BlogHer - Dark Knight - Comments

Trolls and the Dark Knight

Liz Henry — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 20:28:13 -0500

I didn't like the way gender was used in The Dark Knight. The male characters treated women as property to be fought over. What's her name, the utterly forgettable paragon of virtue who Batman and Two-Face struggle to own, only speaks up to deny that her life is worth anything or to try and decide which patriarch gets her (and the city) as a prize.

And the potentially great character of Barbara Gordon was reduced to a weepy dishrag of a gullible mom and wife, with no agency or voice of her own.

Anyway, about trolls, they'll do whatever they please; if they take it over the line to direct and imminent threats of harm then report it to the police just as you would in regular non-online life.

I disagree with attempts to make the net "safe space" or to ban hate speech by law though I think setting community standards on a site, or your own standards on your own site, are just fine. We get to call out attempts to intimidate us based on our gender and just have to keep pointing out how screwed up they are, and carrying on whatever it is we talk about in public and not be intimidated.

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Liz Henry
lizzard@bookmaniac.net
Contributing Editor, World and Latin America

Believe it or not

alyssaroyse — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 19:38:07 -0500

Between the P-I and I, I think we've deleted about 50 or so comments. And I have now closed comments on it, so that pretty much stopped it. I actually would have left them all up just so that people can see, first hand, the kind of stuff that happens. It's hard to be outraged by something that is just hypothetical... well, here it is. Unfortunately, the ones that got taken down were the worst ones - the most violent and threatening and gross - so they were also the most powerful ones that might enrage and inspire others in to action!

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Alyssa Royse

Just Cause It: A Web Site To Save The World

Start Her Up: A Blog for Women Entrepreneurs

moderating

The Blog That Ate New Jersey — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 19:31:49 -0500

doesn't anyone moderate those comments?

GREAT ARTICLE

alyssaroyse — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 10:18:04 -0500

I read that yesterday, and it's HORRIFYING! I never took any of the threats a statements personally or seriously, but am horrified as to what this says about people...... In the light of the 2 kids they cite in the articles who committed suicide over the cyber bullying, and Kathy Sierra giving up her blog and speaking engagements..... It's crazy. What can we do?

I put out a query on a PR list and got more than a dozen responses in an hour of people this happened to.... what's wrong with these trolls?

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Alyssa Royse

Just Cause It: A Web Site To Save The World

Start Her Up: A Blog for Women Entrepreneurs

i don't mind disagreement

alyssaroyse — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 09:37:40 -0500

In fact, I usually hope for disagreement, because that's where conversation and growth happen. What is astonishing to me are the calls that I should be staying at home having babies and / or raped and shot. Or simply irately calling names. That isn't dialog, that's just verbal violence.

It's also interesting to me - and this i could have made more clear - that people assumed I was looking at box office return of the movie, I wasn't, I was looking at the quality of the film, which is totally subjective. But that's not here nor there because my objection isn't to being disagreed with, it's to being berated and threatened and harassed as a result of a disagreement.

Truly frightens me as to what filth and grim lurks below the surface.

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Alyssa Royse

Just Cause It: A Web Site To Save The World

Start Her Up: A Blog for Women Ent

Sorry for the creeps ...

Totally_Consumed — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 09:23:02 -0500

It's hard to accept feedback from people who disagree with our perspective, especially when they passionately disagree. But I have to say, after reading your original article and the comments, I thought that most of the comments addressed your premise, not your gender.

The comments were from people who felt like your article was ironic because, as a business model, 'The Dark Knight' was wildly successful; and yet you hold it up as an example of poor business decision-making. How can it be such a poor business model and simultaneously one of the most successful business ventures of this decade?

When counting references to gender, I get a lot less than "maybe 3" that didn't mention gender. And for those inappropriate comments, I agree, they were way out of line, uncalled for and down-right scary. I'm truly sorry some creeps posted those terrible things.

Sincerely,

~ Totally Consumed

yikes!

christinajeanne — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 21:41:38 -0500

I'm sorry. that is terrible that people treat you that way just because you did not like the movie. I mean those are some pretty severe comments. I have never quite had that exprince but I have recived some pretty rude comments in the past on my blog or e-mails from people who read my blog. So I can sort of relate. I know it makes it so hard to blog and scared to say what you think. But don't let these people scare you.

Completely unnecessary

lucrecerb — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 21:04:55 -0500

Honestly, I have to wonder what is really going on when people leave comments like that. I defended a friend who was being virtually burned at the stake on a message board a few months ago and suddenly had offensive messages in my inbox. Luckily, I did not internalize what was said, but it also taught me that you just don't know what kind of people are reading your stuff and taking it literally.

I am sorry to hear this happened to you just because you had an opinion. Makes you wonder what the world is coming to.

Art Slam