It's supposed to be a convention celebrating comic books and related arts and genres. But what it really has been is one long promo for the film entertainment industry with a little bit of TV thrown in.
As you head down Harbor Drive and approach the Convention Center, you see Supermans, Supergirls, Wolverines, Wonder Womans, Jokers, assorted characters from the sci-fi classic Star Trek. Seeing so many people dressed in costumes, largely comic book costumes, it's easy to wrongly assume that you're about to enter a building where the comic book consumers and the comic book artists will relate to one another on equal footing.
Instead, it's one press junket after another. Thursday belonged to Twilight and an energetic crowd turned out to hear the not-so-bright or mature cast speak. Though largely worshipful, the crowd gathered to hear the 4-11 on New Moon (the sequel) which features Taylor Lautner as a new character, apparently a gay porn actor judging from the footage (received with cheers and cat calls) of him parading around half-dressed.
Was Twilight a comic book? No, it started out as a book for young readers. Then it turned into a cheesy movies and, judging by the comments made Thursday and footage shown, it's about to go even cheesier. Maybe New Moon can do a tie-in with Cheetos?
And Robert Pattinson might want to see if a John Belushi bio-pic's casting soon. Two young women were arguing over who he looked like in person with one insisting "the old guy on the old SNL" when one of us (Jess) said, "John Belushi?" Bingo. Twilight managed to suck the life out of every thing else on Thursday -- which included Tim Burton and Johnny Depp appearing to plug Alice In Wonderland.
Friday saw more movies, movies, movies, movies!!!!! Cameron Diaz and James Marsden (Cyclops in the X-Men) promoted the upcoming sci-fi film The Box, Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman and Mila Kunis promoted the film The Book Of Eli, Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man) and Rachel McAdams promoted Sherlock Holmes (no, not a comic, not sci-fi) Josh Brolin and Megan Fox promoted Jonah Hex (just another Boy Falls For Prostitute film -- but boy's ageless) and there was even promotion for the children's story book turned to film Where The Wilds Things Are. Next year, Dakota Fanning promotes Really Rosie!!!! And of course, Friday saw Peter Jackson, mega director after The Lord of the Rings films and apparently pretty sure the well's yet to go dry on that franchise, hence his discussion of the two films he's got in the works for The Hobbitt.
Saturday seemed less like film day, largely because it was TV day. And also because it was Iron Man day and few wanted to compete with that. Jon Favreau directed the film and the soon to be released sequel and he held court with Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson (what, no Gwyneth?), Don Cheadle and Sam Rockwell. Cheadle's character caused excitement in the trailer, War Machine, the anti-Iron Man.
If it was the hit of Saturday (and honestly, the hit of the first thee days, not even the squeals for Twilight matched the enthusiasm for Iron Man II), the failure Saturday was clearly a TV show. Lost lost steam sometime ago and that was very obvious by the lack of enthusiasm over their presentation. As the show prepares for its final season, Comic Con attendees we spoke with as they left the Lost presentation felt the show should have ended two years ago.
Sully from Oakland put it this way, "At this point, it's got all the excitement of a Golden Girls finale."
What did have excitement was the panel for NBC's Chuck.
The panel had excitement and it also encapsulated all that was good and bad about the first three days of the convention.
Among those appearing were wooly bully and shaggy Zachary Levi, Adam Baldwin, Josh Gomez, Vik Sahay, and Ryan McPartlin. Oh, and Yvonne Strahovski.
She plays Sarah. Her performance is one of the reasons the show has remained on the air. But you wouldn't know it from the panel. You wouldn't know it from the presentation. In fact, from the presentation and the comments, you'd assume that Chuck was a show about a group of gay men and Yvonne was the token hag.
Why is that?
Well, for starters, a lengthy bit was written for B-actors Sahay (Lester) and Krinsky (Jeff) to perform. The performance included "Fat Bottomed Girls" -- as if to really underscore that it was penis-time.
What crowd pleaser, what laugh getter wasn't present? Julia Ling who essays the amazing Anna Wu. And not only was she not present, but she wasn't missed. Gomez (who plays her love interest Morgan) revealed he'll be attempting to seduce a female spy (who appeared in season one) in upcoming episodes. And no one batted an eye. No one called out, "What about Anna Wu!" And he certainly didn't fire back, "Anna Wu who?"
Women were disappeared. That was obvious as McPartlin started yammering away about how his character (a doctor married to Chuck's sister) is going to get into the spy stuff this season. (While Ellie, apparently, will cook dinner and wait for hubby to show.)
Most of all, there was Yvonne Strahovski, ignored until the final seconds of the panel, finally asked a question, and speaking for less than ten seconds before the guys jump in and start talking over her.
Justice was the fact that, after the panel, as we spoke to various attendees, they all brought that up. In fact, had what was seen as sexism (we'll let others make that call) not popped up so openly at the end, many wouldn't have made the connection and wouldn't have started asking what about Anna Wu?
But after the conference, they were doing just that. Male and female (though there were far more male attendees than female ones for that panel). We saw Cameron Diaz expertly handle a huge crowd (unlike the Twilights kids) and we're sure Strahovski could have as well. It's a shame she wasn't given a chance to shine and it's a shame that when she was finally asked a question, the males didn't seem to think she was interesting enough to be allowed to answer in full.
But their actions told on themselves and left a very sour taste for many of the attendees.
The attendees began talking in groups about how the Chuck and Sarah almost-romance had been strung out far too long and about how they're really not keen on, revealed during the panel, Chuck's temporary loss of walking (paralysis?) after using his new kung-fu powers. They started really questioning the direction of the show and wondering why Ellie (a huge fan favorite among attendees) was judged so unimportant that the actress who plays her wasn't even on the panel?
We didn't raise the issues with the attendees. We stumbled upon them as we spoke to the various groups gathering outside the hall after the panel. Comic Con had a large number of women attending (not just the Twilight groupies who were all but gone after Thursday) and it also had a number of men attending who did notice things like representation. All that came together in the Chuck panel and the presentation just wasn't prepared for it. No one ever factored it in. From song choices to smutty little jokes, the entire presentation appeared to think the whole world was male.
Chuck comes back with new episodes in March (sooner if Leno's show tanks) and it'll be interesting to see what happens. What was truly the liveliest panel while it was ongoing resulted in an intensely negative reaction after it ended. The actors did a song and dance that didn't go down well and that may be foreshadowing for season three of Chuck.
And Comic Con? If San Diego's Comic Con was any indication, the attendees want less sexism, less film trailers and a lot more events that have to do with comics. The biggest hit with males and females of all ages? Black Beauty? The Green Hornet car (to debut in the film starring Seth Rogen) was a huge hit -- both in terms of people standing in front of the ropes to get their pictures taken with the car in view behind them and in terms of one of the most cited events. (The most cited event? The Twilight panel -- cited non-stop through Saturday evening and always negatively.)
----------
This piece is written by Jess, Ty, Isaiah, Betty, Dona and Jim. Jess, Ty and Isaiah attended Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Betty, Dona and Jim attended Saturday. Betty's kids and her parents attended all three days and we thank them for feedback on this piece. Illustration by Isaiah.