{"id":90302,"date":"2020-03-06T12:06:29","date_gmt":"2020-03-06T17:06:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=90302"},"modified":"2020-03-06T16:10:30","modified_gmt":"2020-03-06T21:10:30","slug":"clj-jessica-hooten-wilson-flannery-oconnor-versus-the-marvel-universe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=90302","title":{"rendered":"(CLJ) Jessica Hooten Wilson–Flannery O’Connor Versus the Marvel Universe"},"content":{"rendered":"

In his 2007 Commencement Speech<\/a> delivered at Stanford University, Dana Gioia proposes an experiment \u201cto survey a cross-section of Americans and ask them how many active NBA players, Major League Baseball players, and American Idol <\/em>finalists they can name.\u201d He would follow this question with another: \u201cHow many living American poets, playwrights, painters, sculptors, architects, classical musicians, conductors, and composers they can name?\u201d While many of us can name celebrities in the former category, our culture has deprived of us of the ability to name prominent artists or thinkers. Gioia argues that the loss is twofold\u2014we neither honor those whose work is long lasting and transcendent nor do we uphold models for \u201ca successful and meaningful life that are not denominated by money and fame. Adult life begins in the child\u2019s imagination, and we\u2019ve relinquished that imagination to the marketplace.\u201d<\/p>\n

In concert with Gioia, I wonder if the curators of our imagination are not training us away from virtuous living towards autonomous evaluations of value. Last year, acclaimed filmmaker Martin Scorsese lit into the Marvel industry:<\/p>\n

Many of the elements that define cinema as I know it are there in Marvel pictures. What\u2019s not there is revelation, mystery or genuine emotional danger. Nothing is at risk. The pictures are made to satisfy a specific set of demands, and they are designed as variations on a finite number of themes . . . That\u2019s the nature of modern film franchises<\/a>: market-researched<\/a>, audience-tested<\/a>, vetted, modified, revetted and remodified until they\u2019re ready for consumption.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, the industry that shapes the American imagination the most caters to the lowest common denominator, our bank account, selling us what we want versus challenging us towards higher questions, deeper thinking, or richer emotional responses. We are being catered to like domesticated animals by a film industry that wants to exploit our basest instincts and capitalize on them financially. James Matthew Wilson<\/a>, in speaking about licentious poetry that cares nothing for form or content but is published in mass quantities, refers to the problem as \u201cshopping in bulk.\u201d There may be one taste of an indulgence that was pleasurable on its own\u2014not that it validates the taste necessarily\u2014 but when the example is proliferated over and over again, the series of similar mundanities anesthetizes us to any taste for something more. Scorsese foresees his critics: \u201cIf you\u2019re going to tell me that it\u2019s simply a matter of supply and demand and giving the people what they want, I\u2019m going to disagree . . . If people are given only one kind of thing and endlessly sold only one kind of thing, of course they\u2019re going to want more of that one kind of thing.\u201d It is a frightful thing to imagine we are being cultivated without our discernment.<\/p>\n

What is it about the Marvel Universe that enraptures us?<\/p>\n

Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

“C.S. Lewis advises that you read three old books for every new book you read; in our current culture, I advise you read three O\u2019Connor stories for every superhero film you watch.” – @HootenWilson<\/a>https:\/\/t.co\/eZ9qI1kocC<\/a> @ChurchLifeND<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Jonathan F. Sullivan (@sullijo) March 6, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n