Ridiculous Opinions #288
Why are people afraid of new things?
That’s a legitimate question that I ask. And I don’t ask this question from a sense of, “Hey, I try new things all the time! Why are you such a chicken?” No, you see that I’m just as scared of new things as anyone else.
Is it because we’re conditioned to fear new things? I’m not sure. I bring this up because I was looking at new comics that were released in the last few months from DC Comics. Don’t ask me why. Still, as I was looking through the new releases, I saw a blend of comics that was somewhat shocking to me as someone who doesn’t read comics anymore. Superman, Action Comics, Absolute Superman, All-Star Superman, Supergirl, Batman, Detective Comics, Batman & Robin, Absolute Batman, etc. There were a few extras added in, like Zatanna, Metamorpho, Green Lantern, several Wonder Womans, but the truth of the matter is that nothing has changed. You get the picture. These are all variations on a theme. When I looked at the list of comics that were published by DC Comics, I saw nothing that was much different than when I was reading comics back in the late-80s.
But it was different than the late-80s, because there were more comics to choose from back then. Comic companies were, believe it or not, more experimental back then. There were odd titles that were trying new things with old characters. There was an attempt to find something new in the midst of all of this old. I began to think, How did it all come to this? Why is this comic company which is almost 100-years old still publishing the same old stuff?
Look, I’m all for Superman. He’s cool. I look forward to seeing the movie this summer (kind of…we’ll get into that a bit later), but when you think about it, what new stories can be told with Superman? There are over 1000 issues of Action Comics. 1000 issues!! Isn’t it time to move on?
And are movies any different? Mission: Impossible 8. Final Destination 5. Ballerina (the 5th John Wick movie). Thunderbolts. Fantastic Four. 28 Years Later. It seems like every movie coming out this summer is just another sequel or spin-off. Why? Why are we so afraid of new things?
Part of it is corporate greed, and who can blame them? If they made a ton of money off of one particular film, why wouldn’t they try to strike gold again by making another version of it? Corporations are not in this for our enjoyment. They’re in it to make money and they will bleed us dry until they achieve everything they want by running a franchise into the ground, and then they’ll try to reboot the thing so that they can start over with a whole new generation of people they can bleed dry, cashing in on nostalgia and a new audience. I can’t wait for when they “reboot” Iron Man with Timothee Chalamet as Tony Stark (barf).
That’s what they’ve done with Superman. When I saw Superman in 1978, the tagline was, You will believe a man can fly. And I believed it. Oh, did I ever believe it! I was six-years old and I ate that movie up! When Superman II came out, I loved that as well because it was a better movie! Superman III with Richard Pryor? Not so good. Superman IV: The Quest for Peace? I don’t think I’ve seen that since it was on HBO in the 80s.
But those corporations wanted to capitalize on my nostalgia. Superman Returns was a whole film built around nostalgia, because it was a quasi-sequel to the original films. It was bad. But I paid money to see it because I wanted those feelings again. Man of Steel tried to capitalize on that nostalgia as well by making a grim and gritty Superman. No thanks. It was awful and went fully against the ideals of what Superman represented (as did all of the other Justice League and Superman sequels…terrible).
Now we have another Superman movie coming out in a month. And like a chump, I will see it. The question is: Is Superman even relevant today? I’m not sure.
But that leads to the second part of my theory and why we are afraid of the “new”. This is about our nostalgia for the feelings we once had when we first experienced some of these things. When I saw Superman long ago, I had never seen anyone flying on screen like that. It fired up my imagination and made me think in different ways. Brian Eno is his book, What Art Does, talks about how art creates feelings in people. That art allows us to tap into emotions that we might have never known we had before.
When I see a movie that makes me think in a different way, it produces a little bit of a chemical reaction in my brain that makes me feel good. And the reason I keep going back to that art is because I want to feel that again. But like any drug, it has diminishing returns.
We as human beings want to feel these things. We want to bridge that gap between the humdrum of our daily lives and the possibility that exists is the world. Movies, music, art, dance…all of these things make us feel things and those feelings are good. So, it’s understandable that we would want to experience something that made us feel good over and over. It’s why I keep going back to Five Guys so often.
But there is a limit to what we can recreate. I say that we should think more about experiencing new things. We can’t live in a nostalgia for things that happened in the past. I will never again get the buzz of anticipation waiting for the next Avengers movie. So, why do I keep going back to the theater to try to feel that again? I will never feel the shock of learning Darth Vader is Luke’s father again, so why do we need to see any more Star Wars films? You get the picture.
So, my challenge to you is to go out this week and experience something new. I have already been doing this as I have been listening to music that is not already in my library. I know this is shocking, but I’m trying out some new things. It’s little steps that make the difference and account for changes in our overall being. I may listen to this music and not like it, but at least I tried something new.
You should try something new this week, too.
