It’s facile and frankly uninteresting to put the blame on the critic, in this case my comment. I don’t watch blockbuster movies, I enjoy the indie scene in music and video games. I know there is always a niche of earnest art if one looks deep enough, but that shouldn’t stop us from having a conversation about what is going on with our culture and where we are going.
In fact this ‘meh it is what it is, just ignore it’ is another manifestation of this culturally-low point we find ourselves in, unwilling to imagine a better world, to even try to push against the status quo.
We have gone through these phases multiple times in history, and periods of ‘renaissance’ owe everything to those unreasonable people that claimed “this is terrible, I shall do better!” rather than just shrugging it out.
You make a fair point about cultural conversation being important. I think that conversation is happening, but the focal point shifts from one generation of creatives to the next. It's an important part of cultural dialogue, not just reaching the same targets as previous works, but finding new targets, new mediums and methods of expression.
We saw the shift toward a more fractured landscape happen in music long before movies. If you grew up hearing the Beatles on mainstream radio, listening today might feel like a cultural low point. And that feeling isn't baseless. But treating the Top 40 as the whole of music ends up missing the new developments happening outside that narrow slice.
We're seeing similar shifts in film. The Blair Witch Project and Once Upon a Time in Mexico heralded the age of accessible digital filmmaking, leading to an indie boom that's still rippling out. Everything, Everywhere, All At Once showed that ambitious, effects-heavy filmmaking is no longer tethered to the traditional studio system. Those are the high profile bellwethers -- indie bands that sneak in a radio hit -- but I think they reflect the wider landscape of passionate creatives better than, say, the new Jurassic World.
So yes, blockbusters aren't what they used to be. But judging the health of the entire medium by looking at those is like judging transportation by looking at horse-drawn carriages after the arrival of cars. It focuses on what's leaving instead of what's emerging.
> It’s facile and frankly uninteresting to put the blame on the critic, in this case my comment.
Well in that case your critique failed at the gates.
If your problem is that other people don't like the things you think they should like, or that movie theaters shouldn't show "soulless" movies, then say that then.
> In fact this ‘meh it is what it is, just ignore it’ is another manifestation of this culturally-low point we find ourselves in
That's the exact opposite of what I was saying. There's good stuff out there being made. Seek it, support it.
In fact this ‘meh it is what it is, just ignore it’ is another manifestation of this culturally-low point we find ourselves in, unwilling to imagine a better world, to even try to push against the status quo.
We have gone through these phases multiple times in history, and periods of ‘renaissance’ owe everything to those unreasonable people that claimed “this is terrible, I shall do better!” rather than just shrugging it out.