I Just Want A Good Movie!

Why does every movie have to be a goddamn culture war?

With media criticism as it is on social media, it is utterly bizarre to me how debates will rage with people taking sides against whether a movie or a TV show is good or not. This is exacerbated by clickbait articles and ragebait YouTube videos, usually claiming such-and-such new show is woke or ruining your childhood or whatever meaningless accusation is popular to throw around without critically analyzing the piece.

And no, “That sucked!” or “That was the worst movie I’ve ever seen!” do not count as thoughtful criticisms.

What sparked my interest in this line of thought was a headline in Newsweek yesterday declaring:

“‘Superman’ Early Reactions Are Overwhelmingly One-Sided”

This almost seems like a natural headline, because “Early reactions to [x-movie] Are Overwhelmingly Positive/Negative” is pretty common. But in this context, what does “One-sided” even mean? Are we to assume one must pick a side that the movie is either good or bad? Can we not just recognize that we enjoy a movie that also has flaws? There has also been much discussion of late in superhero and other franchise properties about taking sides in politics. In which case, “both-sides” definitely comes to mind, and that feels very icky to me.

I have not seen this new Superman movie, but from what I understand, it leans heavily into Kal-El being an adopted immigrant and the main villain Lex Luthor being an evil billionaire. Honestly, that’s all pretty relevant to today’s political climate. But also, this is who Superman has always been. Just as the X-Men comics and movies have always been about the oppression of minorities. Now, apparently, you can’t even engage with these topics without starting off some kind of culture war.

For the record, I have no skin in the fight with this particular Superman flick. I love Superman as a character. I’ve loved runs of the comics. Superman: The Movie is one of my favorite movies since childhood. But I can’t say I’ve really loved a Superman movie since my childhood. If James Gunn turns out a great movie, I’ll be thrilled, but if not, I will only be disappointed and move on. No disrespect to Zack Snyder, who is a talented director, but the Superman movies he did were not my cup of tea. Unfortunately, by about the time of Batman v Superman, I noticed the prevailing online attitude was you had to either love it or hate it, and gods forbid you expressed your opinion openly.

To be honest, this has historically been a very online issue. People trolling online message boards, picking fights over who likes which movie best, which franchise is better, like it’s all sports statistics and not art and entertainment. I recall as far back as the Star Wars prequels, anonymous trolls harassing actors and claiming George Lucas ruined their childhood. There’s always been a rivalry—sometimes friendly, sometimes not—drawing the lines between DC fans and Marvel fans.

This current era of online media criticism feels different.

Recent entries in the Marvel and Star Wars cinematic universes have been decried as being “woke” without any other real criticism behind it. If you liked the MCU, you had to hate the DCEU, and vice versa. You couldn’t possibly like both. The entire saga around Zack Snyder’s Justice League was harrowing.

But even beyond political issues, the clickbait nature of journalism motivates people to create artificial battlefields that fans must stake a claim to.

Fandom identity and the quality of the movies and shows somehow became interlinked. Advocating for a movie became advocating for the filmmakers as people and vice versa. Instead of being able to say, “I really dug this season of Doctor Who, but a couple of those episodes were stinkers,” you have to commit to, “It was amazing! Shut up!” or “This season sucked!” “Anyone who liked the new Willow TV series can’t be a true fan of the original movie!” “Andor was so awesome, if you like any other crap Star Wars series, you’re an idiot!” (BTW, feel free to check out my previous post about how much I loved both Andor and Skeleton Crew)

Call me old fashioned, but whatever happened to just liking whatever you liked at any given moment, regardless of where it stood in some culture war? Before social media, before internet message boards, it was harder to find people who liked the same movies or shows as you, especially if they were obscure genre stuff. How do you find other friends to talk about Star Trek or Quantum Leap? It was exciting when you and your friends discovered new Star Wars books and loved them because they were Star Wars, but you also enjoyed making fun of the Gun of Command.

We enjoyed everything feely. Not without criticism, but even the criticism was more fun.

Oh, and just one more thing… 

If you like Superman, just go see the Superman movie. The worst thing is it isn’t good, and then you can forget about it and watch the Superman movies you do like.