Contrived Controversy

This is going to sound weird; though I genuinely enjoyed the movie "Kick-Ass" to an extent, I took an equally genuine amount of satisfaction when I learned that it failed to set the American box-office on fire last weekend. It made me feel smug about how little the opinion of internet fanboys means in the real world, as it were. As much as I liked the movie (and I didn't like it THAT much, I'd like to emphasize), I never got behind any of the vitriolic comments posted by internet fanboys over at rottentomatoes.com decrying almost any and every negative review posted about the film, even the well-thought out ones that didn't harp on morality issues. Essentially, that particular site was governed by a cadre of "nerd police" ready to defend their beloved film tooth and nail against anyone who had anything bad to say about it. Well the film's box-office, while respectable, fell well-short of industry expectations, putting into emphasis the simple fact that, internet fanboys' belief to the contrary, they are NOT a significant demographic. If the box-office failure of "The Grindhouse" and "Snakes on a Plane" left any questions as to this issue, the tepid returns of "Kick-Ass" should have answered them.

What made me even more smug, however, was that apparently a great number of people refused to be baited by writer Mark Millar's deliberate and heavy-handed attempt to court controversy by creating an 11-year-old mass murdering vigilante named Hit Girl. People didn't turn out in droves like they did for "The Passion of the Christ" or "The Da Vinci Code" to see why the Jews or the Catholics or the self-appointed guardians of morality were throwing tantrums about the film. Nobody picketed the theaters (or at least, nobody who caught the eye of any national media outlet) claiming child abuse or anything like that. Yet, when he was being interviewed about the comic book about two or three years ago, I rather got the impression that this was the effect Millar was gunning for; he was out to push the boundaries of taboo, and essentially to see how people would react to Hit Girl, not because he particularly wanted to address any urgent social issues, but just for the simple sake of offending people. While reading one such interview I could practically see him (in my mind's eye) gleefully rubbing his hands at how the conservatives would get their panties in a twist over his work. Some of them have, but not nearly enough to generate even a fraction of the furor that accompanied "The Passion" and "The Da Vinci Code" and not enough to put a record-breaking number of fannies in the seats, so at least he isn't quite laughing all the way to the bank the way he might have hoped.

People who do things just for the sake of controversy are truly irritating. I can think of a number of people in the local entertainment industry who have managed to get press time long after their stars had faded by saying or doing something calculated to get them in trouble, because without it they lose all relevance. What disappoints me about Millar is that he is a truly talented writer who is capable of getting people's attention on merit rather than on the strength of cheap stunts; his run on "Ultimates" at the beginning of the millenium is regarded by many as a modern classic, and for my part I absolutely loved his twelve-issue run on Spider-Man about five years ago. Sure, he's often had a gimmick, including writing about the Antichrist in "Chosen," but he's sold more than a fair share of books through good, compelling writing.

People who resort to controversy to generate attention in this society are inevitable, but it saddens me when people who don't necessarily need the controversy desperately court it to stay in the spotlight.

All I can say to the people who refused to be baited by the blatant attempts to generate controversy by the makers of "Kick-Ass" is this; good job. This film should stand or fall on its own merits, not because Mark Millar is able to generate outrage with an 11-year-old, female version of the Punisher.