Nah that seems like more of a strawman or moving the goalposts than anything remotely reflective of the actual situation.
Nobody is criticizing this movie because they went into it expecting an oscar-bait period romantic drama. Nobody.
Literally every single person knew what the movie was supposed to be: a superhero movie. An action/adventure movie with excitement, a few mild scares, some laughs, explosions, fights, etc. Sure, within the genre there can be “light-hearted, mostly comedy romp” and “dark, gritty, shades of grey” tones of film within it, but zero people are walking into this one expecting Pride and Prejudice, and it’s silly at best to suggest otherwise.
So when we’re talking about expectations, we’re not talking about the overall genre or tone expectations, we’re talking about expectations as to how well executed, well acted, well written, and well thought out the various elements were.
So yeah, when people say they found it disappointing, not being up to their expectations, they mean as a superhero movie. Further, given the steady diet they’ve been fed of the same, they mean, specifically, "up to the expectation set by many, many other similar films in the genre, in the same umbrella IP, from the same studio, released in the same broad time period.
It really doesn’t get a whole lot more apples-to-apples than expectations for a Disney/Marvel superhero movie in the 2020s.
So no, sorry, I can’t buy the angle that “if the film didn’t meet your expectations, it’s your unreasonable expectations that are to blame because you didn’t know what kind of movie it was supposed to be”.
Further, even if that were the case, that wouldn’t be so much lowering expectations as changing them. So when we see people specifically use the word “lower”, it suggests that’s not what they’re thinking at all.
Cobra might as well not even exist for most people.
The two layoffs I’ve been through, Cobra was offered as an option and in both cases it was wildly unaffordable. Like…I couldn’t have afforded it even if I still had the job I had just lost, let alone while unemployed.
In both cases I just basically only had the option to cross my fingers and hope I didn’t need healthcare while letting it lapse completely until I found a new job. Thankfully in the first case I was only unemployed about 3 weeks, but the other time, it was about 6 months.
What eventually came through for me was my state’s version of Medicaid in that situation. Basically it was only available to people earning less than XYZ, but any funds you received as aid from the state didn’t count toward that, meaning that unemployment was exempt and as such, my income was zero. Of course there was like an 8 week waiting period and then it took several more weeks for all the paperwork to go through, but eventually it did kick in.
I’m disappointed in myself that my first thought wasn’t utter revulsion, but instead, “Hmmm, I should get a few packs when they go on sale after moving zero units on Halloween…I bet they’ll make fantastic catfish bait.”
Anywhere that I’ve learned a new skill in hopes of getting a promotion, the response has either been “why did you waste time learning that? That’s not your job.” or more commonly “great initiative! Now we can add that work to your workload without having to pay you a cent more! This is great management because we can have one employee do the job of 1.5, and we didn’t even have to pay to train them! Thanks for that and here’s your extra work! Deadlines and expectations remain the same on your old work of course.”
In a few cases, once that inevitably led to job change, they had the gall to try and shame me with a line like, “You know, that’s a skill you learned under this roof, to do work for this company. While we are professionals here, if we weren’t, this might feel like a betrayal…”
For me, literally everything except the balding and I really couldn’t give a shit, I’ll buzz it all off anyway.
Infinite rare fish? Well as it happens, fishing is my biggest hobby, so that’s just fuckin delightful.
Mongolian real estate empire? Well that’s passive income and/or something I can sell. As a mongol mogul, in gonna try working the angle of an exotic but affordable fishing, hunting, and nature tourism destination, really try to put Mongolia on the map for Western tourists.
No taxes dovetails nicely here, also making it easier to both expand as well as make the business model more resilient.
Neighbors scared of me? Great! If they seem cool, I’ll reach out to them, otherwise, fear is a great way to not have to deal with shitty neighbors! In Mongolia they’ll be far away anyway.
Night light to keep the monsters at bay.
And the balding we will deal with by just keeping it buzzed low or shaving my head completely.
It’s an incredibly well made and reliable wooden spear but it costs ridiculously more than other wooden spears that are 95% as good.
And since they’re primarily concerned with big military contracts for wooden sticks, they make it clear that the persistence hunter market is one they actively disdain…but we still line up to buy their wooden sticks.