Suspension of disbelief

Suspension of disbelief is a concept that applies to works of fiction (books, movies, tv shows, short stories). Wikipedia says that it can be defined "a willingness to suspend one's critical faculties and believe the unbelievable; sacrifice of realism and logic for the sake of enjoyment." For me, I can suspend my disbelief to enjoy shows like Law and Order, or movies like James Bond (which I think is somewhat higher on the scale of unrealisticness), although I draw the line when it comes to superhero stuff that has been pervading tv and movies in the last few years. It's part of the reason why I won't watch that Netflix show that Vincent D'Onofrio sort of recently was in as the main villain. The other part of the reason is that in the show he is fat and bald and it's unsightly and he looked better 15 years ago. 15 years ago (or even earlier, minus in Full Metal Jacket) he looked rather nice in fact. In any case, I can't suspend my disbelief enough to be able to enjoy fantasy books/movies or superhero things. I think it's kind of part of the reason why Harry Potter never interested me as a kid and to this day I still haven't read the books or seen the movies and honestly have no plans to (can you believe it??). 

I think the premise of detectives trying to solve crimes is much more believable than superheroes doing similar things. Plus, with the whole superhero thing there also is probably the issue of making sure the public thinks there's nothing amiss despite the impossible things that happen regarding the superhero and whatever other fantastical elements are present in the story. In addition, superheroes come with the concept of this supernatural being that's magically able to fix things/solve crimes/etc. And that simply isn't how things work in the real world. There are no superhero beings who are going to come and fix things/prevent terrorism/etc/what have you. On the other hand, detectives/police officers do exist. 

I was however able to enjoy the Twilight series back in middle school or whenever so that seems to contradict some of the things here, but I guess it wasn't too unrealistic or at least it wasn't for me back then. I'm not sure if I'd enjoy the books were I to read them again now, but at the time I did. Plus the cover design is pretty nice and they look good all in a line on my bookshelf. To some degree, scifi/dystopian books can be good but not all of them are. The more classic ones (1984, Fahrenheit 451) I've read I've enjoyed but I wouldn't touch a book like say, the Divergent series. I did read the Hunger Games series (a little before it was cool! And yes I know I'm being snobby here by mentioning that) and enjoyed them but then the deluge of similar books that the success of that series unleashed I have not read any books from. It was a few years ago that I read that series so it's possible that my tastes have changed perhaps in that time. I still never have been a fan of fantasy books/etc and I don't think I'll be one in the future either.  

The thing that compelled me to write this post is that lately my mother has started watching the show called The Flash, which is about a superhero named that who... does superhero stuff basically I guess which is what I've garnered from semi-paying attention to 2 episodes (1.18 and 1.19). From what I gather it's a run of the mill superhero thing and does not interest me for reasons mentioned above. Plus, I don't get how the guy is supposed to hear with that silly looking suit that covers his ears (why do so many superhero suits look so silly and ridiculous? That might be part of why I don't like superhero stuff as well). Also, from what I have seen the writing comes off as not particularly good (read: bad) and the show seems to me to be rather cheesy, which is at least in part because of the bad writing. Some of the dialogue I heard makes me want to cringe. Plus, the format is more cheesy serial drama about a superhero and I'm at least sort of partial to the procedural format or at the very least, a serial drama minus the cheesy superhero stuff. I think maybe I could enjoy the show The Wire (which is supposedly very good) and I did enjoy what I watched of the Scandinavian serial crime drama The Bridge. 

To close, even though I am not super familiar with the nature of the content of The Flash, it seems kind of hypocritical that my mother would enjoy that show when some of the same ideas (bad guys doing bad stuff) are present in Law and Order which she decidedly does not like (on the reasoning that it has violence and crime). But violence and crime (perhaps to a lesser degree; I'm not completely sure about it since I've only just semi-watched about 2 episodes) are also at least sort of involved in the plot of The Flash. I don't really want to watch more of it to determine the exact nature/severity of the violence and crime and therefore the extent of my mother's hypocrisy, but I think the point still stands.