Sorry To Sound Cynical But... · 11:29pm Jul 6th, 2019
So, I've been hearing about a father who wanted a Spider-Man on his son's grave but Disney couldn't give him permission.
While, of course, I'm disappointed in their decision and my sympathies are with the father and family at this time of grief...well...
This is difficult for me to say but I don't think putting Spider-Man on a child's grave would be a good idea in the first place.
I don't think Disney are being malignant here. Insensitive, perhaps, but the more I think about it, the more problems could emerge if they allowed it.
Two key reasons.
1. Consider for a moment how many people are going to treat a gravestone with spider-man's likeness as a gimmick. Do you think the father will appreciate that? Seeing everybody taking selfies of it? Having it treated like a tourist attraction?
You think I'm exaggerating but this kind of thing is an unfortunate possibility. Drawing attention to a resting spot in such a way is not going to end well.
Consider, for a grisly moment, the possibility of trolls.
2. As much as I and many others wish it were the opposite, creative likenesses and copyright is not a simple matter. Yes, we see it everywhere nowadays but it's licensed at every turn.
There is a difference between a man in a spider-man outfit for a kid's birthday and a picture of spider-man of a gravestone.
If people would be allowed to put likenesses on their graves, where would it end? Would we have Frollo on them or Hades? Would we have Darth Maul? Because considering the...well...character of those characters, that could be taken rather badly.
That's not even getting into the possible accusations of sacrilegious iconography (Yes, that sounds like a stretch but graves? In a graveyard? We get enough problems as it is and Disney isn't one for rattling cages of that kind)
At the end of the day, I can see no good reason how putting a Spider-Man on a child's grave would be a good idea. I understand that it was a sweet gesture with the best of intentions and from a difficult place but I just don't think the reasoning was sound.
I'm sorry if that makes me sound unsympathetic. I assure you, I feel deeply sorry for the man and I hope he gets the support he needs at this time but a system where people could put stuff like that on their graves? It just wouldn't work. There are many other opportunities to remember the departed's interests and past-times.
I actually speak from memory. I have an instance in my past which I still regret to this day.
When I was still at school, the little sister of my brother's friend died of cancer and everybody at school held a remembrance ceremony and passed on condolences to the girl's family.
The thing is, while my brother had met her personally, I knew her on World of Warcraft which I played at the time. But that was all I knew her about. And at the time, I couldn't really think.
So I drew pictures and wrote poems based on World of Warcraft. I meant it sympathetically but I was a young, ignorant child who had no idea what kind of thing these parents were feeling.
My brother found out and took the pictures and poems away before the family could see them. At least I hope he did. I didn't understand then but I do now and I'm still haunted by it. I only hope I didn't hurt anyone's feelings. I've never been brave enough to ask.
Because I don't think it's right remembering a departed through someone else's icon, whether it's Disney or Marvel or Blizzard or Hasbro. It's people like us who complain about flagrant advertising at it is. If the departed made it themselves (Say Spider-Man on Stan Lee's grave, Mickey Mouse on Walt Disney's, etr.) that's fair, remembering the work and the artist. I'm all for that.
But this?
Do you know what it could lead to? Companies being able to advertise their products on people's graves?! Who wants to live like that?! Who wants to die like that?!
So I'm sorry. I'm sorry to sound mean.
But I think Disney made the right decision.
If you disagree, that's fine.
I'm sure there are other things they could have said and done and I hope they consider it later on under better circumstances.
But I just don't think this would have worked.
I hope my words haven't drastically changed your opinion about me. I just wanted to talk about this from my side of understanding and approach it from a sensible stand-point.
Because I feel that's really the only stand-point you can take for something this difficult.
Once again, I'm sorry for their loss.
At some things, there's a line. You don't advertise with the deaths of people. You should always pay respect to those who have died.
5085225
Right.
To be honest, I just feel like this was a very unfortunate circumstance but I don't think anyone acted cruelly, just carelessly.
5085226
Yes, some people just forgot to think first
5085229
Well, in such circumstances at that, losing a child, it's certainly understandable.
5085232
Indeed.
I have to agree, Disney can't grant that wish. And people are getting angry at the wrong party for all the wrong reasons.
I can see your point, though I still feel that Disney's decision was wrong.
At the very least I think they should have let the Marvel crew make this decision. I know Disney owns the rights to the character, but they didn't create the character, they could've let someone at Marvel make this decision. Also yeah the response could have been a little better.
5085302
I have a feeling Marvel would have responded the same way.
Then we'd all be up in arms screaming 'Sell-Out' and 'Ever since Stan Lee left etr.', probably blaming Fox in some way.
This trend of feeling victimised by companies is causing more harm than good. As I said in my previous blog, know who's really responsible and react sensibly.
My concern on it wasn't the possible advertising, it was the issue of who owns the rights, if Disney does not fight to keep their intellectual properties, and just let's who ever put whatever character Disney owns on their grave at what point will Disney have to say no one, not even they, own that character (ie the character is forced to be placed in the public domain) and once it happens to one character... you could argue I am making a slippery slope logical fallacy, but most people who can recognize patterns often see that is how things start.
Does it suck for the family emotionally, yes.
But is Disney in the wrong? No.
And to any one that says 'Well Stan Lee would never...' 1) it wasn't Stan Lee's call any longer when he sold his own shares of Marvel to Disney back in 2008
2) Stan Lee is dead
3) Would of and could of are irrelevant
And 4) If anything Stan would have designed a Spider-Man like character or version of Spider-man based on the boy.
Yeah, I have to agree with you here. It's a bit careless, and was bound to make the news, but I see your point.
5085330
Maybe they would have, maybe they wouldn't.
It's a sad situation no matter how you look at it. I just hope this situation gets better, maybe Disney can offer some compensation to the family. . . okay maybe that wouldn't work cause Disney doesn't really owe them anything, but I think a friendly gesture or offer might have made things go over better? I don't know, I think Disney could have and should have done better in this particular scenario, even if they still decided to refuse the request. I just hope things get better for the family, and even for Disney too.
Regarding your last point (for the record I don't currently follow you, I found your blog through a link and thought you had some interesting points and decided to leave my two cents. So I hadn't seen your previous blog.) I'll actually agree that people tend to take things way too far with companies. Looking over your other blog I agree with a lot of what you have to say people tend to throw companies under the bus for almost any mistake these days, it's kind of ridiculous (in my opinion). However in some cases (like EA) companies kind of earn their reputation due to their practices. It's not exactly fair to the people who just work there, but it's also not fair to just let companies keep making those kinds of practices.
Now please don't take that out of context I don't believe Disney is as bad as EA. I still think they have a long way to go before they reach that level, and even when companies start to fall from grace I still want to hope they can get better. And I still want to see the company (Or I suppose the individual responsible for the choice) learn from their decisions, both good and bad. Personally for me this was a bad decision on Disney's part, I'm not going to rave and rant, and I agree this might be getting more traction than it needs, but that doesn't change my mind for now. However I'm not condeming the company either, sure they may have lost some respect from me, but not all of it they still have every opportunity to get it back, and I believe they can. And of course I respect your opinion as well.
(Wow that ended up being much longer than I intended. Sorry about that.)
5085946
It's fine. You've made some sensible suggestions.