If there's one thing the pop culture fandom loves, it's hate. People can't get enough of hate watching, hate listening, hate everything you can think of. Just look at how people react to any new installment "Star Wars" , "Star Trek" , MCU, or DCEU. Sure, there's a lot of love, but there's also a lot of negativity. It's been that way for years. And it's not always limited to people posting angry messages on social media. Let's take a look at some of the most shocking examples of pop culture hate going beyond the pale.
10. Richard Donner received death threats for Superman
People going crazy over comic book movies is not a modern phenomenon. Back when Richard Donner was directing Superman for his first blockbuster in 1978, your grandparents were just as angry as some fans are today.
In 2020, Donner opened up about his experience creating Superman back in the 1970s. Part of it was dealing with “fans” who didn’t want to experience the Christ allegory, which is pretty obvious, though not too involved in what happens in the film. Essentially, Donner acknowledged that a powerful being from afar sending his only son to live among humans and potentially saving them from themselves could be seen as an allegory for Christ, and people didn’t get it. One woman even told him his blood would “flow through the streets ". "
Keep in mind, this is 1978, so this wasn't some random anonymous letter sent to the director in a moment of passion. This lady had to take a pen and paper, write it, find Richard Donner's address, get a stamp, and mail it to him. This is a commitment to a death threat.
It should also be noted that in telling this story, Donner mentions threats and several people, so this lady was not alone.
9. Gene Siskel Doxxed the Creators of Friday the 13th
Before the Internet turned a million people into film critics, there were Leonard Maltin, Siskel, and Ebert. Gene Siskel and Robert Ebert were both smart people, but they managed to reduce film criticism to an approval or a rebuke, the prototype of our modern Fresh or Rotten rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
The two men did give more detailed film reviews, and sometimes they went shockingly astray. Although Ebert was more often known for going on wild tangents and tearing apart films and directors he didn't like. Gene Siskel may have taken the cake with one of the earliest examples of doxxing in film criticism history.
When did it come out? "Friday the 13th" , it was not a critical darling. Gene Siskel not only disliked the film, he hated it with such a passion that one would think Jason Voorhees and his mother might have murdered Siskel's own family. In his review of the film, he takes the time to tell readers the address of the studio's parent company and advise people to send hate mail.
Also, Siskel ruins the movie's twist,ending in the second paragraph of the review, and then indicates the actress's hometown, recommending to people Also send her hate mail . It's hard to imagine something like this happening to a film critic today, but if it does, you know there's a precedent.
8. Pro-Hitler Fans Threaten to Release Captain America #1
Captain America is one of the oldest and most famous comic books in history. The first issue came out way back in 1941, right in the middle of World War II, and the cover of the book features Cap punching a square-shaped Adolf Hitler in his Nazi mug. You'd think people would be just as happy to see that back then as they are today, and you'd be right. But just like today, there were a few people back then who actually liked the whole Nazi thing, and they weren't too amused.
Writer Joe Simon once shared in an interview that he and artist Jack Kirby had to respond to death threats from Nazi sympathizers in the form of letters and phone calls from the state. And while they were easy enough to ignore at first, things got worse and worse. The men began appear in the office, and it got so bad that they had to call the police to report it. An officer began patrolling the halls regularly to protect the Marvel office from angry Nazi elements who were enraged by the comic.
Of course, this won't be Captain America's only run-in with an angry public. As recently as 2016, Cap switched allegiances and became an agent of Hydra in a storyline that infuriated fans, some of whom Also sent writer Nick Spencer several death threats .
7. Sherlock Holmes fans reacted strongly to the character's death
Further evidence that overreactions are nothing new to pop culture comes from the world of Sherlock Holmes. When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle killed off his famous detective, fans revolted. The stories published in the Strand Magazine ended, and so did the subscription 20,000 readers , who threw the magazine down in anger. Others wore black armbands and sent angry letters to mourn their hero, all back in 1893 .
Rumor has it that Doyle received hundreds of hate letters, Strand received bags of them, and people were even seen cried in the streets , reading the final story.
6. White supremacists made death threats against Johnny Cash
In the history of music, few singers have had the tough guy reputation that Johnny Cash had. The man was an outlaw. He was reckless, had run-ins with the cops, and sang “Folsom Prison Blues”! Although he never actually did any hard labor, he was arrested several times and spent a night in jail. But he had the look of a dude you didn’t want to mess with. Despite this, white supremacists were not fans of the man in black, and he was threatened, boycotted, and forced to cancel shows in the 1960s, all because of hate.
After one arrest for drug smuggling, Cash was photographed leaving the courthouse with his wife, Vivian Liberto. Vivian, a black Italian woman with one African-American ancestor several generations ago, was considered black by racists, which in turn made Cash a target. The show were cancelled, As a result, the couple was subjected to a number of threats.
5. Clown Lives Matter organizers received death threats
Not so long ago, in much simpler times, one of the biggest things people worried about on a day-to-day basis was clowns. There was a general clown panic, based on nothing , but it did make some headlines. And for the clowns in real life, it was something of a nightmare because of all the hate that came their way.
Due to unfounded rumors about clowns trying to kidnap children from many states, people were outraged and scared. It didn't matter that the stories weren't true; the flames were started by people simply walking down the street dressed as creepy clowns, and the internet did the rest.
The reaction was so strong that the planned walk Clown Lives Matter , where real clowns wanted to walk around to show that they were just normal people who wanted to entertain you, was closed due to threats.
People took issue with the name of the walk, a parody of the much more serious Black Lives Matter, but when the organizer started receiving death threats, all of this was covered up, making one wonder who was the real danger.
4. "Bridget Loves Bernie" was cancelled after protests and threats
In 1973, CBS aired a sitcom called "Bridget Loves Bernie" . It depicted a Catholic woman marrying a Jewish man, and Jewish groups in America hated it. There were some references to negative Jewish stereotypes, but the main reason was that they did not approve of interfaith marriages. Both Conservative and Orthodox rabbis spoke out against the show, saying it was " ridicules the teachings of Judaism ".
Boycotts of the network and sponsors were organized, but things got worse. Meredith Baxter, the "Family Ties" mom and star of the show, said that at one point in the show, bomb threat , and members of the Jewish Defense League showed up at her home. Producers received threatening phone calls, which also led to at least one arrest. The show, despite critical praise, was canceled after one season.
3. To the Creator " Attacks on Titan" repeatedly threatened with death
If you're an anime fan, you probably know about Attack on Titan, the series , founded based on the manga of the same name, which was released in 2009 . blog, reportedly as many as 1,000. And these weren't just "I want you dead" threats, these were outright "I will kill him on this particular day and get away with it" threats.
It has been suggested that the threats came from a character in the series based on a real figure from the Imperial Japanese Army. Years later, a voice actress from the show also received threats death , although the criminal in this case was at least arrested.
2. Rebecca Black was 13 years old and received death threats because of a song
In 2011, the biggest thing on the Internet was a silly music video made by a teenage girl. Rebecca Black's "Friday" wasn't a good song, and that's okay. And people on the Internet made fun of it, and to some extent that's okay, too. The song was very simple and childish because that's what it was; it was made by a child. Black was an aspiring singer, and her parents financed the video to help make the dream a reality. Unfortunately, it turned into something of a nightmare.
The internet, as usual, went too far. The song was huge, it was viewed millions of times, and people were bombarding Black with hate. Her parents shielded her from some of the threats, but the police had to get involved. People were telling her cut yourself, otherwise they hoped she would develop an eating disorder. She was bullied so much that her parents began teach her Houses .
This story does have a happy ending, at least as Black persevered and spoke out against the bullying, continuing to pursue her musical dreams even today.
1. Malcolm McDowell received death threats for killing Captain Kirk.
Star Trek: Generations was supposed to be the greatest of all the Trek films, bringing together the cast of the original series with the cast of Next generation" . Fans got to see Captain Kirk and Captain Picard on screen when the baton was passed and the original cast finally left the big screen. Part of this was due to Captain Kirk's on-screen death.
The film is a bit of a flop. It has a 47% on Rotten Tomatoes, and is generally considered a pleasant middle of the road and a memorable entry into the pantheon of Trek films. But at least one actor walked away with more death threats than the average Trek film generates, and that was Malcolm McDowell.
McDowell played the villain in the film and the man responsible for Kirk's death. According to McDowell, his nephew , who played Dr. Bashir in Deep Space Nine, called him to tell him the news — people on the internet wanted him dead. He did not take the threats seriously , but the studio still ensured his safety.
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