In Defense of the Marvel Cinematic Universe

A few weeks ago, a friend and I were watching Jerry Maguire and had to stop halfway because it was so unbearably bad. I have no idea how a movie like that manages to gross 270 million on a 50 million budget and to stick around “top movie” lists today. We stopped around the halfway point, but it was too early for him to go home, and the only conversation topics left were too serious, so we decided to play a game.

The game is played as follows: on the count of three, we simultaneously named a prolific Hollywood actor or actress. The goal was then to be the first person to get from one star to the other by listing co-stars, and co-stars of co-stars. For example, to get from Tom Cruise to Matt Damon, an acceptable answer would be Tom Cruise->Magnolia->John C. Reilly->Boogie Nights->Philip Seymour Hoffman->The Talented Mr. Ripley->Matt Damon. This game was a lot harder than it looked, and a cute little visualization tool can be found here.

After four or five games however, the optimal strategy became very clear. The fastest way was simply to connect each character to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as quickly as possible, a massive web of interconnected stars. All this is a roundabout way of saying that the Marvel franchise as a whole is perhaps the most influential and defining film collection of the 21st century so far.

A little over two years ago, Martin Scorsese gave an interview to IndieWire claiming that Marvel movies weren’t cinema, and then explained his thoughts further in an NYT op-ed, or as they are now known, Guest Essay. His thoughts on Marvel can be distilled down to the following: Marvel movies are the product of the Hollywood machine, delivering not on “revelation”, but the expectation of consistent formulae. For Scorsese, this is an issue because they are not only displacing “art” from movie theatres, but also changing people’s tastes, pushing them more towards more of this manufactured plastic.

I bring up Scorsese’s op-ed because it’s well-known, and captures many popular criticisms about the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), which I think are worth addressing. The first is that the MCU isn’t cinema, that it isn’t art, that because it’s a collaborative effort of many people within a large industry, it is somehow lesser than an independent production. The notion that collaborative efforts are less creative is absolutely absurd, and that for something with the scale of the MCU to be created, it certainly needs to be a team effort. The age of French auteurs is past; every director has their favourite actor, cinematographer, composer, and editor. The MCU has had many hits and misses, but is still inherently a creative piece of work, not a widget rolling off the assembly line.

This is not to disqualify Marvel Studios, and by extension, Disney, from criticism. That they are unwilling to take financial risks, and instead chose to create and market a select number of big box office winners every year is undoubtedly detrimental to the diversity of cinema. Their unchecked market power only furthers their influence in what is made and what is distributed to audiences. However, despite this model, despite people being “given only one kind of thing and endlessly sold only one kind of thing”, cinema, as Scorsese defines it, has been thriving.

The Hollywood studio system has existed for as long as Hollywood has, and continues to be challenged by independent artists. People still watch movies from strange places, and these films can very quickly attain a large cult following. Wikipedia goes so far as to believe that the studio system is in it’s “second decline”. The masses are not stupid. Just as a fruit can be refreshing after a greasy meal, people are quick to appreciate and recognize variance in film fare. Just as the Austin Powers franchise satirised the James Bond movies, The Boys and Invincible are turning modern superhero movie tropes on their head. A24 has become a household word. People watch refreshing and different movies.

However, the result of the studio system, the concentration of money and talent, is a litany of polished film anthologies with stories that transcend cultures and span generations. Out of the 50 highest grossing movies of the 2010s, only at number 28 do we get Joker, the first film that isn’t a remake or set within an existing franchise. Given sheer number of people watching these movies, what the studio system creates is not merely entertainment, but a cultural phenomenon.

Not everyone likes the MCU, and many people haven’t seen many MCU movies. But an overwhelming number of people in the developed world have, and a majority of people have at least heard of it. More than anything else, it is a unifying story of our times. Whether it will endure is another question altogether, but it certainly has more staying power than any of the Best Picture winners of the last decade. Sure, it promotes American exceptionalism and neo-imperialism, yet its reach defines it as much part of the current Western mythos as any work of art.

At the risk of ridicule, I think that the MCU is almost comparable to the epic Greek poems: legions of Greek heroes, demi-gods, and gods with varying abilities and strengths battling it out. They have their own likes and dislikes as well as stories and backstories from separate poems. In the Iliad, they all come together in one crossover series and wage epic war. I first had this thought when I read the Iliad with a friend a few years ago. It felt strange to us, because it started in the middle of the war, didn’t provide background for the characters, and really just consisted of a few messy fights without any sort of resolution. We knew a lot of the names, and the general backstory as well as the ending, but the Iliad had very little of that, and no Brad Pitt or Orlando Bloom.

But that’s precisely how any of the Avengers movies would seem to someone who was unfamiliar with the MCU. Even someone vaguely familiar with hero abilities and has watched one or two select Marvel movies would be a bit lost when watching Avengers: Infinity War for example: a movie with no character introductions, starts with multiple unfinished plotlines, and ends with the villain seemingly winning and another new character introduction. Yet if there is one defining piece of the MCU, if it was to be studied a few millennia down the road, would it not be the Avengers movies? Ensemble cross-overs featuring the biggest budgets of any of the MCU, though limited screentime for any one singular actor.

The MCU is just that, a cinematic universe. It should be viewed as a whole, viewed as the colossus that it is, spanning numerous storylines with shared characters and leaving its mark on the cultural landscape. Moreover, the individual components of this universe aren’t bad. Truly. There is a formula, to be fair, and some movies are a miss, but the best ones do that formula exceedingly well.

All elements of the formula are present in the 2008 Iron Man, the movie that started it all. The excellent casting of Robert Downey Jr. after his stint in rehab as a convalescent billionaire playboy. Tony Stark’s emotional depth and nuance. His deadpan humour that is now the pervasive hallmark of the entire MCU. The self-awareness through the seeming criticism of US imperialism. The attention to detail and creativity of the visuals and effects which completely suspend audience disbelief.

There is also notable diversity in styles from film to film. Guardians of the Galaxy has a different tone from the Avengers movies and both have a different tone from the Spider-Man movies. Thor 1, 2, and 3 all have very unique moods. Yet, all of these movies maintain the previously mentioned qualities that make the movies very Marvel.

Then to say that Marvel isn’t cinema or isn’t art because it fails to surprise, or that it is collaborative is plainly erroneous. The MCU has taken the franchise movie and refined it to the point where it is the most successful franchise despite being thirty years younger than Star Wars, the next highest grossing universe. Why bemoan the impact of the MCU when Transformers and Fast and Furious do similar things but not as successfully? Why complain about the existence of franchise movies as a whole when derivative Oscar-bait like The Green Book and Jerry Macguire exist?

So watch what you want, just like everyone should read what they want. Don’t listen to the words of decrepit old white men, even though they have seats on the hallowed Olympus of film. The future is now, and it is the MCU. Or at least a part of it is.