Fanfic Video Essays
A while back, I began to notice a specific kind of YouTube cinema coverage. These videos begin as a “review” of some film but then become the YouTuber’s “fan fix-it.” Like, what they really want to do is rewrite the movie, but they’re too lazy (or untalented?) to sit and actually write anything, so they make a video telling everyone how the plot should have gone.
I have nothing against hashing out potential issues with a film (I have a film degree after all); in fact, I’ve spent many fun evenings doing just that with my friends and family. But these YouTubers like to speak with a kind of authority that suggests… I dunno. It’s like what they’re really saying—and hell, some of them come right out and say it—is that they could do a better job than pretty much everyone involved in the filmmaking process. Some of these video essayists will bitch about the studio, the producer(s), the director, the screenwriters. “This is how it should have been done!” they more or less shout while rattling off their pet version of the story. As if they’re hoping to be noticed as geniuses and offered a job in the writers’ room when, in truth, their nasty attitudes make them the kinds of people no one would hire, even if their ideas were actually any good.
The worst of these guys—and they’re almost always guys—are especially angry when a film has a female lead or focus. And God forbid she be a woman of color. They’re basically mad about anything that isn’t made for them specifically as a demographic and quick to disparage anything made for any other audience.
Look, dudes, go write and make your own movies. No one told you you can’t. I’m told all the time that if I want to see any of my scripts produced, I’ll have to do it myself, at least at first (proof of concept and all that).
Oh, but you don’t have any original ideas. You just want to take what other people do and twist it to suit yourselves. That’s fanfiction, my boys. And just because you make a video essay instead of taking the time and effort to do the actual work of writing… it’s still just fanfic. And you don’t have any more authority than anyone else who went to see the movie and might have ideas about how they would have done some of it differently. An eight-year-old and his best friend can just as easily come out of the cinema and say to one another, “Wouldn’t it have been cool if…?” and “Yeah, and then he should have…” and that’s the exact same thing as you going online and spouting your “better” version.
That said, I do sometimes like to hear and think about ways some movies could have been tightened, made more impactful, etc. Heck, I have a video about why Kylo Ren should have been the main character of the last Star Wars trilogy (short answer: nothing to do with gender, it’s just he’s the one who has an actual character arc). These kinds of conversations can be cool… as long as no one’s being an asshole about it.