I ask this because the other day my oldest brother who is a total normie (plus in his teen years he was busy with one lady after the next while in my teen years I was researching UFO cases, reading sci-fi and buying classic rock and RnB records) was telling me about The Boys and was shocked that I wasn't watching it. I told him that I have some of the comic book and they are fine but that at this point I am just so sick of deconstruction or subversion.
I have the the Watchmen comic by Alan Moore and his life views aside it is a great comic. The only problem is that it spawned to this day so many "what if super heroes were bad" or "dark and gritty side of super heroes" stories. My two worst cases of these modern trends are the Last Jedi because I think Rian Johnson is a typical hollywood douchebag who thinks you aren't smart if you don't appreciate his movies and I question his motivations because I don't think he would give a beloved female character the "Luke treatment". Another example would be Ayra killing the Night King in Game of Thrones because while I enjoy her character in the books I can't help but think that their motivation was girl power and to say "well everyone expected Jon to fight the Night King" is a terrible reason to not do it.
Some good examples off the top of my head are Yoda in Empire Strikes back because it was an interesting surprise to see a little green guy after hearing about a great warrior/Jedi master, but there was a lesson there. Also, in the first Ice and Fire book or Game of Thrones season 1 I didn't see Ned Stark being executed because I thought he would be the main character throughout. Granted there is a pretty sad lesson there about the consequences of doing the right thing and being honest.
What are your examples?
Perhaps not exactly what you are looking for, but I think my favorite subversion, and an example of one that is actually fun and interesting unlike most that happen today, off the top of my head is the twist about 2/3rds of the way through the Lego Movie. (and spoilers ahead for anyone who cares)
Basically, the entire time up to that point in the movie, it has seemed like a very simple children's movie. It has its moments where as an adult you can laugh at things, but most of the jokes are making fun of other movies, making fun of adults, show Lord Business as being evil because he wants everyone to follow the rules all the time, simple stuff like that.
Then the main character Emmett is forced to sacrifice himself to save everyone else in LegoLand from danger, so he jumps into a portal off the side of a cliff, disarming the bomb that he had been unwillingly made into the trigger for.
[SECOND SPOILER WARNING]
And then the whole movie shifts to the real world. Where we see that the reason it was all very simple and relied on pop culture references...was because it was the imagination of a child playing with the Lego set. And "Lord Business" is his dad, who the kid is upset about because he keeps getting scolded for playing with the Legos by his dad (who obsessively follows the instructions and built a model city out of them). And it actually ends in redemption where the dad realizes he was being a dick to his son and he starts treating him better and letting him use the Legos.
I have seen a lot of movies try to pull off a similar sort of twist, but few have been successful, and I wasnt expecting something that deep in a kids movie.
Very interesting. I haven’t seen Lego Movie yet but there is a Simpsons episode that is similar. They never joked that it rips off Lego Movie