You’re Criticizing Someone Who Doesn’t Exist
A post went around saying commentators like me have turned comics, movies, TV and games into endless culture war battlegrounds. Here’s my actual answer, and why I think most of this argument is aimed at people who don’t exist.
Start with the obvious thing. The folks in that graphic are not one person. They don’t make the same content, they don’t reach the same conclusions, and anybody who’s watched a show like Friday Night Tights knows they disagree with each other constantly. Treating them as a single bloc is the whole problem, because it means you’re not responding to what any individual actually said.
My own case: I don’t review mainstream comics or movies anymore and I haven’t for a long time. You will not find a recent review from me. When I talk about the mainstream now it’s the economics, because that’s the industry I’m actually in and some of it affects my business directly. I have a company to run. I’m not going over this stuff shot by shot because I don’t care to.
And most of the people getting lumped together were fans first. That’s the part the timeline keeps getting wrong. I had the mountain of comics and the pull lists. The last review I ever did of a mainstream comic was positive. People built followings by pointing out things other people were already noticing, not by showing up to ruin something they never cared about.
On whether any of this is speculation: it isn’t. Companies publish this themselves. Sony Interactive Entertainment has its diversity and inclusion commitments on its own website, and plenty of these companies have entire departments for it. Producers, directors, actors and developers have said out loud what they’re going for. The objection was never diversity for its own sake. It’s when the priority gets in front of the entertainment and you end up with something people don’t want.
Where I split from a lot of people is that I do want to get back to fun. I just don’t think it’s coming from the mainstream, because the incentive isn’t there. One project underperforming doesn’t move a bottom line, everyone involved moves laterally into the next gig, and if you look at the net income of these companies over the last year they did fine. So the cycle repeats.
Getting past it takes purposeful action, from creators and from customers, and that includes me. Spend your attention on what you actually enjoy. And criticize people for what they said, not for the version of them you built in your head. You can’t say you want this to be over while doing the exact thing you’re objecting to.
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#Comics #Entertainment #MediaCriticism #IndieComics