"You're not a True Fan": Manipulation in Movie & Comic Subculture

                As I had a fair amount of free time over this vacation, I naturally spent the vast majority of it reading comic books and watching movies. Although nothing can ruin either of these things for me, the further I get into the subcultures of both, the more I am noticing some disturbing trends of manipulation and labeling. It comes as no surprise that the movie industry is full of manipulation: everything from the clips and music in the trailers to the pictures on the posters is designed to generate interest. But that’s not the extent of the manipulation. A fair amount comes not from the industry, but from the subculture. As a “movie buff,” I have noticed that it is almost impossible to avoid the question “so what’s your favorite movie?” when talking to anyone else with an interest in movies or film. For a long time, I would skirt the question whenever asked because I like Kurosawa and Bergman and others in that same vein, but I was worried that people would either think I was a pretentious or a snob. There is a pervasive compartmentalization in the movie subculture that separates people based on “type” and then uses that as a basis for competition. For example, if you consider yourself a fan of action movies because you really liked Terminator II: Judgment Day, someone will challenge that claim because you haven’t seen the whole series, or know enough of the backstory, or know who the director is, or have watched the director’s entire filmography. This isn’t the case with every “movie buff,” but it is a persistent and pervasive problem. People manipulate one another into a competition of identity where you can’t claim to like Bruce Lee unless you can name all the different martial arts he studied. This problem is even worse in the comic book subculture, although the newness of comic books as “mainstream media” and the relative impenetrability of said subculture make the problem less visible.

                So-called “nerd culture” is on the rise nowadays. There is an increasing preponderance of movies based on comic books, video games are starting to leave their stigmas behind, and appreciation for science is flourishing. But unfortunately, this doesn’t correspond with an increase in openness or a willingness to welcome newcomers. If anything, people have gotten more defensive, egotistical, and competitive about their likes now that they are starting to become popular: if you liked the movie Watchmen, then it means nothing if you didn’t read the comic first and if you only read the comic because you liked the movie, then that still doesn’t count. If you have only played Braid and Portal, then you’re not really a “gamer.” There are countless other examples of this defensive competition, but comics are particularly afflicted. First of all, there is still the assumption that a fan of comic books is a fan of superhero comic books. And if that assumption is made, then it opens up a whole new subculture with its own snobbishness. If you don’t know how many times Jean Grey (Phoenix) has died and come back to life, or how Modern Batman is different from the New 52 Batman, then you’re not a true fan of comics. And again, I run into the same problem of being worried what my label will be for liking comics like Tank Girl, Transmetropolitan, Fun Home and anything by Paul Pope. All industry manipulation aside, there is still manipulation at work in the subcultures of movies and comics. We're being told that we have to defend our likes and interests, and by extension, our identities. We're being told that you can "win" at liking something. It is manipulation that doubts the genuineness of one’s enjoyment based on the perception of insufficient or inferior knowledge and pigeon-holes people based on their interests. In the end, this need to compete is completely useless. One’s likes cannot be used in a quantifiable way; there is no hierarchy of fandom and no prize for “liking something better” than someone else. There is no sense in a competition of identity.