Why We Should All Fear the Wrath of Fans | The Backdrop

Wow, the YouTube comments are filled with very vocal people who feel the video is attacking fans, which I don't think was the point of the video at all. The ratio of likes to views is about the same as other Backdrop videos, so it seems most people like it and mostly the loudest crowd critize it, often while misunderstanding it. Ironically, that demonstrates what I understood to be the video's point: that being louder does not make one a better critic or writer, so studios (and YT creators) shouldn't blindly listen to the most vocal feedback. For what it's worth: I like your work, Mr. Mooney, even though - or perhaps, because - I don't always agree. Keep doing what you're doing, I'll be reading/listening.

Great (if slightly depressing) video. Though the irony of an angry backlash to this article because it isn't what the viewers wanted is a little too on the nose. Take that, real life! If I were more conspiracy minded I would wonder if studios deliberately add POC stars and directors to franchises that are culturally fracked so that audiences blame them rather than the regurgitated low-quality of those efforts (Barry Jenkins directing the 400th live action Disney remake, DeCosta directing a middling, Black dwaves in the Tolkien appendices show, overedited Marvels sequel, a Latina lead for an uncanny valley Snow White and the eldritch 7 dwarves, etc).

I think the most important thing a studio can do to create commercially successful media that respects the source material. The first season of Game of Thrones was amazing because of how closely it followed the book, and while the next couple seasons didn't quite fit everything in, everyone who'd read the books knew what to expect, and they weren't disappointed. Pretty much everyone loved the first season of The Witcher as well. The first season of Wheel of Time was well-tolerated, but from the friends I've spoken to, the second season was broadly seen as even better because they toned back the grimdark and stayed true to the spirit of the books (even though several of the events have been remixed/moved up, to facilitate more of a 7-season show). The first Star Trek film was kind of stupid, perhaps, because it tries to tell a very non-Star-Trek-like story. Even though it may have been written by the creator, he clearly had lost touch with his own series. Which I think is absolutely a thing that happens. The thing about the successful series above that went bad (GoT, Witcher) is that the show stopped respecting the spirit of the source material. So I do think it's important to be able to ignore what fans say they want to happen with their character. But I also think that if your showrunners, writers, directors, etc. aren't keyed in to what makes the source material so good, and learning everything they can about the worlds and characters and politics of the source material... then you're not going to have a good product in the end. I mean... Netflix explicitly had writers on The WItcher who actively disliked the books. And when your star -- who fans see as representing the character perfectly -- is being called confrontational or whatever when he criticizes the story you're writing as not faithful... how do you think that's going to go? I've lost the plot, as I haven't mentioned "woke" criers at all... and maybe that's like... a separate issue and it muddied the main message of this video essay? There exist a group of people who will call things out for being "woke" needlessly, and it may be that the biggest problem with them is how much air they're given by media at all. Someone else mentioned that there are quotas around diversity in studios, and around getting awards and so on. I would love to learn more about that. And I suspect that there's a deep dive there to investigate whether that's making problems simply because of how the quotas are being enforced -- i.e., rather than shoehorning minority people into a story where it doesn't make sense, you could greenlight more stories that reasonably feature minority people. And of course, on the other hand, if people are complaining because their space aliens or fantasy-worlders aren't all white people, well, there should be room to completely ignore those complaints. And also there should be room to allow for people to be wrong about the actual historical diversity of a region and those people can be corrected or ignored; but it would be incorrect to talk about it as being "inclusive" so much as "historically accurate" or even "making up for historically inaccurate period films of the past."

This video misses the mark by a mile, fan service vs fan anger is not even responsible for 10% of problems in media in 2024. Everybody already pointed many instances where fans were right and listened to => success, ignored => failure, so I won't. But I think for every 3 cases of recent fan vs IP owner controversies I'd say fans were right in 2 of them. Doesn't mean fans are such great movie makers, its the IP owners and people they hire that are doing such terrible job with the franchises, failing to understand the appeal of what they own, that replacing them with majority fan opinion would be an improvement. Borderline religious progressivism in Hollywood that's so easily dismissed (denied?) with it's rules is 50% of the problem for non-progressives and I bet a quarter even for the discerning progressive. I don't think average Christian liked super pandering Christian movies, so it's got to irk even you when you get another serving of the pious slop. You're dismissing it as buzzwords but you can trace each "buzzword" to a specific call to action in XX and then an ideological creative loudly agrees with it, gets promoted in part due to that discourse, then implements it in XXI in her/his work. It's not just out of the blue in 2020 "haters are noticing". It's 2000 "industry - we need to increase X, Y, Z", then they do it (usually do it very badly, on the nose girlbossing), then it's noticed. This goes to all various tropes including those about sex and race. It's seriously insulting to hear that it makes one suspected of racism if he "talks about sex and race" too much, when Amazon has a spreadsheet of specific sex/race requirements, Oscars will reject a movie that doesn't fit woke dogma that also includes these demographics, etc. In 2024 if you want to make a movie say about real life Polish-american dockworkers in Baltimore, even worse all of your 5 main characters happen to be straight family people, the establishment will require inventing non-white roles to fill up their quotas - or will ostracize it. In extreme cases like BBC after years of this religious observances you've got x5 representation for non-Brits in shows about UK (including supposedly historic ones) and x10 representation of homosexuality. Yes, lopsided demographics in itself is not the worst offender, usually other Woke tropes do more damage to the medium, but it is a part of it. So if you talk about it, mention race, you get accused of sounding kinda like a racist? Risk averse studios who won't give enough creative license are maybe 20% of the problem, limping financial model another 20%. Rude extremely emotional fan who screams threats - that's 0%. Ambulance chaser content creators who make selective videos to max the outrage (sorry, but this one I count about as bad as what "haters" make) maybe 5%. They couldn't pull off millions of views if they tried to rally hate on even average quality media, and those videos would not lead to empty theaters.

Man you really hate Deadpool 3. And love waving those red rags to the fan bulls, which I appreciate. I think the “woke” thing is a multi-faceted issue where the far-right see a chance to culture war and recruit disenfranchised losers, as they’ve done since the internet came into being, and a lot of bigots see the same easy target and simple solution to a complex problem they always do. Fan-ship is a weird one, and I honestly don’t think it’s a good thing to be. I try not to see myself as a fan of something, I try and “like or enjoy” it because I found I was getting weird and possessive. In my life I’ve known a lot of people in groups who basically only had one thing in common that was a huge part of their lives, and it inevitably turned weird and toxic eventually. But eventually the properties will stop making money when it alienates all but the weirdos (see Star Wars) and they’ll need to try a new approach later to make it good again. In the meantime, lots of other things to watch and do. As an aside, I have mixed feelings on Harrison Ford as an actor but I find myself respecting his comment of “I don’t know what a Force-Ghost is and I don’t give a shit” more and more as time goes on.

Chiming in here as well as in the video comments because I really think this “fans are to blame for bad media” is being done in bad faith. Why? Because there are so many counter examples of fan reactions being key to good media. If you take any fan property, or really any major film or tv show from the last 30 years and ask “was this a success?” You will need to ask whether or not the fans liked it. There’s a whole genre of films and tv called “cult classics” where fan love kept the films alive despite commercial invisibility. Or even revived properties long gone. Does that excuse the fan backlash to certain fan properties that might be catering to different audiences than is expected? No, but I’d bet it’s worth investigating how clear that “difference” really is, or if the “difference” is just another corporate game to pander for viewers. Have we forgotten how easily rainbows go up and come down from corporate websites during gay pride month? Are we giving corporate entities with billions of dollars more of a fair shake than fans with nothing more than their viewing minutes and subscription dollars? Who is really to blame for modern corporate media not succeeding at its job? I thought corporations were the best most efficient use of resources in getting the job done, Not-Escapist News.

Looking at your comment section, seems like the #notallfans disclaimer didn't work as well as one might hope. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯