I can only speculate, but I suspect it's related to our infantilization. A proper democracy requires an informed and rational electorate, and we just don't have that.
As I said elsewhere in this post, most adults now read below the sixth grade level. Popular media has been getting shorter and shorter, all while relying less and less on the printed word. Meanwhile the most popular news sources are targeted to people with the comprehension and reading skills of children, and the most popular movies are literally based on children's comic books. Hell, video games outsell movies by an ever increasing margin and the majority of adults now find it impossible/unpleasant to sit through even an entire comic book film without checking their cell phones. Even music has become increasing simple and repetitive, designed not to challenge the listener. Our shared culture is almost entirely the culture of children.
So then, do we really expect these adult-sized children to be capable of facing down hard choices, or making rational informed decisions? No, they accept the "obvious" (but often incorrect) answers offered by charlatans and simpletons in lieu of genuine reason and the hard work of finding actual (and often painful) solutions for the very messy real world.
I don't think it's fair to characterise all "comic book" films as being immature, although there's a lot of shallow super-hero films being pumped out of Hollywood these days. Maybe if more people in the U.S. were familiar with "V For Vendetta" (despite Alan Moore's loathing for that film) then their attitude towards government might well be different.
(Trying to think of another good example and the Watchmen series tackled racism head-on, also Persepolis is a great animation covering the Iranian revolution)
The problem with "cape shit" is explicitly Disney. They sacrifice the last vestiges of art and integrity to keep the pipeline full of slop that happens to be easily digestible to those people who read at or below a primary school level.
As I said elsewhere in this post, most adults now read below the sixth grade level. Popular media has been getting shorter and shorter, all while relying less and less on the printed word. Meanwhile the most popular news sources are targeted to people with the comprehension and reading skills of children, and the most popular movies are literally based on children's comic books. Hell, video games outsell movies by an ever increasing margin and the majority of adults now find it impossible/unpleasant to sit through even an entire comic book film without checking their cell phones. Even music has become increasing simple and repetitive, designed not to challenge the listener. Our shared culture is almost entirely the culture of children.
So then, do we really expect these adult-sized children to be capable of facing down hard choices, or making rational informed decisions? No, they accept the "obvious" (but often incorrect) answers offered by charlatans and simpletons in lieu of genuine reason and the hard work of finding actual (and often painful) solutions for the very messy real world.