Friday night I saw V for Vendetta. I thought it was stupid and shallow, as I think most comic-book movies are stupid and shallow, despite their pretensions to Deep Thoughtfulness. Because this is not really a post about V for Vendetta, I shall say only that it is a 2005 film, based on a 1980s graphic novel, that stars Hugo Weaving as a masked, one-man wrecker of fascist dystopias (a cross between Guy Fawkes, Edmond Dantès, and Britain's most boring Shakespearean actor), and refer those who wish to know more to its Wikipedia page.

Why do comic-book movies so outrage my inner Grinch? I could tick off a bunch of reasons, beginning with filmmakers who take their themes far more seriously than their incoherent screenplays deserve. (To pick once more on V for Vendetta, someone please explain how our hero, despite wearing body armor thick enough to stop hundreds of bullets, can spin and flip and slice and dice through an army of frantically reloading fascists, like some wet dream from The Matrix.) Of course, writers have been imagining impossible heroes at least as far back as Gilgamesh; I have no illusions that contemporary blockbusters are special cases, beyond what the CGI can supply. And frankly, if my only objections were aesthetic ... well, who cares about my snobby tastes?

But Friday another more troubling objection occurred to me. V for Vendetta is typical of its genre in the lip service it pays to Über-Values such as freedom, justice, and popular sovereignty—the good guys aren't just exacting brutal vengeance on the bad guys, they're empowering the masses! Yet which of these movies has any real faith in the abilities of human beings—not superheroes but ordinary people and the institutions they create—to solve human problems? Governments, businesses, religions, the media—in plot after plot they are the root of the world's evil, or at least corrupted enablers, and humanity must wait for a savior from elsewhere. Born of despair, not hope.

Why is any of this relevant outside popular culture? Just listen to the rhetoric of our current political saviors, certainly on the right and, I fear, increasingly on the left. Is not the appeal of Donald Trump and—at least to hear his most fervent supporters—Bernie Sanders that of the superhero? The incorruptible ideal. The mighty man who will revitalize our institutions not by working within their structures but by blowing them up.

From this perspective, Hillary Clinton's greatest challenge this election season has nothing to do with email servers or philandering husbands. It is convincing voters that the institutions we have built—and especially our government—hold solutions to our problems. She needs to make the case passionately and proudly. And if elected, she—and her colleagues in office—need to solve problems. There are no superheroes to take the lead.

A major reason I haven't blogged since November is I'd been directing a play: Life Support, by Madeline Leong.​ Life Support is the second production I've directed of a new play written by someone else—the first being Erica Smith's Come Out and Say It—and both experiences left me contemplating the role of feedback, and the need for humility, in the development of a new play.

Since 2010 I have led workshops and talkbacks involving dozens of playwrights—some through the Mobtown Playwrights Group, others through the Dramatists Guild. If I may briefly set aside humility, I consider myself pretty insightful when it comes to feedback, and I am proud of my contributions, as director and dramaturg, to Come Out and Say It and Life Support. Yet I also believe that had Erica or Madeline followed my instincts on several crucial points, their respective plays would have been worse for it.

Life Support concerns a man's struggles to accept his impending death from cancer. Two members of the man's family appear onstage: his estranged son and his fifth wife. Nearly as important, however, is a character we never meet: the man's daughter, Melody, who "disappeared" long ago. "She wasn't kidnapped," the estranged son clarifies. "She ran away—her mom ran away with her. Because of my father." When I first read this, my instinct was that Melody is unnecessary—a distraction from the play's flesh and blood. If Madeline had asked me to rewrite Life Support, Melody would have been my first cut.

That "if" is the point, of course. Instead Madeline held firm, and Melody remained. Over the next few months, as I lived with the script, my attitude gradually changed—almost without my realizing it. Only as I watched the performances did I fully appreciate the role played by this absent daughter. Far from distracting, she pulls me in deeper ... and then she's gone. The plot doesn't hinge on Melody—structurally, she is still cuttable—yet she belongs in the play's world as surely as life and death, hope and regret. Madeline knows this because she created that world. For me to think I know better requires much presumption.

In Come Out and Say It, I had somewhat of the opposite experience: The draft Erica submitted to be workshopped seemed perfect already. Come Out and Say It has five characters—a mix of longtime and first-time crooks—dodging the fallout of a failed heist. Erica used the workshop as an opportunity to further explore the play's many relationships—every rehearsal, it seemed, she arrived with a new scene to stage. As she distributed the pages, my (private) response was the same: We learn just enough already; why dilute our experience of this world? And every time, as I heard the new material, the ground shifted and I fell harder for the characters. Erica knows this because she created those characters. For me to think I know enough requires much presumption.

A theme, a theme! I am not dismissing the value of feedback or a fresh perspective. But so much of new play development involves soliciting—and seriously considering—gut reactions. Never mind whether readers and audience members are trained dramaturgs or even artists—can anyone really trust their first impressions of a piece of theatre? Of course, here is where idealism smacks into reality. A play must communicate quickly and directly because, for most people, first impressions are the only ones; even among dedicated theatergoers, who has the time and money to see multiple performances? All of which incentivizes theaters to produce and writers to write cleaner, tidier shows. And, when a moment isn't immediately clear, to "fix" it rather than simply live with it. Or, when a moment seems good enough, to resist seeking better.