#BetterBatmanThanBenAffleck
Last week they announced that Ben Affleck would be playing the new Batman, and it seemed to create a reaction no one expected (I didn’t). Some have even started a petition to keep Affleck from becoming Batman:
Unsurprisingly, the reaction to the news that Ben Affleck will portray Batman in the upcoming Man of Steel sequel has been swift and merciless: fans aren’t happy, and they’re using the Change.org petition site to express that displeasure. According to Variety, more than 30 petitions have popped up to request that Ben Affleck be barred from portraying one of DC’s most prominent superheroes. For example, as of this writing, nearly 10,000 people have signed a petition that simply asks Warner Bros. to remove Ben Affleck from the project, and the comments section is positively filled with vitrol. “Affleck will fail as Batman and disappoint us all,” writes Aryana A. “He is worse than George Clooney as Batman,” says Vinicius Moretti.
And, Twitter went into meltdown. This link is particularly interesting because they put up a series of photos of other possible actors to play Batman, in one of the best parodies I’ve seen in ages.
I personally don’t care. But the thing that did interest me was when I went to find a reason why so many were against Affleck playing Batman I didn’t find anything. And I can’t help wondering if it has something to do with his politics, like George Clooney…or any other celebrity who feels the need to be vocal about politics on either side of the political spectrum. I’ve always maintained that actors, authors, and public people who are not in politics should remain silent about anything too political. Because when they start to get too political they run the risk of alienating large groups of people. We just want to be entertained. That’s it. And since these actors make so much money and live such privileged lives compared to most Americans who are just barely getting by, they lose even more credibility when they become too political.
But I could be wrong. Maybe they just don’t like Affleck.
Authors Writing Bad Reviews
I’ve posted here several times that I don’t like to review books here on the blog, and I especially don’t like to give bad reviews. As an author, I don’t like to judge other authors. That might sound lame and spineless to some, and maybe it is, but you don’t see doctors judging other doctors, or attorneys judging other attorneys in public. No one sticks together more as a professional group than cops. So why should authors be expected to slam their peers if no one else is expected to do that in any other profession.
This article is excellent, and it validates many of my thoughts. I don’t know the author who wrote it, but I thought it might help other authors who might be on the fence about this.
I once commented offhandedly to an acquaintance about a book I was reading. I wasn’t nasty, I just mentioned that I found it confusing and the dream sequences were messing me up. I also added that it could be me. I WAS seven-months pregnant, so I added the caveat that it could just be Baby Brain.
Little did I know the acquaintance was BEST FRIENDS with the author. I didn’t even say anything all that bad and that author has HATED me since, even though I’d bought all her books to demonstrate support. Just an offhanded comment on the phone has impacted me professionally, and to this day it grieves me that I hurt her.
What if I’d posted a review?
I have refrained from writing bad reviews many times, for many reasons. I like to leave that up to readers, and I think readers are the most important people when it comes to reviews. And when I post about a book I loved, I’m not just saying that. I really did love the book. And I hope that guides people in the right direction during their book buying research.
Of course this is all subjective and it’s perfectly fine for an author to give a bad review to another author. And in all honestly, there are certain gray areas that pop up every now and then where an author does have to write a bad review that I might get into in another post sometime in the future.