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July 09, 2008

I’ve gotten really deep into film discussion and studies over the past few years, and to be entirely fair it wasn’t too bad of a time to become interested in the medium. There have been a handful of greats, a lot of not-so-greats, and a lot of decent and entertaining fare in the form of genre works, specifically when it comes to that of comic-book adaptations.

I’m going to preface this by stating that I’ve never been a rabid superhero comic fan – I think the only “mainstream” superhero comics that I’ve really cared about were the various iterations of the X-Men, and that’s pretty much it. The rest of my comic fanboyism circles around the other stuff, such as crime comics and more offbeat projects like Preacher, Transmetropolitan, Nextwave, Y The Last Man, et al.

However, it seems that the recent onslaught of comic book movies over the past few years has allowed a particularly virulent brand of fanboyism to rear its pimpled, bespectacled head, with a subsection of angry comic geeks completely flipping their shit over various projects, endlessly whining about raped childhoods and stupid women characters and blahblahblah. There’s an inherent hatred to a lot of these circles, which is something that one would almost expect from a constantly marginalized and often-mocked subculture that’s suddenly become somewhat mainstream – almost like they’ve been given a superpower, but instead of using it for good they use it to warp into the neighbor’s house and shit all over their furniture during a particularly bumpin’ house-party.

So it comes as no surprise that thanks to the growing popularity of comic book movies, the anonymity of the internet, and latent antisocial tendencies, this group has become more and more vocal over time.

Case in point: The Dark Knight.

I’ve been following a debacle where a few websites posted favorable reviews of the film, touting it as an impressive cinematic achievement but not without a couple of flaws. Their takes on the film were perfectly rational, unoffensive, and not without merit.

Unfortunately, a certain circle of comic fans – for anonymity’s sake we’ll refer to their home turf as Ruperhero Rype, apparently Scooby-Doo is the webmaster – have taken it upon themselves to declare their own personal jihad on any reviewer who dares to have the audacity to treat TDK as anything less than utterly stellar, mindblowing, and hopefully something that will finally allow them to lose that pesky virginity that they’ve been carting around for the past couple of decades, and it’s sort of a joke.

I can understand if someone’s passionate about something. I’m passionate about politics, social issues, music, videogames, books, and film as a medium. But there is a definite borderline between passion and psychosis, and it seems as if the fanboys seem to be playing hopscotch with it at their own discretion when it comes to this project. The fanaticism has reached a boiling point, and I don’t doubt that the fur will be flying even more once the movie releases (whenever that is, I couldn’t tell you the street date to save my life, go see Hellboy 2 this Friday), but from what I can tell, the fatal flaw of the fanboy fluffers is this – half of them haven’t even seen the god damned movie yet.

Instead, they’ve managed to work themselves into an orgiastic frenzy, obsessing over and dissecting every piece of advertising that’s been sleekly doled out to them by DC and the studios, and holding it up almost as if it were the cure for cancer. While my initial reaction is to be horribly depressed with seeing people putting so much faith and time into analyzing an AD CAMPAIGN, my second reaction is…well…don’t you need to experience something before you can talk about how great it is? Sure, you always have that friend who talks about getting laid in wild sexcapades that would make Hugh Hefner clutch his pacemaker, but you can only listen to so many stories of wild hot cheerleader orgies before you have to call bullshit and ask for evidence.

And to make it worse, the fans of this film have taken it upon themselves to be the arbiters of discussion of this film, pretending that they have some sort of clout and that any bad opinions regarding this film will certainly end the careers and possibly the lives of anyone who dares speak out against the film. I’m almost certain that if the same geniuses behind this ad campaign wanted to surreptitiously start a cult, they could inject subliminal messages into each one-sheet and teaser trailer and form an insane gibbering mass of followers willing to do anything in the name of Batman. But I digress. When someone’s dedication to something becomes so fierce, so unrepentant, so bold that they immediately assume the responsibility of silencing or at the very least threatening those who disagree, they seriously need to back up and check their dedication to whatever their cause may be – especially if it’s centered around a film based on a comic book.

Now I’m not writing this as an insult to hardcore Batfans. If you love something, you love it. I’m very interested in the film and am looking forward to seeing it and experiencing something that will hopefully be a great new step in the public’s perception of comic book films. But I’m also not going to allow myself to get wrapped up in the laughably immature mindset that’s fueling the TDK hype machine. Will it be a masterpiece? I’d like for it to be. I really loved Batman Begins, I’d love to see Christopher Nolan succeed even more than he has so far as a director, and he’s got a pretty stellar cast with some great potential. But I’m also going to hold my tongue and hope that he’s learned to film fight scenes since Batman Begins.

Opinions in moderation, folks. That’s all that matters.