Why we should stop dancing to the marketing man’s tune…
By now you’ve probably had your fill of stories from Comic-Con. I hesitate to call them “news stories” because the vast majority of the stuff coming out of San Diego doesn’t remotely resemble news. What started out more than forty years ago as a grass roots local convention for comic book fans has become a necessary stop on the marketing hype train for every TV show or movie aimed at people who were once shunned by society but now seem to have taken over the planet. Or popular culture at least.
I shouldn’t really single out Comic-Con, because what it has done – taken something that grew organically from the bottom up and subsumed it into the Hollywood publicity machine – is something that is replicated with everything from acrobatics to zumba around the world. The problem is that almost thirty years after Public Enemy urged people not to believe the hype, so many people still are. I don’t blame studios for this, I blame the public – you, me, everyone, for believing and buying into the advertising. The marketing men are laughing all the way to the bank, and they’re laughing at you. Multinational conglomerates – people for whom that thing you love is only an entry in a profit and loss spreadsheet have taken over your culture and are exploiting you.
Still, these conventions do occasionally through up unique opportunities; next weekend brings the London Film & Comic Con, with appearances by, among others, Benedict Cumberbatch and Pamela Anderson; perhaps the only chance you’ll get to meet both Julian Assange’s girlfriend and a man who has played him on screen.
We really shouldn’t get excited that a half forgotten show, long since abandoned by all but its most hardy fans, has debuted a trailer for its next series, or what an actor has said during a panel for a sequel to a movie that never needed a follow up. We’re being played and we shouldn’t put up with it.
I like a preview and the build up to something new as much as the next person, but you don’t half feel like a fool when that film you’ve been telling everyone about for weeks turns out to be a dud. You only have yourself to blame. Don’t believe the hype; they’re conning you. Come on geeks, unite; you have nothing to lose but a new poster for The LEGO Ninjago Movie.
Neil Calloway is a pub quiz extraordinaire and Top Gun obsessive. Check back here every Sunday for future instalments.
Originally published July 23, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
