Question for the Week of Mar 11-17: How'd it get past me?

What's something that often bothers you in film, but you gave a notable pass to? Why?

Nice one! I've talked about issues with film trends often before - misuse of minorities/overuse of Caucasian males as leads, women usually getting fewer and more limited (or confined) roles than are given to men... One particular peeve is that I don't like the attitude studios express in order to appeal to youths. I'm referring to a shallow, s---ty attitude - think Fox Network's treatment of sex, or the shallow garbage MTV shows its audience.

Or let's go with a quick survey of primetime TV, which tells that the US is obsessed with (a) talent competitions and (b) police procedurals wherein the population declines at a freakish rate.

In this case, though, I'm talking about a different nuisance: the portrayal of young people as being apathetic, bordering on lazy, and as not really having any morals or beliefs beyond "everything sucks."

Although I did not expound on my point when this post first went up, the trend that usually relies on those elements - at least some of them; other signs include (a) a jaded mentality whose apparent cause is either extreme (jump montage of child slavery!) or banal (dad skipped out, man!), (b) the sort of supreme self-centeredness common to one's teen years (justified by the film, of course), and/or (c) non-specific distrust of generally, people/life, or government - in a hollow attempt at saying "damn the man!" or "down with the system" way.

All this disaffected, malcontent mentality is not a bad thing all the time - only when the sentiment hasn't been earned by the film/actor, or it feels like the audience is being short-changed from a good story or decent characterization. It's a lousy (and mistaken) shorthand for stating that someone is "cool."

Example A: JJ Abram's Star Trek reboot. I didn't give it a full review, but I wrote a few paragraphs about it in an end-of-year post. The picture gives us shots of Kirk at the Starfleet Academy, but we don't really see him learning or working - at all; he stares at girls' asses, nearly gets some, and he relives that scene they talked about in Wrath of Khan.

This one did not get a complete pass from me. It was annoying to show that Kirk is just some rash loudmouth who is never to be seen working hard or taking anything seriously. Since I was ready for Abrams to screw the whole damn thing up in a moment anyway, I simply accepted its high school mentality. As I correctly guessed, there were many more reasons to criticize ST than this...

Example B: Tron 2.0's protagonist. He's wealthy, rides and repairs motorcycles, and is a CalTech dropout who stages annual pranks on his company to flip the bird to the man. And these pranks might involve social media, hacking software, and... BASE-jumping; and since that last sentence pretty much sums up his introduction to the story, as well as 85% of what we're shown about his character, it's pretty hard to argue that he's an attempt at appealing to youths.

This effort was a pathetic failure. As I wrote in my review, The Spawn of Flynn was jaded and bruised, but in a really generic way; at no point did he seem remotely interesting, nor remotely interested in anything. The plots in Tron 2 were abysmal to begin with, but the fake-deep bull---- in his dialogue was a real killer.

Example C: Iron Man. Wow, his character is pretty much straight out of the same page as Tron 2's Sam, the Flynn-Child.

Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark has agency, charm, and is actively engaged in doing things. He's not shoved into situations through which he reluctantly moves from one set to another. Then again, Iron Man also has a fine script, even while making its protagonist a conglomeration of every cliche of every jerk ever.

I was very much ready to despise the way that his character is not just on top, but constantly has his opulence flashed in front of the audience. It's like one of those celebrities who just can't be bothered to put on underwear. Or those MTV shows about kids who spend $250k on their Sweet Sixteen.

While I watched this picture, I was simultaneously dazzled as well as feeling thoroughly amazed that I was even responding to such a s---ty, one-note character. And though he's just a stereotype at the start, what happens to Stark at the beginning invests you in the character. Also, as mentioned before, he actually develops something like an ethos, and actively tries to do something.

Actually, I'm pretty sure that all of these were both reasons that I gave IM a pass, as well as reasons that I didn't give one to Iron Man 2. I haven't reviewed the first pic (yet), but my coverage of the sequel did discuss the lead's character in both films.

The first movie showed Stark's transition from spoiled teenager to spoiled-but-responsible adult (or maybe, quasi-adult). However, IM2 kept all the bling, while also resetting Tony's narcissism and emotional problems back to those of the first picture - sure, it allowed them to keep all the shiny stuff that shallow idiots are interested in, but it seriously undermined that whole "emotion and character arc" garbage that actually made the original Iron Man very touching...

In any case, this stupid mentality - which I'm dead-certain is largely about appealing to the youth demographic - is something that bothers me quite often. I've given you two examples of when it failed miserably for me, as well as one example where I just took it in stride. And now I have to re-read this whole thing a few times, just to make sure that I'm making some sort of sense...