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The late Roger Ebert is one of the film industry’s most notable critics, and while he’s no longer with us, many of his opinions live on via the internet. We’re all familiar with the classic movies he hated, and that he had some occasionally radical opinions, such as his radical distaste for fandoms and the role they hold in Hollywood.
While I hold reverence for Ebert and the road he paved as much as other past critics, I have to say I was shocked by this quote from his book, A Horrible Experience of Unbearable Length: More Movies That Suck, traveling the internet. In it, he goes on a rant that serves as a takedown of fandom culture, and doesn’t mince words on how he feels about it. Read it below:
A lot of fans are basically fans of fandom itself. It’s all about them. They have mastered the Star Wars or Star Trek universes or whatever, but their objects of veneration are useful mainly as a backdrop to their own devotion. Anyone who would camp out in a tent on the sidewalk for weeks in order to be first in line for a movie is more into camping on the sidewalk than movies. Extreme fandom may serve as a security blanket for the socially inept, who use its extreme structure as a substitute for social skills. If you are Luke Skywalker and she is Princess Leia, you already know what to say to each other, which is so much safer than having to ad lib it. Your fannish obsession is your beard. If you know absolutely all the trivia about your cubbyhole of pop culture, it saves you from having to know anything about anything else. That’s why it’s excruciatingly boring to talk to such people: They’re always asking you questions they know the answer to.
It’s pretty rough stuff to read, especially if you’re someone excited about upcoming Star Wars movies or bummed about the lack of new shows on the way for Star Trek. I find myself in both of those categories, and as a proud member of many fandoms, I have to talk about my problems with what Roger Ebert said so long ago.
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Fandoms Are Not Full Of “Socially Inept” People
Roger Ebert made a lot of generalizations about fandoms, and I think the rudest is calling people who are dedicated fans “socially inept.” Speaking personally, some of the biggest Star Trek fans I know are not only plenty capable of talking about things outside of it, but they’ve also managed to turn that fandom into a career.
In fact, many of Star Trek‘s recent showrunners, like Mike McMahan, started out as fans, and they used their encyclopedic knowledge of The Next Generation and other shows to pay homage to them or even come up with new ways to enjoy them. Some of them even became actors on the series, like Tawny Newsome. Go to one of her panels, and you’ll realize she’s forgotten more Trek knowledge than you may know.
These are just high-level examples, and say nothing to scores of fans I’ve met over the years who thrived in their job fields as engineers, scientists, doctors, or content creators. To generalize “fandoms” as nothing but a place for social outcasts to amass and spew facts at each other is not only rude, it’s widely incorrect in my opinion. Fans across all across the human spectrum, which is part of what makes it so special.
Credit: Jan Thijs/Paramount+
Roger Ebert Forgets The Personal Attachment Many Have To Fandoms
Another thing Roger Ebert fails to understand about fandoms is that an intense love of any franchise can often start from an earnest place. Maybe we love a particular show or movie because we watched it with a loved one, or we experienced it through a particularly remarkable time in our lives. Entertainment can be therapeutic or comforting, and in those moments a fandom is born.
The way Ebert talks about it, it’s like a person who is effectively a blank slate found a show and used it to shield the world from just how boring they were. Again, that’s very rarely the case, and sounds like a comment from someone who was never really a part of one. Had he actually participated in a fandom, I think he might feel differently, but I guess we’ll never know.
All this to say, I still admire Roger Ebert, and his right to have an opinion that still makes people feel things even from beyond the grave. Even if I think his opinion is wrong, I have to respect that!
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