What does the consumer own?
MARCH 24TH, 2016 — POST 080
I’ve never been into comic book movies. Sure, I had birthday parties in my early teens that involved taking a group of friends to see X2 and Aeon Flux, but the more recent factory-style production of seemingly endless reboots, sequels, and expanded universes just aren’t for me. The most recent to fall off this production line is Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Initial reviews ahead of its release seem to agree that it is less than spectacular. Still, it is impossible to fathom the movie performing anything close to poorly at the box office. Even if these aren’t for me, they’re most certainly for someone. And there are a lot of someones. Vox.com’s own review leads with a headline that declares the movie is “a crime against comic book fans”. Already, the world is preparing for the simultaneous groans of a vocal fan base.
We know this story. Fans balked at the idea that Disney could reset the Star Wars canon with its purchase of LucasArts in 2012. A still of a decidely moody “Batfleck” was laughed off the internet. Whether in response to Jared Leto’s Joker portrayal in the Suicide Squad launch teaser or the design of the third modern iteration of Spiderman’s costume, adults flock online to deafeningly denounce or uproariously applaud the decisions of the appointed custodians of their favourite fictional properties. These custodians, in taking on these properties, are no longer in the business of making movies. They’ve, however wittingly, been thrust into the business of manufacturing religious texts. These aren’t the properties of a single creator or a team of creators, regardless of a particular property’s origin. Like acolytes, the consuming public expect these narratives to be publically owned.
There’s a reason “canon” shares etymological heritage with “canonised”. Texts, like The Dark Knight and Spiderman 2, ascend to the realm of saintly authority once annointed with the approval of the consuming public. But why do so many people care? Why does it matter so deeply to such a large audience how a story, character, or world is interpreted, reimagined, or adapted? Furthermore, why now more than ever? We’ve had adaptation and reinvention of fictional properties for millenia. Did Classical Greek literary fanboys start a carrier pigeon flame war when James Joyce’s Ulysses so-obviously-butchered Homer’s Odyssey? There’s a phrase that might help in finding an answer, a phrase that the internet loves so much that it gets deployed each time as if it were endlessly novel.
-INSERT TITLE HERE- will ruin your childhood
Nostalgia and conservatism are the central commodities of the expanded universe cultural economy. These properties were first embedded for the majority of the consuming public at an age of vulnerability, of receptiveness, of unconditional trust. The success of any particular reboot or sequel trades on its ability to traverse pathways paved during its audience’s formative years. These paths are narrow and precarious, honed over years of watching and rewatching. It shouldn’t be surprising then that the most successful examples of walking these paths are those movies that are most faithful, sometimes to the point of basic repetition as was the case with Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The sense of ownership, of caring, emerges from the egocentrism of childhood: these properties are made for me.
We’re now in the aftermath of an era of advertising that bathed in the power of a child’s nagging to drive their parents to buy. As well as spawning the summer blockbuster, the original Star Wars pioneered movie merchandise. The child consumer of the 80s and 90s bought figures of their favourite movie’s heroes. They could own Han Solo, or Wolverine, or one of the Ghostbusters shrunken down into plastic and paint. Long ago, in a toy store far away, these kids were promised that fictional characters, stories, and worlds could literally belong to them.
So who can blame them for throwing tantrums when their possessions are given to someone else to play with?
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