Why arguing with people about BvS is a lost cause
I know. I'm writing about BvS again. Sorry not sorry.
Arguing with people about Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is like banging your head against a brick wall and expecting it to break first. At the end of the day, they are not going to budge from their position and you will have the headache from hell to deal with by yourself.
For 491 days and counting I have seen and heard critics, bloggers, fanboys, YouTubers, podcasters, co-workers, friends, former friends and random teenagers at the movie theater do seemingly everything in their power to let Planet Earth know how much they hate that movie and how bad it "absolutely" is. I wrote not too long ago about why the movie is still a hotbed of criticism and clickbait whining and where the immense disappointment for so many people came from with it. I honestly thought after writing it that I would feel better about the entire situation, especially since I had come to the conclusion that those who won't stop complaining about the movie is essentially a sign of backhanded respect for the characters.
I was wrong. It still really annoys me to no end that so many people hate BvS, and part of the reason is because it's mostly a broken record of the same complaints no matter who you talk to:
"It just didn't work for me."
"It felt long, bloated and meandering."
"I hated Jesse Eisenberg."
"I hated Doomsday."
"I expected a coherent and competent movie and it failed on both counts for me."
"It was too dark."
"Batman doesn't kill and Superman isn't a brooding emo kid."
"The Knightmare stuff didn't make any sense."
"It was badly written, edited and poorly shot."
"Zack Snyder is the worst director known to mankind."
There's a lot more, but that's the Top Ten and it's absolutely blood-boiling every time they come up, but that's not the worst part of the whole thing at all. No, it would be a lot easier to ignore people that say these things about BvS, even if it was the majority of critics and bloggers like it is, but what makes it so much worse and really just takes this to a whole new level is when you do your best to defend your perception of the movie and address each and every issue that a person might have with it, only to be told the following in some form:
"You're a DC shill and you shouldn't accept substandard movies."
"Stop apologizing for that crap and just admit the movie was bad and move on."
"It sucked ass. Get over it."
"No one liked it. Accept it."
"It's fine if you like the movie, so long as you accept all of its flaws and understand that it was a complete trainwreck."
"It was a complete failure because the critics said so. Look how bad the Rotten Tomatoes score is."
"You're delusional and there's no point in talking to you because you're just going to hear what you want to hear instead of the truth."
"I'm not being mean or unfair, I'm just stating facts when I say the movie was hot garbage."
"I studied film and you clearly know nothing about movies if you think that movie was even remotely good."
"It's hardly a masterpiece even if you like it. Stop calling it one because it real masterpieces don't deserve that insult."
I personally have been told all of the above by several people this year alone. Never mind what was said for nine months last year after the movie came out.
The level of arrogance and outright condescension that a lot of BvS fans are met with when they speak highly of the movie is completely maddening and deeply insulting on several levels. It's as though we are told that since we love and appreciate the movie, we must be complete idiots. Oh sure, that's fair. It can't possibly be that we see everything in the movie that you claim it doesn't have because how could we possibly be right and you be wrong? For that matter, why is it even about right and wrong? Why isn't it simply agree or disagree? Is it because maybe you don't like the fact that I spent two hours and thirty-five minutes enjoying myself watching the movie while you made yourself miserable doing the same thing and you think it's the movie's fault? Is it because you wish you had an open mind about these things and me and other people thoroughly enjoying it clues you into the idea that you don't?
I'm at the point now where I really don't care anymore because I've heard it all and it's all the same stale things. There's never going to be a consensus of people that change their minds about BvS and stop spreading hate about it and that's something that I am just going to have to live with. Sadly, that means less of my friends or co-workers that I can happily talk about comic book movies with, and it means that I'll need a cooling down period of sorts the next time I hear a random "BvS sucks" joke in an unexepected place, like a TV show I watch or a podcast I listen to.
I know that some will say that I really am being ridiculous about this and "it's just a movie" and it should never come between you and your friends and other human beings you spend any time with, but that's easy to say when you aren't the one dealing with 491 days and counting of crap for being a staunch defender of this movie. At one point, a blogger actually called me "The Breitbart of Geek News" because of my stance on the movie, because again clearly I must be some kind of biased nutjob to even think that BvS is good let alone great. Yes, heaven forbid I actually have an opinion that doesn't cater to your own about how horrific the movie is in your bitter, angry and hateful mind.
So that's it. I reached a last straw recently on this issue and I'm seriously going to do my best not to argue with people about it anymore, even people that I know outside of social media. I've done pretty well avoiding arguments and just blocking people on Twitter now, so maybe I can take the next step and not try to understand people's hatred of BvS, because I'm never going to understand it. Ever. No matter how many times they explain it to me. Just as much as they are never going to know how I could love it, I am never going to know how they could hate it. Neither of us will ever make rational sense to each other, and I guess that is the closest thing we can get to a compromise in this world. Oh well.