
I think it's a bit much to pin all of that on one movie. There are plenty of movies out there that came out this year that killed which had strong themes about family and hope and love. D&W knew what it was doing to appeal to its fan base. And it did it. I loved it. The violence was cartoonish.
The popular genres of any given era will always reflect the cultural fears of the time. During the Red Scare was when narratives of bodysnatchers emerged. During the era when superhero movies were mostly flops, zombie movies were the dominant narrative while the media talked endlessly of illegal immigration and the threat of religious takeover.
For awhile now I’ve wondered what the cultural thread is behind superhero movies. The easiest and most likely explanation would tickle Alan Moore’s sensibilities: that Americans had given up on the system and were willing to hand power over to one person powerful enough to actually save the day. In short, a predilection towards fascism.
As that became closer and closer to our lived reality the hero-worship of Marvel etc started to shift into what you describe now. It is certainly about trying to find a uniting narrative and grasping in an odd place to find it; that at least explains why the content creators are going that way. But why is it working? What cultural fear is it reflecting that the focus on consumption-as-heroism is actually resonating with audiences?