Lovely piece from Mark Hughes.
Marvel Studios had a good day. Tuesday brought a major event at which the studio unveiled their future superhero film titles and release dates, revealed some new footage from next summer’s Avengers: Age of Ultron, and made casting announcements. Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige was on stage to deliver the news, bringing Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr. with him for a finale that included the unmasking of Chadwick Boseman as Marvel’s Black Panther in upcoming movies.
But all of this news brought something else with it, unfortunately. In typical form, fans of Marvel and Warner Bros./DC Comics used Tuesday’s event as yet another reason to lash out at one another and root for their “team” while insulting and otherwise expressing animosity toward the other side. The summation of all of this comes down to claims that one or the other doesn’t make good films, and hopes that one or the other’s films will fail at the box office.
The entire “winner and loser” mentality of it all seeps into almost every bit of media coverage at some point, and it dominates fan discussions. Twitter for example was full of Marvel fans declaring they’d “won,” that Marvel will always beat DC, and that DC movies would flop. DC fans meanwhile reacted resentfully and repeated accusations that Marvel films are generic and will inevitably fail, and that Marvel’s announcements are just trying to mimic DC’s upcoming slate of films (announced a couple of weeks ago).
I realize fans of anything are inherently going to favor it over something else. And I realize that human nature just tends to make a lot of people knee-jerk competitive about their preferences for one thing over others. Lastly, I realize that in reality a large number of fans who engage in the more extreme negativity online are probably mostly younger and therefore by definition more immature — meaning not mature, as in not adults with more life experience and (in theory) more control over their emotions and so on.
But it’s reached a point where fandom at large continues to look like a cliched bunch of stereotypical fanboys and fangirls who scream and yell at one another and can’t have a rational discussion about anything. It’s why despite the vast global popularity of the superhero film genre among mainstream audiences hasn’t changed the fact people who aren’t comic book fans still think people who are comic book fans are just basically angry, spoiled, socially inept kids. Even more positive portrayals of fan/geek culture in the mainstream media tends to poke fun at it and adhere primarily to stereotypes based on the more extreme elements among fandom. The stereotypes linger, and those fan voices are the face of fandom so often, because they are the loudest, or the ones whose exaggerated behavior attracts the most attention.
What I don’t think fans realize, however, is that their animosity and bickering doesn’t just make them and fandom look bad, it reflects poorly on the genre as a whole. And if they had their way, and if the “opposing side’s” favorite films flopped at the box office or were regarded as poor quality by critics and audiences, it will not just harm the company they dislike. No, it will almost surely backfire and hurt the company to which they feel so loyal.
Constant negative narratives about films can and often do sink them at the box office, or at least lead to tainted buzz and a sense of mixed reactions that can at least harm the films’ potential in theaters. This can then also taint a movie’s legacy and reputation down the road, affecting the success and sentiment toward sequels or spinoffs and so on. And when that happens to several major films within a genre, and when there’s a deflating of box office and critical reception and word of mouth for a large number of films within a genre, it can sour overall mainstream audience enthusiasm for other films within that same genre.
You don’t have to love Marvel or DC to recognize their contributions, and to treat them with more respect than much of the fan behavior has demonstrated so far. You can dislike their characters and films, and still not wish them and their fans ill. You can dislike their material and still hope it succeeds, because that helps comics and the superhero genre as a whole, which means it helps the community of fans around the world and helps your personal favorite characters and comics and films, too. If you can’t bring yourself to be respectful and root for them for any other reason, at least do it out of pure self-preservation and selfishness.
We’re so lucky to have all of this now, and for the comics and characters and genre we love so much to be embraced worldwide like this. To stand in the midst of so much awesomeness and bicker and moan, to insult one another and hope people who disagree fail, to see it as a “win or lose” proposition, is crazy and ungrateful and childish. Joking and ribbing one another in good fun is of course different, and I’m not talking about healthy friendly competitiveness, nor about pure honest objective appraisals of periods when one or the other is up or down, or when a particular company or film has problems and issues worth critiquing.
It’s the actual fighting, the angry, bitter, or resentful reactions and counter-reactions, that I wish we could put an end to once and for all. And I hope that, if you’re one of those on either side who engages in that sort of behavior, that you’ll at least consider the point about how the success of one company is good for everyone, and why the company you don’t like has still contributed a lot to the current golden era of superhero cinema we’re experiencing.
Marvel had a good day. WB/DC will have good days. And both will benefit, and we all win.
