Devin Faraci credits The Avengers' massive box-office haul to a post-financial crisis hunger for optimism:
We are living in a time of precipitous uncertainty. Nobody is interested in the grey areas anymore. Much like the 1930s – the time when superheroes were birthed – we’re hungry for something that feels optimistic, something that’s hopeful. Something that tells us it’s all going to be okay. That something is The Avengers. It’s the most relentlessly positive blockbuster in years.
The big conflict in the film isn’t between the Avengers and the Chitauri, it’s between the Avengers.
It’s a movie about squabbling, disparate people coming together to get things done. No character feels extraneous, and everyone has something to do that only they can accomplish. The film's money shot isn't an explosion or a fight scene, it's a shot of the characters standing together, united. It’s exactly the fantasy that will appeal to a nation divided drastically along seemingly insurmountable partisan lines. It's the fantasy of teamwork.
Compilation of the Dish's take on the mega-hit here. Sonny Bunch focuses instead on the blockbusters that have flopped recently:
If the new normal is a world in which a studio is releasing a $150-$250M movie every single weekend and three of those movies are failing for every one that strikes it rich, the studios are going to run out of money really quickly.
The Dish 