Misaimed Fandom/Film: Difference between revisions

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* ''[[The Dark Knight Saga (Film)|The Dark Knight]]'''s version of [[The Joker]] is an '''especially''' disturbing case of [[Misaimed Fandom]], since we're talking about a [[Complete Monster]] who does his evil deeds [[For the Evulz]]. And even though he makes a plot-critical miscalculation of human nature at the climax of the film, Joker fanvids [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQT6YCF6lhk like this one] say things like ''"everything The Joker says is true."'' They wrote him extremely well, and he was acted very well by an actor who died between filming and release. He lives in a [[Crapsack World]] where his [[Nietzsche Wannabe]] philosophies ''do'' seem true at first and still have truth in them, but it's heavily implied that he crafts these philosophies to get under people's skin or persuade them, not because he actually believes what he says.

*** Although in Ra's case, Christopher Nolan and David Goyer did both state that everything Ra's said was true, unlike The Joker. However it's defending Ra's methods (turning ''all'' of Gotham into mindless lunatics to destroy the guilty few) that mark him as firmly in this trope.

* ''[[Mean Girls]]'' is most popular (almost to the point of cult status) among the same kinds of teenage girls that it spends two hours mercilessly making fun of. In any given American High School, you're likely to meet more than a few suspiciously Regina George-like girls who have every line of the film memorized.

* If ''[[Scarface]]'' isn't the epitome of a film doomed for misaimed fandom, nothing is. Brian De Palma intended for this movie to be a dark, unrelenting look at the downfall of a gangster who quickly climbed to the top of the drug trade world, only to become addicted to coke and alienate those around him. Instead, rappers sample Tony Montana's quotes, admire him for being all gangster, and have a bunch of their fans and misled teens suddenly become fans or the film without seeing what the point of the film was at all. Brian De Palma isn't happy about this ''at all''.

** A frakkin' VIDEO GAME of the movie was made too. Which was a ''sequel'' to the movie, dictated that Tony Montana somehow SURVIVED the ending of the film, and has him go about his business with no negative consequences. Takes misaimed fandom up to eleven.

* ''[[Fight Club]]''. Let's just say people take the advice of a sociopath too seriously and leave it at that.

* There is a sequence in the movie version of [[Pink Floyd]]'s ''[[The Wall]]'' where Pink hallucinates that he is a fascist leader, leading a vicious army of skinheads. This scene is meant as a look at the relationship between a performer and his fans... but a group of [[Real Life]] white supremacists didn't get the joke and based themselves off the scene, adopting the crossed-hammers symbol of Pink's army and dubbing themselves the "Hammerskins".

** There are agencies who do get it. They show it for exactly the right reasons. Whether or not the employees figure it out/take home the post-film speech in place of the movie's own, however...

* ''[[Avatar (Film)|Avatar]]'''s position on technology. It seems to be advocating responsible, low-impact technology use. Given its [[Anvilicious|general lack of subtlety]], a subset of viewers interpreted it as [[Science Is Bad|anti-technology]], instead of pointing out that it's the uses that matters while being more broadly anti-imperialist. Many pointed out the apparent [[Broken Aesop]] of a film that required oodles of technology to be anti-tech. In addition, there are the people who liked the marines despite their attempts at genocide, similar to the above examples for ''Jarhead'' and ''Apocalypse Now''.

** Travolta's character recognizes this and in disgust gives the trophy to the runner-up couple. It shatters his vision of himself and makes him want to move beyond the shallow lifestyle he built around disco. The movie is remembered for how glamorous it made disco look.

* If the [[YouTube]] comments for the film ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Believer_<!-- 28film29 The Believer]]'' are any indication, then the Nazi VillainProtagonist/AntiHero of the film has earned a lot of white supremacist fans despite the film being anti-Nazi and the protagonist being Jewish. -->

* Many tween-age girls completely missed the point of ''[[Clueless]]'' -- a vapid and shallow girl realizes how meaningless that sort of life is -- and instead attempted to ape the fashion and attitude of the characters from the beginning of the film.

** Cher starts out a very funny [[Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist]] who's got [[Lovable Alpha Bitch|loads of friends]], unlimited time and money to [[Unlimited Wardrobe|buy new clothes]], and gets to call most of the shots in her social circle, making her one hell of an [[Escapist Character]]. After the plot gets going, [[First Law of Tragicomedies]] kicks in and the story is forced to become more serious. [[It Was His Sled|Just like in]] [[Emma|the book it was based on]], the protagonist starts submitting to the advice of her heavy-handed, older male friend, {{spoiler|even hooking up with him}}. [[Coming of Age Story|She matures, but also undergoes]] [[Chickification]], [[Coming of Age Story|becoming]] [[Unfortunate Implications|less proactive and outspoken]].

** [[Justifying Edit|In fairness,]] much of this grows out of the Expanded Universe, in which Rebel = Good, Imperial = Bad, gets increasingly less clear-cut as the books and comics go on. And Darth Vader, after all, [[Word of God|is supposed to be the protagonist if you take all six films together.]] So one can see where the fuzzy thinking arises.

** The Stormtroopers and Vader are arguably the most recognisable characters in the series, too, so if you want to do something based on ''[[Star Wars]]'', the easiest way to show people is to dress as the Empire.

** Not so surprising given the massive [[Freudian Excuse]] that forms the reason for this "woobieness" (his name means fricking "Great Dragon!"), and that [[Never Say Die]] means that the extent of his crimes could not be depicte, leaving his [[Complete Monster]] status at [[Offstage Villainy]] levels. Without that, he comes out as arrogant and misguided rather than the intended near nihilistically murderous.

* "Das Millionenspiel" is a German movie from 1970 about a (fake) game show, which is about a group of people hunting and trying to kill the competitor, who will win one million Deutschmarks if he survives for 7 days. The film was pretty intense for its time and some people even thought it was a real game show. But that's not the point. Besides people who were complaining in indignation, there were also people who attended for becoming competitor, or even one of the hunters.

* Allegedly [[Hitler]] liked ''[[The Great Dictator]]''. (It is proven that he watched it twice, but it's not proven whether he liked it.)

* The Dutch comedy series ''New Kids'' and the movie ''New Kids Turbo'' center around a group of anti-social losers who's music tastes and fashion sense [[Deader Than Disco|went painfully out of style 20 years ago]]. The police in the area where the series is set claims that a sharp increase in (verbal) aggression towards police officers has been observed since the movie, where the protagonists do pretty much the same, came out.

* Many people enjoy [[The Bourne Series]] for its action and car chase scenes, but [[Rooting for The Empire|cheer for the CIA]] the entire way through because they wish the real life U.S. government had a program like Treadstone/Black Briar in place.

** In fact, the producers shot an alternate opening and closing sequence that played up to that sentiment, given the social/political climate at the time of its final release (originally 2001, pushed to 2002).

** [[Crowning Music of Awesome|Must've been]] [[Villain Song|the song]].

** Speaking of Gaston, there's a number of fans who think that he's a fantastic guy who Belle was a bitch for not marrying. This is skating over the fact that he attempted murder, bribed the asylum owner to commit Maurice, and heavily implied that if/when he got Belle to marry him, he'd be forcing her to be the kind of woman he approved of.

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[[Category:Misaimed Fandom]]