It seems everyone in the film industry has something to say about superhero movies these days. From Martin Scorsese calling them a danger to our culture, to John Woo claiming he doesn’t watch them because he prefers “real cinema," the debate over superhero fatigue continues to rage on. Now Academy Award-winning actress,Jodie Foster, has added her voice to the discussion.
Speaking withElle, the two-time Oscar winner who first rose to prominence in Martin Scorsese’sTaxi Driverin 1976 didn’t mince words when asked her opinion on the dominance of superhero movies over the years.
“It’s a phase. It’s a phase that’s lasted a little too long for me, but it’s a phase, and I’ve seen so many different phases. Hopefully people will be sick of it soon”
Foster was nominated for her first Academy Award at the age of 14 for portraying a child prostitute inTaxi Driver, and won her first Oscar at 26 for her role inThe Accused, where she played a rape survivor. Her second win came just three years later, when she took home the nod for Best Actress thanks to her portrayal of Clarice Starling inThe Silence of the Lambs. She’s alsotaken up directing, helming episodes ofBlack Mirror,Orange is the New Black, andTales from the Loop, while also directing such 90s films asLittle Man Tate, andHome for the Holidays.
While Jodie Foster doesn’t think all superhero movies are bad, she points to them as entertainment, and doesn’t necessarily consider them life-changing.
“The good ones — like ‘Iron Man,’ ‘Black Panther,’ ‘The Matrix’ — I marvel at those movies, and I’m swept up in the entertainment of it, but that’s not why I became an actor. And those movies don’t change my life. Hopefully there’ll be room for everything else”
When asked to give her thoughts on what she’d tell a young actor coming up in the industry, she encourages people to look outside franchise work, and have faith in their own talent.
“You have to have faith in your talent. you’re able to go away for two years and have a life and come back and there will be work for you. Yeah, maybe it won’t be in some franchise, but what do you care? This is your life.”
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Jodie Foster Joins a Long List of People Criticizing Superhero Films
Jodie Foster’s comments don’t come in a bubble. Over the course of the last few years, there have been a lot of people in Hollywood who have been outspoken when it comes to their thoughts on not just the MCU, but superhero films in general. While Martin Scorsese and John Woo are just two of the most recent names to voice their opinion, Jeremy Allen White, star of the FX show,The Bear, addedhis thoughts to the debatein an interview with GQ, saying, “I am confused at how the pinnacle of an actor’s career has ended up in that place,” in reference to some people believing that for an actor to achieve success, they have to appear in a superhero movie.
In addition to White, Woo, Scorsese, and now Foster, James Cameron, Francis Ford Coppola, Ridley Scott, and Quentin Tarantino have all expressed their dismay over the popularity of superhero films, and even some who have worked within the genre have added their criticism to the mix. Robert Downey Jr., known for his role as Tony Stark in the MCU, brandedAvengers: Age of Ultronas “content” in an interview with The New York Times, and even James Gunn, who directed theGuardians of the Galaxytrilogy, and came on board as the co-CEO of DC Studios along with Peter Safran in 2022, thinks superhero fatigue is real. In an interview with Rolling Stone, the director of the upcomingSuperman: Legacy, had this to say:
“I think there is such a thing as superhero fatigue. I think it doesn’t have anything to do with superheroes. It has to do with the kind of stories that get to be told, and if you lose your eye on the ball, which is character. We love Superman. We love Batman. We love Iron Man. Because they’re these incredible characters that we have in our hearts. And if it becomes just a bunch of nonsense onscreen, it gets really boring.”
WithThe Marvelsbecoming an unprecedented box office failure for Marvel Studios, andeveryone scrambling to make excuses, time will tell if audiences are truly suffering from superhero fatigue, or if the genre can bounce back from all the negativity that seems to be surrounding it these days.
