# bill maher manages to piss off millions yet again with stan lee coments **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 17, 2018, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-maher-manages-to-piss-off-millions-yet-again-with-stan-lee-coments/824704 "2018-11-17T20:52:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2019, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-maher-manages-to-piss-off-millions-yet-again-with-stan-lee-coments/824704/161 "2019-01-30T08:44:36Z")
heres a series of tweets I read as a response : I erased the names and such In the vacuum left by the loss of reachable life goals, we 80s kids kind of figured: fuck it. Why the hell should we give up what is good & joyful & rich of the art & accoutrements of childhood in exchange for a yawning grey void? How was that ever considered a fair deal? The reason my generation still plays in ball pits & reads comic books & plays dress up is that contemporary society has made most of the good parts of adult life financially unreachable: home, family, travel, even theater is $500 a ticket All that’s left is the crushing despair! I want to say this. Do you know why millennials “refuse to grow up”? Because we finally figured out that the whole idea is bullshit designed to suppress human joy enough to keep them grinding for an uncaring company for 50 years in unhappy marriages until death is a mercy. I think it was from the person LHOD was quoting above … ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2019, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-maher-manages-to-piss-off-millions-yet-again-with-stan-lee-coments/824704/162 "2019-01-30T09:21:57Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > [Cathrynne Valente](https://twitter.com/catvalente/status/1089293175360028674), one of the world’s best writers, has a great Twitter thread about Bill Maher. > > I’m putting aside my description of Maher as “a cigar butt wrapped in old ham” in favor of this gem of a response: Cool, but in what world is 1979 a Milennial? Most people born 1980-1985 or so are only technically Milennial, but didn’t have a “name” until adulthood. > [@Chimera](#): > > You just leave that hanging there. > > House II. The movie with greatest sequel name\*\* EVER\*\* > > _House II: The Second Story_ Sharknado 2: The Second One is pretty good, though technically ironic. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2019, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-maher-manages-to-piss-off-millions-yet-again-with-stan-lee-coments/824704/163 "2019-01-30T17:44:20Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > He could learn some things from a children’s author, namely C.S. Lewis. > > Critics who treat ‘adult’ as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up. We need to put that in context. Lewis was a professor of English, an expert on such works as _Paradise Lost_, and a prolific writer on Christian hermeneutics. He saw the world as essentially serious and therefore wanted to leaven it with joy and innocence. The latter was a small part of his world. Maher was complaining about people who turned that world around and were essentially unaware of the serious and hypertrophed the childish to engulf the rest. Not about Stan Lee personally, as he repeated a dozen times, but the childish world he accidentally helped create. > [@](#): > > It’s also just attacking people for being sad about someone dying. And not even a bad someone! It’s just “how dare you be sad this entertainer died. You shouldn’t read or watch to be entertained! You should be enlightened LIKE ME and only read things that (I THINK) have social value!” This is a better critique, at least about his original tweet. Without the fuller explanation it came across as petty. Entertainment is valuable; constant entertainment without seriousness is bread and circuses - and that can be dangerous to a society. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2019, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-maher-manages-to-piss-off-millions-yet-again-with-stan-lee-coments/824704/164 "2019-01-30T18:17:34Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > He also airs patently stupid views about health, diet, vaccines, and medicines. And he’s a supporter of the terrorist group PETA. This. Say what you want about my X-Men comics, they never contributed to an increase in the infant mortality rate. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2019, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-maher-manages-to-piss-off-millions-yet-again-with-stan-lee-coments/824704/165 "2019-01-30T18:35:09Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > We need to put that in context. Lewis was a professor of English, an expert on such works as _Paradise Lost_, and a prolific writer on Christian hermeneutics. He saw the world as essentially serious and therefore wanted to leaven it with joy and innocence. When was the last time you read the Narnia books? They do have happy endings, yes, but there is no shortage of ugliness and violence getting to that happy ending. Never mind the detestable, thinly-disguised anti-Islamic bigotry in the later volumes. Lewis is hardly one to bring up in defense of comic books. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2019, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-maher-manages-to-piss-off-millions-yet-again-with-stan-lee-coments/824704/166 "2019-01-30T19:03:55Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > When was the last time you read the Narnia books? They do have happy endings, yes, but there is no shortage of ugliness and violence getting to that happy ending. The Harry Potter books have ugliness and violence. So do eighteen zillion other modern and classic YA and children’s books. And so do fairy tales, which is what Lewis cited in his quote. Superhero comic books and movies are all about ugliness and violence these days. The other thing they have in common are happy endings, which are their point and purpose, unlike much of adult fiction and nonfiction. Childish entertainment is like sugar. I can’t imagine a world without sugar. I also can’t imagine a world with only sugar. The American diet has way too much sugar and that’s led to a crisis of obesity and diabetes and other ailments. I don’t think the analogy to overwhelming amounts of sugary entertainment is much of a stretch. ---
**Author:** ![El\_DeLuxo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_deluxo/32/9043_2.png) [@El\_DeLuxo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_DeLuxo)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2019, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-maher-manages-to-piss-off-millions-yet-again-with-stan-lee-coments/824704/167 "2019-01-31T10:19:27Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Don’t start on how graphic novels and indie publishers can be art. For 99% of the population, comics and comic book movies are DC and Marvel. At best the movies are fun and sometimes interesting. I haven’t seen many comic books that rise even to that standard. They get continually gaudier and emptier. They’re the flaming watermelon Cheetos of art. There’s no need for anyone to “start on” the subject. The form speaks for itself. \*100 Bullets. Sandman. Gen Of Hiroshima. Criminal. Fables. Powers\* and \*Powers Bureau. Wanted. Y: The Last Man. Sin City. The Last One. Scalped.\* The second run of _Death Rattle_ for high quality short-form horror fiction. Hell, if we’re talking about short-form horror, 1970s _Creepy_ and some of the underground horror comics like _Skull_ and \*Psychotic Adventures \*achieved greatness more than once. At this point in time, denying that comics and GNs can be quality literature is like clinging to the claim that crime fiction, horror stories, and SF can’t be quality literature, or that rock music is all trash. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2019, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-maher-manages-to-piss-off-millions-yet-again-with-stan-lee-coments/824704/168 "2019-01-31T11:39:52Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Maher didn’t offer his opinion about comic books, he offered his opinions about _adults who like_ comic books. And those opinions were not complimentary. As an adult who likes comic books, I don’t care for people going on TV and saying shitty things about me. I don’t think reading his comments, and then going on the internet and saying, “Bill Maher is an idiot,” is reacting out of proportion to that. Bingo. This. All of this. Bill Maher has a massive platform. If just 1% of his platform came away from that show thinking less of people who like comic books, that’s a ton of people who think less of me because of something he said. It’s not a _huge_ deal, but it does still matter, and that’s why people like me get pissy about it. > [@CookingWithGas](#): > > Here’s why it makes sense. Maher has no power to actually affect in any way the life of people who like comics. He just posted a shitty blog post. A shitty blog post that millions of people read. Millions of people who, for whatever misguided reason, take him seriously as an intellectual or comedian. And all of those people think less of me because of his shitty, uninformed, elitist opinion. And I shouldn’t care at all? > [@eschereal](#): > > Does anyone see Maher’s underlying point, though? In a world that is composed of shades and hues, comic books, of the type he points to (Marvel, DC, _et al_) are still decidedly monochrome, with their simplistic good-v-evil story lines that hare little to nothing to do with reality. There is always a good guy and a bad guy and the innocent victims and often Magguffin, but rarely any depth or substance. 90% of comics is shit. That’s because 90% of _everything_ is shit. But this broad-brush idea that comics are simplistic good-v-evil storylines… That didn’t even apply to the comics my dad collected in the 90s. It doesn’t apply to the comic book movies (Ant-Man 2, Civil War, even Infinity Wars had a hell of a lot of grey areas). And yeah, you’ll end up with some dross, but it’s not somehow most or all of it. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2019, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-maher-manages-to-piss-off-millions-yet-again-with-stan-lee-coments/824704/169 "2019-01-31T14:08:21Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > > [@CookingWithGas](#): > > > > Here’s why it makes sense. Maher has no power to actually affect in any way the life of people who like comics. He just posted a shitty blog post. > > A shitty blog post that millions of people read. Millions of people who, for whatever misguided reason, take him seriously as an intellectual or comedian. And all of those people think less of me because of his shitty, uninformed, elitist opinion. And I shouldn’t care at all? You are commenting on a post that is months old. Please read the rest of the thread and my latest post. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2019, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-maher-manages-to-piss-off-millions-yet-again-with-stan-lee-coments/824704/170 "2019-01-31T15:04:26Z")
> [@DLuxN8R-13](#): > > There’s no need for anyone to “start on” the subject. The form speaks for itself. > > \*100 Bullets. > > Sandman. > > Gen Of Hiroshima. > > Criminal. > > Fables. > > Powers\* and \*Powers Bureau. > > Wanted. > > Y: The Last Man. > > Sin City. > > The Last One. > > Scalped.\* All love, man. Those are fun stories but there’s so much more. Displacement Maus This One Summer A Contract With God Love and Rockets Persepolis March American Born Chinese Fun Home All of these - and more! - stretch them medium beyond its reliance on escapist tales and show that there’s a way through graphic novels to explore life and what it is to be a person, good or bad. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2019, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-maher-manages-to-piss-off-millions-yet-again-with-stan-lee-coments/824704/171 "2019-01-31T19:14:35Z")
> [@DLuxN8R-13](#): > > There’s no need for anyone to “start on” the subject. The form speaks for itself. > > \*100 Bullets. > > Sandman. > > Gen Of Hiroshima. > > Criminal. > > Fables. > > Powers\* and \*Powers Bureau. > > Wanted. > > Y: The Last Man. > > Sin City. > > The Last One. > > Scalped.\* > > The second run of _Death Rattle_ for high quality short-form horror fiction. > > Hell, if we’re talking about short-form horror, 1970s _Creepy_ and some of the underground horror comics like _Skull_ and \*Psychotic Adventures \*achieved greatness more than once. > > At this point in time, denying that comics and GNs can be quality literature is like clinging to the claim that crime fiction, horror stories, and SF can’t be quality literature, or that rock music is all trash. > [@](#): > > For 99% of the population, comics and comic book movies are DC and Marvel. It’s right there in the post you quoted. It’s still true. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-maher-manages-to-piss-off-millions-yet-again-with-stan-lee-coments/824704.md?page=8)