Are Zack Snyder’s “Snyder Bros” Toxic? My Thoughts on Snyder’s Recent Comments!

In just a few weeks, it’s the 10-year anniversary of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. This is one of the most polarizing blockbusters of the last decade. There’s people that adore this movie and people that hate it. The film has a 28% on Rotten Tomatoes but still managed to make $870 million. To celebrate the film’s anniversary, Zack Snyder appeared on Josh Horowitz’s “Happy, Sad, Confused”, and discussed his thoughts on his fans, and I have some thoughts on it. Let’s talk about it!

Zack Snyder’s Quotes: “I think the fans should never forget that they did that. We raised a lot of money for suicide prevention, and they really did a lot of good. They catch a lot of flak for being toxic or whatever, but they literally saved human lives, so you can go f*** yourself if that’s what you think.”

My Thoughts

So, Zack Snyder is one of the most interesting directors currently working. He’s the most polarizing where he has very vocal fans and haters. You either love or hate Zack Snyder, there’s not in between with him. Because he’s so polarizing he’s created this massive fan following where people view him as a god. People worship this guy as the second coming of Christ or something. There’s also people that view him as a bad director that can’t stand his movies. Both sides are completely fair, and I understand why people would fall on both sides.

Do I think his quote on the podcast is reasonable? Yes and no is my answer. Zack Snyder’s fan base or as people refer to them the Snyder Bros are very vocal on the internet. They were crapping and will continue to crap on everything that James Gunn is doing with his DC universe. They were trying to boycott Superman last summer and make sure that movie bombed (it didn’t). He has this cult-like following surrounding only his DC films. None of these people are defending Army of the Dead or Rebel Moon, they only defend his DC films. But the Snyder Bros isn’t all of Snyder’s fan base. Snyder has fans that aren’t involved in the culture war side of things, they’re just fans. They’re fans that loved Henry Cavill’s Superman and Ben Affleck’s Batman and are disappointed that the DCEU is over. But they can also be excited about James Gunn’s Superman and everything he’s doing with DC. But the loudest voices on the internet when it comes to Snyder are, I would say, toxic. Like I said, they’ve this cult-like following with his DC films and have this mindset of, if you’re not with us, then you’re against us. They have gone after celebrities that have supported James Gunn. David Ayer, the director of Suicide Squad (2016) another film that a victim of the poor management of the DCEU. Since Snyder got to release his cut of Justice League, they’ve been hoping to see Ayer’s true version of Suicide Squad (2016). When the first trailer for Superman dropped, David Ayer retweeted and said that he was excited to see it and was rooting for James Gunn. The Snyder Bros sent him death threats because he supported Gunn. That’s such crazy and toxic behavior that I don’t understand at all. A director was supporting another director’s film, that’s all that he was doing. Now he’s the bad guy because he supported “the villain”, which is such a crazy mindset. They were mad at Jason Momoa for joining Supergirl as Lobo. I would say that there’s a sizable part of Snyder’s fanbase that is toxic, not all of them are toxic but a sizable percentage of them are.

Now, the other side of the quote that he said was discussing the good that they’ve done. If you don’t know about Snyder’s personal life in 2017. He was in the middle of directing Justice League (2017), when his daughter tragically committed suicide. That’s the moment when WB took the film away from him and started making it their own thing. Snyder’s fans raised over $500,000 for American Foundation of Suicide Pervention in honor or Snyder’s daughter, Autumn. That’s where the part of the quote that addresses “they saved lives”, he’s referring to this. That is very cool that they did it. It’s a very cool and generous thing to help others. I can see why Snyder wouldn’t like that his fans are called toxic because they helped a cause close to Snyder and his family.

But, to bring this back around, I think he’s missing the negative stuff that they’ve done. I think he’s not acknowledging that there’s passionate fans that support him, but there’s also some very toxic things that his fans are doing. If I was Zack Snyder and I saw the boycotting of Gunn’s Superman film and everything related to that, I would be embarrassed that this is my fanbase. I would also be happy and grateful for the money they raised. If Snyder is celebrating the good stuff they’ve done, he also should address the negative stuff they’ve done.