Sit Back And Relax

Man alive, sometimes I wonder why folks even call themselves fans if they are so consistently angry and upset about the things they ‘love’. So many INSIST that their beloved source of fandom has betrayed them and the legacy of that property. 

WHAT HAVE THOSE MONSTERS DONE?

Take the newest Star Wars films and how much hatred they generated. 

SO much that childish fans really convinced themselves they could fund a remake of one of those movies to ‘do it right’. 

That’s just crazy. 

You see it too with the casting and re-casting and re-imaginings of characters which will draw the racists and sexists out in droves to decry the bespoiling of an imaginary sacred text. 

Again, kooky to say the very least. 

Fans have gotten so entitled that they feel they should be the gatekeepers for all things. Somehow some random fan with some merch in their house and an account on social media knows best what these properties should do. 

Of course they do. 

All of us fans have our opinions and most of us like to make sure everyone knows them. Discussion, opinion, and debate are part of the hallmarks of fandom and part of the fun. It’s when it gets so ugly that we all start to suffer because it makes us all look pathetic. 

You can dislike a thing, can decry it, and you can even avoid it, but it’s when the opinion turns into harassment that we’ve crossed a line. 

Instead of celebrating what we love, rejoicing in it, we spend more time ranting against it. Making me wonder if these folks are even fans. 

The outrage and anger over the casting of People of Color in the Star Wars films, or in how the story in the newest three films carried forward is so strange to me. Strange because while people actively HATE the prequel films we never saw fans trying to raise money (these people!) to remake any of them. I don’t recall any outrage over a more sensitive and, clutch the pearls, melodramatic Anakin Skywalker, AKA Darth Vader, in those films. Yeah, people did then and still complain about the movies and different aspects, but again, I don’t recall it bleeding into literal harassment, though I think it was being born in that era. The Star Wars fandom started to get the feel for online rage and made sure their voices were heard. 

It makes you wonder why the heck anyone bothers creating that sort of property if it’s only going to draw ire. 

Money!

Sure, money is great but sanity is better. 

Look at Game of Thrones and the utter RAGE people had at how it ended. These folks had to craft their own ending after the man writing the books just dragged his feet for so long that there WAS no ending. I like the ending but if it didn’t work for you then so bet it. Be mad. DIE MAD, as they say. But get over it. 

Geez. 

It’s entertainment. 

I am sorry you were disappointed but get over it. 

Seriously. 

In the world we face today that is the very, very, very least of the issues we’re seeing. 

Cripes. 

This anger over Marvel not recasting T’Challa in BLACK PANTHER is out of hand. The loss of actor Chadwick Boseman was heartbreaking for how it happened and because of the impact he’d had in the short amount of time he had been in the spotlight but that people think you can just ‘recast’ a part that he made his own is naive. Look to the character of the Joker in Nolan’s Batman trilogy. They would have used the character in a third film but without Ledger it wouldn’t be the same. It doesn’t matter if Boseman would have wanted the character to live on. That actor that had to try to fill those ENORMOUS shoes would always be shadow boxing a dead man. 

If you love the character then read the comics. 

If you loved HIS version then watch his performances. 

But he, and that character are dead. 

Let’s normalize people/heroes dying. Because they do. And it sucks. But they do. 

Life isn’t fair. 

Not even in movies. 

I can appreciate, as much as I am able, what he meant to Black people desperate to see a Black hero and one so strong and beloved, but why not support whomever takes that Panther mantle next?

Does it HAVE to be a man?

Really?

Stop with the – this was a cherished figure and we need them – stuff because it was a character most people didn’t even know existed until they were in the movies and we had several performances. Sometimes that’s all you get. I’m sorry.
I am no fan of corporations but Marvel cannot make everyone happy on this one.
They can’t. 

So they chose to let the character die, to honor the death of the actor, and to let the creatives and all of us mourn this loss. Let’s see what happens with the film and the Panther. It’s a mantle, not a man, and it has been passed on and on. 

Let it pass. 

As someone who mourns great creatives that we lose I do get the pain of loss one feels but we have to let Boseman be gone so that we appreciate who he was and what he did while here. 

And if you can’t, stay home. 

That’s fine too. 

We as fans take ownership of the things we love, and that’s great, it’s sorta charming, but we think that because we invest ourselves and our money into these things we own them. 

We don’t. 

We’re on the journey, as it were, and we’re invited to leave whenever we decide we don’t like where we’re heading. 

Get frustrated that your adopted franchise isn’t doing what you think it should. Get mad, I guess, at how you feel that your voice isn’t being heard. 

But get over it. 

Sit back and relax. 

This is supposed to be fun, not stressful. 

It’s not our money on the line here. 

It’s not our career. 

Yeah, they want us to support these things but the fact is that they’re gonna do what they do and while fans are a big part of that, so too are creatives, though their involvement wanes as franchises get bigger. 

We chose this fandom and we can hope off at any time. 

Life goes on. 

There’s too much pain and genuine horror in the world to get wrapped up in needless drama about who got cast to play this part of whether this aspect of something wasn’t adapted right or WHATEVER. 

Get over it. 

As a horror geek I have seen this for years, this petty ownership and squabbling about things we have no direct say in. 

There is nothing that says that your opinion is right so, while you should have it, and defend it, just know that it doesn’t change reality. 

So take a load off. 

Fire up some simultinis, and just chill out a little. 

Find something that you can love without the stress because if you are this stressed out maybe it’s time to just, you know, get out. 

…c…