I don't think cinema has to touch minds to be effective or being transcendent art, at least not overtly or through societal/political/emotional ideas. As mentioned above, I think Last Year at Marienbad is a perfect example of that. It's, IMO, the greatest movie I've ever watched but I didn't step away from it having gained any new knowledge about myself outside of aesthetical rapture/what can make me tingle through both its narrative construct and cinematography. That doesn't mean that a narrative film - and as VD rightly put it, Scorcese is wrong. MCU are narrative films, just as his are. Although they're of a much poorer quality than his early works and on par with some of his post-2000 movies - can't be high art, but just that the terms high-art or low-art to me transcend artforms in general. Low art to me isn't a concept so much as its a way to define the quality of a piece. There is nothing stopping superhero movies from high art but an (understandable) search for profits and the bad sensibilities of their creative teams (and whether that's a restriction imposed on them by studios is of no importance to me). But it does have a strong effect on them being bad art. And I'd take disagree with anyone who considered comic books like Calvin and Hobbes or Krazy Kat low art because of their medium or accessibility.
But I think that there's an aspect that isn't considered here by folks like Kareeem Abdul-Jabar. While I enjoyed reading his THR piece, the argument that high art has to make us wiser (although it can do so) is wrong and what is missing from both sides of the argument and current mainstream, commercial art. An art piece doesn't need to have anything to say. What matters is how the piece is formed, delivered and how it does what it does (which I guess makes me more inclined to formalism in a way). In short, style is what matters above anything. Art doesn't have to inherently mean anything in defined, direct terms. So in short, I disagree with KAJ, James Gunn, who comes off looking like an insecure man who's struggling with the idea that his comic book films aren't treated with the same respect as more ambitious works, and Scorcese and Coppola, two directors who I think have a very flawed approach to what high art or narrative actually means.
Frankly, I don't have a problem with a film or a story that's trying to convey an idea or a statement. I just don't think it's particularly important to the recipient of the piece and is probably of more value to the artist as a guiding post in its execution than it is to the enjoyment of the recipient. A point should never take precedence over a style or the organic construction of a story. Some great artists are able to pull of both seamlessly and that's neat, but it's not particularly important. Any great idea worth expanding upon is probably better off in a non-fiction piece and what I think art gains in coveying humanist ideas is in accessibility and entertainment as compared to academic works. The reason some people are snobs about superhero films is because they don't achieve anything in particular. They don't have style nor are they great, well-written stories that have emotional impact (at least to this viewer). The more someone broadens their palette when it comes to films (or music or literature) and comes to appreciate the possibilities offered by the different mediums, I don't think there's anything surprising or mean-spirited about someone not getting a similar kick from movies that even the most hardcore fans can admit are formulaic. We wouldn't expect any different in regards to other fields but folks always seem to have more of a personal stake in art.
