SAN DIEGO — James Gunn wove a not-so-subtle message about toxic fandom into “Superman,” as the writer-director included a scene in which those sniping about the Man of Steel online are revealed to be crazed mutant monkeys, deployed by supervillain Lex Luthor.
For a studio that endured the whole “Release the Snyder Cut” campaign, with a contingent of those loyalists to Zack Snyder’s take even threatening an online sabotage campaign against the new movie, that bit of inside humor surely felt cathartic.
Fans, obviously, are the life’s blood of pop culture, but the most strident and vocal members — lashing out via social media, often anonymously — have given parts of fandom a bad name. Given that, an event like Comic-Con International, which just concluded its 55th edition in San Diego, feels like a welcome breath of fresh air, letting creators and talent interact with fans — if not quite a panacea to fandom’s excesses, the sort of love fest that serves as a bit of a tonic.
It’s a lesson that studios, making bets about which multi-million-dollar projects to back and which to skip, should remember as they balance the polarizing and extreme opinions online with the more genuine affection expressed in person at a place like Comic-Con.
The darker side of fandom often gets the lion’s share of attention, coinciding with trends in the political space among similar demographics, particularly young men. Nor did it help that COVID made everyone more online, which included transforming the 2020 and 2021 editions of Comic-Con into a virtual format, depriving fans, and talent, of the in-person experience.
Back to full strength with an estimated 130,000 attendees, Comic-Con provides the sort of immersive environment that invites playful ridicule. Indeed, mocking such fans has become its own cottage industry, one that Triumph the Insult Comic Dog elevated to high art with his roastings of the “Star Wars” faithful and Comic-Con devotees.
Still, beyond the cosplay-ing characters and autograph hounds, exposure to fans in a venue like Comic-Con offers a reminder of the passion they harbor for the movies, TV and other pop-culture commodities that they love, in a way that can strip away some of the understandable cynicism that has crept into Hollywood’s posture toward fan communities.
At this year’s gathering, the box-office success of “Superman” and solid start for “Fantastic Four” seemed to create a certain giddiness, reflected in the crowd’s costume choices. Blood-drive donors were rewarded with Fantastic Four T-shirts. At DC’s floor display, people posed for photos with a very calm dog wearing a Superman cape.
Fans cheerfully waited in lines — long, winding, disorganized lines — to preview movies like “Coyote vs. Acme,” which was salvaged after Warner Bros. shelved it; and “Tron: Ares,” with an enthusiasm that likely requires forgetting the previous 2010 sequel, “Tron: Legacy.”
The hope is those attendees will become marketing foot soldiers for new films and TV shows like FX/Hulu’s “Alien: Earth,” which screened its first episode, as they cheered older favorites like “Resident Alien” and “The Rookie.”
Elsewhere, people queued up for autographs from actors, writers and artists. “Breaking Bad” creator Vince Gilligan received movie-star treatment, posing for pictures with admirers at an installation outside Petco Park. Fresh off “South Park’s” skewering of Donald Trump, creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone received a heroes’ welcome on the convention’s biggest stage, Hall H, as did Gunn at a presentation for the HBO Max series “Peacemaker.”
The dark side of fandom
In recent years, the uglier side of online fandom has included over-the-top reactions to Ben Affleck being cast as “Batman.” Ironically, the demand for Snyder’s version of “Justice League,” which features Affleck, became enough of a din that Warner Bros. finally obliged them by allowing Snyder to finish his cut and release it on HBO Max. It was a decision that was deemed a financial failure given the additional money spent reviving a project that didn’t make much of an impact on the streaming service (it did okay).
Unfortunately, those years have also seen ugly bouts of racism and misogyny, with “Gamergate” and “Comicsgate” more than a decade ago as well as anti-“woke” gibes directed at the “Star Wars” series “The Acolyte.” Mindful of such landmines, studios have even resorted to “boot camps” to help prepare actors for dealing with online sniping.
The animosity, or at least wariness, toward those strains of fandom was articulated by Alan Moore, the comics legend responsible for “Watchmen” and “V for Vendetta.” In a piece last October for The Guardian titled “‘Fandom has toxified the world’: “Watchmen” author Alan Moore on superheroes, Comicsgate and Trump,” Moore drew a stark line between genuine fandom and social media bomb throwers, linking the debased tenor of political debate to the venom spewed by those who claim to represent fan communities.
“An enthusiasm that is fertile and productive can enrich life and society, just as displacing personal frustrations into venomous tirades about your boyhood hobby can devalue them,” Moore wrote. “Quite liking something is OK. You don’t need the machete or the megaphone.”
“Quite liking something is OK. You don’t need the machete or the megaphone.” – Alan Moore
Although they tend to be a small minority, the angriest voices do have a way of knifing through the clutter (and social media algorithms), which has included homophobia and bigotry associated with backlashes to movies and TV shows.
That was the case with the “Star Wars” prequel “The Acolyte.” Featuring diverse leads, the Disney+ series provoked such a strident response that star Amandla Stenberg posted videos after its cancellation noting the actors had experienced “a rampage of, I would say, hyper-conservative bigotry and vitriol, prejudice, hatred and hateful language towards us.” Despite bracing for that, Stenberg said, “It’s not something you can fully understand what it feels like until it’s happening to you.”
The in-person experience
At events like Comic-Con, those fetid aspects tend to dissipate, with microphones, not megaphones, used to ask questions of talent — sometimes nitpick-y and wonky, sure (“Why is there noise in outer space?”), but almost invariably excited just to be sharing space with somebody whose work has moved, thrilled and inspired them.
Part of that reflects realities of face-to-face interaction, noted Michael Elliott, a professor in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology & Criminal Justice at Towson University in Maryland, who has studied fan culture, including a survey titled “Fandom as Religion: A Social-Scientific Assessment.”
According to Elliott, abusive fandom “gets so much press because it’s so loud,” but his research indicates those amplified voices don’t represent most fans, and indeed tar traditional fans in an unfair manner.
“I think people misunderstand fans as perhaps childish and irrational, and what I’m finding is that fandom can be deeply meaningful to people in a variety of ways,” Elliott told TheWrap. “It can give them community, it can give them a morality, it can give them something powerful and important in their daily lives.”
Noting that fans often thank him when he conducts interviews, he said, “As a social scientist, I let the data speak to me, but it really struck me how sincere fans can be and how meaningful it can be. These are not children. They’re not crazy, irrational people with psychological problems. They’re regular people who just find deep meaning in these interests.”
Take George Lucas’s first appearance at Comic-Con on Sunday, in which he received the biggest standing ovation and roar of approval of all the Hall H presentations. Lucas had for years been the target of waves of toxicity from fans angry at his take on the prequel trilogy — a series of movies that have in recent years found a new sense of appreciation.
For Hollywood, of course, all this represents a thorny equation, since forging connections — often through digital means and social media — with consumers is the surest way to get people to spend money but can also elicit a kind of fringe lunacy, fueled by the anonymity online postings allow.
As it happens, the major studios had a muted presence in terms of showcasing movies at this year’s convention — partly an accident of timing with “Superman” and “Fantastic Four” opening this month — with TV shows largely filling the void.
But studios have, by and large, pulled back their Comic-Con investments in recent years after spending big on exhibitions for films like “Cowboys & Aliens” and “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” only to see those movies flop in theaters. Or to drop exclusive footage that leaks online in unfinished form, as Warner Bros. did with a sizzle reel for 2016’s “Suicide Squad” not meant for public consumption.
And yet, sometimes magic happens. When director Tim Miller unveiled the first “Deadpool” trailer back in 2015, the Hall H crowd responded so enthusiastically they demanded to see the trailer again after it ended. Miller, tears in his eyes, obliged. Minutes later, during a panel for an “X-Men” movie, Nicholas Hoult confessed he was having trouble answering a question because he was “still thinking about that ‘Deadpool’ trailer.” The unbridled joy from the crowd jumped the barrier between fan and actor. Comic-Con is a place where these performers and creators can, themselves, be unabashed fans.
Those making the trek to San Diego this year were rewarded with more than just a marketing opportunity but a taste of fandom in its pure, unadulterated form — the kind of event, Elliott suggested, where enthusiasm can become infectious.
“If you go to a concert, if you go to a Comic-Con, the electricity is in the air,” he said. “It comes from the environment and can sweep you away in spite of yourself.” At its best, that can also remind those within the business for whom they’re working, and that they’re not all a bunch of mutant monkeys.
