On this post, C flies solo, so don't blame T for it's content!
I was planning to write
a rather extensive review of “Avengers: Endgame” that dealt with the
film’s numerous faults and my dismay at not having enjoyed it even remotely as
much as its brilliant predecessor. I had my bullet points ready and was
prepared to be the lone voice in the wilderness of adoring sycophants daring to
say the emperor had holes in his underwear (with apologies to Bud Bundy).
Yep, that was the plan.
But two things happened that changed all that:
Some of these people
absolutely hated the movie. I didn’t. There were some good moments just not
enough of them to justify the film’s three-hour runtime. I found the film
uneven, as if it had been shot using an outline rather than a completed,
polished script. Some of the character beats were poorly chosen and rendered and
the entire plot felt lazy and phoned-in. I feel let down and it has diminished
my interest in the MCU to the point where I doubt I will allow myself to become
invested in an ongoing story arc again.
Still, like-minded
people weren’t enough to change my plans. That’s where the second thing comes
in.
Anybody who expressed
dislike or even disappointment with the movie was immediately attacked by those
who loved it like white blood cells to a virus. It’s easy to dismiss them as
paid Disney trolls but let’s be honest: That’s total horseshit. Disney has no
need for such things because real people are beyond willing to devote their
time and energy to defending them whenever someone has the nerve to not heap
praise. This is especially true regarding the MCU which, at this point, can do no wrong to its cadre of unquestioning devotees.
They are fanatics. The
Marvel movies are their god and they will keyboard warrior like mad to prevent
any perceived blasphemy against him. So, like any fanatics worth their glassy-eyed
stare, they label those of us who don’t agree with names designed to make us
look like either terrible people or those who have yet to accept the good news.
There’s also another facet to their fanaticism that most people might not
recognize...they speak their own language. Words that don’t mean what they
think they mean are used to continue their bizarre, pointless agenda.
Much like how
Evangelical Christians and Jehovah’s Witnesses use “worldly” as an insult when
its true meaning is complimentary, the MCU cult uses phrases such as “DC fanboy”
as if it means anything more than someone who considers DC Comics their
favorite comics publisher. The same thing was done to the word “liberal” in the
1980s, a tactic that proved so successful, liberals started calling themselves
“progressives” instead.
In the right (or wrong,
depending upon your point of view) hands, re-engineering language can be a
powerful tool for controlling how people view things.
We have entered a time
when even disagreement over a movie can turn ugly. Since I expected something
like this to happen, I decided to sit back and observe. Whenever I saw someone
on an “Endgame” related Facebook post make any sort of non--fawning comment
about the movie, I clicked on it to read the reactions. True to form, the
majority were antagonistic, hostile, dismissive and, in some cases, demeaning.
Two weeks after the initial giddiness had worn off, however, I started noticing
a small but steady wave of people daring to share negative opinions. Some of them
were obvious trolls, of course, and some were far less kind to the movie than
I’ve been, but the response was the same no matter what.
I finally decided to see
about getting a substantive response to why these clearly insecure fanatics are
responding this way. To do that, I decided to choose a thread where the initial
comment was resoundingly negative.
I agreed with some of
the original commenter’s points but not all of them. Again, I did not hate the
movie. I found it underwhelming with a lackluster second act (my normal
criticism of problematic movies is the third act) and a victim of lazy,
phoned-in writing but there were moments that were very enjoyable. Just not
enough of them considering the near perfection of its predecessor.
It didn’t take long for
the guy to be labelled a troll; jokes were hurled at him implying he’d been
molested as a child (some obscene metaphor online jerks use to indicate your
dissenting opinion comes from striking back at the world because you were tampered with) and a “Butthurt DC
fanboy,” which is apparently the worst thing one can be in the eyes of a MCU
Zombie. The original commenter seemed to find this all rather amusing while I
decided to use it as a way to see if I could get a better idea of their
so-called thought-processes.
I wrote, “I found the
movie disappointing and lackluster. Am I a butthurt DC fanboy, too?”
The response, “You
either are or you’re not,” came straight from the fanatic’s songbook. In fact,
it’s a paraphrase of a response I received when I asked a religious fanatic if
I was going to Hell for not being a believer.
I repeated the question.
To my pleasant surprise, the second response was measured and thoughtful. He
informed me his comments were really about the people who slammed the movie
with words such as “sucks” and “garbage etc. I thanked him for the reply and
the adult way he did it. One other person was not so mature and I had to remind
him I’m not his “bro.”
It occured to me that
the guy with whom I’d mostly interacted was probably caught up in a moment of
fanatical fervor. He also likely realized how like the original commenter was
coming across when I did not react with hostility. Sometimes it is possible to
make a fanatic think.
Now if we could just do
something about that toxic “Star Wars” fanbase.
