The MCU’s New Breed of Moviegoers

I watched “Endgame” during its opening weekend, “Captain Marvel” a month ago, “Infinity War” last year, and “Black Panther” before that. They were all amazing experiences, and yet there was something different between those movies and those that were standard box office fillers like “Mission Impossible: Fallout.”

I don’t think the audience was any less bored during “Fallout” than “Endgame,” but from the noise that they were making, you’d almost assume that the people watching the Avengers were Super Bowl attendees. “Mission Impossible” has just as much adrenaline-fueled action as “Endgame,” and it’s even more down to earth than the latter because of the absence of supernatural or futuristic powers that permeate through all of the Avengers. So why aren’t people cheering more during other movies?

Marvel has been groundbreaking in many ways. It has shown that heroes aren’t all perfect and that villains aren’t pure evil. You can also have serious movies interspersed with cleverly-placed humor and witty banter, all to afford us a level of relatability despite how far from human many of Marvel’s characters seem to be. Steve Rogers is a superhuman who has impeccable morality (sometimes to the point of having no allies), and Tony Stark is arrogant and uncompromising to many faults. Both characters have numerous other flaws, often explored deeply in their solo movies, that make them more human than we can see on first sight.

It is this kind of character development and exploration that enables Marvel to appeal to its audiences on a deeper level than most other franchises.

In the case of “Mission Impossible,” if you consider all six movies that have been released in the series, Ethan Hunt always manages to turn it around, being level-headed whether he’s in deep trouble or far from it. We know he’s always going to live, and everything will always be all right. Time and time again, Hunt never truly loses something nor someone close to him. It pushes his humanity far into a corner and makes it too easy for us moviegoers to root for him. Which is why we don’t. If it’s a big champ versus the underdog, we usually don’t cheer at all unless the underdog puts up a good fight. As opposed to Hunt’s knack for always reaching a good ending and leaving the scene unscathed, the Avengers are far from perfect invincible beings, which makes every single little victory worth cheering for and every single little loss worth gasping or crying for.

Going into “Endgame,” we know not all is guaranteed. Stark nearly died in the first Avengers film, Quicksilver exited as soon as he entered, S.H.I.E.L.D. turned out to be a cover for the festering HYDRA, and up until now, the Avengers’ fighting has often been among themselves. We are never sure how it will all turn out, especially when every Avenger and Marvel hero is ready to put their life on the line for the universe, making no sacrifice is too great.

With our most beloved characters fighting against overwhelming odds, it’s hard to hold our breath for them. We want to be the driving force for their fight and make sure that that fight doesn’t end with our heroes in a bind or in death. Our cheering gives us that opportunity.

Our lack of knowledge or obvious outcome during these MCU movies makes us uncertain, and growing up with characters that have always won without a scratch, we can no longer enter the theater silent. Our cheers and gasps are all our attempts to boost our morale as we struggle to push the plot over to a happy ending when in fact, we are presented with an unchangeable and inevitable finish. At the end of the day, we come out of these movies feeling more connected—to each other and our heroes—and we bring that emotion over to the next movie, where more cheering and crying await us.