See, Adam Baldwin, This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

For the past week or so my Internet search bar has sat on the top of my screen looking like this-

Now, at first glance this might seem like sort of an odd question, since it's probably reasonable to assume that either you're already aware of why you don't like Adam Baldwin, or you don't don't like Adam Baldwin and don't particularly care about why others do don't.

To understand how I got to the point where I had to ask the question, it's important to understand a fairly fundamental point-

I tend to be completely oblivious about a lot of things going on in the world that other people seem to care a lot about*

*Seriously... I only just this last week discovered Archer.

So, the first Thing I Wasn't Aware Of-

MovieBob

I expect there are a lot of us out there who were unaware of the existence of MovieBob until fairly recently*

*I also expect that there is a much larger group of people who still are completely unaware of MovieBob's existence for that matter

For those who are still unfamiliar, the short version is - MovieBob is the guy that did that online review of the movie Pixels that everyone was passing around on Facebook a few weeks ago.

The longer version - MovieBob (real name Bob Chipman) is one of the many people making their living these days reviewing movies (and other things) online. Until recently he worked producing fairly amusing video reviews for a specific online 'culture' site which I will not name here.*

*Mostly because I don't yet know how rude I'm going to be about them and don't want to get sued, but also partially because they appear to have treated Bob pretty unfairly.

The review of the movie Pixels (If you haven't listened to it) is a delightful profane rant about the recent Adam Sandler movie that uses a zesty mix of invective and reference to biological fluids in a way that I simply have never heard before. It's well worth seven minutes of your time if you aren't bothered by that sort of thing.

Having listened to this, I started tracking down other of his reviews to listen to, because I liked his style and enjoy listening to that sort of 'cultural critique' thing. In one of his other pieces he made the observation that he felt like Joss Whedon was the right person to direct The Avengers because at the end of the day The Avengers was going to be about the group/found family dynamic and that is clearly the sort of thing that Joss Whedon does Very Very well. The way Bob phrased this was that Joss Whedon was so good at this sort of thing that at one point he had even made 'Sentient piece of Human Garbage Adam Baldwin likeable for like a minute'*

*Not an exact quote, but pretty darn close.

The Second Thing I wasn't aware of-

Apparently We Don't Like Adam Baldwin...?

Prior to hearing this, my knowledge of Adam Baldwin was -

1. He played Jayne on Firefly, which was awesome
2. He was some guy on the last season of Angel, which was pretty good but not as good as Gina Torres had been on that show the previous year.
3. The second act of Full Metal Jacket has always felt a little formless to me (although I think that might be kind of the point).  Oh, and..
4.  He once lost a fight with a manatee

So hearing him referred to as a sentient piece of human garbage by a man who's opinion I was coming to respect in a, 'Hey, you've said a lot of stuff online that I broadly agree with' kind of way gave me a moment of pause. And so I did what any sensible person would do in the circumstances and googled it.

The Third Thing I wasn't aware of-

Gamergate

To be fair, I was vaguely aware that this was a thing.  My sum total of my knowledge about it was pretty much summed up by, 'A bunch of anonymous guys on the Internet found an excuse to justify* threatening women with violent rape while distributing said women's personal information.' It's all done in the name of 'ethics', apparently.

*Justify to themselves, obviously.

It turns out that any research about why we don't like Adam Baldwin is irrevocably linked with Gamergate, which has unfortunately led me to having to learn more about the whole thing. For example, I eventually googled 'SJW', as I had no idea what it meant and people kept insisting on using it in sentences.  (It turns out it means 'Social Justice Warrior(s)', and appears to be a catchall phrase for 'Shut up, I don't want to think about that.') The reason that the whole thing is so intertwined with Adam Baldwin is...

The Fourth Thing I wasn't aware of - 

Adam Baldwin Coined the Phrase 'Gamergate' (allegedly)

No, I'm not going to put the hashtag on it.  This whole thing is dangerously searchable enough as it is, and while there's very little that Gamergate enthusiasts could do to my credit score that I haven't done myself already there's no reason to push it.

Not only did he (allegedly) coin the term, but he seems to spend a lot of time and effort using it as a hashtag on twitter. Which sort of brings us to -

One Thing that We All Already Knew 

 

Joss Whedon is a Better Person Than You.

Or me. Or anyone else not named Joss Whedon.*

*There's a case to be made for Jane Espenson...

There's an easily findable interview with Our Joss in which he addresses the Adam Baldwin question. Essentially, the question he was asked was - 'Is working with Adam Baldwin weird since the whole gamergate thing?' to which he said (and I'm paraphrasing here) 'You know, Adam is a hardworking, decent guy that always came to work ready to work hard and do his best. That's the Adam I like to think about, not the Adam who sometimes shouts down me or Felicia Day on Twitter'

That there is pretty much the definition of a classy answer, and it goes some way toward again confirming why Joss is so beloved not just by his fans but also by just about everyone who's ever worked with him.*

*Although am I the only one who gets the feeling that there's some sort of weird vibe between him and Sarah Michelle Gellar?

This, in a big circular way, eventually led me to the answer to the question I was ostensibly researching in the first place.

One Thing We ALL Should Know Instinctively

It Is Not - EVER - OK to Attack Felicia Day

Not even verbally.

Not even on Twitter.

Not cool, Adam Baldwin.

It's just not that easy to make archery seem 'hip'

I ended up watching Marvel's The Avengers twice this weekend* and I feel like we as a people can no longer avoid one simple undeniable truth. - Being really good with a bow and arrow just isn't that cool as a super power.  I'm sorry, but we have to face that together before we can move on from this point.

* It was raining and I was with two different people who hadn't seen it at different times and who are you to judge me.

I'm referring here of course to the character of Hawkeye as played by young Jeremy Renner in the aforementioned film.  Hawkeye's superpower is that he's a really, really good shot with a bow and arrow.  Which means that Joss Whedon got to add in lots of lovely shots of Mssr. Renner shooting one way and looking the other.  Plus Hawkeye was the character who got the obligatory 'brainwashed into working for the enemy so pretty much unrecognizable as a character for most of the film'

It was this last point that apparently didn't sit well with Jeremy who has gone on record as saying that he was disappointed that that 'wasn't the character I signed on to play'.

To which I respond  - No... THIS is the character you signed on to play...

Having dodged the enormous pointy fuschia mask, I think you came out ahead of the deal, Jeremy

Which brings me to my point.  The defining feature of Hawkeye is the bow and arrow.  And bows and arrows just aren't particularly cool in and of themselves*

*Unlike bowties.

 Leaving aside the fact that a superhero who uses a bow and arrow just begs the question of whether murdering bad guys in the name of protecting the innocent is morally justifiable (because if your main weapon is the bow and arrow you don't have a whole ton of other options really.  Kill, wound, wound slightly less and startle.  Oh, and that cool computer virus arrow thing that Hawkeye did in the movie but it's not like that's going to help you stop a mugging, now is it.)

It all goes back to Robin Hood of course.  Robin Hood was pretty cool.  Robin Hood used a Bow and Arrow.  Therefore Bows and Arrows must be cool, so the syllogism goes.

To which any sane person responds -  Robin Hood was cool because he robbed from the freakin' rich and gave to the freakin' poor.  His choice of accessories had precious little to do with it.  You know why Robin Hood used a bow and arrow?  Because it was the highest level of weaponry at the time, that's why.  It's not like he stopped while putting on tights and thought 'Gosh, maybe tonight I won't use the taser... the bow and arrow has such panache!'

So, fast forward a few centuries and DC comics decides to create a new superhero who was more or less a modern Robin Hood and therefore used a bow and arrow and dressed in forest green with a jaunty cap.  This character at least used a lot of trick arrows like smoke arrows, net arrows and in at least one unfortunate episode - boxing glove arrows.*

*As opposed to the current televised version in the show Arrow who merely teaches us that the secret to crimefighting is to spend a lot of time brooding in a warehouse with your shirt off.  But to be fair, he is pretty ripped, and if I was I'd probably do the same, so fair point to him.

This is classic Green Arrow.  

You're going to have to Google pictures of shirtless Stephen Amell on your own.

Eventually, because there is a longstanding law that anything remotely original at either Marvel or DC must immediately have an almost identical version created at the rival company, Marvel created Hawkeye.  Who was totally unlike Green Arrow because he wore purple.  

So take heart, Jeremy Renner - Things could have been much worse.