Why So Superior?
I have been noticing a depressing trend in the fan community. Oddly enough I never really gave it much thought until recently. This all came about thanks to a unique feature on Amazon.com, which allows a perspective buyer the ability to read excerpts from a book to help them decide if they want to purchase it or not. I was interested in Hank Davis’ two volume set, “Classic Cliffhangers: Vol 1, 1914-1940″ and “Classic Cliffhangers: Vol 2, 1941-1955″ from Midnight Marquee. So I bounced around in both books to see if I would be interested in adding them to my book collection. Hitting the Surprise Me key I read excerpts on “Flash Gordon” (1936) and “Adventures of Captain Marvel” (1941). They were enough to let me know I didn’t really want to read the books, the author was merciless in his scathing opinions about these titles and it seems cliffhangers in general, which is odd considering he did nothing but gush about them in the introduction. What I took away from those two reviews is that he thinks Buster Crabbe comes across as a eunuch and Frank Coughlan, Jr.’s falsetto makes him ludicrous as a radio newscaster (apparently such unique voices as Joe Franken and Howard Cosell slipped his mind).
It would be nice to think that this is just one man who watches serials and sees an outdated form of entertainment ripe for ridicule, but it isn’t. Anyone who visits In the Balcony. com regularly knows that Laughing Gravy highlights a serial, chapter by chapter, which seems to serve no other purpose than to make fun of the film “in an affectionately gentle, spoofing manner”. Whatever. The tone is one of superior contempt on the part of the writer.
This isn’t to say that I find every serial to be totally awesome, I have written many negative reviews on titles like “Zombies of the Stratosphere” (1952) and “The Green Archer” (1940) to name a couple, but in looking them over I didn’t write a long string of put downs and bad jokes at the expense of the actors. Yes, I know that many seerials are flawed productions, just as many feature films aren’t perfect, but is there any point to hold up what are essential kids films to be made fun of. What next? Ripping into “Captain Kangaroo” and “Sesame Street”? I’m sure that “Superfriends” and “Captain Planet” need for some nasty diatribes hurled at them (well, okay “Captain Planet” is pretty goofy, but still, I’m sure it has it’s fans).
I brought this up with my wife and, as always, she gave me some interesting insight into human nature. She told me it is easier to make fun of something than it is to find what is praiseworthy about it. Is that all it comes down to, simple laziness? Hard to say. For myself, I’ve given up posting on the messaage boards years ago due to the way some posters get ganged up on for no other reason than liking a specific title, though I still read the threads to keep up to date on new releases and events happening in the community. Blogging wise, to swipe a title from Neil Diamond, I’ll just continue on with the boat that I row and write my thoughts and reviews same as always and try not to dwell on the negative, we have to much of that in world as is.
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