Toxic fandom has been one of the big hot-button social media issues surrounding the entertainment industry for a while now. While we tend to immediately think about how fandom has recently shown its ugly side with attacks on Kelly Marie Tran and filmmakers like Rian Johnson, the idea of toxic fandom has been around for decades.
Back in the late-‘80s, when Warner Bros. announced that comedic actor Michael Keaton was going to portray Bruce Wayne, aka Batman, in Tim Burton’s film, fans went insane and wrote countless letters to the studio, filled with all sorts of hate for Keaton.
And in the case of “Star Wars,” toxic fans have made their presence known for almost as long. One of those former toxic fans is none other than Simon Pegg. The actor, who has made a career of being the “cool nerd,” has recently opened up about how this latest rash of racist, sexist fans has shown him how he was like them years ago.
Pegg admitted that he was part of the problem, back when “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace” was released. He says that he was on the front lines of those fans who hated Jar Jar Binks and continuously hating on the franchise for the character’s inclusion.
However, since news of Jar Jar actor Ahmed Best’s suicidal thoughts stemming from the hate he received, Pegg has taken ownership of his mistakes and sees how horrible they were (via Now This):
“I feel so ashamed of the fact that there was actually a victim, a human victim in that. I think most people were regarding Jar Jar Binks like he was a real creature and wailing on him for being annoying, or whatever, or not liking him. But there was a person behind that. And I read that and just thought, ‘Christ, I’m one of those people.’ It makes me feel awful.”
“There’s no diplomacy in that, there’s no empathy. We’re becoming very, very insular as human beings. We’re becoming very self-driven, selfist, our opinions, our needs, our wants. I feel sorry for Kelly Marie Tran because she was just in a film — a fucking film, that’s all it is. None of it matters, none of it,” said Pegg.
Another person that has had a brush with toxic fandom recently is filmmaker Christopher McQuarrie. While doing the press for his upcoming “Mission: Impossible — Fallout” (co-starring Simon Pegg), the writer-director opened up about how he was recently involved in a bit of toxic fandom on Twitter and how he explains its existence.
“Look, movies are very emotional. They’re extremely, extremely emotional. A movie like ‘Star Wars’ or movies like Marvel where you’re dealing with comic books, this is stuff that’s coming from their childhood. It’s the same thing as campfire stories, and in some cases it’s the very fabric of their growing up. It’s something of which they’re hugely protective,” said McQuarrie (via Collider).
McQuarrie continues by explaining how he experienced a bit of backlash for his work on the film “The Way of the Gun,” which starred Ryan Phillippe and Benicio del Toro. In that film, the writer-director played with the story and structure of the film, which he believes led to the financial disappointment.
He explains, “Going back to ‘The Way of the Gun’…I defied the expectations of the viewer; I subverted them right from the very beginning of the film. And I learned a valuable lesson which is that people tend to react quite extremely when you don’t meet their expectations or when you don’t tell them the story…Mass audiences—I’m not saying everybody, but mass audiences tend to reject that sort of thing. It’s very upsetting [to them]. They’ve come to be entertained and they find themselves doing the work, and you confront that sort of thing at your peril.”
The filmmaker concludes by saying that his experiences making that film and dealing with fan reaction has led him to understand what happens when you defy expectations — you might piss off audiences.
“So I understand why they’re as angry as they are, and I’ve been listening to their complaints about the movie that they’re complaining to. I’ve actually engaged some of them directly and spoken to them, and it’s kind of confirmed everything that I’ve felt which was we messed with their expectations, and when you do that that’s the reaction you’re going to get,” McQuarrie concluded.
Even though the filmmaker has a reasonable explanation for toxic fandoms, the truth is that Twitter, and social media in general, has gotten pretty out of control. Hopefully, more people come to the conclusion that Pegg did and learn from their mistakes. Otherwise, this is just going to continue for another few decades, at least.
Simon Pegg feels guilty for all the negative things he’s said about Jar Jar Binks pic.twitter.com/fnVnfsNe5c
— NowThis (@nowthisnews) July 24, 2018