Bathos in the Marvel Films: A Response to Just Write's "What Writers Should Learn From Wonder Woman"
- Luke Evans
- Jan 22, 2021
- 17 min read
Updated: Feb 1, 2021
My daughter went to a writing course and brought back to me this idea that they had discussed called “bathos”. She was infuriated by the discussion and how it dismissed Marvel's films and propped up what we both considered to be lesser examples from DCEU films. So, I watched it and it hooked me in all the wrong ways too.
So what is "bathos"? Is it wrong to use it? Can you use it in the wrong way or too much? Does it necessarily diminish the product to use it?
And, most importantly, can I ever get the time back that I keep giving to these ridiculously long breakdowns??
-Pic: The Title Page for What Writers Should Learn From Wonder Woman
from the Just Write Youtube Channel
A couple of things off the bat. This is a response to the "Bathos" video, entitled What Writers Should Learn From Wonder Woman by Sage Hyden, creator of the Just Write Youtube Channel. Firstly, these are very well made videos and are a great help for writers looking to hone their craft, or philosophers and students of film, literature and pop culture who want to think deeply about how this stuff is produced and what makes it so powerful, so good... and sometimes so bad. I do recommend the channel. There is a lot of good stuff to find on there. At the end of the day, there's heaps of stuff I disagree with vehemently, but the content is thought-provoking and gets you to make a stand - either in agreeance or against, and that's a good thing any way you cut it.
Jumping in: What is "Bathos"?
Bathos is where the:
“...tone suddenly switches from serious to trivial for comedic effect… the juxtaposition of the two moments creates a laugh but it destroys whatever drama the piece was going for”
These links are for the video that was the teaching device used by my daughter's course teacher. As I said, it’s extremely well put together and discusses this topic in great detail. I also strongly disagree with almost everything the creator, Sage Hyden, says in the video! Watch that clip before going any further! You’ll need it to understand my rantings:
For another quote from the video:
“If you take a look at the most popular movies produced by Hollywood today, particularly with the Marvel movies, I think you’ll find that we have become a culture adrift in bathos”
- WWSLFWW
Yes, they are right that the MCU films do this a lot. An awful lot. Where I think they are wrong is that I do not think this weakens the scenes or the movies as a whole. By comparison, the DCEU movies are often joyless and that is simply depressing. Marvel films can use a lot of dark and depressing themes and scenes as well – but they avoid the overall depressing nature of this by injecting them with humour. And I think that most of the time, this is the right decision for the benefit of the film.
- Pic: From The Philadelphia Inquirer - " 'Thor: Ragnarok' is laughable. In a good way "
The creator of the video shows Thor: Ragnarök as an example of this repeatedly throughout the clip – and he is correct that this technique of bathos is used a lot in this movie. But is that a bad thing? Does it reduce the quality of the film? No, I don’t think so. There was a perceived problem with Thor’s original Shakespearean approach and some criticism around the second Thor film – Thor: The Dark World. In an effort to shake things up and present something new, they changed tack and gave us a movie that had a lot of comedy in it. As pointed out in the video though, it’s not exactly a “comedy” genre film, as it has a character arc for Thor that involves the death of his father and three of his best friends (The awesomely named "Warriors Three") and the destruction of his home planet. There’s plenty of heavy stuff in there, but still the overwhelming feeling from it is one of comedy.
To be fair, Thor doesn’t really know what happened to the Warriors Three in the film and he is not given time to process his father’s death before getting into a fight with his sister and brother. It all happens quickly and the death scene is not topped off with bathos in this case. After that, Thor doesn’t stop until the end of the movie – he’s always moving and dealing with the next threat. In the one scene where we see him stop, he sits depressed in the Gladiatorial "Freaky Circle" and is visibly drained. When I lost a parent, I was like that too, more than openly depressed all the time. we grieve when we can and in ways that aren't predictable. That's not a flaw in the movie. As to Thor not grieving over Odin specifically, the scene is done in a beautiful way where the death is a kind of a "becoming one with the Force" sort of thing and not a “loss” as such. He finds out he can still commune with Odin, so he’s not “gone”… and let's not forget, Odin is a bit of a dick to Thor as well, soooo…
-Pic: From ComicBook.com - This moment of bathos has a touching backstory - Read the article!
It’s probably only in Avengers: Infinity War, the next MCU installment to continue on the Thor storyline, where we see the full impact of the losses that Thor has sustained catch up with him emotionally – and yet, again, this is a film that uses the bathos technique a lot too. So – yes, I agree they do use it a lot. But is it too much?
Personally, I think they know what they’ve got here. They know what audiences want as a whole – and that’s to be entertained. Throw all sorts of heavy-shit in there, but cut the tension with some jokes. You can actually get away with more dark content that way, because it takes the edge off it. Show me another movie where someone’s entire planet is destroyed and their father and best friends are killed that you still call a action-comedy-adventure (And don’t you say Hitch-hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy – now, that’s a straight comedy!!). Just look at Deadpool – he does all sorts of horrendous stuff, but because it’s played for comedy, we let it go AND we enjoy the movie. I can tell you now, if Batman ever cut off a guy’s head and then kicked it into yet another combatant to take them out, I would be up in arms against it. When Deadpool does it… eh… it’s just funny.
Wow... what a sad indictment on me... and us... that is!! Hahaha.
In the clip, Sage compares Spider-Man 2 to Doctor Strange. Now, Spider-Man 2 is by far my favourite of that series of three films and I love the scene Just Write uses – where Peter recovered his drive to be Spider-Man and his powers return. His girlfriend is kidnapped and he takes off his glasses and clenches his fist. It’s a very cool scene.
-Vid: Spider Man 2 2004 Peter Saves MJ from a Car - The scene in question is
at the end of this clip and its larger scene.
All that being said – the one in the Doctor Strange movie was great too.
It was a cool moment, where Strange chooses to be a superhero and settles the metaphorical and literal weight of the cloak on his shoulders – and then the tension is broken, when the living cloak wipes away his tears and he growls at it to stop. It’s fun and funny. And I believe you still get the drama hit of the first moment – whereas the video says that in bathos the drama of the scene is destroyed by the joke. I disagree.
Sage talks about parody quite a bit. Parody is used to make fun of common superhero tropes in things like Deadpool and the Lego movies. And then they say:
“But now we have allegedly serious versions of the genre that are actually, secretly, parodies. That moment in Doctor Strange is a parody of the moment in Spider-Man whether it meant to be or not...”
It’s not.
“...the same way [the Avengers assembling scene during the final battle the end of the first Avengers film] is later parodied by [the Guardians of the Galaxy assembling in Volume 2, when Mantis gets taken out by the meteorite and Drax warns her to watch out after it hits]”
- WWSLFWW
Okay. Firstly, I don’t think there is any intended or even accidental relation to the Spider-Man/Doctor Strange scenes. The Doctor Strange scene is an example of bathos, yes, but not parody. It’s a dramatic moment indeed and they definitely cap it with a joke. BUT it’s a good joke and I don’t think it’s trying to make fun of the trope at all – just lightening a melodramatic moment. Parody is: “a literary or musical work in which the style of an author or work is closely imitated for comic effect or in ridicule” (Merriam-Webster.com) and I don’t think this is the same thing here at all. I don't believe they meant that scene to knock off any other scene. Bathos, yes; parody, no. They do it to break up the melodrama and the cheesiness of the moment.
Next, maybe the scene from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 is meant to be a parody of that particular scene. It is certainly set up the same way, with sweeping camera shots showing each character form up in a melodramatic pose, while glaring outwards at the threat. And in Guardians the scene is definitely ended with bathos – with the two quickfire jokes: 1) Mantis getting taken out hilariously and then 2) Drax saying “Mantis – Watch out!” afterwards. So that’s a yes to parody and a yes to bathos. But… really... who cares? It’s an awesome scene and a great joke in an enjoyable movie. And look at the pic below - This is not a movie trying to take itself too seriously. It's a space comedy adventure.
- Pic: From DenofGeek.com
Again, this movie is full of dark themes, including infanticide, mariticide and patricide. I had to look up “mariticide”… Anyway… How do you sell that to an audience? You lighten the overall feel through humour at other points in the story. Peter Quill/Starlord finds out that his father murdered his mother. In their argument, his Dad breaks his Walkman intentionally. It has a tape in it gifted to Quill by his mother and so it has great sentimental value to him. They could’ve had Quill shout “You killed my Mother!!!” in a hugely melodramatic scene, reminiscent of Batman v Superman’s “Martha” debacle: “Why did you say that name!!!!!” Instead, they used bathos and Quill says, “You shouldn’t have killed my Mom and squished my Walkman!” :
-Vid: You shouldn't have killed my mom and squished my walkman - Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)
Now, this is a scene reminiscent of the Spider-Man 2 scene – as it’s the moment the character finally taps into their power, complete with the fist clenching. Was it a direct parody? I don't think so, but its a movie trope or cliche, definitely. Regardless, it’s still powerful, it’s funny and it diffuses an intentionally dark moment in the movie. Bathos wins.
Another quote, pointing to the Doctor Strange moment and Marvel’s frequent use of this technique:
“The point is that there is a dramatic cost that has to be paid whenever bathos is used at the wrong time.”
- WWSLFWW
I would simply dispute this and say they know what they are doing – they are lightening dark material. And for me, this works. I would suggest that it’s rarely used at the wrong time at all.
To punctuate this quote, the creator of the source vid used the example of the airport scene in Captain America: Civil War. Sage says that this scene is dramatically nonsensical and that the tone is haphazard. He points to Tony’s frequent use of jokes throughout the scene and sudden shifts to seriousness. But this is in keeping with Tony’s character. Like Spider-Man, he jokes when he is stressed in order to deal with troubling situations. As Sage points out, he jokes to the other Avengers while in a fight with them, possibly to the death. Again – it’s in keeping with the character and is an attempt to diffuse the situation and get them to come quietly – they are, after all, his friends. He doesn’t want to fight them, he wants them to submit. And they don’t. He is frustrated by them and that accounts for his sudden tonal shifts. All in all, to me, it’s a very well put together scene – not to mention it’s almost completely CGI and frequently looks like it was filmed on an actual tarmac.
There’s a lot of corny melodrama as the two sides face off and charge each other - I will give you that, absolutely - BUT I kinda love it as a comic fan anyway. And yes, as it’s pointed out in Sage’s video, it ends on an extremely serious note. Again, it balances the whole scene well. It’s when the fight actually gets serious to Tony. He’s not mucking around after that. It works.
Next, Sage says:
“There is another element at play here. The fact that these jokes happen during scenes that would otherwise be emotional, makes me feel like these movies are actually afraid of emotions. Because they are afraid that they’ll be the butt of the joke, that they’ll be seen as – gasp – cheesy!”
- WWSLFWW
Again, I think this comes back to the fact that they are trying to not be too serious, like the DCEU films, and that this use of humour helps them to tackle some very dark stuff. I don’t think they are afraid of emotions – I think they know the emotional toll on an audience when it’s all darkness and no levity. And yeah, at the end of the day, some of these things are cheesy – but so is the source material – and to be light at times does acknowledge this and put it in its place. As Sage points out:
“When running away from an overly serious tone, you can definitely go too far and end up in self-parody”
- WWSLFWW
They play that quote over footage of Christian Bale’s Batman Begins, in a scene where he is laying the Batman growl on pretty thickly and made the scene over-the-top and melodramatic.
This quote is true. It’s a fine balance between cool and dark and just over the top. Bale's performance was pretty over the top in general. I loved the first one, but the growling got ridiculously bad in places in the series.
So to lighten these scenes in the Marvel movies and avoid the mistakes of other franchises that can easily go too far in that direction, they inject some humour.
Sage moves on to discuss Wonder Woman, and is definitely a big fan. I am not, to be clear. I didn't mind the Wonder Woman movie, but there's a lot I had a problem with.
-Pic: From Huffpost.com
Sage states that this movie made him feel real emotions and that director Patty Jenkins said that,
“Cheesy is one of the words banned in my world. I’m tired of sincerity being something that we have to be afraid of doing”
- WWSLFWW, quoting an interview with Pattie Jenkins.
Sage says that he thinks Patty is right and:
“Whatever flaws you want to ascribe to Wonder Woman, a lack of sincerity cannot be one of them”
- WWSLFWW
-Pic: From Vox.com
I’m moving through the DCEU films and I’ll get to Wonder Woman. It's next on my rampage. I have issues with this movie and even more with its sequel. I definitely would not put it above Captain America: Civil War or Thor: Ragnarök for quality of film or story. I know that’s not necessarily a widespread opinion. A lot of people loved it. That’s fine. I found it good and even great in places, but it had some huge weaknesses. As to the quote… I don’t like being told you “cannot” ascribe a point of view to a piece of art… I reckon I could… BUT I will concede the point. It’s a sincere film. Well... a serious film at the very least. I don’t find it emotional at all and I do find the forced love story of these two recent acquaintances very cheesy and unrealistic… even more so that she pines for him for over 65 years after this film. It didn’t reach me even remotely in the ways that Sage said it did for him.
- Pic: From TheSun.co.uk
I found the movies Sage is having a go at far more stimulating emotionally and heaps more entertaining as well. For one – they have worked for longer to make me care about their relationships. When Tony Stark feels pain at losing the Avengers, losing his friendship with Steve Rogers, and nearly losing one of his best friends Rhodey – those things I felt and the bathos did nothing to diminish that, because I was invested in their story in a way that I am not with Diana Prince and Steve Trevor – because the DCEU did not earn it. They forced it upon us. I get a budding relationship between them and that’s sweet, but this instant love that lasts for over half a century…. I’m not buying it. They never earned it.
I’m not behind Sage's glowing review of Wonder Woman’s character virtues and how they are portrayed to us, either. Sage says:
“Wonder Woman is a genuinely inspiring character who actually stands for something. She stands for truth, honour, courage and self-scrifice, and that is demonstrated dramatically throughout the movie. She acts with total conviction and the film never pulls the rug out from under her. The cinematography and music does everything it can to make sure that you are 100% behind her.”
- WWSLFWW
- Pic: From CarloCarrasco.com
Well… I wasn’t. Particularly in the scene shown when these words were rolling – when Diana sheds her robe and crosses the No Man’s Land in an “I’m not a man!” scene, where every gun turns to her and every bullet hits her shield. Is she bullet-proof? No, I don’t think so and they haven’t shown her to be – she deflects bullets off her armour instead. Here, she deflects every bullet with her shield and other little bits of armour that she wears. The softer squishy bits never get hit. AND THEN, the men in the trench behind her realise that she is drawing all the fire and they rush over the top. Not one soldier turns their guns on to them, not a single bullet flies their way. That’s some bullshit right there. I couldn’t get behind that scene at all, let alone 100% behind it. The emotions they were trying to invoke were cheesy in the extreme.
-Pic: From MLarson.org
That being said – it was cool to watch her emerge over the top of the trench. Gal Gadot is a perfect Wonder Woman and that I buy. She has not, however, been in perfect Wonder Woman movies.
Sage goes on to finish in one of the most infuriating parts of this video, because I simply believe that he is wrong. I’m going to interrupt the quote with my responses, since it’s a huge quote… Sage starts:
“The point of all my videos is ultimately for me and you to become better writers by studying the successes and missteps of other stories.
- WWSLFWW
I think it's a bit rich to define these things as other people's missteps, when these films are so incredibly popular. That being said, I am guilty of the same crime in my posts as well in regard to the DCEU. I get it. I do that all the time and those movies are incredibly successful, no matter what I think of their quality. I wish I made missteps like that in life!! Sage continues:
To that end, the most important exercise a writer can do is to absorb a story while being emotionally self-aware. By that I mean, don’t just watch a movie or pick apart the plot-holes of the story, but continually ask yourself in every scene, ‘how is this making me feel?’ and ‘why is it making me feel that way?’”
- WWSLFWW
That I’ll grant you. Where I disagree is that the Marvel films don’t do this and Wonder Woman does!!
“When you can do this, your radar for insincerity becomes infallible and you’re able to see through the kinds of manipulations many films attempt to pull.”
- WWSLFWW
Well… wow… what a load of B.S. that one is! For starters, nothing is infallible. That’s a stupid statement to make. I have gone through this whole video and disagreed with everything. You don’t have to agree with me, but you surely can see that there is no one perfect way of looking at this. The notion of infallibility is nonsense and I simply think he’s wrong all through this video… so that radar needs to go into the shop to be checked out…
“I challenge you to do this while you’re watching Wonder Woman, and I think you’ll find that every scene builds up to a singular emotion that is real, not pantomimed. And that nothing in the scene invalidates anything that comes before. There is real substance beneath the surface level amusements, and that is what makes the movie more than the sum of its jokes.”
- WWSLFWW
I have already shown in the one scene he references twice in the clip – the No Man’s Land scene – that I think this is just silly AND noted that I believe that all of the emotions in this story are forced and not earned. I do not believe in their love on screen at all. They just met each other! So, again, I disagree with that statement. Moving on:
“And its evidence why movies shouldn’t be embarrassed by their own heart. Using bathos can get a laugh, but it doesn’t just destroy the meaning in your story. It destroys the idea that stories can even be meaningful.”
- WWSLFWW
I simply disagree, 100%, with this statement. I find the Marvel movies far more emotional and their relationships built up far more deeply than anything the DCEU has produced to date.
“We need stories to take risks in the emotions that they portray and not second-guess themselves with winks to the audience. I mean do you know how many universally beloved movies there are that have some of the cheesiest scenes you can possibly imagine? And succeed precisely because we enjoy the cheese. ET ends with a spaceship cutting a rainbow across the sky and my favourite movie in the world ends with two people screaming, ‘I love you!’ [Rocky] If your story is sincere enough, then nothing is cheesy.”
- WWSLFWW
Umm… then what was all that stuff before about Patty Jenkins talking about cheesiness being banned and sincerity being needed instead? Was it that, or is it this? It’s gotta be one or the other, surely? And let’s not forget that Wonder Woman is an incredibly cheesy film, and the second one even more so!
- Pic: From Amazon.com - Nah, that film is not cheesy at all
Anyway, if I might, I will also link in a comment in the section underneath the video by Sage that says exactly what I think:
“The problem with this is that sincerity isn't in the intention, but in the execution. First, a brief lesson in linguistics. The word "sincere" derives from the Latin phrase "Sine Cera" meaning "without wax." In marble sculpting, flaws would be patched with wax and then coated in marble dust, giving the appearance of perfection, but only at a surface level. For a movie scene to be sincere, it can't just be done with the intention of building emotion, it has to earn the emotion it's trying to invoke. Looking at the end of E.T. and Rocky, those movies put in the time and character development through the entire movie so that these moments were earned, and the emotion in the scene felt sincere. Compare that to the end of Wonder Woman, and every "dramatic" line feels like it was thrown in to try to invoke an unearned emotion. The intention is there, but the execution is flawed, which keeps if from feeling sincere. Bathos works for these moments because the audience already can tell that the moment doesn't feel sincere, so breaking the drama with a joke cuts the cheesy-ness out of the moment.”
- From a comment below the WWSLFWW video by J Colin Mizia
Yes, J Colin! Yes!! That’s why the Marvel movies work – they have earned their emotions and taken the time in their movies and their franchise to develop their characters, relationships and story with us as the audience. The DCEU films largely did not do this, Wonder Woman included.
And how cool in that “sine cera” thing? I love it.
I will get to Wonder Woman in my DCEU Discussion posts. I’m up to it next! And I will accept Sage’s challenge to look at how it stirs the emotions. I don’t think that opinion holds any water, but I’ll try. BUT I will be diving into the plot holes as well! It’s what I’m doing, I can’t stop now!!
Join me for The DCEU Discussion Part VI: Wonder Woman next!!
*******
NOTE: The pictures and videos used here have been sourced from different internet sites, always linked to under the picture. In the case of comic panels, the original issue numbers and creators are listed, as well as the company that owns them. All rights remain with the original creators and have been used here for entertainment purposes only.
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