What's with all the infantile movies?

Some time ago (well, a long time ago, I first started this draft in 2016) I posted this item:

Lex Anteinternet: The "Avengers", seriously?: There's a new "Avengers" movie out that's receiving a lot of press. And by that, I mean serious press. Serious film crit...

What is up with this category of movies?  And by that, I mean movies that are properly the domain of children being dressed up, overblown, and released for adults.  Are we unable to deal with the adult world anymore in any fashion?

As noted, I first started this draft in 2016.  Maybe.  The movie linked in was written about in 2015.  Since that time, it's only grown worse.  A flood of Marvel cartoon character films, amazing watched by adults, has since been released.

This genre of movie has been around for a long time, to be sure.  D.C. comics character Superman first appeared in a live action film in 1948.  But let's be frank, these films were stupid and meant for young adults.

Kirk Alyn in the 1948 version of Superman.

It wasn't until 1978, however, with another Superman movie that these films really crossed over to adult fare.  They remain as stupid as ever, but they seemingly won't go away.

It's not just these films, I'd note, although they're the bulk of what I'm complaining about. An entire class of really stupid light comedy fare is out there as well.  If Adam Sandler is in it, for example, it's probably stupid.  But stupid live action comedies have seemingly always been with us forever.  How else do you explain The Three Stooges?

A person may, of course, state what's the harm. But the harm is there in that these films are oddly enough taken seriously.  People analyze them for what they mean, often attributing meaning to them that they likely do not deserve. Comparing them to myths of old, for example, is done, or comparing them to religious tenants and positions, is yet another.

And now they're being given social import, although in a backwards fashion.  The next installment of the cartoon Black Panther is out, the same being Wakanda Forever.  I didn't see Black Panther, and I'm not going to see Wakanda Forever, but it's clear that it riffs off of the popular American concept, at the current time, of powerful female led African kingdoms once existing.  This is, quite frankly, simply American feminist fare and not really very charitable to real Africans, including real African women.

Powerful African kingdoms, within context, did exist, but outside of the Christian world women's roles have always been a bit grim to some extent.  And looking at some of the real world African political entities wouldn't take you in this direction at all.  An early slave rebellion in the Colonial south, for instance, occurred with a warrior society of Angolan Catholic slaves rose up and dashed off.  

You read that right.

They were Africans, they were in a warrior society, and they were Roman Catholic.

There are a lot of good stories that could be mined here.  But true ones.  Why not explore them?

All of which leads me back to this.  These infantile movies are somehow another example of panem et circenses.  Light escapism.  The fact that escapism has become so big. . . that's not really good.