There was a time that the other Rejects and I were invited to everything from Star Trek Conventions to neighborhood LAN parties, and now we have to learn about Geek Boycotts through Nikki Finke’s blog? This is an outrage. What happened, friends? Didn’t we post enough about The Dark Knight? Didn’t we show enough outrage that it was snubbed? Are we just not fanboy enough anymore?
Either that or there is no boycott.
Finke posted up a blog entry praising the gusto of unnamed fan websites (ranging from Dark Knight to Star Trek for some reason), and you’ll probably be better off reading it yourself:
Good for the geeks! I’m told that movie sites dedicated to comic book heroes, Star Trek sequels, and everything else sci-fi, action-oriented, and gory are promising to boycott all promotion of this year’s Academy Awards because The Dark Knight wasn’t nominated for Best Picture. Why, they’re even refusing to display the new 1-sheet Oscar poster. Now stop laughing. You know that males under/over age 25 who hero-worship Batman and Spock and Jigsaw can’t wait to watch Hugh Jackman step out of his Wolverine makeup and start singin’ and dancin’ to open the Oscar telecast. In other words, Dark Knight’s hardcore fans make up the Academy Awards audience only for Lord Of The Ring or the technical awards. But I definitely agree with them — as I complained when the Oscar nods were announced — that Chris Nolan (who wasn’t nominated for Best Director) and his pic were both robbed.”
It’s got that sweet mix of praise and mockery that I love Nikki for. As for the boycott, since she didn’t name any sources or point to any actual sites doing it, I did a quick google search for “Oscar Boycott,” and (lo and behold!) the second most popular item is…her blog entry. There’s a few other random websites, but nothing from any major fansites, including the ones we frequent.
Is there some massive movement about to start that Nikki knows about that we don’t? Who’s refusing to display the new one sheet Oscar poster? There’s a one sheet Oscar poster?
So far there’s been a lot of idle chatter, but nothing seriously concrete – unless you count our very own Reject Boycott of Watching the Oscars Sober, but that seems like a totally different event.
My favorite part about the post is the responses. They range from a few level-headed arguments for why the film should have been considered to the angered cliche voices telling geeks to get a life. Which is awesome. It’s fantastic to try to watch people back-away from a film they were praising less than a year ago. We know – The Dark Knight wasn’t that great – it just made more money than every other movie ever except Titanic, which of course probably didn’t deserve an Oscar either.
I’m a major geek for The Dark Knight, and I openly admit it. But I don’t plan to boycott the Oscars. I plan on boycotting sobriety, but I love watching the Oscars. (Full disclosure: I’ve worked for the Academy Awards production).
So, either Finke is making this up out of thin air or there’s a geek movement out there that we weren’t invited to. Either way, I’m a little hurt. Not a lot. But a little.
Related Topics: Home Video, The Dark Knight
