Fans are no longer shy about voicing opinions
Anonymity of social media means things can get a bit heated at times
SAN DIEGO — A fan at Comic-Con International here had a message for Joss Whedon, creator of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and director of two “Avengers” movies: We want you back.
In this hyper-connected, social media-driven age, Whedon has been missing in action since spring 2015. That’s when he pulled the plug on his Twitter account.
In discussing the breakup to a roomful of his most dedicated fans on Friday, Whedon had a nuanced, complicated answer, one that speaks to the changing relationship between those who create and those who consume.
The short version: It’s not me, it’s you.
“It could be something lovely,” he said of interacting with fans via social media. “It could be something funny. It could be ‘Hang yourself, here’s a noose. When can I kill you?’ That’s less fun. That’s less interesting. Eventually, it becomes kind of a white noise. You can’t remember what the dialogue was, so you stop having it.”
Whedon clarified that he didn’t leave Twitter because people were mean to him — although, for the record, people were awfully mean to him. Rather, he found himself at the forefront of a new era of fan entitlement that for some creators has raised tricky questions of ownership. Just who deserves a say in the development of pop media — those working to dream it up, or those paying to keep a project afloat?
“I would like always to have a dialogue with the audience, but at the same time you can’t create by committee,” Whedon said.
Increasingly, some can’t bear to even listen to the committee.
This month, “Ghostbusters” star Leslie Jones took her own temporary leave from Twitter, writing that she was in “personal hell” after being hit with a barrage of racist and misogynist remarks from those who were still upset that the film had been rebooted with a female-led cast. “I didn’t do anything to deserve this,” Jones wrote. “It’s just too much. It shouldn’t be like this. So hurt right now.”
And even when not leveling personal attacks, fans today are more apt to make requests — or demands, depending on your point of view.
Online-driven campaigns have called for changes to the sexuality or race of popular characters. Make Captain America gay, some fans argue. Give Elsa (from Disney’s “Frozen”) a girlfriend, cries another contingent. Of course, it needs to be noted that when companies or artists do push for more inclusivity in genre entertainment, they are met with a deafening level of resentment (see the anger over the female-driven cast of “Ghostbusters”).
Other times, specific plot choices will be targeted, such as Whedon’s decision to stage a romance between two superheroes in “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” or the killing of a character on a popular television series. Sometimes, fans will just lash out at an author for not finishing a book (see “Game of Thrones” author George R.R. Martin).
While some instances are rooted in a genuine and important desire to see more diversity in popular entertainment — a greater representation of LGBT characters or minorities, for instance — they’re still illustrative of the growing desire of fans to have a bigger say in their entertainment choices.
“It’s a thing. It’s not a bad thing. It’s a thing,” said author and screenwriter Neil Gaiman, who was at Comic-Con to promote an upcoming adaptation of his novel “American Gods.”
“It’s the thing that kept ‘Star Trek’ going. It’s the thing that brought back ‘Doctor Who.’ Fans are still creators. Fans demand and make things happen. Mostly, that’s great. But it can tip, and when it tips, it goes into strange places where people feel that by having watched a TV show or bought a book, they feel that you owe them something huge for having done that. Watching the level of crazy that can sometimes happen is hard.”
Gaiman would know. In 2009, he wrote a blog post defending the work ethic of Martin, noting that the “Games of Thrones” writer was not employed by fans. “George R.R. Martin is not working for you,” Gaiman wrote in response to a fan who wondered whether “the audience has too much input when it comes to (scrutinizing) the actions of an artist.”
It’s a topic that’s being grappled with by creators at this year’s Comic-Con, as well as the fans attending the convention.
“It is what it is,” said David Ayer, director of Warner Bros.’ upcoming villains-gone-crazy film “Suicide Squad.” “It’s the Roman arena. It’s thumbs up or thumbs down. The crowd votes. Hopefully, my movie doesn’t get executed in the sawdust there. But that’s why the genre has the connection and the power and the audience that it does — because there’s that ownership and there’s that participation.”
Still, he adds, “my hope is that we can just push the envelope a little bit and challenge people.”
If so, he may want to prepare for a backlash.
Just ask Jennifer Hepler, author of “Women in Game Development: Breaking the Glass LevelCap.” The game developer previously worked for Electronic Arts-owned BioWare, where she was a writer on such blockbuster games as “Dragon Age: Inquisition” and “Dragon Age II.”
Her home didn’t always have bulletproof glass windows. That development occurred after she contributed to “Dragon Age II.” As one of its core writers, Hepler was singled out for the inclusion of LGBT-friendly characters in the game. Some very vocal hard-core game fans were not happy.
Hepler was on maternity leave when the harassment started.
“All of a sudden, I started getting strange emails from people offering me support in this difficult time,” she said. “I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’ Somebody eventually told me that someone had posted something on (the online forum) Reddit that called me ‘the cancer that was destroying BioWare.’ When I first heard about it, I tried to laugh it off, but it got crazy very quickly.” How crazy? “I was pretty scared,” she said. “There were some pretty awful threats made. There were threats made against my children that were just horrifying.
“I got bulletproof glass in my house. I unlisted my phone number. I quit my Twitter account. I just tried to lay low. I’m lucky that worked. I don’t know if it would work now. The mobs have become more empowered. It’s a frightening situation out there.”
Even a hero of the medium isn’t immune.
Whedon came under attack last year for the romance between Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow and Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner/Hulk in “Avengers: Age of Ultron.” The two shared an emotional exchange in the film, with both characters lamenting their inability to have children, and Black Widow was viewed by some as wanting a rather trite, domesticated life.
Whedon reflected on the incident when spotted in the lobby bar of a San Diego hotel. He said the relationship with fans had changed dramatically from when he was working on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” in the late ’90s and early ’00s.
“Now that everybody can reach you directly, if you happen to be on social media, there is definitely a sense of not just ‘We know better,’ but also ‘We should have the right to dictate.’ That’s mean, but I was sent lots and lots of — not death threats — but more just polite inquiries as to why I have not died or killed myself yet, all because of Natasha and Bruce having a romance.”
Whedon said that he was working on something original and that it was “relaxing” to not have to worry about fan opinions. Still, despite the “Ultron” experience, Whedon cautioned against completely tuning out the concerns of the audience.
“You can’t draw a line exactly,” he said. “If we could, we would have. Sometimes, an advocacy group will say, ‘This character has to go through these things because that’s what we went through.’ Sometimes, that’s stuff you did not know about and that is stuff you need to honor. But sometimes it’s ‘Yes, but I am telling a different story.’ Every story is different. Everybody’s version of the same story is different. At some point, it has to come from inside your gut. Your gut is not on social media.”