I was reading Matt Taibbi's rundown of the latest entry into James Gunn's DCU, "Supergirl," and he touched on something that I thought was pretty poignant.
Part of the modern trend in writing centers around personal trauma, dealing with said trauma, and overcoming it. It's not a horrible character development thread, but as they say, all things in moderation, and modern writers are over-indulging like a fat kid at a cheap buffet.
Taibbi points out Supergirl as a prime example of this. The superheroine goes from red sun planet to red sun planet, getting drunk and being miserable because of her home planet's destruction and the slow death of her people, which is a pretty good reason to be traumatized.
The only issue is that Supergirl handles her trauma the same way everyone else in modern cinema does, and this trauma isn't treated as something that empowers the character; it's the villain that needs to be overcome. It's a writing style that, frankly, reeks of modern therapy mentality that gets hyper-focused on by people of the leftist persuasion.
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It's an infection you see throughout many a modern movie. "Thunderbolts" centered around past traumas being overcome through the love of found family (found family being another overused concept in modern cinema), and the main character begins her journey as a cynical drunk.
"Deadpool & Wolverine" starts with Wolverine having suffered trauma around the loss of his found family, and he starts of as a cynical drunk.
"She-Hulk" has trauma because of her life as a woman trying to live in the modern era, and she starts as a cynical drunk... and stays that way till the end of the series. She's just a happier drunk now.
Luke Skywalker in "The Last Jedi," Hal Jordan in the upcoming "Lanterns" television show, and Obi-Wan Kenobi in the show of his namesake. All depicted as once hopeful, positive, and upstanding people, reduced to nihilists who've lost their spark because of their "trauma."
What's with the obsession?
My guess is two reasons.
The first is laziness. Giving a character trauma that reduces them to a shell of their former self that they have to overcome can allow for low-effort storytelling. The evil they must overcome isn't actually evil; it's their own lack of self-confidence and sense of self-worth.
This is usually fixed by being forced to go on a journey they never wanted to go on in the first place, getting a pep talk from someone, realizing their full potential, then breaking their self-imposed barriers and becoming the hero they were always meant to be.
Handled well, this can be an incredible storytelling mechanic. Tolkien was very good at this, specifically with Frodo, who struggles with the taint of the One Ring and is supported by Samwise. Thing is, even after the journey was completed, Frodo is scarred and left with that scar for the rest of his life, eventually healing by literally going to a realm blessed by Middle-earth's gods.
What Tolkien didn't do was have Frodo become a cynical drunk who gives up on life and has to be pulled out of it by circumstance and therapy-coded conversations. Frodo's soul takes damage, his friends give him the strength he needs to maintain his spirit and not become the next Gollum, and he's ultimately healed by a divine source.
What Tolkien also didn't do was make Sauron a plot element by which Frodo found his way to emotional well-being, and that's something that modern writers do too often. The big bad of the story, the great evil they have to overcome, isn't the main villain. The main villain is the protagonist's emotional difficulties.
The villain is bad vibes, not bad people. Overcoming the main villain can only happen after full self-realization is achieved.
In other words, every climax is Captain Marvel destroying her inhibitor chip nowadays. It's lazy cookie-cutter plot resolutions that can be rinsed and repeated ad nauseum and, what's more, it's safe for studios.
But the second, and more important part, is message injection, and once you see the message, you can't unsee it.
Nothing is your fault. You are the victim. Your trauma is a result of the world happening to you, and it's completely natural to wallow in self-pity, loosen your moral compass, and live by a nihilistic worldview. The only way to overcome your demons is to embrace your truth and realize nothing else matters but fighting the good fight against your own self-doubt.
Find people who will accept and work around your trauma. If they don't accept how important your trauma is to you, then they are a roadblock to the self. The self is the endgame. Everything will come right after that.
Can you read the writing between the lines here?
It's self-absorption. It's a rejection of old values that lead to a peaceful existence. It's a rejection of brutal truths in favor of comfortable ones. The evils of the world aren't what's dangerous. You can get to them later. The real evil is not embracing and loving yourself because the world made you think you were something less or damaged you in some way.
What's more, you can see other patterns. One is the depiction of God or gods as either being painfully silent at all times or even mocking said suffering. Turning to a higher power is depicted as either silly or woefully misguided and ultimately self-destructive.
And when you take a step back and look at all of this as one big bulk ideal, you'll see nothing short of shallowness, and it's shallow because you're not being given a character; you're being given a modern idea with a face and a name attached.
These characters are great for the theater kids writing modern cinema who value these kinds of things, but for everyone else, this is just tedious.
