Don’t read the comments.  

I just perused a column where the writer posited the question, re: the new Joker movie, do we really, in this day and age, need a movie about an aggrieved white man who murders a bunch of people because of perceived injustices? The comments were instantly full of a bunch of oversensitive snowflakes (i.e. white men on the Internet) were upset because the writer pointed out that the Joker was a white man. But then there were a few comments that made me want to be the Picard WTF meme, the ones that said, “You haven’t even seen the movie! How do you know it’s about a white man murdering a bunch of people? That’s not what the previews say it is.” 

So let me get this straight. You think that a movie called Joker, about one of the most famous mass murderers in comic book and cinema history, rated R, produced by Martin Scorcese, starring Robert DeNiro, set in a New York analogue in the eighties, is not going to be about a man murdering people? What do you think it’s about? A man who is beaten down by society (this is in the previews, by the way), puts on clown makeup, and the world is a happy place?  

But that question is pointless because yours came from a place of intellectual dishonesty. You know the movie is about a white male killing spree, and you’re just being argumentative because your feelings, as a white man, are hurt, and you have no real counterpoint. 

I’m just not interested in Joker because it doesn’t look interesting to me. I’ve seen these rampage movies before, and grease paint isn’t a really novel way of telling the same old story. And the Joker is a character that, like Batman, I think we’ve seen enough of. Also, in Todd Phillips’ filmography, Old School was the only movie I really liked. I know that puts me in the minority. The Internet is really excited about this movie, and God bless them. I hope they love it. But don’t tell me that it’s not about a disenfranchised white man murdering a bunch of people, because that makes you full of shit. 

You! Hey, you! That’s right, you, the one who completely lost their shit when they found out that 007 is not only going to be black, not only going to be a woman, but was going to be a black woman. You, the one who will never buy a Disney product or see a Disney movie again because of Little Mermaid white erasure. You’re the one who still, two years later, is getting online and declaring that Thirteen isn’t a real Doctor because the show is called “Doctor Who, not Nurse Who” (and you’re still patting yourself on the back for thinking of that one). I wanted to take a moment to explain something to you. 

Disney, MGM, the BBC, and all of the other studios have teams of marketing gurus and social scientists who follow the trends and evolution of culture, and they have determined that the benefits of forcing diversity far, far outweighs any losses they’ll get with your boycotts and snarky remarks online. The CEOs of Nike and Gillette and other companies aren’t Social Justice Warriors trying to force beliefs down your throats. Far from it. They’re businessmen and women who would never hire a man known mostly for his protests or put out a commercial asking people to be nice to each other or gender-bend and race-bend entrenched intellectual properties if they didn’t think they would make money off of it. You don’t factor into their calculations because your opinions aren’t profitable. 

Surely this can’t be too much of a shock to you. Remember everything you did to tank the Black Panther and Captain Marvel when they came out? Remember all those YouTube videos you made pointing out all the flaws in the movies that you hadn’t seen yet? Remember artificially lowering the scores for these movies on Rotten Tomatoes with your Internet trickery? Remembering calling out, “Go woke, go broke”? Remember how these movies made all of the money, and one even got nominated for Oscars? 

In conclusion, corporations have enough money that they can see into the future, and you and your Euro-, hetero-, male-centrism, despite all your bluster, are not in it. 

I, personally, in this age of loudly broadcast racism, misogyny, and homophobia, find that comforting. 

I just read this rant about the female Thor, and inevitably the argument came up that women should make up their own hero and leave theirs alone. I come across this argument a lot, whether it’s a black Little Mermaid or a bisexual Peter Parker. When The Falcon took over for Captain America, they said the same thing. When Miles Morales became Spider-man (in an alternate universe, even), same thing.  

It is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard, as well as the most disengenious. 

We live in a time when a new hero is not going to reach audiences. Think about all the heroes you know that are in the public consciousness, and think about how many of them were created recently, like the past twenty years that aren’t a spinoff of existing characters. I literally cannot (if you can, I encourage you to make me look silly). I think the biggest boom for new characters was the launch of Image comics in 1992, and even most of them are just plain forgettable. The current audience is married to their intellectual properties, for better or for worse. That’s why movies, particularly genre movies, not based on a book or a comic or an older movie are so rare. That’s why comics about new heroes rarely sell.  

Because of the nature of consumption right now, a new hero will become second and third tier. There are plenty of white, straight heroes out there, so why not borrow a first-tier one to make someone feel just a little included.  

If someone creates a movie about a new superhero, the person who suggested that said demographic create that movie will never see it. He won’t buy the comic. He has no intention of ever gracing the new hero with his attention. Unfortunately the general audience won’t either. They want name recognition.  

I’m a heterosexual white male. I have plenty of heroes to look up to. I think it’s time to share. 

Remember my little rant (I have been ranting a lot these days, sorry) earlier this month about Internet and podcast critics? Today I got something in my inbox that brought me back to it. YouTube, despite being wrong about my taste about 85 percent of the time, sends me videos it thinks I should watch, and it sent me one entitled “The One BIG Problem with Endgame NOBODY Is Talking About.” This title suggested one of two things. One, that nobody’s talking about it because they didn’t know about it, so the filmmakers and producers and studio honchos and all the critics and the gazillions of people who’ve seen this movie so far haven’t noticed it, but our humble Internet critic is the only one smart enough to see through the glitz and excitement to find a BIG FLAW. Or two, that the filmmakers and producers and studio honchos and all the critics and the gazillions of people who’ve seen this movie so far have seen this One BIG Problem but are all keeping quiet about it for reasons, and this humble Internet Critic is the only one who is brave enough to speak out about it. I haven’t watched the video, nor do I intend to, but I do secretly wonder which one it is. 

My guess is two. You may not be aware of this, but there is a small, but vocal contingent of Internet personalities who will do anything to tear Disney down. They hate Disney, maybe because it’s the monopoly empire taking over everything (which is true, and I really shouldn’t let my love of Marvel and Star Wars and Disneyworld cloud my judgement—but I do). Or maybe it’s because Disney is being run by SJWs who are cramming their unnatural philosophy down everybody’s throat. But they’ll do anything to make Disney look bad, which, as it’s the only thing in their power, which consists mostly of posting videos with charts and graphs that prove that Disney’s socially conscious agenda is making it fail financially. It’s not, as Black Panther and Captain Marvel—two of their three biggest targets—making all the money in the world should attest to. That’s okay, they can explain that too—Disney is buying out empty movie theaters to inflate their numbers, never mind how that makes no sense whatsoever.* 

It may be the first one. Maybe there was a flaw that just slipped everyone’s radar, just like the Stormtrooper bonking his head made it all the way into the Special Editions of Star Wars despite it being kind of spectacular. But most likely it’s just a whiny boy with an agenda out to tear down the Evil Empire. I don’t want to know what the BIG Problem is in Endgame. I saw the movie, I really liked it. I had a few issues with it. Now, onto the next movie I’m going to pay money to see in theaters, which is *checks schedule* John Wick. Oh, Ted “Theodore” Logan, what kind of wacky trouble have you gotten into now? 

* Disney doesn’t do this, but you know who does? Right-wing Christian movies. And you know what? It’s okay if you’re a pastor and you think your congregation would enjoy God’s Not Dead 2: The Return of Zombie God (or whatever that movie’s about—I haven’t seen it). But if you’re using this as evidence that the United States is aligning with your notions of a fictional small town, as well as the equally fictional heroes of Duck Dynasty, rallying behind the “traditional” notion of never being in the same room with a woman because it’s quaint and pure, then you’re being disingenuous, and that’s something that Jesus very clearly told you not to be. 

I used to listen to a lot of movie podcasts, but I really stopped because most of them are just really negative. I had one that I had been holding onto because it had some positivity to it, but I think I’m going to dump this one too, after what just happened. 

They were talking about a movie from my childhood which I don’t remember as being particularly good, but still a lot of fun. They identified two plot holes that they kept bringing up snarkily as evidence that the movie was badly written. But I decided to rent the movie because I remember loving it as a kid, and I have a high tolerance for plot holes (it’s just a movie, it’s not worth getting that bent out of shape about). Those plot holes were addressed within the first twenty minutes of the movie. They weren’t plot holes, they were just bad viewing comprehension on the critics’ part. And more importantly, by viewing one of these as plot holes, they literally missed the entire point of the movie. 

This is such a thing among Internet critics, complaining about plot holes as a way of justifying their opinion. It’s okay to have an opinion, and it’s okay not to have a solid reason for it. I’m tired of being told not to like something (and that there’s something wrong with me for liking it), and I’m tired of the reasons I’m told not to like something being so spectacularly wrong.  

I wish that seeing a thumbnail for a YouTube video proclaiming the failure of a property I’m really into wasn’t something I took so personally, but at least I can take comfort in knowing that my reasons for liking what I like (i.e. it connects with me) are sound, and some troll can’t take that away.