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Moving the Goalposts Indeed

Fancy narwhal doesn't care for your comic books, thank you (image via Flickr user ostrichfarm)

Yesterday, Marvel announced that every movie until the end of time will be a Marvel production and that the future involves people working for Marvel and Marvel subsidiaries in order to earn enough money to purchase IMAX 3D tickets to said Marvel movies. Pundits hailed the Marvel-based economy. "It’s like the gold standard, but better," one wag said. "Less prone to boom and bust. And those loony Paulistas don’t have their fingerprints on it."

Some were displeased by the move to a Marvel-based economy. For instance, here’s Mark Harris:

This is kind of a douchey, sneering thing to say. So I noted as much on Twitter; disagreeing with people is Twitter’s entire raison d'être, after all. Harris did not enjoy having someone pointing out that he was being a sneering douche:

This overwrought reaction is funny. The idea that lil ole me from the Free Bacon (or lil ole @AGConservative) are in a position to stifle dissent authored by Mark Harris—a writer for Entertainment Weekly and Grantland who has written a pair of (really, really good) bestselling books—is kind of hilarious. As I said, disagreeing with people on Twitter is more or less the whole point of Twitter.

Even funnier, though, was this reaction from Freddie deBoer. And it’s funny because Freddie clearly had no interest in engaging with this tweet:

One of Freddie’s hobbyhorses is arguing that nerd culture is so ascendant that no one would ever dare sneer at nerds and the things they like. The quote in the tweet above comes from this post, in which he argues that the real victims in our New Cultural Order are people who like Proust, or something. Now, maybe the Proud Prousties do have it pretty bad. I don’t know any, but let’s say that they and their ballet-attending brethren are, like, the real victims. I’m happy to grant that. Because even if it’s true that the Proud Prousties and the Ballet Bros are the real victims, it doesn’t change the fact that Freddie is just wrong when he says that there isn’t a group of people who sneer and chortle at comic book flicks and other elements of pop culture. It’s just inaccurate. Because, remember:

Harris isn’t some sort of fringe weirdo stashed away in an ivory tower. He’s a popular writer working for many popular websites and magazines. So when Freddie boldly writes "Outside of your fantasies, there is no group of intellectual elitists looking down their noses at the music or TV you like. Such people do not exist," Freddie is simply wrong. And he knows he’s wrong. He knows he’s wrong because he’s the guy who also published this post, which is just a quote from a famous comic book writer who basically hates superhero books and movies looking down his nose at people who read comic books and go to comic book movies.

Now, as it happens, I also agree with Freddie that comic book movie fans should probably get over their sense of inferiority. We’ve won! The Marvel-based economy is upon us! We live in a world where a movie about a talking raccoon and his talking tree sidekick can not only get made, it can be the highest-grossing flick of the summer! Heck, the whole year so far! We have routed the Proud Prousties and the Ballet Bros. Their pretentious tears are tasty. Lap them up!

But it’s foolishness to continue suggesting, as Freddie does, that there aren’t people who resent this triumph. Their powerlessness does not negate their existence.