I was listening to a podcast, and the guy was talking about how he is tired of this trend of deconstruction or subverting tropes/expectations. He said they are tropes for a reason and at some point people will get tired of everything having to be deconstructed. He then had me laughing because he said at this point I just want to see a movie where a brave knight saves the princess from the dragon (although such a plot today would cause the screeching from the usual twitter brigade).
When was the first time you noticed the obsession with subversion of expectations? I first noticed it after The Last Jedi when the "critics" couldn't stop gushing about how bold it was and how he subverted expectations because people wanted to see a more heroic Luke Skywalker. That was one of the things that really opened my eyes about critics and I remember after the last season of Stranger Things I saw some critics praising that one girl being a lesbian and how she "subverted expectations" and was the best character. I mean a show that pays homage to the 80s of course should dumb the reformed jock/nerdy girl love story so you can have lgbt representation that makes zero sense in the plot.
Those are the top two examples that come to mind and of course now, we have movies and tv shows that are made so the critics can enjoy it. I would say one of the best examples of subversion of expectation done right is the first book of A Song of Ice and Fire which Game of Thrones season one adapted perfectly. Having the main character die was brilliant with the way it was set up. Contrast that with the whole Night King debacle (I still feel like if this was a few years ago, Jon Snow would've at least had a fight with the night king but there seems to be an obsession with not showing heroic white males). Also in comic books I think the Watchmen that came out in the 80s was great, but unfortunately it has turned to the point where everyone wants to deconstruct super heroes. I wish that Brightburn is the last movie to do so, but I'm sure it won't be.
When did you guys start noticing this obsession with subverting expectations?
Some of it comes down to straight-up hipsterism. These journos that keep jerking off each other over shit-tier works aren't really doing it because they genuinely like the shit they're being fed - but they hate normal people more. They desperately want to be special, they see themselves above you or me so they're desperate to avoid sharing any tastes with us, and normal people like good art, so the easiest way to stand apart is to pretend to like garbage. Those disgusting plebeians like a good steak? Well I'm going to eat bugs because that's how enlightened I am! They like actually good movies? I'll go watch Captain Marvel 50 times, take that you subhumans!
It ties to how they always claim conservatives do whatever "to own the libs". It's just more projection, because leftists always project. A conservative might slap a Greta sticker on his massive pickup truck, but he didn't buy the truck to own some retarded Swedish 12 year old boy, the sticker is just a little joke. Leftists will spend hours elbow deep in literal horseshit just so they can post a picture of a Trump bust made of horseshit on Reddit. Take that, dad.