Robert Heinlein once wrote "A 'critic' is a man who creates nothing and thereby feels qualified to judge the work of creative men. There is logic in this; he is unbiased—he hates all creative people equally."
I think of that quote often, especially when I see promotional content or clips from current or upcoming movies, shows, music, etc and the comments are filled with people who have already made up their minds about something they can’t have even seen or heard yet but have somehow decided they hate.
No one ever seems to have anything nice to say.
And it worries me.
Granted, there are lots of good reasons to be disgruntled about the endless stream of reboots, sequels, and prequels pouring out of Hollywood, but the fact that people are equally as hostile and dismissive towards anything new or different is what is giving me pause.
Dear Lords, people, what do you want? Everything and nothing all at once, apparently. And it still won’t be good enough.
This, of course, is because all that negativity is coming from people who are discontent in their own lives and have nothing better to do with themselves than hang around online picking apart everything from world politics to pop music.
They are always experts in what other people should do but never lift a finger themselves. They’re also the same ones who gloat about review bombing perfectly harmless, or at least mostly harmless shows and movies to punish the creators for not adhering to their skewed ideas of what a narrative “should be” while complaining about the lack of new ideas.
This trend has been going on for a while now, but recently it has reached alarming new heights.
For the first time in decades neither Dr. Who or Stark Trek are being produced, and I don’t think anything Star Wars related is, either.
And the supposed fans are gloating about it. They’re proud of having helped tear them down. That’s a very odd way to react to the loss of something you supposedly love. We can’t grow as ourselves or a culture if we would rather see something die then let it change or evolve but yet they’d prefer to not have it at all then have to accept a broader world view. That is not at all healthy.
Granted, all of the franchises have had gaps, but we’ve always had at least one of them to turn to. Having all 3 go dark at the same time is a sign every bit as ominous as the death of Sherwood Forest’s Major Oak.
Science fiction does something no other genre can do. It allows us to examine ourselves and our humanity through a hypothetical lens that clears away the noise of the mundane so we can examine what truths still hold up in the vacuum it creates.
Joseph Campbell called it our modern mythology, the stories that teach us who we are and what we believe and help us make sense of this crazy thing called life.
He was not wrong about that.
These stories are both our flashlight and our guidebook. Without them we are left wandering aimlessly in the dark.
All may not be lost just yet. Our world has changed dramatically in the decades since these stories were first told. It is possible, maybe even probable that these particular narratives have outlived their relevance and will inevitably be replaced by something new that better fits who we are today. Although I’m a little scared to see what that might turn out to be in these dark and twisted times.
Whatever comes, I hope it’s enough to break through the noise and make people actually listen.
Image Credit: The Major Oak of Sherwood Forrest
Alex McGregor courtesy of Wikimedia Commons