Things I Simply Don’t Understand

Point 1.  Ben Affleck is named as the next Batman and the internet goes into a tizzy.

Point 2.  Patton Oswald posts a blog saying don’t hate on Ben Affleck and many haters, go, “Wow you’re right. I won’t hate on him anymore.”

I don’t understand number one for many reasons. First and foremost, it’s an effing movie. More than that, it’s a “Batman” movie and we’ve had how many of these things already? Now I like Batman. I liked some of the movies better than others. I’ve expressed my opinions here and there. But do I lose any sleep or waste any energy wondering, Oh My God, who will they cast as Batman next? Will my world continue if they choose someone I don’t like? I suspect you know my answers to those questions.

Second, I don’t understand what Ben Affleck has done to deserve that hate. I haven’t watched a lot of movies with him in. I was never overly impressed with his acting talents. I didn’t like Daredevil. But he seemed middle of the pack to me. But suddenly he seems to have become identified as the world’s worst actor. What appears absolutely clear to me is that someone decided to hate on Ben Affleck. Someone else decided to join in. And soon we had a whole movement in which it is suddenly cool to hate him. Let me state it very clearly: Most of the people who supposedly “hate” Ben Affleck do so because they want to be one of the “cool” kids. There is no logic behind it, no rationality. It’s simply part of a need that people have to be “one of the group.”

Third, say you really really hated Daredevil, just as I really disliked the recent Judge Dredd. How is it that you so closely link Ben Affleck to that hate? I don’t find myself disliking Karl Urban because he played Dredd in a movie I didn’t like. Don’t you think that it was probably more the directors, editors and writers that were at fault for a poor movie than the acting itself?

I suppose my comment about the need to be one of the group sort of answers my point 2 at the top. Apparently some people read Patton Oswald’s blog and decided that it wasn’t cool to hate on Ben Affleck anymore. Well, another celebrity, who is thought by people to “be” cool, says not to. Is that really all it takes to change your mind? If I really didn’t like Ben Affleck, then Patton Oswald’s opinion would not matter a whit to me. How in the world can people change their minds just because a celebrity (or politician, or newscaster, or athlete, or popular singer) tells them they are wrong?

Here’s some other things that I think. 1). Most people never question why they feel the way they do? 2). Many people essentially have their emotions handed to them by outside sources. In other words, they don’t have any feeling one way or another about the Ben Affleck’s of the world until someone says, “Ben Affleck is horrible,” and it clicks in their head and becomes their feeling. 3). Many people will do just about anything to be “cool.” 4). Many people are far more influenced by ‘prominent’ people (who they don’t know from Adam) than they are by people who are less famous but might actually know something on the subject.

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