Fans are celebrating the return of DOCTOR WHO and eagerly awaiting the new STAR WARS, but are they just fooling themselves? Curmudgeonly Andrew Wheeler looks at why fans make such terrible critics.
09 May 2005

THE WHY OF WHO

If you live in the British Isles, there's a very good chance that you currently spend your Saturday evenings watching DOCTOR WHO. The reborn sci-fi series has been a huge ratings success, and the show seems to be a feature of conversations in offices, pubs and living rooms up and down the country. Everyone is watching it, and almost everyone is enjoying it.

And they're enjoying it quite regardless of the fact that it isn't actually very good. Ham actors assay inconsistent roles, gurning their way through uninspired plots with laughably bad special effects, all while delivering blundering dialogue.

Now, how could this be? How could a show succeed in spite of all these flaws - and not just succeed, but be received with something like cultural rapture? It's a perplexing conundrum. It is possible - and doubtless quite arguable - that I'm just a terrible old curmudgeon who disapproves of fun. You kids, get out of my yard, and turn that dreadful music down.

But let's leave aside that absurd suggestion and look at a much more plausible explanation. The reason the new DOCTOR WHO has been so widely applauded can be traced back to one thing: good will.

'Everyone is watching it, everyone is enjoying it, but it isn't very good.' DOCTOR WHO is over 40 years old, and the central conceit of a regenerating time-travelling trickster hero allowed the show to reinvent itself for successive generations (albeit with varying degrees of success). The show's return this year after what was effectively a sixteen year drought was fondly anticipated by fans in their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s, all ready to welcome back a national institution. In order to succeed, the show only needed to be passably entertaining. Good will would carry it the rest of the way.

And I admit, it is passably entertaining. In spite of its terrible shortcomings as a work of fiction and as a piece of television drama, it does provide for a light and inoffensive 45 minutes of silly nonsense every Saturday dinnertime. It isn't intelligent. It isn't original. It isn't even terribly faithful to the original. But it's forgiven all its sins simply because it's there, and the viewers are grateful.

When I point out the show's flaws to friends, I tend to get many of the same responses. It's a show aimed at children, they say, and DOCTOR WHO has always been a bit crappy - that's part of its charm. And they also say, shut up, you terrible old curmudgeon, I'm enjoying it.

Whatever responses they come up with, the effect is always the same; they seek to excuse the show's flaws. It's a phenomenon referred to in my social circle as 'nerd blinkers'.

NO COMPLAINTS

Nerd blinkers. The apologist fan's greatest weapon; the ability to stubbornly refuse to admit that there's anything wrong with your beloved TV shows, or movies or - yes, I'm honour bound to mention them eventually - comics.

Nerd blinkers are what allow a fan to convince himself that the MATRIX sequels weren't all that bad, or that the LORD OF THE RINGS films deserved all those Oscars, or that the CGI in their favourite superhero film is actually pretty believable. They're what have allowed STAR WARS fans to go through the same cycle of self-delusion with each of the prequels despite George Lucas' best efforts to spoil their fun.

'The show is forgiven its sins because it's there, and viewers are grateful.' I haven't seen the prequels, but I've seen the same change overtake my friends each time. The trailer promises great things, and the anticipation is enormous, and the chatter is continuous, and... and then it can take weeks or months or even years for fans to come to terms with the realisation that they didn't actually like the movie very much at all.

We're in the early stages of the cycle again now, with REVENGE OF THE SITH. The trailer has convinced fans that it will be brilliant, even though experience should make them wary. Ubergeek Kevin Smith, one of the last men left defending the first two films, has seen the third and reports that it will reward the faithful. I'm quite sure that geeky UK film magazine Empire, this country's supreme STAR WARS apologist, will give the new film a five star rating, just as it did ATTACK OF THE CLONES (though it only gave PHANTOM MENACE four).

I don't pretend to be immune to the phenomenon. As a long serving DAREDEVIL comics fan, I managed to convince myself that the movie was actually quite good. It took months for the scales to fall from my eyes. I was still fairly convinced of its redeeming qualities when I bought the DVD. Indeed, being a Colin Farrell fan is a constant struggle against the powers of the blinkers. I want his films to be good, and it's only by sheer force of will that I can bring myself to admit that they generally aren't. I'll argue a case for ALEXANDER (and you may say that's symptomatic), but I'm resigned to the truth about SWAT.

UNAPOLOGETICALLY YOURS

Nerd blinkers are a particularly powerful force in comics, as you'll know if you've ever spoken to a present-day Chris Claremont or John Byrne fan. (If you are a Chris Claremont or John Byrne fan, this won't be the first wake-up call you've ignored.) It actually afflicts the die-hard fans of any creator. Fans who follow a single book like UNCANNY X-MEN through its ups and downs at least acknowledge that they buy some crap, but you'd seldom get the same admission out of anyone who - how can I put this - posts to a creator's message board.

But it goes deeper than these obvious targets. I worry that comic readers are generally too generous in their appraisals. Some of the titles acclaimed as the best on the market are passable pulps rather than compelling narrative works. The whole medium suffers from being a fan's medium, and the fan's instinct to excuse any shortcoming leads to a pervasive attitude of critical laziness; an impulse to exalt the second rate, because hey, at least it's comics. At least it's there.

'Nerd blinkers are a particularly powerful force in comics.' Then again, as the DOCTOR WHO fans might say, a lot of these works are aimed at children, and they've always been unsophisticated - that's part of their charm - and anyway, they're still entertaining, so why hold them up to high expectations?

The 'aimed at children' line never works for me. Not because comics aren't aimed at children - many of them are, even if adults enjoy them too - but because the suggestion seems to be that if we can palm kids off with inferior storytelling, we might as well do it. It's an approach that both undervalues and underestimates that audience. Children can be entertained by crap, sure. They can also be fed with Twinkies, but I wouldn't recommend it as a diet.

The argument that 'it's always been a certain way' doesn't hold water either. In fact, it's not an argument; it's a naked and unabashed excuse. The cry of 'tradition' is the coward's resort. Even if it worked yesterday, that doesn't mean it works today. And chances are it didn't work yesterday anyway. Nerd blinkers have been around for generations.

That third argument remains. 'It's entertaining'. Now, I'm not such an utter scoundrel that I don't see value there. On the contrary, I'll defend the right to indulge in lowest common denominator nonsense to my death, or at least until it's time for DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES. Though I may be a Roman Catholic, I have disabused myself of the belief that we should gild our pleasure with guilt. If something gives you joy, then that in itself is a noble end.

But that doesn't mean these comics or movies or shows are excused from all criticism, or that we should forgive all flaws. If we're content to be spoon-fed our entertainment, we'll just get slop. There should be discourse that demands the best, not mewling gratitude that accepts what's given.

And you'll know when you're getting the best, because curmudgeons like me will have to find something else to complain about.

This article is Ideological Freeware. The author grants permission for its reproduction and redistribution by private individuals on condition that the author and source of the article are clearly shown, no charge is made, and the whole article is reproduced intact, including this notice.




All contents
©2001-5
E-MAIL THIS ARTICLE | PRINT THIS ARTICLE