Rigging the System: How Trump Supporters and DC Movie Fans are Gaming Public Discourse

The Players

There are few commonalities between supporters of presidential candidate, Donald Trump, and fans of DC Comics. There’s no reason to assume Superman or Batman fans would have any specific political persuasion, even if some comic books do have a political bent. The candidacy of Trump and the DC Extended Universe film franchise are completely unrelated. Yet, in one distinct way, the two share a common element: Their fan bases are hijacking our public discourse to upend a system they feel is stacked against them.

The duplicitousness of the news media is the trendiest, but by no means newest, bogeyman in modern society. The phrase “mainstream media” is spoken with equal levels of disdain from all directions of the political and social sphere. A lot has changed since those years when the nation trusted Walter Cronkite to enlighten them about the day’s events.

In this skeptical environment, Donald Trump can claim election polls are being tampered with because of liberal bias and a large portion of the electorate accepts it without question. They will paint any media, no matter their well-documented conservative bent, as just another liberal shill if they dare to suggest Hillary Clinton is ahead in the polls.

This kind of devoted fandom — and Trump voters are more fans than traditional political supporters — is hardly unique. We see blind devotion in all aspects of public life, whether it be for other political figures, sports teams, or bands, to say nothing of religious faith. I haven’t been inside a church in over a decade, but my fealty to Kansas Jayhawk basketball is downright cultish (and unhealthy).

One example of this cultural trend is the rabid fandom for comic books. Marvel and DC Comics have been the dominate forces behind superheroes for generations, at least in terms of characters familiar to the public at large. With the recent, massive success of the cinematic universes for both companies, that familiarity has only skyrocketed. This greater recognition has put a spotlight on a divide that has existed in the comic nerd realm almost since the beginning. There is a vociferous portion of comic book fandom who remain fiercely loyal to either DC or Marvel, with no middle ground. As their popularity has grown in the last decade, so has the division between them.

On the surface, this is just another silly pop culture rivalry, like Star Wars and Star Trek, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, Ross and Rachel (they were on a break). Whether it’s human nature or the product of a cynical media that plays up the narrative, tribalism is just part of being a fan. So why focus on DC fandom? Aren’t Marvel Fanboys™ just as bad?

The Game

First, it must be stated that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been much more successful than the DCEU. This is objectively true financially and, more relevant to this discussion, critically. The question of whether the films are more successful as movie going experiences is entirely subjective and not relevant to my point. If you prefer DC movies, that should be sufficient. For some, though, it isn’t.

The problem, so far as there is one, is that the DCEU has gotten roundly trounced by reviewers, and this displeases a vocal, albeit small portion of the base. These fans of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and their compatriots are angry at reviewers (and their aggregates) for giving predominantly negative reviews to Man of Steel, Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, and, most recently, Suicide Squad.

Marvel movies, on the other hand, consistently get better reviews (if not always glowing), high marks those films do not deserve if you were to ask DC fans (and plenty of other moviegoers, most likely). A vocal faction of the DC fan base claims that their preferred films are being unfairly maligned because critics have been paid off by Marvel Comics.

This led to a rather silly and counterintuitive petition to shut down the review aggregate site, Rotten Tomatoes; never mind that the site doesn’t, itself, review films. While this could be dismissed as the petulant flailing of immature fans, the petition garnered 22,303 signers before being closed, which suggests that it struck a chord with a significant number of fans.

Before we dismiss this action for its inanity, though, let’s keep in mind what this actually means: A sizeable group of people supported silencing a website (not just boycotting), not because of any offensive content, but just because it provided information they disliked. In the age of Gawker’s demise, we can’t pretend this isn’t a troubling mindset.

(Interestingly, similar payola theories also surrounded the Men’s Rights Activist-despised Ghostbusters reboot. That movie sits at 73% on Rotten Tomatoes and did only middling business, while Suicide Squad, with its 26% rating, broke August box office records. It’s almost as if reviews don’t really affect ticket sales. Someone should tell those studios bribing critics about this.)

What makes the anti-Rotten Tomatoes form of social activism (and that is, essentially, what it’s attempting to be) worthy of discussion is its resemblance to a similarly feckless pro-Trump effort. In the August, post-Convention period, when Trump’s polling numbers collapsed, the subreddit devoted to him, /the_donald (truly the Mos Eisley Cantina of the internet), determined that all the polls showing their favored candidate’s dismal performance were rigged.

Trump supporters set up websites, such as LongRoom.com (no longer active), intended to “unskew” the biased poll results to reflect Trump’s totally real lead. For much of August, FiveThirtyEight’s NowCast had a Clinton victory at a 90% or higher likelihood, yet Trump’s supporters insisted he was winning. Just how high would Clinton’s numbers have to be for the unskewers to believe she was actually ahead?

This wasn’t coming out of thin air, of course. Trump, himself, has said frequently that the election is rigged. Even as Trump’s numbers have rebounded, he’s had to be selective about which polls to Tweet to his followers, since he is still behind in the majority of them. If he wins, he can claim the others were biased all along. If he loses, well, it’s frightening to imagine what could happen. Protests are certainly to be expected, but what if even just a few members of his base interpreted his “Second Amendment People” comment as a call to more decisive action? Trump has laid the foundation for anything short of victory proving the illegitimacy of the election.

(But what if he’s right that a massive conspiracy of journalists, politicians, pollsters, and media elites are working against him? If so, the most nefarious aspect of the scheme is that so many American voters appear to be in on it.)

The Score

Let’s be clear: Among fans of Trump and the DCEU, the number of people who put much stock into these conspiracy theories is probably a small fraction of the whole, but that doesn’t mean they can’t have an outsized effect. And that’s where my concern arises.

Bernie Sanders and his supporters also talked of a rigged system during the Democratic Primaries (a belief that was more or less validated after the DNC email leak), but Sanders wasn’t advocating the abandonment of democracy if he lost. Distrusting the system isn’t unique to Trump’s candidacy — it’s downright American - and the claim isn’t always wrong. The basis for the Civil Rights movement has always been fighting systemic injustices.

What makes the Trump and DCEU phenomena so unnerving is that, objectively, there is no evidence that they have been wronged in any way. They’re not fighting Jim Crow Laws or systemic oppression, they’re rallying against bad movie reviews and unfavorable polling numbers (not even actual votes). Meanwhile, Suicide Squad has made troughs of cash and Trump’s numbers have improved considerably. Coincidentally, Trump isn’t decrying the rigged system anymore.

There is nothing unique in these groups’ imagining of an unfair system. That’s how we all deal with losing. I’ve railed against the refs when a call didn’t go in the Jayhawks’ favor. I’ve even posted angrily about it on Facebook. What I have not done is suggest that we fire all refs or nullify the entire basketball season.

People absolutely should stand up for their personal beliefs and tastes, but in the protestations of these two groups, there is the assertion that they are, in fact, the silent (or silenced) majority. Trump supporters will not accept that their candidate isn’t more popular with the general populace than the “criminal” Clinton. And some — tremendous emphasis on some — DCEU fans don’t believe that critics (or anyone) find Marvel’s arguably formulaic style more enjoyable than the DC films. The world doesn’t align with their point of view, so the world must be remade in their image.

Ugh, So What?

A refusal to accept a reality other than one’s own is hardly limited to political groups or geeks. Whether denying Climate Change, believing in Astrology, or taking Vitamin C for a cold, we are an easily deluded species. All of us have some aspect of life in which we cherish a lie.

Why the concurrent Trump/DC fandoms warrant discussion is that they embody our changing relation to reality. The internet’s democratization of knowledge, art, and political movements has had massive benefits throughout society, yet it’s undeniable that it also fosters enclaves for avoiding displeasing information. We’ve always been a nation of skeptics when it comes to “so-called experts,” but we didn’t always have such a vast echo chamber to hide inside. On the internet, we don’t just ignore our history, we rewrite it.

The internet gives outsider voices — ones who not only believe the system is rigged, but who believe something should be done about it — a better chance of being heard. When we’re talking about voices that have historically been suppressed, that’s great. When we’re talking about people who know nothing of oppression, it’s perplexing.

Trump’s movement, built on self-indulgent victimization (with echoes of the isolationist Know Nothing Party of the 19th century), is concerning but not new. Political parties are built on dissatisfaction. Seeing this same mindset take root in pop culture fandom, though, is disturbing.

I always much preferred Star Trek to Star Wars, but it never would have occurred to me that the latter’s greater popularity among the general population represented a form of disenfranchisement.

This problem isn’t inherently built into Trump’s candidacy or DCEU fandom. I can imagine Clinton supporters or Marvel Fanboys™ complaining of a rigged system if they were in the underdog position. No, the problem is when we’re too quick to jump from being the underdog to assuming we’re in a Kobayashi Maru situation. Some people would rather the game be canceled than anyone else win.

Among Trump and DCEU fans, we have two very visible sects that nonetheless feel underrepresented because they’re not getting what they want. Instead of accepting that their preferences have put them in the (slight) minority, they are advocating for fundamental changes to the system, with particular emphasis on delegitimizing the news media more than it already has been. If they win that fight, we all lose.

The comparisons end there.

The DCEU is just a series of superhero movies. Whether they succeed or not, Marvel will be fine. I’d argue that better reviewed DC movies would actually help their competitor, not hurt them. Film isn’t a zero sum game, after all. Regardless, movies will be made, unprecedented amounts of money will be spent, and fans will debate. If the next Batman movie doesn’t satisfy critics, the world won’t end.

I can’t make the same assertion about a Trump presidency.