Personally I think Bill Maher is an arrogant pretentious pseudo-intellectual who is nowhere near as smart as he thinks he is. And the fact that he looks down on comic book fans just makes him look petty. I know he has a very negative view of pro wrestling as well. Why should anyone care what another person’s hobbies are?
I’m curious, does he have a negative view on NFL fans as well? NBA fans? MLB fans? Millions of dollars are spent on them as well. Money that could be spent better elsewhere.
If so, that would run counter to his reputation as only being attracted to black women.
I actually was not aware of that reputation.
I like Bill Maher, and most of his snark. I don’t think he explicitly said anything directly condemning comic book fans in his recent diatribe, but from the comments he’s made over the last few months it seems pretty clear that he’s annoyed with adults that actually do like comics and graphic novels as entertainment, regardless of whether they put them on an equal footing with classical and current serious literature or not. He just shies away from explicitly saying so. I think that if you were a Tolstoy scholar but still liked Watchmen, he’d have reservations about you.
I’m a fan of comic books, I have to admit – Jack Kirby and Carl Barks and Alan Moore and the rest of them, even while I read my Penguin Classics. Maher talks a pretty intolerant game for someone who once starred in Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death
Or House II or Ted 2 – how much more comic-book-like can you get? It doesn’t excuse you to say it’s just a joke, not meant to be taken seriously – a lot of times, that applies to the comic books, as well.
I think he’s a skilled and sharp comedian and I usually like the panel discussions. He’s still a smarmy asshole, and he’s got his head up his ass on several issues, but I find his show entertaining.
I’d have completely agreed with you 10 or so years ago.
Maybe tastes change too, but I just haven’t been able to even tolerate sitting through an entire show in quite a long time. I spend more time rolling my eyes than I do being amused.
here he escalates the argument … im awating kevin smiths response
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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.
I liked the old Heavy Metal material because it went to weird places and broke from formula, but the contemporary material is mired in the formula (a story has to have conflict to be readable), and what progressive elements may be present are little more than window dressing.
I can understand why fans enjoy it, but what they take away from it is not a positive outlook. Super heroes and epic battles of good against evil cement in the us-v-them attitude that is poisoning our country.
Of course, Maher just set himself up as another superfoe against an army of people who believe in the two-sided fight, so his message will end up going nowhere, at best, and more likely will make things worse.
I’ve the argument before that if Hollywood wasn’t investing so much time/money/energy into simplistic superhero movies, we’d have a renaissance of thoughtful, morally complex dramas in our theaters replacing them.
It doesn’t hold water. There were very few non-horrible comic book movies when I was growing up in the 80s, but the same type of people that are going to superhero movies now were flocking to action shoot-em-ups starring Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Norris, VanDamme, Seagal, etc. How were the storylines and morals and depth of substance of those movies?
If Maher wants to be the modern day Joe Queenan and rail against American mass-market middlebrow culture, that’s fine. To pretend that this is a new phenomenon and then go on to blame the creations of Stan Lee for the dumbing of America and the rise of Donald Trump makes him pretty full of shit here.
If books with pictures are childish, then aren’t all movies and tv shows even more childish, because they are all pictures!
Not all. Most, though.
I think he was pretty explicit:
…my dismay at people who think that comic books are literature…
…stuck in an everlasting childhood…
…boasting that you’re all about the Marvel universe is like bragging that your mother still pins your mittens to your sleeves.
I’m not glad Stan Lee is dead–I’m sad you’re alive
…now you have pubic hair. Read James Baldwin. Read Toni Morrison. Read Michael Eric Dyson.
Maher’s publicly stated that he and Coulter dated years ago.
I started reading comics in the 1950s and switched over to Marvel in the early 60s because what Stan Lee was doing was light years ahead of DC. I stopped buying comics in 1986 because they had turned into violence porn. Chris Claremont spent all his time torturing teenagers in the X-Men. Who needed that? I’m not a heavy reader today but I’m familiar with superhero comics and superhero movies and what they’ve become.
I’m a huge supporter of the worth of good popular culture. Emphasis on good. 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.
I once spent a couple of decades trying to make outsiders aware that science fiction was a literature of ideas presented by accomplished writers who dealt with adult emotions. And that was true at the time. Then Star Wars happened. For 99% of the population science fiction is now big dumb stuff about spaceships.
Something cool and interesting and insightful got lowest common denominatored and hypertrophed into blockbusters that destroyed brain cells. That’s nothing new: it seems to be the arc of all popular culture. But unless you were there early enough to appreciate the new and wonderful beginnings, all you’re going to see are the blockbusters eating their young in endless sequels and remakes, empty calories causing obesity of the brain. Who can celebrate that?
Adults. Especially Americans are vastly overrated.
he has had a few black girlfriends , one of them sued him after the breakup. I don’t hear much about his recent girlfriends but that might be because he doesn’t go out to parties or clubs where is is seen with them. He’s never been married or had kids.
Cathrynne Valente, 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:
I think Stan Lee did add some depth to the characters and the moral conflicts in his work, but it was akin to pouring water on a mud puddle: the puddle covers more of the sidewalk without becoming appreciably duper, and the growing edges are even shallower than what was already there. It almost teems like these writers consult with the ghost of Will Hays to moke sure their material in up (down) to snuff.
But who else checked out last year? Was it two of the hugest names in classic good science-fiction? How many noted their passing? Would anyone who is a Marvel/DC fan have heard of those two or have any idea how much the contributed to the sci-fi/fantasy genre?
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.
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!”
The irony is that he is acting exactly like a toxic part of various fandoms that we are trying to get rid of. He acts just like the people nerds make fun of: the neckbeard. All the while sounding more like a little kid than an adult.
The funny thing is that I’m not even that into comics anymore. I never got into them as actual comics, and I’ve never seen any movies set in the MCU. But at least I can understand what Mr. Intellectual Superior can’t.
And, no, I don’t think it’s part of his act. But, if it were, it would actually be more pathetic. A show that needs to shit on comic fans would be getting pretty desperate.
I’m surprised he didn’t catch any flak for his comment to Ann. Something to the effect of: “We can discuss it in my hotel room tonight”.
Whoa dude! Not cool in today’s Me Too era.
You just leave that hanging there.
House II. The movie with greatest sequel name** EVER**
House II: The Second Story