On this week’s episode, Sonny Bunch (The Bulwark), Alyssa Rosenberg (The Washington Post), and Peter Suderman (Reason) discuss the dread toxic fandom, every executive’s favorite scapegoat for why their product failed to find an audience. Then they review Joker: Folie à Deux, one of the most disastrous sequels ever made. Make sure to swing by Bulwark+ on Friday for a discussion of sequels that have no reason to exist. And if you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend!
So much of the toxic fandom discourse is about blurring lines. If we were talking about a football game, in a situation where a quarterback throws 6 interceptions and was met with racist invective, it would be easy enough to say that the quarterback played poorly and racism in response is not appropriate. No one would believe that the racist attacks made the performance good or that the poor performance made racism okay, but if we are talking about a television show or movie, that distinction goes "poof".
The worst example of a studio courting online fans is Zack Snyder’s Justice League. First of all, WB invited those websites to set and then released the Whedon cut to make them happy. It set WB/DC on a path that ended with their entire DCEU collapsing.
No apologies, the extended cut was better and now makes sense. But hey, I liked Batman V. Superman
I think I agree with Alyssa some Star Wars fans have become incredibly toxic to the point that being toxic is how some of them make money... But Kathleen Kennedy has been particularly poor at stewarding the franchise. The sequel trilogy for instance obviously had no pre-planning.
With the exception of Rogue One the SW movies since the Empire Strikes Back have been garbage.
I was really disappointed that Rogue One was a one off...it was very good and very interesting
Maybe bkz superhero movies are pabulum, and ppl are idiots.
Have these hyper-online actors who ever tried...you know....logging off and putting the phone down? They might be amazed at how all the hate just disappears once you stop obsessively searching for what people are saying about you.
Sadly it is actors job to engage with fans online these days.
Get their people to do it for them, interact only with the positive stuff, something. I'm not justifying the hate, but I know that sitting there and wallowing in it will make you feel a lot more persecuted than you actually are.