I’ve always found it weird when world threatening events are typically concentrated in one country but it is to be expected that the majority of media from a country will take place in that country.
If the MCU were more realistic, there ought to be more international heroes but somehow almost all the earth heroes seem to be American (the only exception I can think of is Black Panther). I like that The Incredibles 2 features international heroes.
I also used to find it weird how in Digimon, the saviours of a whole other world just happen to all be from Japan. The second season brought in international digidestined but it doesn’t change the fact that the ones who traveled to the digiworld to fight evil in the first season happened to all be from one small area of Japan
There really aren’t enough international characters but you forgot Wanda (Scarlet Witch), or her brother Quicksilver. Thor seems American but is from Asgard, Professor X is British I believe, Nightcrawler is German or Dutch I think… I’m sure there are more I’m not thinking of but at least there are some.
I’m embarrassed I forgot about Wanda, she’s one of my favourites. To be fair, she is living in America for much of the franchise. I also almost mentioned Shang-Chi, he’s originally from China and most of his movie is set in China but he also grew up in America. The X-men aren’t really part of the MCU yet but they will be in Doomsday. Wolverine is already part of the MCU and he’s Canadian. As for Thor, I wasn’t counting him as an earth hero because Asgard is another planet.
Most of Hollywood is yank wank, you kinda get used to it. Tbh Hollywood is way too ignorant to portray anything outside the states accurately.
It can’t portray the united states accurately either.
I dont really mind honestly
The same way I view the location of most anime being in Japan. It’s just typical of the genre.
Honestly, it helps with the suspension of disbelief. Some local author tried to tell urban fantasy stories in my home town… Its just too silly for me to read about a werewolf/vampire/alien fighting on the street I cross to get to the supermarket.
And of course it is absolutely masturbatoric, same as Japan and aliens invading Tokyo.
Funnily enough, I find NYC and Tokyo to be the least masturbatory targets for off-world interest.
NYC makes sense as a combined seat of international politics (see the UN building), economic power (largest GDP by city and Wall Street seeing 2/3rds of all public trade), and genetic representation for humanity (Queens being the most ethnically and linguistically diverse urban area on the planet).
Tokyo makes sense as the world’s most populous metropolitan area and highest GDP by metropolitan area.
So, aliens scanning the planet or the Internet or whatever and thinking “we need to go here first” for either location is believable to me in an objective sense.
It also helps that there is often some background lore adding to why a particular location is important, which also includes explanations for Earth itself being important on a cosmic scale, though how masturbatory those explanations feel is highly variable.
I know!! It’s like when Thor repeatedly put the story in Norway’s oldest town, the one I grew up in, and put it in a valley. The one very notable thing about the town is that it is on the opposite side of the country from the fjords and big valleys, and surrounds the castle on top of the mountain facing the sea.
Reminds me of Doctor Who and how this awesome time-traveling, space-hopping demigod mostly only cares about this one random island (Great Britain).
The Doctor did come to America for a season (with the Eleventh Doctor, Matt Smith) and America has been mentioned a couple times (e.g. “New New York”, though that was an alien city) but for the most part, the series is UK-centric because it’s made in the UK.
Most anime takes place in Japan, if it’s from Japan. The Apothecary Diaries is a recent one that takes place in China. That’s weird. When anime is set in the west — for example, Fullmetal Alchemist and its sequel, Attack on Titan, Saga of Tanya the Evil, and SPYxFAMILY all being set in Germany, and The Promised Neverland taking place in the US (minor spoiler, some of these don’t actually take place there, but you’re led to believe they do) — Japan likes to make a live-action version that IS set in Japan, however ridiculous that ends up being. I guess they’re a bit xenophobic, but so are we, so… not gonna hold it against 'em, but rather, just be thankful for more entertainment options.
So, it happens. Placing the action in another country. It’s not normal, though.
Doctor Who always ending up in London destroyed my sense of disbelief almost every time after the first few, until it hit me like a brick how wildly hypocritical I was being as someone who grew up close to NYC
I don’t know why I’d expect a US production to be set in Germany and be about, uh, local superheroes (?). (In fact, thinking about it, I’d dread any such production unless the majority of the people involved are in fact German and know the country.)
Spider-Man doesn’t work in our cities anymore than he works in a small US town.
It’s all fantasy and entertainment. We know that superheroes are not real and we don’t care where they fight their enemies. It all could just as well be happening in made up lands like Middle-earth, Gotham City or Boston.
Its funny. “Oh the earth is about to explode? Only show it crack in the USA”. Makes me feel safe knowing how much it is fictionnal and in no way related to me.
That’s something I like about the movie Home. It was an American movie but the main site of the alien invasion was Paris for a change
It’s pretty indifferent because Hollywood has an excellent track record of screwing up literally every aspect of a foreign country, even with next door Canada and Mexico, so people would rather just see a good movie than a bad depiction.
As for superheroes, I’ve always made the argument that most people actually don’t care all that much about the current genre outside of fictional entertainment because to them it’s purely fictional entertainment. Especially for 3rd world countries, they would find it dumb for some superhero to battle a supervillain in their hometown when there’s a shitty government/military/cartel/mob right down the street that’s done 999999x worse than whatever a fictional villain can threaten to do.
One of the reasons the Batman trilogy was so well received internationally is because unlike the rest of the superhero genre, it revolved around Gotham’s decrepit justice system being reignited and actually leading to a systemic improvement in society, which is everyone’s pipe dream.
Superheroes are cops with superpowers.
It world be nice if some were firefighters/medics and not cops
As a form of masturbation.
Do you live in new York or LA? If not you know how it feels.
This is Sekovia erasure! Again!
And Wakanda, and probably Latveria at some point. Also most of Guardians of the Galaxy.
Captain France always Fights for France, in France.
