Mini Thought- Has gritty grown mediocre and monotonous in the film industry? *Re-Upload*

(Written  Jul 30, 2015)

“Gritty” seems to be the word of the day in Hollywood. In the modern world of media, company after company is attempting to revamp their image to something “dark and “edgy” in order to appeal to the oh so important youth market, blatant examples being found on the silver screen.
Titles such as Man of Steel or Christopher Nolan’s imagining of the Batman franchise work because much of their appeal is the dark heavy realistic tone that is employed, allowing for the viewer to relate on an extra level to the world before their eyes, however is this really something that should be abused on the level that today’s cinema seems to be sitting at?
As the massive decline in appreciation for Tim Burton’s works shows; creating a dark and distorted world for the sake of being dark is not the way to go, as this results in cliche environments and static character development. For example his telling of the tale Alice in Wonderland just recycling old themes of excessive violence and a bland element of threat to make up for the inability to capture the escapism and wonderment that Lewis Carroll’s original tale conveyed.
This brings to question the need of these stereotypical “mature” films to appeal to anyone over the age of five, sometimes brighter is better! Sometimes some of the most fun films to this date are the colourful and engaging, such classics as The Mask‘s awesome and maddening action being able to juggle the dark themes of violence under possession with the funny dialogue and witty banter.
Marvel’s cinematic universe has also made use of a relatively lighter universe to that of DC’s, while this has made some call it wish-washy it has allowed viewers young and old to engage and interact with this phenomenon. Being light also allows for the escapism that cinema so gives to those whom need it most, averting their gaze from their own private issues and allowing focus upon a world more magical and manageable in their hearts, removing the gritty elements that make their own hardships worse in reality.
While I feel that grit is overdone I still feel it has a significant place in our media library. Such bleak hopeless films often giving directors a chance to truly show their inspirational views on our society, however the over saturation of the industry with these angst ridden titles should be carefully monitored as its growing excessively out of control, and limits the creativity being sold to us.