Monday, May 31, 2021

"SHUT UP NERDS!!!" they explained.

Today in nerd hatred, we have the Netflix announcement that the character Death in their TV series of Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" graphic novel will be played by Kirby Howell-Baptiste, a black woman. Oh, and they listed all the actors' pronouns too, to be absolutely sure we all knew there was a non-conforming gender actor in there. There is a controversy over this, because the character of Death in the graphic novels is depicted as a white Goth woman. Fans of the graphic novel have voiced their opinions on this casting choice, which range from unctuous and fulsome approval to serious disapproval.

(English speakers with a classical education will understand that "unctuous and fulsome" implies dishonesty and sucking up, just to be clear for you people who got ripped off by your teachers back in the day.)

Now, I must say at the outset that I do not care. I have not read The Sandman. I think I looked through it when it first came out in 1987, decided it was SJW trash and passed hard. Over the years it has generally been my opinion that Neil Gaiman writes stories in a way that I find intensely annoying, he is not well represented in my library.

Therefore, I can't offer an informed opinion of Ms. Howell-Babptiste's fit as the character Death, and on the whole I really don't care. It is most unlikely I will watch it if there's anything else on.

However, that is not what this post is about.

Comic book lovers will recall the Fantastic Four reboot. They cast Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm, and the internet came alive with people like me predicting the movie would suck. And it did! The FF reboot movie could suck a golf ball through a garden hose. What was interesting at the time was the number of media people screaming "RAAAAACIST!!!1!" whenever anyone would object. 
 
We were all called sexist for saying Dr. Who would suck when they made the Doctor a woman. (It did suck.) 
 
But in the same breath, all the SJWs -demanding- that Iron Fist must cast an Asian as Danny Rand, or that Dr. Who must be black were brave fighters for social justice. 
 
As it happened Iron Fist and Dr. Who sucked anyway, but not because of them casting white actors to play white characters.

What this post is about is that one more time, comic book fans are not allowed to have an opinion. If you think that you want to see the Neil Gaiman version, with casting that reflects what he did in the comics, then you are a racist and you need to shut up before somebody shuts you up.

Sorry. Nerds have opinions. We're not about to shut up. Go ahead and try to make us, see what happens.

My prediction on The Sandman by Netflix? It will probably suck. Whenever the studio stars fucking with the story by using the casting as a vehicle for virtue signalling, that's a bad sign.

8 comments:

Jonathan H said...

When media (books, movies, TV shows) place virtue signalling above content and creativity, by definition they will be poor... and hence they will lose money because people won't watch/ buy/ tell friends about it... I'm surprised that losses, especially for movie studios, haven't been a loud enough signal to get them to change back...

I don't watch much, and when I do, it is almost universally at least several years old and often no newer than the 1980's.

The Overgrown Hobbit said...

Today the Daughter Product ran into "parsimonious" as we made dinner.

HSoD.

The colonisers of Nerdspace are the same vicious Mean Girls (of both sexes) who tried to make my life hellish that I remember from my teens.

What torques me off is having these bullies cry crocodile tears - and get away with it.

Jason said...

As Jonathan H commented, when they start putting virtue signaling first, the entertainment suffers...

I watch TV / go to the movies to be ENTERTAINED, NOT preached to. Start preaching and I start getting annoyed, the louder and heavier-handed the preaching the faster the annoyance turns to aggravation and anger.

TV I turn off, movies, well, unfortunately I don't typically walk out so they've already got my money and don't care, but I'll bad review it to friends and family...

The Phantom said...

Greetings all.

For an education on how bad TV and movies have gotten, and how FAST it happened, watch something from the 1980s or 1990s and then a movie from 2017/17. The differences are like Earth vs. Mars. You'd think aliens had landed.

Zsuzsa said...

For an education on how bad TV and movies have gotten, and how FAST it happened, watch something from the 1980s or 1990s and then a movie from 2017/17.

I remember about ten years ago, tor.com of all places did a list of all movies that came out in the summer of, I think it was 1984. There were literally dozens of movies on that list that I would have wanted to see.

In 2012, six movies came out that I wanted to see, and that was more than had been on my list for a long time. Since then, I honestly can't remember the last one I really looked forward to. Every time I go to the movie theater, the previews remind me why I haven't been to the theater in ages.

The Phantom said...

I used to go the movies almost every week. Since 2010 I pretty much only went to see the Marvel super hero movies. The last year and a half, thanks to Covid, I haven't been at all. But given what was on offer, I wouldn't have gone anyway.

What do I watch on Netflix? Korean soaps. Japanese anime. Chinese kung-fu. Scandinavian fantasy.

American shows? Nope. Hard nope. Do I have a Disney+ sub so I can watch their Marvel superhero TV shows. Nope.

The brontosaurus that is Woke Hollywood was shot in the ass ten years ago and has been bleeding out ever since. But it is SO big and SO friggin' stupid that the message still hasn't gotten to the little tiny peanut brain. It'll be fun to see what happens when they FINALLY figure it out. Got a bag of popcorn picked out to watch that show.

markedup2 said...

Keep in mind that the writers matter more than the actors.

I think a female Dr. Who would have worked just fine (after all, they had already done it with Master/Missy) if the writers had not sucked. Pick a single male companion (not that horrible group thing they actually did). Hire a decent writer. I didn't like everything Steven Moffet wrote, but he did a better than average job.

The Phantom said...

Hi Markedup2.

There's no reason a female Dr. Who can't be well written, and therefore work as a story. But to get it right, the story has to keep faith with the existing characters and the previous cannon. There needs to be a proper reason within the show's lore that the Doctor is a woman this time, and then it will be perfectly fine.

Of course they didn't do that. What they did was declare "It is time for Dr. Who to be female!" for purely political reasons, and then cram as much Smash The Patriarchy bullshit into the show as they possibly could. Which sucked. As we all knew it would.