These past few days, I have been embarrassed for my geek brethren.
See, I am very used to being the only black face in the room and getting asked about black stuff. And I am used to being one of the few out geeks in the room and getting asked about geek stuff.
But the black stuff usually outweighs hearing about geek stuff.
Except for this past week, all because of Ben Affleck.
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| “You white, then you Ben Affleck.” |
And if there’s any time I have regretted being a geek, it’s less when I am forced to discuss Ben Affleck being cast as Batman, but witnessing the reaction to it.
Seriously, there are few times I regret being a geek. I don’t regret it wearing a white tuxedo with tails to my junior prom. I don’t regret nearly buying a replica of the Sword of Omens from Thundercats at a Monster-Mania convention. I don’t regret reading Justice League: Cry For Justice even though it was horrible horrible horrible.
But, man oh man, do I regret geek rage.
There’s nothing like watching the Internet collectively crap its pants in dissatisfaction, dismissal and disavowal. When the news broke about Bat-Affleck, I did my best to just stay away from Facebook, from Twitter, from geek sites (except this one!), from everything on the Internerd.
Look. I love Batman. I looooooove Batman.
He’s my favorite F’ing hero. Always has been. I own so much Batman crap it’s almost shameful. I am looking right now at a collection of Batman action figures on a bookcase in my apartment that encapsulates the past 20 years of Batman-related toys.
Really, if there’s anyone who’s supposed to be upset about who gets to play the Caped Crusader, it would be me, right? But I can’t. I just can’t.
I’m supposed to be upset about this? I’m supposed to be upset about something that isn’t real. About a rich stranger playing a fictional rich stranger who wears a costume to beat mentally ill criminals with his fists.
I can’t.
Especially when geeks say they’re angry about something, only to go see the thing they’re so angry about when it comes out anyway. Not when the thing they’re railing against hasn’t even been made, and the guy in question has turned out quality work for years and years since the days of Daredevil and Gigli.
Not when geeks are overfed by Hollywood and they don’t appreciate it. Dozens of sci-fi and fantasy films are shoved down their gullets, and still no satisfaction.
Mind you, there are times to be angry about geek stuff not turning out right, even before it’s been made. The criticism over people of color not being cast in the film adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender, which was a cartoon filled with obviously non-white characters, is something to be upset about.
Galactus being a cloud in the Fantastic Four sequel, instead of a giant dude with a world-eating machine? Sure, rail away.
The fact that Hollywood executives told Guillermo del Toro, when he pitched Hellboy, that they should make HB into a regular-looking guy with a dog, is worth justifiable displeasure.
But these days, our Internet age of the early 21st century where, now more than ever, you can say the first thing that comes to mind? People hate pretty much anything. I call Twitter the House of Haters.
I’m tired of this dissatisfaction at everything, and action about nothing, about crap that doesn’t really matter.
It’s hard enough living in a time overloaded by information in which the injustices that hold together our worldwide sociopolitical system are laid bare every day. And, for the most part, we’re too plugged in to object honestly with sustained results and effort.
It’s hard enough to live in this world, where outrage is ginned up so loudly through constant chatter, conflict and noise costumed as news that no one can hear anything above all the shouting.
When all that is happening about real things going on in the world, I can’t get too hopped up about geek stuff that I dislike. It simply feeds into the culture of fake, misplaced outrage at celebrities and politicians and pop music, treating it all like sports teams and rivalries.
I can’t stomach another “10 things wrong with” article or video. What’s the point? Can you make a better one? So what if you didn’t like a movie. You didn’t like it. Did the world end? Has your life been destroyed?
So we don’t have the same tastes, and that’s it. It’s not for you, so more for me. You’ll like something I’m not interested in, and such is life. Something for everyone. All good.
On Facebook, I mostly stayed away from the Affleck outrage. Eventually my friend Rob posted a status of dismay that turned into a wait-and-see attitude in the comments. He wrote: “I refuse to have an opinion on a movie that hasn’t been made, let alone written, yet.” He looked into the abyss of geek rage, and turned back from the cliff.
This fake outrage isn’t why I got into geek world. It’s also why I love Forces of Geek! and everything in it. Geekdom is supposed to be about enthusiasm and love for the things that you like, yes?
And that love breeds strongly held opinions and beliefs, for sure. I love vehement opinion; I’m from Philadelphia, the home of such in-your-face upfrontitude. I love passionate views.
But does this equate or justify outrage? Not for me.
I’d rather wait and see.
