The Cognitive Dissonance of Fans in 2021
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I thought about making a video on this subject matter, but to me this feels more a live stream topic where a panel could discuss the topic would be better than me ranting at the camera. And since I’m not live streaming yet, nor do I even have a panel to turn to, I figured I’d open up a discussion here, because we’re all relatively sane around here and capable of having a solid round table of differing opinions, should they arise.
So, I’ve been thinking alot about this today since I did my video on Denis Villeneuve admitting that Part 2 of his Dune adaptation will have Zendaya’s version of Chani be the protagonist of said second movie.
Needless to say, I’m pissed. This was the last straw in a trail of red flags that tell me all I need to know about what to expect from this/these movie(s). At this point, I’m expecting Fayde to be a wahmen and Chani to fight Fayde at the end instead of Paul.
Now, in my comments I noticed a type of opinion that is trying to parse Villeneuve’s words to defend him and tell people not to freak out, something I’m seeing other YouTubers do, as well as populations of their comments do as well and cheer on. At the same time, I see constant comment waves of praising Villy’s “genius” and “how people trust him to do what’s right.” To me, it is never a good sign when you have to twist and bend an event in order to defend it.
But all right. Different opinions are allowed. I say that all the time, and I accept that.
However. I consider myself a realist who tries to operate with logic. I don’t parse. I use the evidence presented to me to make an informed decision. I try not to do guess work. Call me a cranky nerd for being like that, but that’s who I am.
What I am seeing involving Dune right now with fans is something I’ve seen before in the past few years while also still happening with up coming series, Wheel of Time is another perfect example of what I’m about to bring up.
It appears to me that fans and fanbases who are getting “fresh” or new or first time ever adaptations of their favorite franchises are suffering from severe cases of cognitive dissonance.
If you are not aware, cognitive dissonance is when basically you know something you are looking at is wrong, but your subconscious mind goes out of its way to soften the blow and rationalize what you are seeing into something you can accept and then like.
Disney Star Wars and The Force Awakens is the greatest example in recent history of fan cognitive dissonance. We all know how that turned out.
What I see right now are fans going to great lengths to ignore red flag after red flag in cases like Dune and the Wheel of Time, because they are so desperate to experience their beloved franchises in live action. With Dune I have today witnessed plenty of people trying to talk away, convince themselves that this Chani protagonist development is a good and interesting path to take, saying things like “We need this perspective” or “Paul is distant in the second half of the book anyways, so someone needs to take over” and “Chani was so under used this is a great thing” all the while praising and shouting how much they trust Villy.
First of all, any time people start to shout how much they trust a director…that scares me. Directors are narcissistic whores who really only ever pervert stories, if you ask me, in order to tell their “vision.” I don’t see them as true creatives in these modern times. Just content thieves
And the Wheel of Time fanbase? Even when confronted with the fact that Amazon is pushing Rosamind Pike’s Moiraine as the central character, they find ways to scream at you that it’s all right. I see people praising the articles covering this up coming adaptation filled with race swaps and signs of alterations to character stories. Yet the WoT fans are so desperate to finally get their franchise on the screen, all I see is cognitive dissonance twisting their minds into knots to accept it no matter what.
Let us not forget the added fact that SJWs can be found inbetween all of these moments readily bringing their SJW agenda bullshit in constantly to stir the pot and make it worse. So much so that sometimes you honestly cannot tell if you are dealing with a deranged and desperate fan or an SJW trying to steal the show for their own shit.
So I bring before you all, do you see what I see?
Do you think that people are so broken by what’s been going on for so many years, the destruction of everything beloved left and right, that these fans, these people are willingly submitting to cognitive dissonance because they cannot or are not willing to see the danger signs that what they love so much has been damaged along the way?
To me there is adapting something to make sure it works on the screen from the page, which we all know that has to happen to some extent, but then there is willing butchering of source material. What we are witnessing being done to adaptations in the present is butchering if you ask me. When you do “swaps” of any kind…when you change characters behaviors or backgrounds when completely unnecessary, that’s agenda plain and simple. I’m not going to lie to myself and try and believe otherwise.
What I fear is that so many people are so broken now because of the past couple of years, that they are too sick to understand that what they are about to be served is not what they always wanted.
I wish I was crazy, just being a grumpy asshole nerd who isn’t getting exactly what he wants….but I don’t think I am.
You gotta be true to yourself and the video was intense and fired up. It was good.
Thanks, and I will never change my views to please anyone. You either like what I have to say or not.
I think what is surprising me, and what generated this thread conversation, is that I thought this was going to go the other way. I honestly thought that hearing this would make people start to question what Villy plans to do in the next movie. That the idea of Chani, while an integral and massively important character but not the main character, being moved to center stage would make people go, “What? Why are you doing this? Please don’t deviate from the story anymore.”
But that’s not what’s happened. So like I said, the fact that people are so massively defending this, and from at least my perspective making excuses, has really surprised me. Am I gonna reverse course? No. I’m either gonna be right or be wrong. We’ll see, now.
I think I should have reiterated the the first movie looks like it will stay on the rails for the most part, and that we’ve got here is a possible near bait and switch moment where you liked the first movie, but now we’re gonna really change shit that we’ve got you hooked.
But as you said, I was pretty fired up and did that in a single take, and I knew I was not going to get that energy again, so being fired up I was pretty tunnel visioned in what I was feeling and saying.
I guess I’m also reaching that stage of YouTubing where I have to just accept people are going to fly in and accuse me and judge me of being a certain way without having experienced any of my other content, not understanding my passion and rage comes from being a fan who is sad at seeing things being destroyed.
And while I can honestly say I don’t care what the randos think, I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t admit that there is a level of disheartening to be screamed at that I’m not really a fan of something, when in fact I am a deeply connected fan who truly loves something such as Dune, which has had a great impact on my creative process for decades.
So much so that I chose an alternate spelling of Atreides, Atrades, as the surname for my main D&D character as an homage to how much I loved Dune as a kid. And for a while I thought that I’m going to have to change it one day when I start writing the stories…but last year I decided, fuck no. I’m keeping it because it’s my way of praising and showing respect to Dune and what it means to me.
I’ve not really read Dune, so I can’t comment on that in particular.
But as for fans and cognitive dissonance… The thing is the culture war has been going for years and never really fizzled out. People are just exhausted. They’re tired of hearing about SJW’s and want to move on, and they’re willing to make concessions as long as it’s not too in your face. Some people even think what SJW’s stand for is basically good, they’re just going about it in a bad way (the bullying, cancel culture).
What they don’t get is if you concede, Leftists will move the goalposts and shift the overton window even further. It’s never-ending with them. “Equality” is a pretty nebulous goal, imo. What exactly is pure equality going to look like? Amorphous blobs where all distinctions are erased? Sounds like the devil’s work.
I guess what you could call “the cultural right” needs to start to start arguing better, because simply being “anti-sjw” obviously isn’t enough. We’ve become very adverse to words and concepts like “hierarchy” and “exclusivity.” Exclusivity isn’t necessarily bad, certain things need to be exclusive in order to retain what makes them special. You start being “inclusive,” you start diluting it. Take European mythology for example; everyone knows the characters in the old stories were white, but if you start making notable characters in contemporary adaptations other races for no reason, you start suggesting that there was nothing special or unique about European mythology and it belonged to everyone. Imagine taking something like Black Panther and making all the characters white despite it being set in Africa; man, the salt mines would be on another level (and in that case, justified). That film resonated with black audiences for a reason (even if some of them did get a bit stupid about it).
We also have to face the possibility that this is a war we might lose, in which case, it would be prudent to preserve as much of the original works as you can. Future generations deserve better than being given cheap imitations of treasured classics.
@comicsgate Gary from Nerdrotic says is best: these people are nothing but adult pretenders. They are dumb as bricks and have no substance, no sense of self, no true identity, which is why they are able to pretend.
One of my favorite things in all of this is how people are rushing to defend Villy like they know him, like my single opinion will destroy him. How they have to repeatedly tell me I don’t understand him, or that he’s a genius…that I “clearly don’t understand cinema.” Gawd…what I know about classic to modern cinema would bring these fools to their knees it’s such heavy knowledge.
I’m willing to bet most of the twits coming after me today weren’t even born when I was in college…or just barely.
The list of insults against me on this matter continues to grow, heh. Now I’m an angry sad man who has no life, needs a hug, etc etc and I think I saw incel in there somewhere. At this point I don’t know if I’m dealing with deranged “Dune Fans” or SJWs…they’re all sounding the same.
I was right when I said this was going to be a long day on only 5 hours of sleep. In the end, it has simply been annoying, because I find this a sad representation of humanity that feels the need to be so…hostile…towards a different opinion.
But that’s why these forums are great. I know I can come here and engage with level headed people, and vent to some extent to get this shit off my chest.
@FallenOmegaStar I can’t disagree with anything you’ve stated. Your suggestion that people are exhausted is interesting, and you are spot on when you say a certain section of people see nothing wrong with conceding things to try and make things easier.Ask Neville Chamberlain how that worked out in the 1930’s.
How anyone can think an SJW is trying to do the right thing is beyond me, though.
I think the cultural right is too scared from years of inaction. They have no idea how to deal with this menace, and it’s up to us to fight.
Now can we lose this? Of course it’s a possibility. Nothing is ever certain in life except death and taxes. The way we win this fight is not to give into intimidation. Today has been a god damned annoyance to me, but just because a few asshats wanna decry me as a “crazy angry man who is over reacting” doesn’t mean I’m going to stop. Do I wish I could take a day or two off from YouTube? Yeah, but at this stage of my channel I gotta make sure to feed the algorithm every day, so no breaks for me.
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