Anghus Houvouras on whether the geeks have really won the culture war…
I don’t know how long the online film community has been patting themselves on the back over the current state of pop culture. It feels like a god damned eternity. Countless pieces being written about how geek friendly fare like Star Wars & Comic Book Movies have taken over the collective cinematic consciousness. Whether it be in the form of television shows or blockbuster cinema, the geeks have seemingly inherited the earth. For better or worse.
This topic came up again this week with another swim through the chum bucket of nostalgia courtesy of Drew McWeeney. His HitFix column focused on the agitated state of the geek community. That in spite of the geeks winning the pop culture war and being delivered and endless stream of sci-fi and comic book content that they still seem perpetually displeased. Does this really surprise anyone?
You’ve given the geek community everything they ever wanted. The world currently caters to their every whim. The geeks are devouring the newest comic book adaptations or delving into the latest Sci-Fi themed blockbuster. Their fervent fandom helps revive long cancelled TV shows and see reboots of every property they ever claimed to love. However, it’s not the golden age we’re currently living in: it’s the gluttonous age.
The answer Drew’s question ‘Why are geeks so angry?’ is very simple. Because that’s what spoiled children do. They throw tantrums.
The current state of geek culture is kind of sad. Geeks won the culture war. Now they are the spoiled, entitled twats complaining about paradise. It’s an epic entitlement complex I’ve discussed at length in previous columns. A community of fans who feel as though they have always deserved this level of attention and have an additional sense of ownership because of the time they’ve spent committed to this brand of entertainment. And it brings up a more interesting question:
Maybe… just maybe… the geeks winning the culture war wasn’t a good thing.
Allow me to wax nostalgically for a moment, McWeeney style. A long time ago in an area code far, far away I spent my youth obsessed with the scraps of geek culture that were provided to a child of the 1980’s. I stayed up late on Friday to watch Monster Movies and woke up early to see Saturday Morning Cartoons like Super Friends and Herculoids. I spent countless hours turning the UHF dial trying to see if the station in Fort Myers would come in clear enough to see Star Trek re-runs in the afternoons. Those weekend were spent hunting out the cool stuff. Going to flea markets and garage sales looking for a cache of comics that could be afforded with my weekly allowance. Later on it would be about cruising through the video store looking for something new and exciting.
Every piece of geek culture back then felt like a gift. Treasures that had to be hunted. It was a time when the Incredible Hulk had his own fairly mediocre television show, but it felt awesome because you loved the comic. There was this sense of pride seeing something you loved being staged on the big screen or the television. I remember watching shows like Misfits of Science, Battlestar Galactica, or The Greatest American Hero and then lamenting after they were quickly cancelled. These early forays into bringing geek culture into the mainstream were fleeting, but I never found it frustrating.
In the past we were feeding on scraps, but we valued every morsel. The current state of geek culture is more like Golden Corral: a disgusting all you can eat buffet that provides you more options than you could possibly consume. And most of the menu is the same combination of sugar and starch that rarely satisfies you for very long.
The geeks winning has meant a world of endless comic book, fantasy, and sci-fi content. To me, it doesn’t feel like winning. Mainly because this golden age seems antithetical to the concept of growth. Geeks no longer have to grow up. They can continue to obsessively follow the same characters from age eight to 88. It’s an age of indulgence where kids won’t ever have to be without the fictional characters they love and will never be required to grow.
That’s the real sin of this ‘golden age’. It’s a community of fans not appreciated all the gifts they’ve been given. A legion of entitled assholes complaining about this paradise they believed they have always deserved. We’ve given them no reason There’s no value in the sheer volume of geek properties being churned out from Hollywood like a formula factory cranking out programming and over saturating an already sated fan base.
The nerds might have won the culture war, but they certainly don’t seem to be enjoying their spoils. They’re like the petulant child at a birthday party who throws a fit because they didn’t get every single action figure they wanted. It doesn’t matter how much they have. All that matters is the gaping desire for the things they don’t.
For me, I preferred a day and age where there was a sense of discovery. When we weren’t fed a constant flow of geek content and valued the limited offerings we did have. Where we loved our geek culture but eventually were forced to embrace different kinds of movies and television shows. Where Comic-Con wasn’t overrun with studios and networks hocking their cheesy wares that seem to have almost nothing to do with geek culture.
If this is winning, you can have it.
Anghus Houvouras is a North Carolina based writer and filmmaker and the co-host of Across the Pondcast. Follow him on Twitter.
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https://youtu.be/b7Ozs5mj5ao?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng
Originally published May 13, 2016. Updated April 15, 2018.
