Special to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

It never seizes to amaze me that there are actual companies who care more about advancing their political agenda than they do about their bottom line, almost to the point where they are willing to commit professional suicide. In the early stages of this article, I was going to use the NFL allowing their players to kneel during the National Anthem, despite it being extremely unpopular with the fans, as a prime example of how a certain company cares more about advancing the cause of social justice than they do appeasing their customers. I know that there are many who would consider this issue trivial, but from a financial standpoint you have to admit that it is completely absurd to anger the very people who butter your bread, just so you can appear politically correct to your social justice buddies. The problem is that I had written this article months before the NFL officials actually reversed their stance on the National Anthem when they finally got the hint after the record-low TV ratings and seeing their million-dollar athletes play in half-empty stadiums.

Though, it’s not to say that there aren’t plenty of people who are willing to compromise their bottom-line to prove how politically correct they are to the SJW crowd. Now it has become a common occurrence in the both the movie and gaming industry. Back in 2016 I had written an article about the Ghostbusters reboot and the controversy surrounding the fans’ reaction to it. What amazed me about the whole fiasco was the way that both the movie’s director and one of it’s cast members chose to call their fanbase everything from assholes to forty-year-old trolls living in their parents’ basement. Never in my lifetime have I ever seen anyone with the gall to attack their fanbase, simply because it’s a no-win situation. Whether you agree with your fans or not, at the end of day they will either make or break you. This is the notion that always seemed like commonsense to me and yet it doesn’t seem all that common in the movie or gaming industry.

I would have thought that the movie studios would have learned something from the whole Ghostbusters debacle, but I suppose that I am a little too optimistic when it comes to Hollywood learning from its mistakes. Recently, Ocean’s Eight, a reboot to the Ocean’s Eleven series found itself the center of controversy when two of the cast members decided to attack the critics who panned the movie. It started with Mandy Kaling complaining about how most reviewers are white males and Cate Blanchett would later find herself jumping on the same bandwagon. Attacking your critics is another fight that you are never going to win. Just ask Ann Rice, who chose to attack those who wrote negatives reviews of one her books on Amazon, only to find herself become the laughing stock of the internet. I have yet to see Ocean’s Eight myself, but the most common complaints about it was that it was boring and lackluster and I am not just talking about what the mainstream critics said about the movie. If you go to YouTube you will find a wide range of reviewers of different races and genders who thought the movie was slow, boring, and completely lacking the charm of the other Ocean’s movies. So, is it possible that Ocean’s Eight just wasn’t that good of a movie? Now, I will have to see the movie to be able to decide for myself, but I will point out that my opinion on whether the movie is good or not, will be based entirely on the quality and not my bias as a white male. Not only was that a stupid statement for both Kaling and Blanchett to make, but quite frankly it was both racist and sexist.

Sadly, it seems like the SJW’s have managed to poison a well that I have loved since I was a toddler. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the travesty that was Star Wars: The Last Jedi, many fans have done everything in their ability to voice their disapproval about the way that producer Kathleen Kennedy and director Rian Johnson has handled the eighth installment of the franchise. Some have taken to social media to call for a boycott of the franchise until Walt Disney fixes the mess created by Kennedy and Johnson. Apparently, the boycott had gained a considerable amount of traction with the box office failure of Solo: A Star Wars Story. Though it seems like some people just aren’t getting the message, such as Rian Johnson who instead of admitting to his failures with Last Jedi, has taken to twitter to taunt fans critical of his work by calling them manbabies. Apparently, he doesn’t know or doesn’t care that his attacks on the fanbase will only lead to an even greater failure for his career. For those of you who haven’t seen The Last Jedi, it would take a whole article for me to explain the mess that Johnson and Kennedy made with the movie, so I will point out two of the most basic flaws. One of them being the character played by Laura Dern, who many have nicknamed Admiral SJW, who in my opinion was the worst character since Jar Jar Binks. This woman had all the annoying traits of an SJW, from her man-hating arrogance down to her purple hair. Then there was the way that all the male protagonists in the movie were portrayed as everything from impulsive screw-ups to sniveling cowards. What disappointed me the most was the way Luke Skywalker was reduced to nothing more than a bitter old man who could do nothing but whine about his failure to keep his nephew on the straight and narrow. Seriously, Walt Disney really needs to get better control of the franchise before people like Johnson and Kennedy sink it for good.

Of course, it isn’t just the movie industry that is being poisoned by the venom of SJW’s. I would have thought the gaming industry would have learned a thing or two from the backlash of Gamergate, but I must suffer from a severe case of over-optimism because once again we have idiots in the gaming industry who would rather advance the cause of social justice than make money. First there was Battlefield V, which is part of a series of video games that take place during the Second World War. One of the traits that this game series is renowned for is the accurate depiction of historic battles that took place during that time period. So, imagine the surprise and confusion of Battlefield fans who saw a female British super-soldier who on top of that is also an amputee, fighting Nazis in the World War II era. When the fans complained about the historically inaccuracy of having a female super soldier with an amputated arm that seemed to put both Rambo and Jason Bourne to shame, the makers lashed out at the fans in a typical SJW response. They said that they didn’t want the business of misogynists who didn’t like having strong female protagonists in their games. Then we have a gaming company called Naughty Dog, who have been phasing out the male protagonists in their games, only to replace them with female characters and in one case they replaced a male protagonist with a young lesbian couple. Of course, the story wouldn’t be complete if we didn’t have somebody from the company lash out at the fans who are not down with the SJW agenda. One of the game makers did just that on Twitter.

What amazes me is that there are actual studio heads and investors who do care more about making money than they do advancing a ridiculous cause. So why are they allowing producers, directors, actors and content creators sabotage the projects that they have invested so much money into? Not only are these particular people committing professional suicide when they try to advance a cause that is unpopular with their fanbase, but they are also taking their investors down with them. It should seem obvious by now that the cause of social justice is only popular to a tiny percentage of the population. So, wouldn’t common sense tell you that it is more profitable to cater to the overwhelming majority of the populace? One thing that I can say for sure is that movie studios need to get tighter control of what comes out of the mouth of their directors, writers and actors by making them sign contracts that will prohibit them from saying anything that will anger critics or members of their fanbase. They also need to listen to the fanbases of the franchises that they have money invested in, otherwise they may as well hang it all up. As for the gaming industry, the investors of these companies need to have a Come to Jesus talk with their content creators and remind them that it is really fans who make it possible for them to collect a paycheck. If they can’t see that then they need to be shown the door. They need to be reminded that these industries are in the profit-making business, not the Social Justice business.