The Suicide Squad RT Backlash and "Angry Comic Book Fan Culture"

[Shawn Hopkins]

Slate has an insightful dig into angry comic fan culture, or what I like to call "the cancer that's killing comics."

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/...omic_book.html

Pop into the comments section of any of Suicide Squad’s largely negative reviews, and you’ll find fans—or whatever the proper term is for people who are already in love with a movie they haven’t yet seen—raging against out-of-touch reviewers and their purported anti-comic-book bias. Hit up the Twitter accounts of critics who’ve panned it (note: do not actually do this), and the attacks get more personal, ranging from accusations that Marvel has the entire criticism industry on its payroll to sexist epithets and death threats. After the first round of reviews, one Suicide Squad partisan started a petition to shut down the aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes, where the movie currently has a “Fresh” rating of only 29 percent, just above the 27% for DC’s Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. According to the Twitter account Crush the Tomato, what’s at stake is nothing less than “a battle for the soul of movies.”

There’s a solid argument to be made that aggregation sites like Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic have had a negative effect on film criticism. (Slate’s Matthew Dessem makes it here.) By logging each review as a simple up-or-down vote, Rotten Tomatoes “Fresh” rating obliterates the nuances of a thoughtful piece of criticism, and its elevation of an aggregate score over individual voices camouflages and institutionalizes the biases of an industry dominated by white male critics. But you’d expect that bias to work in favor of a movie like Suicide Squad, which vigorously panders to a teenage white boy’s idea of what’s “edgy.” Thirty years ago, fans could credibly claim that mainstream media was ignorant of comic-book culture, but in a post-Dark Knight world, it’s clear that all but the stuffiest of critics can find worth in a story about good guys in capes.

Fans who attack Rotten Tomatoes aren’t disagreeing with individual reviews. They can’t, since they haven’t actually seen the movie yet although that didn’t stop them loading up the film’s IMDb page with 10-out-of-10 user ratings weeks before its release. (Not surprisingly, the exact opposite happened to the female-fronted Ghostbusters reboot.) What they’re railing against is the collection of data that contradicts what they already know, despite the lack of any evidence, to be true: Suicide Squad is an awesome movie, and anyone who says otherwise is, to use the preferred term, “bias.”

To put it another way: The system is rigged. Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously said that people are entitled to their own opinions but not their own facts, but in the cultural arena as in the political world, it’s increasingly easy to inhabit a closed system where truth and facts need never come into direct contact. These systems develop their own vocabularies and their own articles of faith—Marvel pays critics to pan DC movies; Islam is an ideology, not a religion — and the absence of supporting evidence is proof of the conspiracy’s breadth. Never mind that, if anything, Rotten Tomatoes actually underrepresents the critical antipathy for Suicide Squad, since a grudging mixed review is as “fresh” as a rave; forget that the people who claim that critics have it in for Suicide Squad said the same thing about the negative reviews for Batman v. Superman, only to grow quiet when they finally saw the movie and it turned out to be as bad as they said; don’t dwell on the fact that Suicide Squad, like BvS, will probably make hundreds of millions of dollars even if everyone hates it. What they’re mad about is not a negative bias but the lack of a favorable one: Suicide Squad, the refrain goes, was made for “the fans,” and they’re the only ones whose opinion matters. Should you point out that there’s something a little messed up about Harley Quinn being an abuse victim who’s in love with her abuser, or that it would be nice if the movies’ first Latino superhero weren’t a tattooed gang member with domestic violence issues, and you’ll be accused, if you’re lucky, of not “getting it.” (No word yet on whether “getting it” means being cool with cut-to-shreds scenes drowned out by thuddingly obvious music cues in an attempt to disguise the fact that your movie’s been sewn together from spare parts.)

There are innumerable places on the web for fans with a pre-existing love of the comic books to talk to each other about Suicide Squad, but that’s not good enough: The “Crush the Tomato” faction wants to live in a world where other opinions don’t exist, or at least they don’t have to hear about them. They’ve inherited a once-marginalized subculture’s grudges despite the fact that most of them aren’t old enough to remember a time when comics were “just for kids.” It doesn’t matter that they effectively control the culture: Any threat to their dominance, be it a negative Suicide Squad review or a female Ghostbuster, has to be met with maximum force, repelled like an unwanted invader. It’s not that the system is rigged: It’s that it isn’t rigged for them.

[kalorama]

To which anyone who's been paying attention for the past decade (and, really, longer, but it's been that period--coinciding with the boom in CBMS--that the noise has reached a level where it's being heard outside the "cloistered halls") can only look on in mock surprise and say "No! Really?! I'm shocked. Shocked! I say . . . "

Slate has an insightful dig into angry comic fan culture, or what I like to call "the cancer that's killing comics."

I think the patient is well into the palliative care phase and is headed for hospice any day now.

[GreenLanternRanger]

Pretty good article, does a good job of showing whats wrong with both fans and aggregate sites like RT.

[GDC3]

It's also evident in the almost daily, certainly weekly outrage in comics /what are we mad at today culture that has taken over as well. Everything is an issue/attack on sensibilities, ruination of beloved characters and childhoods along with them. While there are legitimate issues that need to be addressed, race, gender equality chief among them, there are many things that become big dustups for no good reason whatsoever.

To a certain extent, it has always been this way though. Previously it was confined to the hallways at school and the dusty corners of a local comic shop. There is just a bigger worldwide platform now, one click away, upon which to shed those fandom tears.

My problem with RT is not with the reviews themselves. Opinions, a-holes, we all have em and all that. My problem is in their calculations of what is then fresh or rotten and the almost slavish devotion some people have towards those scores.

[numberthirty]

The comic fan who takes it too seriously? Clearly a cancer...

A person writing an article that takes what that fan is doing seriously? You do the math.

[GDC3]

The comic fan who takes it to seriously? Clearly a cancer...

A person writing an article that takes what that fan is doing seriously? You do the math.

I agree. But then, clicks won't come if you don't bait them.

[Holt]

There's a very stupid DC vs. Marvel fan war that keeps rearing its head and I feel that's part of the reason why there's this hysteric overreaction every time a DC movie gets a bad review. It's easier to claim the whole world is out to get you or that there's a conspiracy to make the other guy look better than it is to just admit your home team is having a lousy season.

[AcesX1X]

bait click click bait click bait bait click

that's the era we live in these days.

as far as the OP, i'm of the mind that we are both in serious need of:

1. a complete rehaul of the film critic culture and reliance on it
2. an urgency for fandom to learn better ways to react to things they don't like.

[skyvolt2000]

The comic fan who takes it to seriously? Clearly a cancer...

A person writing an article that takes what that fan is doing seriously? You do the math.

When you got folks encouraging boycotts of films over a black jedi or Johnny Storm or openly attacking an actress over one movie. You sometimes have to call that stuff out.

This is the behavior that is getting reported. There is NASTY behavior that hasn't been printed yet.

So while it's click bait-we are seeing a lot of behavior is getting out of control.

And the FEAR is how bad will it get?

Can you image the behavior when Black Panther comes out? Flash? WW? Captain Marvel?

[GDC3]

There's a very stupid DC vs. Marvel fan war that keeps rearing its head and I feel that's part of the reason why there's this hysteric overreaction every time a DC movie gets a bad review. It's easier to claim the whole world is out to get you or that there's a conspiracy to make the other guy look better than it is to just admit your home team is having a lousy season.

I think also playing into that is when the negative posts keep coming from those that disliked a film and are seen to be gloating. A lot of that backlash you talk about is reactionary, defensive. It does go overboard. It becomes like the cornerback that swings on the receiver after getting swung on first. He gets flagged/looks like the out of control one because that's all the ref saw. In comic terms, the incessant forum bashing from pre-release to release to holding up negative critiques to prove some point, leads to a reaction that is stronger and more venomous to seemingly meet the perceived attacks. Last impression is what stays in everyone's mind. We always remember the apologist and not the initial member of the haha-I-told-you-it-was-gonna-suck-crowd. Best tactic is to ignore it all by not responding or simply grow that ignore list and tune out the noise.

[skyvolt2000]

as far as the OP, i'm of the mind that we are both in serious need of:

1. a complete rehaul of the film critic culture and reliance on it
2. an urgency for fandom to learn better ways to react to things they don't like.

We got too much entitlement running around in comics and too many folks in charge pandering to it.

The folks in charge need to step up and say STOP IT. Don't fan the flames but really take a stand on stuff like this.

Because in the long run who looks bad? Comic book fans.

Because you don't know WHO is watching.

Who is getting turned off by this behavior? What if the next Stan Lee, McDuffie, Priest, G Willow Wilson and next generation of fans look at this and say NO THANKS.

[keeen]

I don't really have a dog in this fight as I don't care about the movie and think that people taking up swords for a brand-name that they don't personally profit from is pretty stupid (when was the last time you got all passionate in an argument about Coke vs Pepsi? Why would you, right?).

My only point to make is that the whiny backlash against film critics only serves to further the stereotype that comic fans are emotionally-stunted overgrown children.
I wish comic fans had more self-control, maturity, and common sense and would stop feeding the media these easy, demeaning narratives.
If you google "Rotten Tomatoes" right now, you feel embarrassed to even read comic books. That's fucking annoying.

[Holt]

I don't really have a dog in this fight as I don't care about the movie and think that people taking up swords for a brand-name that they don't personally profit from is pretty stupid (when was the last time you got all passionate in an argument about Coke vs Pepsi? Why would you, right?).

My only point to make is that the whiny backlash against film critics only serves to further the stereotype that comic fans are emotionally-stunted overgrown children.
I wish comic fans had more self-control, maturity, and common sense and would stop feeding the media these easy, demeaning narratives.
If you google "Rotten Tomatoes" right now, you feel embarrassed to even read comic books. That's fucking annoying.

I really have to wonder who they think this behavior is helping.

[Sighphi]

there's nothing insightful here.

fans have always flipped out on reviewers.

Rolling Stone has gotten screamed at for giving bad scores to artist that are super popular.

this is not something that is new or unique.

[Shawn Hopkins]

there's nothing insightful here.

fans have always flipped out on reviewers.

Rolling Stone has gotten screamed at for giving bad scores to artist that are super popular.

this is not something that is new or unique.

If you can show me where fans have organized to try to DESTROY Rolling Stone and get it closed because they disagreed with a review, even though it's something the fans hadn't seen yet, I'd credit this. Otherwise it does seem extreme, entitled, petty and driven by blind fanboy loyalty.

Even then, this would be worse, because RT doesn't do reviews, they just make people aware of review scores. These fanboys are fighting for to censor this information and keep it from the public because it might harm a corporate entity they support.