Gritty Realism or, STOP IT WITH THE GRITTY REALISM (Patreon)

The DC Cinematic universe looks pretty much dead in the water, and while this is pretty satisfying to me, because honestly, DC has an insidious conservative bias that taints all of their work… while that is extremely satisfying, it isn’t the reason all their films tank. It isn’t. I mean it could be. I mean I could make a video about why it might be. I mean -- okay I will be making a video about why Conservatism has tanked the DC Cinematic universe, but right now, I want to talk about something else, not totally unrelated, but different.

We can probably all agree that the modern wave of “gritty realism” in superhero movies peaked with Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy. It might even be fair to say that within superhero movies, it both started and peaked there, but as a wider trend in cinema, “gritty” or “dirty” realism is a little older than that. 

As a subgenre of realism, it is defined by a focus on aspects of “real life” that cinema might traditionally ignore. Often this will involve looking at the lives of the working class or those living in poverty, and I’ve seen “dirty realism” also called “KMart realism” and then thrown up a little bit in my mouth. 

Surely widening the lens so that you can look at more walks of life is only a good thing? The thing is, historically this sometimes just means shifting from telling stories for a middle class audience about middle class characters to telling stories still for a middle class audience just now about the working class. What does that mean? Well it means, in short, misery porn. Thanks movies!

Now we have a bit of an understanding of the solid starting place “gritty realism” is coming from, let’s understand how it got into superhero movies. I was -1 years old when Val Kilmer conclusively killed Batman with the film Batman Forever and 1 years old when George Clooney resurrected Batman in order to murder it again with the film Batman and Robin. Or so the mainstream media would have you believe… (Not the bit about my age, that was true, the bit about the bad movies)

The thing is, it’s hard to compare movies of different genres, but would you honestly rather have Arnold Schwarzenegger making dad-jokes about ice, or this. Deep in your heart, you know the answer. After Batman and Robin, Daredevil, Green Lantern, and other attempts at making fun superhero movies fell flat, receiving poor critical responses, superhero movies were considered pretty much dead. Despite some obvious exceptions (released by Marvel) it seemed there was no sensible way to market campy fun superhero movies to American audiences, especially after 9/11. I know that was really blunt but it’s not to sound like a joke, 9/11 generally made a huge cultural shift in the way that media was produced in the west, like a cultural bout of depression. If you want to understand that better, you can check out Lindsay Ellis’ excellent videos about 9/11 in pop-culture.

It was during this period of thematic darkness in cinema that Batman Begins was released. Christopher Nolan had solved the problem. At last superhero movies could be profitable again. Children who needed to just enjoy comic books could just like Batman, without reviewers tanking the film by telling everyone that the tongue-in-cheek campness was too much. Batman Begins was allowed to exist within the cultural specifications for dark edgy drama because Christopher Nolan had worked in a strain of “gritty realism”.

So let’s talk about how in 2005, a beloved children’s franchise pivoted into a dark, new direction to create what I consider to be the one acceptable instance of “gritty realism”. I’m talking of course about multi-console classic, Shadow the Hedgehog.

The Sonic the Hedgehog franchise has always existed in a slightly weird space. The protagonists are all cartoon animals, but the villain and the citizens of their world are human people. The character animation when Sonic dies is just like any cartoony video game character, but when you defeat Dr. Eggman you do it by blowing him to goddamn smithereens.

In a way, that means Shadow the Hedgehog is just the logical endpoint of the Sonic franchise. It was always building to this. And by this I mean murdering people as an edgy Hedgehog (an edgehog???). He has a gun on the front cover of the game. It’s Sonic the Hedgehog, but he has a gun.

In the wikipedia article for Shadow the Hedgehog it states “Shadow the Hedgehog received generally unfavorable reviews from critics”. I mean, you get why, right? It’s because no games reviewer in 2005 could comprehend what they were seeing. This game was so many years ahead of its time they just couldn’t process it. The appeal of playing as a cartoon hedgehog doing actual, real murders with guns seems to mock and parody the very nature of “gritty realism”. In reality though, it elevates it to a new level.

Gritty realism as a subgenre is trash and here’s why: Wanting to portray the world as dark and edgy and full of sad things is not realism. The world is full of things - just, things. Sometimes it’s more full of bad things, and sometimes it’s more full of excellent things, but it’s never actual realism to portray “real life” in one tone.
It isn’t wrong to write sad or dark or “gritty” stories, but you just can’t call it realism and pretend that life is constantly depressing and awful. Having been through some seriously gruelling times in my life, I really appreciate films that have the courage to set sad stories in bright, well lit environments. Life doesn’t just switch to night mode and turn on the sprinklers because things are tense.

Gritty realism is a trash term for bad things and it went from a film criticism term to self-parody to an outright insult in only a few years. Gritty is not realism, and reality isn’t gritty. The only questions left are these: Why, so many years later, did Zack Snyder think that gritty realism would still be a good approach when creating Superman and Batman films? Did he think he was making Shadow the Hedgehog?

Gritty realism isn’t a good element to try to bring into Batman. Batman is already a bit of a fucking fascist (don’t @ me Thoughtslime). He doesn’t need to get darker, he needs the campness, the fun. Otherwise you might be too close to realising he’s just a billionaire who dresses like a furry school shooter and punches poor people in the face.

I would pin the death of gritty realism in superhero films not to the Hindenburgs that DC has produced in the last few years, but instead to a success. I’d say that gritty superhero movies were over when Marvel released Guardians of the Galaxy. When Guardians was announced, it seemed like a terrible property to adapt into a movie. A guy who calls himself Starlord? A talking tree? A rodent with… a… gun…?

Holy shit.

Guardians of the Galaxy defeated gritty realism in superhero movies in exactly the same way that those critics thought that Shadow the Hedgehog was a failure. If we can embrace the cheesiness of a premise, the absurdity of a universe that has cartoon talking animals as real characters, and see past that, and allow ourselves to become invested in those stories, if we can really feel something because the story is written well enough, then there must be something incredibly real in there after all, and that thing has to do with the way characters interact. It has to do with relationships and philosophy and the nature of existence.

Guardians of the Galaxy can make grown adults cry, and all that the DC Cinematic Universe has ever made me do is write a two hour script about why conservatism ruins everything it touches (I’m trying to make it shorter so it can one day be a real video). Gritty realism isn’t real, good writing is real. That’s why gritty realism has to end forever. That’s why Shadow the Hedgehog is better than The Dark Knight.