Originally published at: The new TOXIC AVENGER comic book is great - Boing Boing
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Ahhh I was trying to resolve my cognitive dissonance over “Troma bad”* but “Macon Blair good” (didn’t he do Blue Ruin ?) and figured it out: Blair starred in Blue Ruin and other fine movies but they were directed by Jeremy Saulnier. So, on balance, I am not compelled to seek out this movie.
*Obviously there is strong evidence that there exist people who disagree with “Troma bad”. I doubt this is a resoluble argument. So as long as I’m angering people I’ll pivot to another movie where I wanted to see it because of the great director (Fincher) but forewent because I couldn’t stand the writer (Sorkin). I await the argument Troma >> Fincher.
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Troma is good, not because they make hollywood quality films that should get oscars… that is not the only metric for a “good” film, I’d argue, what corporations find profitable while pretending like they give a shit about art…
Troma is great because they make low-budget, schlocky films that poke fun at our cultural sacred cows while illustrating that one doesn’t need either access to vast amounts of capital or get a degree from some fancy film school… Lloyd Kaufman epitomized an incredibly punk attitude to film making, that anyone can do it, and that mass entertainment should be in the reach of anyone to do so, rather than just being consumers of whatever the “system” deems “quality” cinema.
There isn’t some hierarchy of film here, though. It’s just tastes. Between Fincher and Troma, I’ll pick Troma, because I find Troma entertaining and funny. Fincher is… fine. I guess. 
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Good luck with that.
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Counseling can help you with these difficult personal challenges.
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Aw, thank you.
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… thank Conan O’Brien 
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See I might argue that Troma is actually bad, and that that’s part of the charm. But the intentionality behind the work as you point out here is also what helps to elevate those films into something greater, something positive, and something dare-i-say, good.
I spent a lot of time in my teens watching every Troma movie I could find, and indeed, a lot of them are objectively terrible. A lot of them are also so flagrantly offensive that I can’t fault anyone for writing them off outright. But I also think I learned a lot about art and social norms by letting the vulgarity of those films wash over me. Nothing was off-limits. Sometimes it was funny; sometimes it was really really tasteless. But it challenged me to ask why I felt like it was okay to smash some taboos, and where I drew the line on other ones. There’s value in that.
So yeah. Troma movies are bad. That’s why they rule.
Hence… schlocky. My point was that the only metric of a good film isn’t just what film critics deem to be “prestige” films…
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“So Bad, It’s Good!” is the section where we stocked all our Troma titles back in the day when I worked at an independent video rental store.
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Exactly right! My problem with the OP I replied to was that the only films worth viewing were those sort of big-budget, Hollywood pretentious type of films (Fincher, Soderberg, etc), and that low-budget, punk rock film making isn’t worth the time… But there are different metrics of “good” and those that are self-aware “bad” films have their own entertainment value… for me, the mode of production (outside the hollywood system, as a labor of love, for the joy of putting together a movie) makes it worth the time to watch a Troma film. Hell, I saw Tromeo and Juliet at Dragon*Con the year it came out (or a year or two after, maybe), in a big, packed room, with some of the cast and Lloyd in the room. It was excellent! Little did I know, the script writer would go on to do some of the biggest films in Hollywood!
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If you’re being misunderstood, then maybe clarify yourself. But yeah, that was sort of the summation of what your point seemed to be, that Troma is bad and Fincher is good. So, not sure what else you want me to do with that, when I happen to disagree with you on both points, and I think I pretty clearly explained why I disagreed.
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Don’t worry, we’re on the same page about that! I’m just very happy and comfortable in the fact that sometimes works of art are objectively shitty but that doesn’t have to meant that they’re any less valuable or enjoyable.
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