Eric July Perfectly Explains The Problem With Hollywood’s Current Superhero Movies
YouTuber YoungRippa59 aka Eric July recently explained the problem with Hollywood’s current superhero movies with emphasis on Spider-Man and Birds of Prey.
July explained the problem in a recent video uploaded to YouTube titled “Comic book film and TV are vanity projects for weirdos and activists.”
In the video, July points to comments made by Black Widow writer and WandaVision showrunner Jac Schaeffer as well as the recent depictions of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s version of Spider-Man and Margot Robbie’s Birds of Prey film.
Towards the end of the video, July perfectly explained the problem with the superhero film genre. He stated, “These are instances where it’s just popular right now and people, directors, actors, actresses, film writers, screen writers, they just want in on the action.”
He adds, “They are going to tell their story and in any event that the source material gets in the way, whether that be just a story they want to tell or activism, they will then rewrite characters to where they are nothing like themselves if that means advancing whatever narrative they want to tell.”
Earlier in the video, he would put to Peter Parker’s depiction in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He explained, “Peter Parker in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is by far of the three we’ve seen in recent years, he’s the worst one and it’s not even close.”
He elaborated, “Tom Holland, Spider-Man who is like way down here, right? Because he’s not anything close to Peter Parker. Not in just how he acts, but more so with how he interacts with the other characters. He’s looking up to f***ing Iron Man.”
“But wait a minute. When you consider that going forward, these are just vanity projects for these guys, they are going to change whatever it is they want to change. They don’t care,” he continued.
July then added, “Like Marvel says, ‘Hey man we got these characters, here’s a sheet, here’s their powers, and here’s like a little sentence with their relationship in terms of how they interact with the other characters.”
Then referring to the directors and screen writers July stated, “It’s like they look at that and they say, ‘Okay, yea we’ll pull in that character, I’m going to change this, this, and this because I want to show the world it is what I can do. I want to show the world what it is…”
July would then point to Birds of Prey, “Birds of Prey is a prime example of it. It’s probably a better example of it other than anything else.”
“You have characters that don’t act nothing like themselves. That ain’t the Birds of Prey. There aren’t even no Oracle. That ain’t the Birds of Prey. Black Canary, aside from her being tokenized, that’s not even the worst of it. What they did to Cassandra Cain was criminal,” he continued.
He would go on to say, “They took that characters that existed in the books, shoehorned Harley Quinn because she had nothing to do with Birds of Prey, right? Nothing. Shoehorned her. Removed the OG… Birds of Prey was Oracle and Black Canary. That was Birds of Prey. That’s what it was.”
July is right. These projects are no longer projects of passion anymore. They aren’t even projects to entertain anymore. They have become vanity projects and you need look no further than Black Widow scribe Jac Schaeffer, who declared that she is “not interested in adhering to comic canon that is discriminatory in any way or that violates my values system.”
Schaeffer would also add, “I choose to be a part of projects that are about positive representation. We need to see women, we need to see people of color, we need to see nuanced experiences, and we need to see different perspectives on screen.”
She then stated, “I choose to work with people who are interested in changing perspectives for the better, and putting a world on screen that is something we can aspire to and have conversations about, and moving in a direction that will create a world I hope will be better for my children.”
It’s clear she’s not interested in actually telling stories based on the source material. And if it wasn’t clear she revealed she had no idea who Mephisto was after showrunning WandaVision and including Wanda’s kids who in the comics were created as parts of Mephisto soul.
Schaeffer stated, “There was never any conscious intention on my part to create any Mephisto red herrings, because I didn’t know who Mephisto was until I started doing press.”
On top of that she claims she doesn’t even know how to read comics.
What do you make of July’s analysis of Hollywood’s modern superhero storytelling?
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