Are you upset that Elsa, the icy protagonist from Disney's Frozen, doesn't have a girlfriend? Are you tying yourself into knots of anxiety over reports of reshoots on the upcoming Star Wars spinoff, Rogue One? Do you have unassailable opinions on who the next James Bond should be? And does the thought of Captain America revealing himself as a secret agent of Hydra throw you into apoplectic fits of righteous anger that can be solved only by launching vicious social-media campaigns aimed at the comic writer behind the twist?
If so, then welcome to the Age of Entitlement, in which audiences expect not only to be heard by those responsible for today's culture, but also to be placated, soothed and obeyed.
Last week, the issue of modern fan expectations exploded online after features on websites The AV Club and Birth.Movies.Death decried the current, maddening state of audience culture – one that positions fans as the ultimate, one-way shapers of creative work. If, say, you think that casting women as the new Ghostbusters is the ultimate betrayal, then modern fandom dictates that you start a petition urging the studio to reverse course. Lob a few mean-spirited tweets directly their way. Maybe a death threat or two.
Whatever the approach, there is certainly no room for such antiquated notions as patience or faith in the creative process. Hollywood is wrong, you are right, and if filmmakers, writers and producers know what's good for them, they'll listen up.
It's a shaky, dangerous line of thinking, one that disrespects any notion of creative autonomy (yes, such a thing exists in the studio system), or even the distinct pleasure of being surprised, however slightly, by the artistic process.
But what has bred this new well of virulent fandom? The A.V. Club's Jesse Hassenger and BMD's Devin Faraci both point to the rise of social media, which has offered audiences a tempting immediacy of access to both like-minded fans and the creative forces themselves. Voices that were previously muted, or heard sporadically, are now the dominant noises ringing in the creative community's ears. And it's not so much an echo chamber as a never-ending gong show.
"I'm completely a supporter of the idea that people should be able to tell Disney that they want to see a queer princess, but you can only really say what you want to see – you can't tell them how to tell the story," Faraci says in an interview. "What started off as well-intentioned fan campaigns has slowly morphed from supporting creators into trying to dictate how shows and movies should be made."
Although Faraci is careful to point out that "people being crummy online" is a problem that extends far beyond the fan-creator relationship, he says there's little doubt as to what is fuelling the current war over who gets to tell stories, and how. "This is all because of the Internet, 100 per cent," he says. "We have created the perfect harassment machine."
But while the online landscape can amplify toxic opinions, it's not fair to single out audiences alone for this culture of entitlement – Hollywood has no one to blame but itself. As studios have become increasingly dependent on franchises to keep themselves in the black, they have also required audiences to become similarly invested in each and every facet of these cinematic universes. And now, we're all in too deep.
Disney, for instance, isn't just hoping that you're curious about how things are going in the far reaches of the Star Wars galaxy, it needs you to be obsessed with every single Star Wars-related development. Hence last week's rash of frantic tweets and the proliferation of speculative essays about how Disney is either dooming the forthcoming Rogue One with unnecessary reshoots, or why the film desperately needs to be tweaked to live up to the heights of The Force Awakens. Either way, someone on the creative end of things is doing something wrong, and, hey, why won't anyone listen to us, the fans? Isn't that what the industry wanted in the first place – pure, unfiltered passion?
Studios are now stuck. They can't be seen as completely capitulating to the whims of fans, but they also can't purposefully dampen the enthusiasm of their paying audience. Prepare, then, for a world of creative compromises.
Until studios shake their franchise-first mentality (not likely) and until audiences realize that their opinions might not outweigh those tasked with actually creating the work (less likely every day), Hollywood will not be producing films so much as high-priced fan fiction. And when everyone has a say in how art is produced, no one does.
Barry Hertz