It's Bill Maher all over again. Sigh. The other day, comedian Marc Maron -- who also has a role in DC's upcoming Joker movie with Joaquin Phoenix -- was on Conan and shaded superhero movies as for "grown male nerd childs." There was more to what he said, I'll recap below, but fans were not happy. The backlash made its way to Maron on social media and he lashed out at the religious fervor of MCU fans.
Yeah, he's not backing down. His issue is not with comics, as he said, he's just not into mainstream superhero movies -- and the must-see hype of superhero movies like the highest-grossing movie of all time. Not that he's seen it.
During his Conan appearance, Marc Maron said he was proud to have not seen Avengers: Endgame. The topic came up when Conan O'Brien mentioned people thought he played the young Stan Lee in Endgame. Maron said he's never been in a Marvel movie and he had some issues with them.
I generally don't like them, because I don't want to be bullied into seeing those. Look, Conan, I'm a grown-up. I'm not 7. I think those movies are for grown male nerd childs.
Someone in the audience "ooohed" and Marc Maron directly lashed out at them -- saying because "you guys" are now "in charge of culture," he has to drive 15-20 minutes to a smaller theater to watch a movie for grown-ups. He wasn't kidding, but he also wasn't taking it too seriously. That was part of his point. He was mocking in a sarcastic way. He seemed to return to the issue in another Twitter post several hours after the one above:
OK, but what did he expect? He thought he could just say the most popular movies of all time were for "grown male nerd childs" and everyone would laugh or ignore it? At least he knows his mic is on. (I'm most "outraged" about the "childs." It was too hard to just say "children," you coward?!)
In a way it does remind me -- in a lesser way -- of the furor against Bill Maher, who mocked comic book fans' "deep, deep mourning" for Stan Lee after his death. That started a whole backlash, too. Comedians like to push buttons, and there are always people out there who take pride in announcing they don't like the new popular thing.
That's not to say he's wrong about comic book fans jumping quickly to outrage. There are people planning to protest in Sony's lot because Spider-Man appears to be leaving the MCU. Fans take this stuff very seriously. I love Marvel/DC fans' passion, as long as it doesn't cross the line into something vicious or hysterical.
Marc Maron was on Conan to promote the new season of GLOW on Netflix, but he is also said to play aspiring comedian Arthur Fleck's (Joaquin Phoenix) agent in Joker, which opens in October. His involvement in Joker led to calls of hypocrisy and a mini renewal of the DC/Marvel feud, but it doesn't even seem to have been foremost in his mind. He just wanted to work with Robert De Niro, who is also in Joker.
Besides, Joker definitely seems like a smaller comic book movie, it's not aiming for Justice League or Avengers scale. Joker opens in theaters October 4.
