Something Weird About Disney Fans

Something that I've said before is that if you actually go into the fanbase of the Marvel movies and Disney shows/movies, and especially the cartoon communities, you'll see that those fanbases seem to take the stance of "This is stupid and awful, but I like it anyway."

It's a sentiment that I always found bizarre and I've been trying to understand that sentiment.

I get it on some level because as a member of the Yu-Gi-Oh community I often hear "Haha, Children's Card Game," which reflects the embarrassment that grown men feel when they play a game that was meant to appeal to 10-year-olds. But, what I don't get is why they don't acknowledge that, yeah, a 10-year-old could play Yu-Gi-Oh in the same way that a 10-year-old can play Fortnite, but at higher-levels pretty much any game is played by adults, with Pokemon even acknowledging that by separating adults and kids in online play. That's actually a huge problem with Yu-Gi-Oh right now because 10-year-olds can't really play Yu-Gi-Oh anymore because the mechanics are too complex, so the community is mostly made up of adults that are pretty much committed to the game for life at this point.

But, even though Yu-Gi-Oh is very much a game for adults at this point, the community doesn't acknowledge that and still describes it as a "Children's Card Game."

I feel like that sentiment applies to Marvel movies and Star Wars movies. Since they have superpowers, they're children's movies, and therefore are all immature except for the ones that try really hard to project maturity (The Dark Knight, Joker, The Batman).

I've believed for a while that this perception of Disney by the community has influenced Marvel movies for the worse because they keep bringing in people to make these projects that announce that "We're making these movies more mature, not just making children's projects," and end up making things that are far more childish than what came before, as though they aren't capable of engaging with the possibility that, yes, Captain America can be enjoyed by children while the mature elements in the movie can be appreciated by adults, which leads to universal appeal. Instead we get She-Hulk where the writers actually say that since we never saw Captain America have sex on-screen he must be a virgin, which implies that the writers actually think that showing She-Hulk having sex means that the show is a far more mature show than others in the MCU.

It's the mindset that led to childish franchises (Bomberman, Spyro, Crash Bandicoot, Sonic) being rebooted with more mature entries in the mid-2000s and getting heavily memed for doing so.

Why do I bring this up? It's mainly because I don't think I've ever seen EFAP seriously engage with the idea that the fanbase of the MCU thinks that the MCU is stupid, childish, and that all of the movies are badly-written, which encourages the creatives involved to not care about the plots of their movies.

It's annoying because I have talked with MCU fans and a big part of the community is talking about the plot holes and then dismissing them with (this is an exact quote) "Yeah, comic book movies are terrible, but I still love them."

It feels like we're still in the 90s where after the first two Batman movies we got a slew of terrible comic book movies (Steel, Tank Girl, Dick Tracy) that were extremely goofy and childish that defined the perception that all comic movies were goofy and childish and the people that watched them were manchildren. Heck, it's something I bring up about RedLetterMedia that I find their commentary on superhero media and Star Wars media to be pretty worthless because they keep saying stuff like "Nerd stuff," and talking about the meta, fans, and "Manchildren," like the only thing they know about nerd culture is Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons and they care more about saying "I'M NOT A NERD JUST BECAUSE I LIKE STAR WARS, AND I'M NOT A MANBABY WHO HATED THE LAST JEDI BECAUSE I ACTUALLY LOVED THE LAST JEDI," than actually saying something relevant or interesting. It's why I can't stand The Nerd Crew because it's literally men in their 40s dressed like 90s kids being like "Haha, this is what people who like superhero movies talk like," when... they don't, they talk like RedLetterMedia talks like in their Half In The Bag videos where they qualify every statement they make with a declaration of how they "Don't take the movies seriously," and are/aren't nerds, depending on the context of the statement (sometimes it's cool to be a nerd when you know a cool fact about the lore of Spider-Man, sometimes it's not, like pointing out a plot hole or contradiction). RLM literally defined what nerd culture is online and it's annoying that even today they act like maverick outsiders instead of the most basic bitches in the nerd communities.

I feel like if we want to actually improve Marvel and Disney movies we need to start engaging with the idea that, yeah, there are dumb things in superhero movies and fantasy movies, but that those movies aren't inherently bad because they have unrealistic elements.

It's like Linkara says about how he criticises comic books. Realistically, even if someone had super strength that doesn't mean they have superhuman durability if they can get wounded and bleed, so crashing through walls should hurt them a lot. But, for the sake of meeting a story on the story's level, you have to accept that super strength comes with superhuman durability allowing them to punch through walls even though their skin can be penetrated with a normal knife. However, once you engage with the story in that way, you have to acknowledge that if that superhero suddenly has the ability to fly that they only use for a single scene that is a bad thing. Similarly, a Garth Ennis story isn't inherently good because it acknowledges the 'realism' of a scene because it's also unrealistic that a 30-year-old guy with superpowers and a long superhero career spanning years establishing his identity would never attempt to punch through a wall with his super strength, which ends up killing him in front of the cast of normal, cynical dudes who respond to the guy's death with "Yep, that dude was dumb, lol."

Honestly, I kinda wish that communities online would take the media they consume more seriously because I'd rather have a community that has serious high-brow discussions about, say, the lore of Mewtwo or what Captain Marvel was doing during the many years she was away from Earth than a community that engages with the things they love primarily through memes, dismisses actual interesting discussion with "It's just a cartoon, don't take it so seriously," and responds to genuine criticism with "I already know it's bad. Everyone knows it's bad. It's just not a big deal." It's really weird that people are so insecure that they can't be like "Look, I don't want to base my entire life around Star Wars, go to conventions, watch literally every Star Wars movie ever and dream about Princess Leia being my waifu every night. I literally just want to spend an hour or two relaxing by smoking some weed and talking with people online about the Darth Jar Jar theory because I genuinely think it's interesting to chat about. Can we just do that instead of memeing? I'm so bored of the memes, they're all the same. I don't want to see another meme about Anakin not liking sand this week."

I think the reason that flippant attitude bugs me is due to a piece of creative advice that I always considered valuable which I read an interviewer saying to a popular game developer in a magazine:

Interviewer: "Why was this feature removed in the sequel?

Developer: "Well, we had in the first game but the fans didn't notice or care about it, so we took it away because we didn't want to put in the effort if it wouldn't be appreciated."

Interviewer: "Why don't you care about the implications of that anymore when you did before?"

Developer: "We do, but the fans don't."

Interviewer: "The fans might not care, but you still should."

Developer: "Why?"

Interviewer: "That's why they're the fans, and you're the developer. They just see the pretty lights, you understand how the pretty lights work. That's why you make the fireworks happen and they stand a safe distance away and watch. Fans are stupid, don't let the fans bring you down to their level because you might end up as a fan, not a developer."

Developer: "That's never going to happen. The fans won't care."

The fans hated the sequel, the general public loved the sequel. Approximately six-seven years later, the studio went out of business and now that developer runs a Youtube channel where he talks about random stuff and live-streams. He ended up becoming a fan, and hasn't been involved with developing games since, with the game mentioned in the interview now being seen as his first mistake that would eventually lead to the studio dissolving. How many times have we seen similar stories from creatives that stop caring as much about the little details if they believe that their fans don't care or notice those details?

"The fans might not care, but you still should," is a quote that I think that every creative should know and take to heart. It's certainly made my writing and creative works a lot better.