We live in a world defined by the movies. The movies tell us how to act, how to feel, how to think, how to get arrested on public obscenity charges, completely mislead us over how professionals in major industries actually work, get computers ridiculously wrong… you know what, come to think of it, in light of how bad Hollywood can be, we probably shouldn’t be surprised by these groups of fans who got their favorite movies terribly, terribly wrong.
1.
The Hammerskins Are Just Another Brick In “The Wall”
We’re going to do something really edgy here and say that Nazis are bad. Idolizing Hitler is bad. Generally liking or wanting to be like a Nazi at all is just really not a good thing. And anyone with a brain can safely include beloved rock band Pink Floyd in the anti-fascism camp. If you need proof, see that part in “The Wall” where Bob Geldof turns into a fascistic leader and ruins the world, before covering it in terrible animation and the grossest depiction of a judge ever recorded. Pink Floyd and the director of the movie clearly thought their audience was smart enough to realize they weren’t endorsing white power. And boy, were they ever… well…
You get one guess what the Hammerskins took away as a valuable moral lesson from said movie. No, it wasn’t “never drop acid before going to see a Pink Floyd movie”. In fact, they’re a white power group inspired by Pink Floyd. We’re sure Roger Waters, whose father died fighting the Nazis and who has spent years dealing with that, very publicly, across several enormously popular albums, including “The Wall”, isn’t bothered by that, at all. Even though the film features an entire sequence where he basically has an extended emotional breakdown over this by proxy. Maybe he just hasn’t got that orbital laser platform working yet.
2.
Sarah Connor’s Feminist Fans Miss the Point Completely
Who doesn’t love “Terminator 2”? It was one of the biggest movies of the ’90s, ringing in major changes in Hollywood, including CGI, creating catchphrases that still annoy the heck out of humanity today, and announcing the return of James Cameron to action filmmaking after churning out “The Abyss”, which was his first bomb and convinced him that he should just stick to the action instead of trying to develop a sense of wonder or joy as a filmmaker. It also completely remade the first one and made it sappier for no good reason, but you can’t have everything.
Included is the rather complex character named Sarah Connor, who is a study case on what happens to a person when faced with absolute knowledge of Armageddon. Sarah goes from a tough-minded but reasonable person by the end of the first movie to a crazed gun-nut. Sure, she’s capable in a fight, but it’s also clear she was crappy to John and is emotionally unstable, as witness by, oh, the entire movie. Most notably, the scene where she dreams she witnesses a nuclear holocaust and watches women and children dissolve into ash, and the movie implies she’s been having nightmares like this for a decade. So, yes, she’s just a wee bit unstable.
Not that this stops people from idolizing her, or thinking about how maybe James Cameron was making a point they’re not seeing.
3.
“Scarface” Fandom Refuses to Realize the World Isn’t Theirs
By any reasonable standard, “Scarface”, the ’80s version featuring none other than Al Pacino, is a bit weird, creepy, and bleak. His incestuous relationship with his sister isn’t totally addressed, but is prominent enough to be disturbing. He’s obviously got raging emotional problems. The finale of the movie shows every terrible thing Scarface has ever done coming back to bite him right where you really don’t want flesh wounds. In fact, the finale of the movie even references the death of a major mob boss who died in the same fashion. That’s why the fountain Tony Montana falls into at the end of the movie bears a statue that reads: “The World Is Yours”.
In other words, it’s this great big fat “Crime Doesn’t Pay” sign flashing in neon.
Not that this has stopped most of its fans from thinking that it’s totally badass. Or prevented songs from being composed about it. Yeah, way to go with the comprehension skills, guys.
