The Four Color Media Monitor

A few weeks ago, after would-be Batfans made a joke out of our image by performing "Batfleck", the Weekly Standard's Jonathan V. Last wrote about it on a new site called Acculturated. He at least half-defended the whole controversy without even mentioning that the opposition to Ben Affleck went so far as to ask the White House(!) to help stop WB from casting Affleck. But he also did something I hadn't seen him do whenever he spoke about comics proper:

When a superhero movie fails, it isn’t because of the actors; it’s because of the writing.

Really? How come I can't recall him saying that when he wrote about comic books? Or at least explaining that, if you can't connect with a specific character, it's the writer's fault? Unless he can apply the same logic to anything he's got to say about comics, that argument isn't going to hold up well coming from him.

And claiming that actors don't have an impact on movies is faulty at best. As a matter of fact, they can. George Clooney's politics weren't the only problem Batman and Robin suffered from; he phoned in a limp performance to boot. If the performances of the actors are poor, it can have an impact on the movie, even if it doesn't sink it all.

In the end, I still think the whole fan outrage over casting Affleck is ridiculous. It's only a movie based on the comics, and the source material is what really matters. If the comics are neglected, chances are that it could give the movie audience a negative impression not just of the comics, but even of the audience for the same. If Bat-fans really have such a problem with casting choices in movies, then all they had to do was say they'd wait for the video release; they didn't have to make such a silly fuss over the movie casting to start with. "Batfleck" was something we could all have done without.

Labels: Batman, dc comics, msm propaganda, Superman