the existential threat of the blockbuster

But the need for certain areas of film culture to hold the line about what is and is not cinema (and therefore worthy of critical lionization and Oscar gold) is no longer about maintaining an abstract set of aesthetic prejudices and qualitative standards. It’s about protecting every other kind of moviemaking from the existential threat of the blockbuster. Now more than ever, the existence of a reward structure for certain kinds of prestige cinema — the fact that critics’ year-end top-10 lists and the stakes of awards season give the culture a reason to spend a few months out of every year talking about acting and directing and foreign films — is just about the only thing that keeps non-blockbusters from being completely drowned out of the public consciousness by the next phase of Marvel, the next Star Wars trilogy, or the newest and most twisted take on a Batman villain. This isn’t about what is or isn’t cinema. It’s about whether the corporations that already dominate so much of the cultural landscape through pure market share should also be allowed to set the parameters of what we can ask for from art.

Also:

It feels weird to even refer to superheroes as “nerd culture” at this point. It’s like calling Facebook “computer culture.”

Source: Superhero Movies and Comic Book Nerds Won the 2010s (archive) / Noted: 2019 December 10 / Discuss: On Dreamwidth