Showing posts with label fandom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fandom. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 28, 2021

Forget the losers who make fun of you for enjoying Hallmark Christmas movies!


Forgetting to Google myself often enough, I missed this article from October in Cosmopolitan where I was quoted on how people feel pressured to say the actually “hate” certain types of entertainment they usually consume. This pressure has given rise to a sort of oxymoron of a phrase called “hate watching,” or how people who watch a certain show regularly would then turn around and claim to watch just to reinforce their hatred of that show.

 

The term is quite foolish and the article correctly points this out. There is no such thing as “hate watching.” You enjoy watching something but you feel embarrassed to admit it when all your friends make fun of your favorite entertainment.

 

In my quote, I make the point that most often female-centric entertainment gets most of the disrespect and the pressure on their fans to justify themselves. Traditionally, women who enjoyed watching soap operas or reading romance novels got most of the grief. These days relationship-oriented reality shows like The Bachelor and The Bachelorette get piled upon as well.

 

Since we’re in middle of the holiday season as I write this, just between Christmas and New Year’s, it makes me think of all the people who enjoy piling on the Hallmark Channel’s Christmas movies. I wonder how many fans of those movies claim to be merely hate watching in order to “know how bad they really are.” What I would suggest to all those Hallmark Christmas movie fans—while Hallmark Christmas movies are not really my thing, I do enjoy watching Hallmark’s various cozy mystery series—is that they should first give all their critics the middle finger and then ask those very sophisticated and hip friends of theirs if they haven’t yet gotten sick of Batman and Spider-Man reboots. I mean, how many times can you really tell the same old story about how witnessing his parents’ deaths warped Bruce Wayne and created Batman? Or the significance of Uncle Ben’s death to Peter Parker’s psyche.

 

Watch whatever you like and ignore the losers who give you a hard time for it!

Wednesday, May 22, 2019

Don't EVER make the fans angry!!



Last week I was interviewed for this CNBC article about the final season of Game of Thrones coming to a close and all of the controversy surrounding it.  Could the future of the show's DVD sales, a spinoff series, and producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss' involvement in upcoming Star Wars films be jeopardized by all the fan hate?

So I guess I called it right in the article. Apparently the fans were so infuriated by the final episode that many are vowing to retaliate now. Many are promising to stay away from Star Wars if Benioff and Weiss are involved, vowing to ignore a spinoff series, and there is that goofy Change.org petition to remake the entire season.

Reportedly, George R.R. Martin, author of the original novels, has hinted that he will take his remaining books in the series in a different direction. Again, as I called it in this article.

The power of culture and audiences should never, ever be underestimated. There are many who think the media are a completely irresistible force upon the minds of malleable, vulnerable audiences. People who believe that are very wrong.

Sunday, February 14, 2016

The Walking Dead Returns


Fan behavior, and especially fan anger, should be of ongoing concern to media producers of all types, especially TV showrunners. I was interviewed for this Detroit News article about The Walking Dead and the fan outrage over Glenn's fake death. Check it out here.

Saturday, February 13, 2016

What Not to Say to Romance Readers


I was interviewed for a Woman's Day article about the broad, unfair, and sexist stereotyping of romance literature. It's an issue that can be applied to all forms of genre entertainment and fan communities. Before the critics of genre lit or movies or TV shows paint fans with broad strokes, they should actually take the time to understand the entertainment they are talking about and the pleasures they bring to their fans. Check out this very good article right here.