It was passé to feel left behind by the popular modes of expression of the generation that succeeded one’s own. It was important to attempt to understand it, to make some kind of truce with the form that had overtaken what you had held dear. I did not want to become my mother, snapping a helpless Wu-Tang CD in half after it was left behind in the family car stereo. But tolerance was not the same as acceptance. I had friends who argued for the profound complexity and depth of the superhero movies. Don’t you think it’s a little easy? I would say to them. That this thing you love is also the thing that everyone else loves? If all these people love it, isn’t it probably stupid? They would respond to me slowly like I was crazy. They told me they admired the structural nuance of serialized storytelling, that the dominant cultural narratives were being subtly undermined by psychosexual dynamics occurring between characters with unorthodox genetic profiles. Well, some of them said that. Usually they just told me that they knew the movies were dumb, but still found them entertaining, and that I should give the dominant culture more of a chance if I didn’t want to live a misanthropic empty life. I told them I didn’t have time for the dominant culture, which wasn’t really true, since mostly I was busy watching sports.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. It was a text from Richard: “no news yet.” Well, okay. I felt so sad and lonely that I called Rebecca, the woman I’d been dating for seven years. I knew that she was doing things with her family, but I hoped that she would pick up anyway, from the hiking trail or the rifle range or wherever they all were together. The movie had begun its final descent into air war, and I could barely hear the crackly sonar soundings of my phone as it attempted to make contact with the world outside the theater.

“Hey, babe,” I heard faintly. “Everything okay?”

“I’m at a movie,” I yelled over the noise.

“Oh,” she said. “That’s unexpected. How’s your mom?”

“In surgery! I just … I felt bad.”

“I’m sorry. It will be … are you in the theater? It’s very loud.”

“There’s no one else here,” I shouted.

“I think you should finish the movie. We’re looking at paintings for my dad. He wants to return the one we got him for Christmas.”

“Okay.”

“It’ll be all right. Try to enjoy the movie.”

“It’s really bad,” I said.

“I know. I’ll talk to you later.”

“The movie, I mean.”

“I know, honey. You’ll be okay. I promise.”

“Who even are these people, you know? Like, what are they even supposed to represent?”

“I love you. Talk to you later. Give your mom and Richard my love.”