I never read an American superhero comic. I read a lot of North American comics but never a superhero themed one.
Do you watch Gotham? If so, there's another one. Though, what I really meant to put across was that there will be people watching Gotham who've never read a comic and wouldn't think of doing so who will be watching. That's how mainstream it is now, which was my point.
Manga is very different in that respect because it's a much more diversified medium than North American comics. There are substantial amounts of it inside the superhero genre broadly conceived (I guess Akira is one), but most of it mirrors literature in general, covering all genres and demographics (for instance, manga sales in terms of adult/juvenile manga are proportional to sales of novels, classified as adult or juvenile).
Yes manga is different, but from a mainstream pov, it's all the same area. I could've included Cosplay, RPG's (both computer and board) or even Japanese culture itself. My point wasn't to compare those things, but to say that they're all easily accessible and widely available now thanks to the internet and that an interest in one can easily lead to the acknowledgement of another. So, for example, you might only be interested in anime. But then you're talking to someone on a website about a film and they mention a convention they're going to. Something you didn't know existed. It sounds like something you'd enjoy, so you go to a convention and discover cosplay. Previously these sorts of things were outside the mainstream and tucked away. There were fan clubs or fanzines, small local groups, but they were few and fair between and they were often the sort of thing which you stopped when you became an adult/grew up and had responsibilities. Now it's so easy and quick to find like-minded individuals and interact with them and, thanks to people sharing digitally, it can happen so much quicker and if it's not free, then it's usually cheap, which makes it easier to spread because there's little/no risk. All of this increases the pace at which these things happen.
When I first got into foreign cinema there weren't any films like that shown anywhere near me and any films you could find to buy would usually be very expensive. Plus, they'd be blind buys and often I might not even know the title. Those from the generation before me wouldn't have even had that option.
There still aren't any non-mainstream cinemas near me, but that doesn't matter because it's all out there at my fingertips. If I know about it I can find it and if I don't know of it then there's so many places/opportunities to find out about it. Before there were the people you knew, tv and radio and the library. And the library didn't rent films out when I started in foreign cinema, so it wouldn't have mattered even if I'd borrowed every book on cinema they had so I could research what I might like. With the exception of Sight & Sound (which back then wasn't sold in any shop I'd ever been in outside London) I don't think there was a mainstream/populist film magazine in the UK until the early 90's, though I'm sure you could get the US version of Premire or something like that in London in some places. But, again, you had to know it existed.
It's called entertainment. Before Lucas and Spielberg there were the historical epics (Ben Hur) and the westerns. And movies like Seven Samurai from 1954 are extremely similar to a movie like The Avengers, besides the special effects and supernatural elements. Blockbuster films always exist as long as there is a large market for movies.
So, as I said, they're currently what are being used for action films. Thanks, I've already said all that.
You call that "Infanti(li?)sation of adults", well then adults are being infantilized since the Illiad, i.e. since fiction and fantasy exist. Just because a movie is accessible for children does not mean it isn't supposed to be enjoyed by an adult.
No, I didn't say that sci-fi and/or fantasy are for children. Neither did I say adults shouldn't/can't enjoy children's entertainment. This is only one element of what I think of as the infantilisation of adults, but in this instance what I mean is that this is sold to adults as if it's for them. Whereas before it was/would've been seen as a kids film.
I remember seeing The Care Bears Movie in 1986 and my abiding memory from that experience (other than the gift pack we were each given. That was the first time I'd been to the cinema and been given anything) was that I was the odd one out. Everyone else in the queue (and you all queued up outside the doors back then. No foyer or games area to be in) was either a small child or the accompanying adult(s). I was 13 years old and I seemed to be at least half the age of the adults or about twice the age of the kids.
I don't know this, but if the same thing played out now, my guess is that the 13 year old HK wouldn't be the odd one out. It might still be mainly kids and parents for a Care Bears film, but I still don't think I'd be the only 'other'. Personally, I can think of two women off the top of my head who may well be in that line and, were it My Little Pony, I'm sure it'd be a hell of a lot more.
I have an hypothesis that my generation looked at our parents and their refrain of "Hope I die before I get old" and realised that that was all well and good but a) You didn't want to die and, b) If you didn't, then you got old. I feel we got around this by just not growing up. We'll get old, but we won't grow up and if we don't grow up then we get to avoid what our parents wanted to avoid by dying, which is being a grown up and having responsibilities.
Seeking films by director instead of actor is the way of the film buff. The way of the casual film watcher is to seek movies by the actor or theme or franchise. This applies to all eras and countries, not just the present.
Again, this is what I said/meant. We may care/think about directors/producers/writers/etc, but the vast majority of the cinema going public want to know who's in it and what's it about.
That was so much longer than I was expecting. Sorry about that.