Disney has been a leader in fan-baiting as a marketing strategy
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny has been out for a while now. The internet has been strangely silent on this one. Usually by now there would be widespread cries of misogyny and counter bellows of misandry. I haven’t heard a whole lot of that.
With a box office bomb there will be firings and rumors of firings; these things have to happen. This, though, hasn’t been so much a bomb as a dud. Just a giant $350,000,000 nothing that’s taking up space in movie theaters. Disney has been a leader in fan-baiting as a marketing strategy, but if they’ve tried to do that this time it just hasn’t worked. The usual suspects of YouTubers that can be relied upon to denounce a movie because characters have been race/gender/orientation/age swapped just aren’t really working with the same fervor they did for the countless others that have come before. Has Disney run the same play one too many times?
Maybe the nature of the movie is itself to blame. Disney can’t say, this time, that the man-baby fans are just whining because they can’t deal with a strong woman, the Indiana Jones franchise is loaded with strong women and the fans love them. Marion never backed down and let Indy have his way, the Nazi chick was working her own agenda the whole time, and Willy may have been a shrieking harpy drawn from the depths of Lucas’ divorce, but she had a will of her own.
Could it be that they overthrew their coverage? The web of lies and accusations surrounding this film, its leaks, and the social media debacles which came along with them could have taken the fan baiting strategy too far. I wonder how much of the potential market for this movie was even aware of all that.
Was Kingdom of the Crystal Skull so uniquely bad that of all the movies which could have killed multi-billion-dollar franchises (looking at you Last Jedi) it actually did? Maybe, but then again maybe we’ll see a reexamination of that film through wizened eyes who have seen the depths of mediocrity to which an industry can truly descend.
It’s more likely to be all of these than to be any of these. Any great disaster will not be the result of one error, but a combination of decisions that lead eventually to the tragic conclusion.
Let me suggest that the fan reaction to this has been the most mature of all the major franchise failures so far, and that’s why it can’t be spun into a toxic fan narrative or a fan baiting marketing win. Probably because the fans are more mature. Not only because they have been through this before with Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Watchmen, but also because the fans are different. The fans are dads.
Years ago, when we met Dr. Henry “Indiana” Jones, Jr. Ph.D. (presumably) he was a dashing heroic figure who also held down a responsible job. He had it all, risked it all, went through it all, and came out on top. There are a few characters that men wish they could be, and Indian Jones is one of them. As they grow, boys don’t grow out of it, as they become men, they seem to love the character all the more. He goes from what they could be, to what they could have been, and along they way they’ve introduced him to their sons.
So considering this, is it any wonder that the fan reaction has been muted? If a guy gets a bad meal at a restaurant, he pays his tab and never comes back. If a plumber overcharges that plumber doesn’t get a call back. In the end of things, men don’t rage at their fallen friends for the mistakes made, they just quietly go about their business, and when they get together with old buddies, they all talk about the good times.
So gents, raise a glass to Indiana Jones. The best of what we could have been. Here’s to the good times.
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