But, according to the Chinese state-run media outlet Global Times, Chinese internet users were quick to take offence, interpreting the image of Batwoman as a gesture of support for the protests in Hong Kong. The autonomous region has faced almost six months of intense political unrest due to the growing influence of China. The former British colony is meant to enjoy a “high degree of autonomy” under the terms of its 1997 handover from the UK, but the Chinese government regards Hong Kong as part of China.
“Is Hong Kong really becoming Gotham City? But Hong Kong rioters are not Batman. Instead, they are the criminals of Gotham City,” wrote one Weibo user, while others on the Chinese social media platform said they would refuse to buy or support anything from the comics giant in future.
Variety reported that Chinese internet users linked the flaming bottle to the tactics used by the mainly young protesters in Hong Kong, Batman’s black outfit to the black clothes of the demonstrators, and the titular golden child to the colour yellow, which pro-democracy activists adopted for protests held in Hong Kong five years ago.
“The black clothes represent Hong Kong, the mask represents Hong Kong, the Molotov cocktail represents Hong Kong, what else here doesn’t represent Hong Kong???” wrote one reader on Weibo.
The image has since been deleted from DC’s social media, although supporters of the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong have continued to complain about the removal on its Twitter and Instagram accounts. Late on Wednesday Grampá, the comic’s illustrator, shared an image of it and described the controversy as surreal.
Out in December, The Golden Child sees Carrie Kelley “growing into her new role as Batwoman”, but “a terrifying evil has returned to Gotham City”. In order to stop it, Batwoman teams up with Lara Kent, the offspring of Superman and Wonder Woman, along with Lara’s younger brother Jonathan, who is known as “the golden child” for his strong superpowers.
The Guardian has approached DC Comics for comment.
Martin Scorsese says Marvel movies are 'not cinema'
Katherine Shoard, The Guardian, 4 October 2019
The director says he has tried and failed to watch the new brand of superhero films, which he likens to theme parks
“I tried, you know?” the director said when asked if he had seen Marvel’s movies. “But that’s not cinema.”
He continued: “Honestly, the closest I can think of them, as well made as they are, with actors doing the best they can under the circumstances, is theme parks. It isn’t the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being.”
Earlier this year, Avengers: Endgame became the highest grossing film in history after topping $2.8bn at the global box office (fifth highest after adjusting for inflation). Eight other titles from the same studio feature in the Top 30 (when factored without inflation).
Marvel head Kevin Feige last year defended his films against the kind of criticism levelled by Scorsese, saying that the series’s lack of major awards was no indication of a lack of quality or ambition.
“Maybe it’s easy to dismiss VFX or flying people or spaceships or billion dollar grosses,” Feige said. “I think it is easy to say that you have already been awarded in a certain way. [Alfred] Hitchcock never won best director, so it’s very nice, but it doesn’t mean everything. I would much rather be in a room full of engaged fans.”
Scorsese’s latest film, The Irishman, won rave reviews from its premiere at the New York film festival last weekend, with critics praising the use of “de-ageing” technology.
Out today is Joker, Todd Phillip’s revisionist take on the DC villain, which borrows much from the films of Scorsese, notably 1983’s The King of Comedy.
Streaming TV is about to get very expensive – here's why
Stuart Heritage, The Guardian, 27 September 2019
With Disney, Apple and others about to launch their own services, a lot of your favourite shows are likely to vanish behind paywalls. The golden age of streaming is over.
The most watched show on US Netflix, by a huge margin, is the US version of The Office. Even though the platform pumps out an absurd amount of original programming – 1,500 hours last year – it turns out that everyone just wants to watch a decade-old sitcom. One report last year said that The Office accounts for 7% all US Netflix viewing.
So, naturally, NBC wants it back. This week, it was announced that Netflix had failed to secure the rights to The Office beyond January 2021. The good news is that it will still be available to watch elsewhere. The bad news is that “elsewhere”, means “the new NBCUniversal streaming platform”.
As a viewer, you are right to feel queasy. The industry-disrupting success of Netflix means that everybody wants a slice of the pie. Right now, things are just about manageable – if you have a TV licence, a Netflix subscription, an Amazon subscription and a Now TV subscription, you are pretty much covered – but things are about to take a turn for the worse.
In November, Disney will launch Disney+, a streaming platform that will not only block off an enormous amount of existing content (Disney films, ABC shows, Marvel and Pixar films, Lucasfilm, The Simpsons and everything else made by 20th Century Fox), but will also offer a range of new scripted Marvel shows that will directly inform the narrative of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Essentially, if you want to understand anything that happens in any Marvel film from this point onwards, you’ll need to splash out on a Disney+ subscription.
Apple will also be entering the streaming market at about the same time, promising new work from Sofia Coppola, Jennifer Aniston, Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Brie Larson, Damien Chazelle and Steven Spielberg. In the next three years, Apple will spend $4.2bn on original programming, and you won’t get to see any of it if you don’t pay a monthly premium.
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| Oprah Winfrey speaks during an Apple product launch event at the Steve Jobs Theater at Apple Park on March 25, 2019 in Cupertino, California. Photograph: Michael Short/Getty |
And this sucks. Watching television is about to get very, very expensive. There will be a point where viewers are going to hit their tolerance for monthly subscriptions – I may be able to manage one more service, but only if I unsubscribe from an existing platform – meaning that TV will become more elitist, tiered and fragmented than it already is. There’s a huge difference between not being able to watch everything because there’s too much choice and not being able to watch everything because you don’t have enough money.
Most importantly, we should all remember that this content war is hinged upon a fundamental misunderstanding of viewing habits. Netflix didn’t become a monster because people wanted to watch a specific show; it became a monster because people wanted to watch everything. When its streaming platform launched, people were spending more than £15 just to watch a single season of a show on DVD. So to be able to watch every season of a show – and every season of hundreds of others of shows – for a fiver a month was revolutionary. The whole point of Netflix was that it was a relatively affordable bucket that contained an awful lot of television. That’s why people liked it. That’s why so many people subscribed and continue to subscribe. To pretend otherwise is to miss the point.
That will be a memory soon. The Netflix model was great for viewers, but it couldn’t last. The content creators got greedy and scared, and now they’re determined to drag things back to the bad old ways. They will force everyone to pay for everything separately, and the subscriber base will split, and the providers will have to recoup the money they are spending to take on Netflix – such as the $500m that NBCUniversal spent to get The Office back, the $250m Amazon is spending on a Lord of the Rings series and the $500m that Warner just spent to win the services of JJ Abrams – which means that subscriptions will rise. Make no mistake: we’re the ones likely to get stiffed here. The golden age of television may be going strong, but the golden age of streaming is dead.
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