Art and aesthetics are, indeed, subjective. You might have the dumbest taste in the world and haven't met a pandering piece of garbage you won't buy, but you will still enjoy it. It's hard to argue that enjoyment is wrong. On the other hand, I feel like we can even need to have some way to signify art made to cynical ends that exploit said lousy taste. With so many people's ire raised by Martin Scorsese saying that Marvel movies aren't cinema, the culture seems primed for another round of discussion about art and commerce.

The Marvel movies are fine. They're junk food most of the time, but it's hand made candy bars from a four-star restaurant junk food. That level of attention to detail and the ability to turn movies into multi-year television seasons should be celebrated. This is commercial craftsmanship right up there with the Big Mac and Coke; it's not just a successful product; it's a worldwide expression of American values via a product. Would I put it up there with something like 2001 or Blade Runner? That's tough, there are movies in the MCU like Winter Solider or Ragnarok that take the genre in new directions, but many of the others are paint-by-number affairs. However, those paint-by-numbers affairs are executed flawlessly. With a decade of movies, not all of them are shallow popcorn fare. I do, however, get the idea that we're marred by the dominance of the superhero genre in movies as a whole right now. It isn't just an MCU problem; it's a blockbuster dominance problem.

What the MCU signified to people more than genre, is corporate homogeny. Disney owns so much of the industry, and they are printing money between the MCU and Star Wars. The parts of the year they don't dominate are filled with enough copy cats that it can feel like the culture is pushing out other types of film. However, at the same moment, there's a host of weird and different television shows crowding up streaming services you haven't even heard of. What the old guard of post-studio systems Directors are actually worried about is the end of the cinematic mystique. Movies become the place of big, broad content, and TV becomes the place to go for more in-depth and engaging stories. These are guys who worship cinema as an art form, and you can understand where they are coming from.

Movies aren't going anywhere. Music has managed to stick around with an industry determined to keep pop as dumbed down and substance-less as possible. Though the industry has seen better days, there is terrific music still being made. The mainstream has never been a place for the complex and weird, regardless of the medium. Right now, teenagers are making and sharing strange music that will blow minds, and student filmmakers are hoping to make a beautifully sad movie that will change the way you think. These aren't going to end up on your recommended playlists or in the local cinema; they aren't made for that space.

Art that's made to challenge and confront is not the preview of multi-billion dollar companies, except for a weird couple of years in the '70s and again in the '90s. If you want fewer capes and long takes of swirling smoke, you'll have to seek it out. Support your local art house theater that has the half-asleep college kid working the ticket booth. If we want weird art to survive, we need to support the unique venue that books band slamming out strange sounds while they mutter through a vocoder. Support your local record stores and book stores, so the bland taste of a forty-year-old media buyer doesn't become the default for everyone.