Dear fanboys: a love letter to you

Imagine this scenario. You’re a film critic – after viewing a movie, you write your review which then appears online. The next time you check the site, you've been called an "ugly worthless hag" who "fails at life." Ouch. Maybe it's time, says Kimberly Gadette, for a critic to send a message in response. A love letter, perhaps?

The most recent wave of verbal abuse has occurred in response to Christopher Nolan's Inception, sparking off raging invective toward any critic who doesn't treat it like the heir apparent to Citizen Kane. This reaction is a seeming encore toward the furor over Nolan's prior film, 2008's The Dark Knight, in which detracting critics writing on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes ("RT") were maligned by gangs of fanboys in the vilest language possible. In both cases, RT moderators had to sift through thousands of posts by angry fans in order to delete the ones (ie, the death threats) that the website deemed objectionable.

Without further ado, a little post in return:

Dear Fanboys* [*definition per PC Magazine: "A male [or female if a 'fangirl'] who is completely devoted to a particular work. Fanboys are fiercely loyal and steadfast in their opinion."]:

First of all, congratulations. Now that the majority of film reviews are out, the Rotten Tomatoes' aggregate score for Inception stands at 87%. (Meaning 87% out of 100% film reviewers gave the movie a "fresh" plump red tomato, a thumbs-up assessment.) With 246 reviewers weighing in, that's no small potatoes, or rather, rotten tomatoes. Wow. Nolan must have taken you all out for a huge celebration. Wait a minute ... you’ve never even met him? But given your passion for this film, weren't you in some way responsible for the actual production? No?

But no matter, I'm concerned about you:

- Your preoccupation with numbers. As reviews filter in on RT a few days prior to a highly-anticipated film's release, you hold your breath, hoping for a perfect score of 100%. And when that number is upset by the first negative assessment, the score will dip to 99%. No! As the score continues to drop with ensuing naysayers, the fanboy reaction is similar to that reserved for serial killers of small puppies. Any negative review of such beloved super-heroes as Spider-Man, Iron Man, Batman, Christopher Nolan-Man becomes a target for dozens if not hundreds of posts on the RT comments pages. Reactions include fervent wishes for the anatomical mutilations of said reviewer, such as cutting out eyes, plunging pencils into eardrums, knifing sphincters, etc.

However ... have you considered other numbers? Your grade point average? Your college admission test scores? Your hourly wage? Just a thought, but I'm wondering if your priorities are in order. Heaven forbid I offend you, but I think that the big picture you want to look at should be your own.

- Your constant rage. Venting online is one thing, but if this is a 24/7 preoccupation, Inception aside, the line between reality and illusion might tend to blur. What if someone other than a critic disagrees with you? The boss who doesn't concur that you deserve a raise; that pretty girl who differs with your belief that the two of you should date; the landlord who doubts your assurances that you'll have the rent to him by next Tuesday, swear to God. And trust me, attempting to further your case by sticking a witty note on the landlord's door such as: "god i wanna cut ur dick off with a butte [sic] knife u prick" probably won't win him over.

- Your anachronistic gender stereotyping. Ten years into the 21st century, and you're hearkening back to the sexist roles prior to the Nixon Administration? Just how many '50s family sit-com re-runs are you watching on Hulu? The fanboy slander toward women reviewers, as disturbing as it is in its misogyny, is often laugh-out-loud funny in its rather warped time warp. "Get back to the kitchen, you kitchen hen." The kitchen? You mean that room with the coffeepot and the microwave? Or: "Stick to laundry honey."

Meantime, ageism rears its ugly head as male critics are dismissed with, "Go feed the pigeons and STFU old man" and "Go sort your sock collection." However, your world view seems to be all-encompassing, in that anyone who disagrees with you is gay (why is that an insult?), fat, ugly with wrinkled asses and sagging skin. No insult is complete without the usual name-calling: "twat, tool, dick, prick, lesbo, troll, schwank, man-hater, seeping nob, dumb c**t, bald hack, old cow, sucker of balls, useless bag of meat, douche." (Of the group, "douche" is usually hardest to comprehend because of its multiple misspellings.) While the days of compelling critical debate among an educated readership are as lost as the practice of capitalizing the first letter in a sentence, it's nice to know that Ozzie and Harriet are still alive and well.

- Your puzzling interest in others' employment. It's endearing of you, really, to invest any time in obsessing over the critics' employment status. ("Get out, u stink, u should be fired. Loser." "How cum u r still employ'd?" "Ludacris [sic]. Look for other job, you suck as a critic." "Best of luck on the job market.") But enough about us ... how about you? Does your boss give you hours of paid leave in order to launch dozens, if not hundreds, of blistering posts decrying this opinion, or that critic? Because, as regards Inception, unless Mr. Nolan and/or Warner Bros. has put your services on retainer, I'm worried that you're being taken advantage of. And in these tough economic times, no one should work for free.

Speaking of work, since you seem to embrace the cinema so intensely, you might want to consider redirecting your efforts toward attending film school. Which would lead to a best case scenario, replete with a dash of irony – upon your first film release you, too, would be subject to your very own fanboys' reactions to the critics' raves and routs.

Or if, as you contend, "I could write better then [sic] that s**t-fer-brains hack troll" then take an English class. Take two. Forgive my gentle criticism, but you might want to acquaint yourself with a few basic rules about grammar and spelling. "We shouldn't blame this critic for falling asleep. He probably watched it way passed [sic] his 5 o clock bedtime." "Yeah you pretty much don't deserve to breath [sic]."

At your age, honestly, there's no excuse for being this sic.

Though we contend that sticks and stones may break our bones, and that the above-quoted names will never hurt us, I'm not so sure. Not in a world that's reflective of two stark sides: a fresh red tomato versus a rotten green splat. It's no longer the line in the sand, but the line in the sandbox. And we're that kid in the corner, plugging his ears with grimy fingers as he screams "La-la-la, la-la-la" in order to drown out any dissent.

We've forgotten how to debate. How to listen. How to use clear-headed logic rather than nasty-tongued invective. Criticism should not be wielded as a tool in order to destroy, but an instrument that can analyze, provoke, question, even educate. In her 2005 book, Team of Rivals, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Doris Kearns Goodwin writes that Abraham Lincoln deliberately appointed three of his political opponents to his cabinet. President Lincoln contended that entertaining viewpoints other than his own would be invaluable in achieving the best balance of government, in order to lead America out of a particularly troubled time.

Back to you, dear fanboys, raging in another trouble time: sure, you can continue to stick to your aggressive mob mentality, a virulent boys' club as it were. But consider this: your heroes, filmmakers and characters alike, have always stood apart from the crowd. Their journeys force them to dig deep inside themselves, questioning and testing their own moral code, refusing to bow to the whims of the crowd no matter how much intestinal fortitude it takes. Just for the sake of argument – a fair, intelligent argument devoid of infantile behavior – let's emulate those heroes.

Rather than cowering inside the crowd, let's rise above it.

Here's to you, fanboys. May your passion fuel your dreams.

Sincerely,
Kimberly Gadette
Film critic for IndieMoviesOnline

Note: All remarks quoted in this article are actual comments received by Kimberly and fellow reviewers.