by Jim
I’ve heard this phrase over and over. We saw it come to a height during the Ghostbusters debacle, but it’s been around since before and long after. Mostly, people who use this and similar phrases are mocked as being man-babies, among other less flattering things.
What does the phrase mean? Well basically when you say that something is ruining your childhood, they’re saying that something new, a new take, a new development, a new twist, etc. are tainting something that they loved during their childhood and possibly making them look back and reflect on what they liked about it in the first place. In theory, this could depress a person and make them think that perhaps they wasted some of their life being a fan of whatever it is that is being ruined.
Oh come on, that’s kind being a little oversensitive, isn’t it?
Well… yes, to a point. However that doesn’t mean that these people should be dismissed.
Don’t get me wrong, there is plenty of melodrama involved here, but you will not catch me calling anyone out on it. Why? Because for all I know, there is a legitimate gripe behind their statement. Perhaps the subject matter is something they saw with someone they loved who is now gone. Perhaps, just perhaps a child’s fondest memory with a parent was when they watched a movie, read a book, etc. before they died.
I don’t know the case each time someone uses that statement, therefore I am not in a place to judge the validity of their accusation.
I hate to do this, but yet again, I’m taking a middle-of-the-road stance on this. If something is ruining your childhood, perhaps there is some soul searching that needs to be done. If there is a reason you feel that way, look nothing can ruin the original source material that you enjoyed. No matter what comes out, no matter what replaces it, no matter how badly a story is damaged by a sequel that comes along later by an incompitent writer/director/etc, the original is still there. It’s waiting for you, it’s okay. Go, take that old book off the shelf. Go watch that old movie you love some much. It wants your attention. I think you’ll find that when you do go back and look at it, it’s still there, and its still as good as it was… unless its Star Wars… which is why I highly recommend the non-special edition versions that are available on DVD.
Now, to film makers and their backers, you have a responsability to the fans of the established work. You may think that you can put shit on a stick and people will pay for it, but that’s not always the case. Look at the backlash Sony took for slamming fans of Ghostbusters who didn’t like the direction the franchise was taking. Like I said, they did what they did, without taking into account that destroying childhoods may in fact be a legitimate gripe. It’s this, amongst many other reasons that myself and many other movie-goers are completely disillusioned with Paul Feig’s, Melissa McCarthy’s, and Sony’s work all together and will not pay to see their movies anymore.
Don’t make their mistakes. You have a responsability to the paying audience and fans to put out something worthy of their time. Make it good!
To ALL my readers, if you feel that in some way things like what I mentioned above have negatively effected you, I have an open door policy with you. Email me, I’d love to talk to you. I am not a credentialed therapist, but I have studied psycology and spent part of my adult life working with children who have severe psycological issues. Please feel free to email me.
Readers,
Do you have a question about writing, publishing, my stories, etc? Please feel free to post a comment or email me.
jimthewritingwizard@gmail.com
I’ll use those comments to select my next blog post.
I have been writing for several years, have 4 published works, experience with publishing and independent work, so I can hopefully be of assistance.
Please note, I only do one of these a day and will do my best to respond to everyone, but it may take some time.
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Also, feel free to check out my works of Fantasy and Historical Fiction, Available on Amazon and where ever books are sold. See the link below:
http://www.amazon.com/James-Harrington/e/B00P7FBXTU
Thanks friends!
Catch you on the flip side!
-Jim
James Harringtons Creative Work 
I like that your topics always seem to get me to want to be involved. And on the whole I agree with you again. Sometimes people are just whining and sometimes film makers etc are not doing the material justice. But the one thing I would say is that perhaps (and I really have done very little research into this so I may well be wrong) the reason that Sony, Paul Feig and Melissa McCarthy responded so badly to the criticism they received was that it really wasn’t constructive. I read enough news articles at the time be ashamed of the way verbal abuse was thrown at people who were trying to think outside the box.
There was no way in hell that they could recast Ghostbusters with the same characters in mind and live up to the expectations of the original films. I think they had two choices, one was to give up and leave Ghostbusters be and the second was to change it enough that it was a reboot and not a remake. Yes the prudent choice would be to just leave it be but Sony is a company and companies aim to make money, you can’t make money without making a product.
To summarise yeah sometimes I worry the next instalment in a franchise whether it be book, film, game or tv show will ruin what I loved about it. But I’m an adult and I can pretend like it never happened like a real adult… Because I don’t want to see the kind of disgusting abuse that the cast of Ghostbusters received.
S.Hansen
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Well… not so much… honestly, to make sure that I was fair and as objective as possible, I kept tabs on what was happening with Ghostbusters. The email leaks information on how the movie was greenlit in the first place was pretty damning.
Also, I saw the trailer on the day it was released. I’m not a Ghostbusters mega-fan, but I was a fan of it enough to be interested. I despise Melissa McCarthy, always have, so the moment that I heard that she was in this movie, I groaned. That was the first problem.
When I saw the trailer, I immediately posted that the trailer didn’t look good. I thought that the jokes fell flat, the CGI was over-used and looked about as good as Disney’s The Haunted Mansion, and that I probably would skip this movie because I wasn’t a fan of Melissa McCarthy’s one-notes acting strewn with continuous one-liners.
If you want to do a reboot or a remake, it’s not a good idea to completely alienate the fanbase. Reboots and remakes can be done well. Yes the studio is out to make money and I held no inhibitions about the imminent release of another Ghostbusters movie, but when you produce something that looks like crap and just slap a well-known name on it… it’s just not how to go about it. Everything that Sony could have done wrong here, they did.
My comment, as well as those of other people I knew were deleted. While several extreme, hateful, and downright disgusting comments remained. That’s when Sony ran with the misogyny narrative for all the criticism that they received.
Granted, Sony could have taken the high road and said, “Okay, we understand people’s fears. We did the best we could and would like people to give us a chance.”
That would have been enough to convince me to see the movie.
However, that’s not what they did. Paul Feig came out and blanket insulted geek culture, as did McCarthy and one of the movie’s producers.
Also, because of the narrative that Sony ran with, anyone who dared to criticism the movie was slammed with personal attacks and accusations of misogyny. These people included James Rolfe… whom I admit to being a fan of, and Richard Roeper.
Roeper actually responded to the attacks, calling their views condescending:
This is NOT how a multi-million dollar filming company works if they want to be successful.
If you’d like more detail on this, I’d check out Midnight Edge’s video. They’re very good at presenting the information plainly.
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You have clearly done your homework. It is pretty easy to get only one side of the argument from news sources, which is really the only place I got my info from. And I have to say your well put together argument has convinced me that Sony and the others associated with the movie just didn’t do their jobs properly or well. I can also understand why you aren’t a fan of Melissa McCarthy, her comedy style is very slap stick and cringe inducing. I didn’t get half way through Identity Thief before groaning and giving up. Though I did enjoy Spy, but to be honest Jason Statham was the runaway character in that film.
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I’ve often said it jokingly, and I think must of the time it is with intentional hyperbole, but you make a good point – it may indeed be associated with memories of people now lost. Thanks for the food for thought, interesting post 🙂
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I am sure the people of Aleppo didn’t realise just how tough some folk in the Western World have it. Puts their problems in perspective.
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