Are fans toxic? (was: go woke, go broke)?
I'm taking inspiration from a post I read on the fediverse (and the thread that followed) for several reasons. The first is a very common abuse that is being made of the term "toxic", to the point that "toxic" now means "it's not how I imagine it", when not "it doesn't do what I want".
The second reason is to discuss an ideological phenomenon that the Americans, in their brutal summary, explain as "go woke, go broke", referring to the catastrophic commercial flops of all those franchises that Disney has decided to present in the "woke" version ”, that is, injecting that ideology, or that Americanism, which has developed on American humanistic campuses.
It all starts when some characters close to the top change in Disney, and others arrive in their place. And the purpose of these new characters (I don't want to name names) is to bring the American "woke" into franchises (series, like Star Wars, for example), disappointing fans' expectations.
The "fans", through word of mouth, the internet and more, then deserted the theaters resulting in those films never recouping the colossal production costs. That is, Disney lost money, a lot of money.
This thing is read by the Woke world as "fan toxicity", in the sense that nowadays if Hitler returned from the grave and defined the religion of the Jews as "toxic Judaism", probably no one would complain.
Let's be clear: it is not forbidden to make woke films. But we must know that the followers of this college Americanism are an extreme minority of the population, so sooner or later we will have to deal with the numbers.
But in reality the article talks about fandom, or rather the "core" of fans: that mass of people on whom the franchise can always count, who carry out valuable scouting and publicity work for a given work , even ( but not only) creating connected works (the world of fandom is complex). Who are accused of being, as usual, homophobic, racist, fascist, bullies every time they don't like the transformation of the work in which they invest time and energy.
And here's the first point: investment. Regardless of people's wealth (I believe that fandom is mainly a thing for rich countries), the problem is that behind this activity there is an emotional investment. And therefore the work, like its characters and plots, becomes precious .
I'll give you an example, with a series that I love (and I recommend you watch, even if it takes the first 4 episodes to "start"): sense8.
Sense8 starts slowly, then at a certain point you begin to have an emotional investment in the characters. Since it is extremely expensive to shoot due to the enormous number of distant locations in which it takes place, it ends BEFORE the last episode, i.e. the end. And because everyone has invested a LOT in Wolfgang's character, you're left hanging, because the story ends just as Wolfgang is in trouble, very much trouble even by his standards.
When in the end the money is found to produce the last episode (thanks, Trenitalia, for the sponsorship) then we see what happens to Wolfgang and how (after having devastated Naples) the series ends and the bad guys die, and the good guys celebrate with a nice multisex orgy/quaternions/whatever. The orgy is like hot cakes, let's face it.
But before the last episode was announced, the fanbase was all there shouting “we want to know what happens to Wolfgang!!!”. This is because the plot leads you to emotionally invest in Wolfgang. It was that emotional investment, that attachment, that made the premature end of the series painful .
By this I mean that the "canon" is ultimately not the real problem . I've been dealing with metalheads arguing about what "true" metal is since I was 14. The canon is ONLY a problem if you have invested a lot of emotion in something, I assure you: those discussions are not endless for the canon, among those who discuss very few know how to play, apart from "air-instruments". But the discussions ALWAYS focus on groups in which a lot has been invested.
At this point we must ask ourselves what this investment is due to. I'll give a second example: Hulk. I saw the first series as a kid, on a black and white TV. I didn't even know it was green until they said so.
Hulk was just cathartic. Every episode was always the same. This Banner went around because he was chased by an asshole journalist and others, he encountered bad bullies, or an abuse of power, he got very angry (literally), he destroyed everything, he beat everyone, he shouted his anger and then he he went away, returning to the skinny, apparently not very dangerous guy he was before. Stealing some clothes on the line and leaving a bundle of money in their place.
We all wish we could have done it. To the school bullies, to the traffic policeman who fines you, and in the moment of all those abuses of power that everyone suffers every day. We would like to be HUlk in front of the asshole boss, the unbearable customer, the Karen or the Kevin on duty, at condominium meetings… we all love Hulk (in the first series) because we WANT to be Hulk.
In short, it is cathartic, as Pelomane da Siffredi (known Greek philosopher, exiled for being heterosexual) would have said.
Why am I saying this? Because suddenly She-Hulk arrives. Who isn't cathartic for shit, she's just one of the many plump, virtuous and pedantic superheroines, who completely lacks that "but I'll open your ass like a mussel" that characterizes the cathartic part of the Hulk. Hulk is instinct, not a Harvard law degree.
And so far, ok: at the end of the day, Hulk has also become a superhero, and he thinks too much compared to the first series, when he limited himself to doing SMASH. But this becomes credible after a long and painful saga in which Banner fears the Hulk, because he fears he might hurt someone, and works to control him in some way.
She-Hulk lacks all this pathos, because it lacks this story. Then you will say: it's the canon!
No, it has nothing to do with it. It's the emotion that the character evokes. The catharsis of anger. Hulk's villains were like Kenshiro's villains: you want them to die, and badly. Seeing them die is cathartic.
She Hulk would have been fine if she had been a weak woman (I don't know, a cleaning lady) who, faced with the injustices suffered by the humble, gets angry and breaks everything. Then they would appreciate it immediately. Instead they eliminate emotional investment. She's a Manhattan lawyer who could kill your life by suing you, but also smash. Okay. YAWN. The moment, the emotional investment, of WISHING the bad guy to die because he bullies a weak person is missing.
Moreover, if Hulk had had this Woke cousin in Manhattan no one would have found anything to say about it. Even Banner, who begins the story as a patanuclear-something-complicated-gamma-ray scientist, has quite the brains. Maybe the relative also has some genes in common. And it's not even the first time that female characters appear alongside male ones: think of Superman and Wonder Woman, for example.
But the problem is that this introduces competition: the woke version arrives, and the previous one disappears. And not only that : she is mocked by this girl who mocks all those who saw Hulk as a cathartic character.
On top of all this then comes the usual hamster chorus, telling you "if you didn't like She-Hulk then you are misogynistic, full of toxic masculinity and even racist". And why'? She-Hulk's gender is perhaps the LEAST difference between Hulk and She-Hulk.
Here we are at the topic of "toxicity": just because I don't like a film, or a series, doesn't mean that one has something toxic inside. I just don't like it. If, in addition to not liking me, he insults and makes fun of me, I certainly won't spend time and money to go and have this unpleasant experience in a cinema. But the Good hoplites would like me to like them, and since I don't obey, then I must be a "toxic" type. But also not.
And above all, you are taking something away from me. Ok, I don't expect a series that started when I was a child to last forever, and I don't expect that I have to like the successor: but you can't take a steak off my plate, put tofu on it, and expect me not to notice the difference. You have definitely TAKEN something from me. And I have the right to be annoyed.
The same goes for the Church of Tru-Metal: we can make fun of them all we want, but if you sell them a ticket to a Dream Theater concert, then you don't put BlackBriar on stage. At that point I would end up agreeing with them: they have a strong emotional investment in a group, you promise them that, then you give them that. And you can't accuse them of misogyny just because they don't want Zora at that concert.
And it's not a question of fee, it's a question of respect. You sell me that, you build anticipation of that, there's emotional investment in that, so you give me that.
There have been many episodes of this kind, even in the world of comics. To make the character of Lobo "palatable", for example, a neutered version was released some time ago. It goes without saying that that Lobo was "better" or "different": it was shit, again due to the cathartic issue mentioned above. If I love Lobo because he annihilates an entire army of the American IRS (the US financial police, in short), there is a cathartic effect. You can't tell me that kind of gothic boy scout is the same thing. I really want the guy who exterminated everyone on his planet and who has headphones transplanted into his brain where he plays heavy metal 24/7. He's our favorite psychopath.
Having said that, I'm going to say it: fandom environments are not "toxic" or "racist" or anything else. They are simply environments in which people have emotionally invested in something. And they resent it if you delete it to replace it with something else.
They would NOT resent it if you did YOUR work with YOUR hero. Do you want superman Drag Queen? Do it. BUT Superman lovers want that. Do you want vegan female Batman? Do it. But let them have their Batman (for whatever reason they like).
The problem, often, is that the wonderful person in the situation arrives and, without understanding anything, decides that from today you will change, he will take the lasagne off your plate and put the Tofu and Wakame salad in their place. And he also tells you with a pedantic air that it's better this way, insulting you if you think differently.
She-Hulk, if you like it, can easily exist. But smash lovers want Hulk who smashes.
Is simple. It shouldn't be necessary to draw a little picture.
Uriel Fanelli
The blog is visible from Fediverso by following:
Contacts:
- Fediverse: @ uriel@fedi.keinpfusch.net
- MATRIX: @uriel:mtrx.keinpfusch.net
- GNU JAMI: Ufanelli