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Star Wars meets Personal Development
No, I’m not talking about the “amorphous collection of right-wing trolls, reactionaries, and grifters that target popular media, mainly those associated with nerd/geek subcultures“1
I’m talking about… well really, everyone else. We all have opinions. I’ll even go as far as to say we’re all entitled to them. But if there’s one thing the reactions to Captain America: Brave New World have shown us, it’s that we maybe aren’t so good at expressing them.
Captain America: Brave New World opened on Valentine’s Day to what seemed like very lukewarm reviews. But by the time the weekend box-office numbers came in, the story wasn’t quite so cut and dry.
An opening weekend haul of $192.4 million globally isn’t necessarily anything to write home about. And while Brave New World is still the number 1 movie at the box office as of this writing, it wasn’t necessarily up against strong competition. Plus, post pandemic movie-goer habits are much less predictable and therefore less indicative or predictive of a movie’s short term and long term success.
Point is, the reviews and the opening weekend tallies don’t give us a clear indication of how people feel about the movie.
Enter social media.
I don’t think it’s too far a stretch to assume that studios look to the social feeds as at least an added metric in measuring a movie’s performance. But in light of the seemingly hasty cancelation of the series The Acolyte on the Disney+ streaming service, maybe public opinion, especially as expressed on social media, isn’t a reliable metric at all.
Why is this?
Here’s what I think is going on.
Let’s start with critics and reviewers. Giving their opinion is the job. But I think there exists a dynamic now that makes reviewers and critics a much less reliable source for movie analysis than previous generations, namely clicks and views.
How can we trust “honest” critiques and reviews if the primary directive is clicks and views?
Rage baiting is a real thing. And it works.
In an article from the BBC titled “What is rage-baiting and why is it profitable?“, reporters Sam Gruet and Megan Lawton state that,
…the goal is simple: record videos, produce memes and write posts that make other users viscerally angry, then bask in the thousands, or even millions, of shares and likes.
One only need look to the most recent US election to see just how effective rage-baiting is. That critics, reviewers, and even content creators use it as a strategy to grow their revenue through increased engagement isn’t at all surprising. Heck, it’s actually expected. Because of this, I don’t think the studios nor the public actually turn to critics and reviewers for honest thoughtful analysis.
This is not to say that there aren’t critics who work to give their most honest, critical reviews. But this is where it gets tricky.
The fandom-menace and rage-baiter types know they’re being hateful and ugly. That is their schtick. It’s their bread and butter. But for the rest, can one compete for clicks and views without sacrificing honest, critical analysis?
Or will we fall deeper and deeper into a quagmire I call Hot Take Culture – content whose primary purpose is to draw attention by eliciting elevated emotional (usually negative) response from content consumers?
The problem: Hot Take Culture contributes to further polarization of society.
Echo chambers amplified by social media and other online platforms have made us less tolerant of dissonance. The internet gives us instant validation of our points of view and then immediately feed us content aligning with those points of view.
The more we consume from this feedback loop, the more we start to believe that our truth is THE truth, that our opinions are actual fact. Everything that doesn’t align with that truth is then automatically wrong.
Enter Captain America: Brave New World.
The response to this film reminds me very much of the response to Black Panther when it premiered in 2018. Regarded by most as a great film with box office numbers to show for it, Black Panther was not without its critics.
These critics panned the film, claiming it sub-standard next to the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s catalogue. Even those who were just lukewarm about it had nothing critical to say beyond, “it just wasn’t as good”.
That film as well as the latest Captain America picture are far from sub-standard.
To put it plainly, the toxic response to the latest Captain America shows people’s intolerance to a non-white-male narrative. Despite Sam Wilson being canonically named Captain America in the Marvel Comics source material, people still are unwilling to accept him as “their” Captain America.
And they’re happy to say as much, posting their racism on social feeds in full display for everyone see.
Even those who are perhaps “unconsciously” racist have gone to lengths to defend their disdain for the movie with baseless claims and citing nonsensical evidence to support their position. Critical thought and analysis happen after they form their opinion instead of the other way around.
Cart before the horse.
You are of course entitled to dislike Captain America: Brave New World or feel however you feel about it. Just make sure you take enough time outside of your echo chamber to reflect on those feelings, to reflect on your perspective beyond wanting to defend it.
The ability to question our own motives, to sit in introspection of our views on the world arounds us, is foundational to growth. Self reflection fosters and raises self awareness. You can’t change what you’re not aware of. Stagnation happens if you are unaware of and therefore unable to challenge your existing belief systems.
If you’re ok with where you are, that’s fine. It’s your prerogative to stay within your personal status quo. But, if you are unwilling to challenge your own perspectives, opinions, and belief systems, then I say you have no business challenging anyone else’s.
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