Boycott Avengers Opening Weekend
You'd best believe I'm going to have more to say about this in the next couple of days, but in the meantime, how's about you consider not going to see The Avengers this weekend? Just a suggestion, of course, but if you're curious about why I would ask such a thing, here are some links to articles about it: link link link
Labels: Don't Just Stand There Do Something, Links
posted by Matthew E @ 9:27 PM
15 Comments:
Well I'm certainly not going to see The Avengers this weekend!! That's because it doesn't open for 3 months. I will, however, see it the weekend it does open.
I will see this movie over and cver again on opening weekend if i can,so there!
Sounds like a deal to me, Anonymous! So if I sign up fifty people to not see it, then you'll agree to pay for fifty movie tickets to make up for their boycott?
DONE!
zot: It's not this weekend? Shows you how much attention I was paying; I thought it was. I mean, I wasn't going to see it in the theatre even before I started getting exercised about it. Oh well; the protest stands.
Anonymous: Just because you're looking forward to it, or in response to my stance? I'd really like to know.
plok: What's the count so far?
On behalf of anonymous people everywhere,I wish to disavow the comments made by the previous anonymous poster.He/She/It gives a bad name to anonymity.
As for boycotting the Avengers movie...no question Jack Kirby got a raw deal from Marvel.Were he still alive,I would be all for it,but since he's no longer with us,I'm not sure what a boycott would accomplish.
But if you want something to boycott, how about the new Ghost Rider movie? The creator of the character,Gary Friedrich,has been ordered by the courts to pay Marvel $17,000 (money he doesn't have,apparently)for losing a case he filed against Marvel.There's a boycott that would send a message on behalf of someone who's still with us.
Anonymous 2, I'm definitely not seeing the Ghost Rider movie either! And part of the reason to boycott the Avengers movie is Gary Friedrich, too: the theory being that it might be good to show that anger with the way Marvel treats and has treated its creators won't necessarily be confined to neat little compartments, but may spread to take in things that they might otherwise consider "safe". Why should we only boycott the Ghost Rider movie, which they care less about than the Avengers movie?
Matthew, it's a bit soon to tell yet, but I think at least we'll have enough people that it'll bankrupt Anonymous 1 trying to make up for them...
So I guess it's a wait-and-see kind of thing!
The difficulty with boycotting movies is that if that is all you do, it's hard for the studio to get the message. Are people staying away because of a boycott? Or because of bad reviews? Or because the interest in the movie isn't there?
You have to back up the boycott with letters informing the big wigs that you're boycotting.
I both agree and disagree with that, in that you are unquestionably right, but boycotts promise an end if conditions are met, and general instability of the "what happened to all these people we were expecting" variety means maybe the value of your brands is imploding. I totally agree with letter-writing, but I'm not going to do it myself because for me the value of Marvel's brands IS imploding...I am getting sick to death of their behaviour in general, so they can't win me back just by treating Gary Friedrich fairly, they must also treat the Kirbys fairly, DC must treat the Siegels fairly, etc. etc. I'll boycott Marvel for something DC has done, and vice versa. I'm just mad in general! So for me personally, that's my own message.
However, having said that, letter-writing campaigns are a great good in the world, in general terms probably much better than inchoate flashes of anger.
I don't want to just threadjack you though, Matthew?
No, no; fine. You're both right.
Marvel and DC aren't going to get the message unless you tell them what the message is. For that matter, you'll even have to tell them that there is a message. But you don't have to promise them that you'll be back on their side if they do a), b), and c); you can make it perfectly clear that that's not how it works this time.
It can only help your cause by making it as easy as possible for them to understand what you want them to understand.
I agree, but I kinda want to be Bad Cop? "This guy's just crazy, he's not even gonna talk to you about it, he's just going to badmouth you all over town and convince people you deserve to go under...I think I can reason with him, but you've gotta give me something to work with...!"
Could we do that?
You can do anything you want--that's your whole point, isn't it?--but aren't you even a bit worried that they're not even going to notice? You write a letter--that's obviously not a crank letter--and they can't help but notice.
Oh, they'll notice if initial weekend sales aren't as expected, don't you worry! The question is what they're willing to do about it. I like being the person I am, which is the person without demands, an ex-fan who just hates their guts now...I want to show that for every person who writes a letter and is willing to reason together, there's another who's riding wild across the range...!
In other words: not that if they don't get their act together it may happen, but that it's already happening, and they've already waited too long to temporize with angry fans. True, without a letter they won't know that's what I'm doing. But if I can at all make them nervous by being a missing person who they don't know what happened to him, then the reasonable letter-writers' demands will perhaps have more force.
I mean, I really am someone who would've seen the movies! And I'm already gone, I'm already full-on "gonna say really mean things about them"...
The real existence of guys-like-me can only make the remarks of guys-like-you more weightily intercessory.
Well, as Richard Pryor pointed out, hesoever who touchest knowest best his will.
I guess it would be a real dick thing to say that the boycott didn't quite work.
Maybe. Why do you bring it up; do you think it sounds like the kind of thing you're likely to say?
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