Thursday, May 13, 2010

On Reviews and Die-Hard Fans

I don't know about you, but I have read tons of reviews online. I've read people's moral critiques of movies, noting all the profanity, sex, violence, etc., in them. I've also read people's opinions of things, such as albums, films, TV shows, video games, and the like, that were just based on an artistic perspective. One of the things that I've seen mentioned in all kinds of reviews is a statement to the effect of, "You'll only like this if you're a die-hard _________ fan." An example of that would be a review of a Super NES Power Rangers video game that was titled, "Unless you're a Power Rangers fan, if not...!" Usually, when people say, "Unless you're a fan," they really mean, "Unless you're a die-hard fan."
Honestly, when it comes to media, I wouldn't call myself "a die-hard fan" of anything or anyone. Granted, I do have some shows, movie series, book series, bands/artists, actors/actresses, etc., that I like, but it's not like I'm going to like absolutely anything from them. In the past, though, it was a different story.
I'm about to talk about one of my previous addictions again, so be warned: Way back in the late 90's/early 2000's, I was a huge fan of Scooby-Doo. I wanted pretty much anything that had the Scooby-Doo label on it: shirts, videos, albums, books, calendars, posters, and plenty of other stuff. Around that time, some friends of mine told me that a somewhat close theme park--I won't name what it was, because I don't want to give out my geographical location--that had a store with Scooby-Doo shirts, and maybe other memorabilia (it was so long ago, I don't remember.) As soon as I heard that, I would not shut up about wanting to go to that theme park. It wasn't the rides; it wasn't the food; it wasn't the shows; it was just that store. Some years later, when I was either in middle or high school, well after I gave up on that cartoon, some group I was involved in--don't remember what it was--invited me to go to that theme park, and I told my mom I didn't want to go. She was shocked, saying, "Why don't you want to go? You used to be obsessed with wanting to go there!" She didn't know that it was only because of one thing they had there: that Scooby-Doo store.
It wasn't just that theme park, either. There was a song recorded by CCM artist Chris Rice called "Cartoons" or something like that. It went something like, "I was thinking the other day/What if cartoons got saved?/They'd start singing praise/In a whole new way!" and then Rice proceeds to imitate various cartoon characters (from Fred Flintstone to Elmer Fudd) saying their own version of the word hallelujah, i.e., "Yabba-dabba-doo-jah!" When I first heard it all the way back in 2000, I loved it only because it mentioned Scooby-Doo. Truth be told, I didn't even really know what the song was about when I first heard it! My original understanding of the lyrics was, "I was thinking the other day/What about cartoons?/Scooby-Dooby-Doo-jah!" In fact, I currently think that, if taken literally, the song is stupid! Most fans of the song don't know that Rice actually meant it as a satire of Christian entertainment companies making Christian copies of popular secular media. I think that's a message that needs to be taken to heart, because, even though that song was released over a decade ago, there have still been blatant Christian rip-offs of secular stuff, like Sunday School Musical, ApologetiX's parodies, etc., in the past few years.
I got a little off-topic there, so let me get back to my main point: There are things everywhere that people could say one would only like it if he/she was a die-hard fan of something. You might think that, based on my posts on here and Facebook, that I am a die-hard Sha-bon-bon (that is, fan of Siobhan Magnus.) Well, I've got news for you: If you think I have it bad for Siobhan, you should have seen how bad my addictions to things like The Magic School Bus, Growing Pains, Mork & Mindy, Garfield, Hilary Duff, Putt-Putt the talking car, and other things were when I was younger. You'd know then that my love for all things Siobhan Magnus isn't that bad after all.
Any comments?

No comments: