Would You Buy A Used Car From Bill “Jett” Ramey?

Now, the “rumor-mongering sites” do indeed rub me the wrong way. There are FAR too many of these sorts of outlets that make stuff up just to see the reaction online. They are doing nothing more than throwing sh*t at the wall to see what sticks. There are a three or four sites – who shall remain nameless – that are very successful carrying out such illicit endeavors.

-Bill “Jett” Ramey, Batman On Film, THE BOF MAIL BAG, January 4, 2014

I’d bet a year’s pay – in MONOPOLY money, of course – that the “Amazons” of this cinematic DCU will be descendants of those “ancient Kryptonians” who attempted to set up Kryptonian outposts throughout spacedom thousands and thousands of years ago. Furthermore, I say that Wonder Woman will be powered-down, if you will, relative to Superman because these Amazons have evolved and adapted to living on Earth for hundreds of centuries. And since Kryptonians are produced without any “He’n and She’n” – Jor El and Lara excluded – couldn’t this original Kryptonian on Earth have used this reproductive science to create an all-female race? I say yes!

-Bill “Jett” Ramey, Batman On Film, THE BOF MAIL BAG, January 4, 2014

OK, it’s not funny any longer. In the recent mailbag I did with you all, I speculated on how Goyer/Snyder *might* account for the origins of the Amazons: Decedents of ancient Kryptonian astronauts who were able to create an all-female race due to Kryptonians artificially creating their offspring. It was nothing but a guess — pure speculation and my opinion — and nothing more. Now, many outlets have picked up the “story” and have run it as either me claiming it to be fact or me claiming it’s “inside info/rumor.”

BULLSH*T! I get that people are anxious for BvS news, but this was ridiculous! One dude on one badass outlet went on a tirade/rant over the whole thing which pretty much amounted to an online meltdown directed towards WB.

So once again and for the record, the BOF Mailbags are a fun thing between me and the readers of BOF — not for people to pick up and suggest it’s me reporting “news.” – Jett

-Bill “Jett” Ramey, Batman On Film’s Facebook Page, January 6, 2014

This is not going to be an apology post. Yes, I did write about the Bill “Jett” Ramey’s “mailbag” post yesterday, including his speculation that the New Wonder Woman would be Kryptonian. But I was sure to present it as speculation (Actually, I called it a theory), and I buried it in the story. It wasn’t part of the title or the excerpt that runs on the front page of the site (in retrospect, a tactical error seeing how much traction this article got). Yes, I did discuss the possibilities such a change would allow,  but never reported it as fact nor did I even call it a rumor.

But I did say that the blurb would cause a controversy, and cause a controversy it did. We weren’t the only one to run with the story. It also appeared on io9, The Mary Sue, blastr, The Outhouse, IGN, Comic Book Resources, ComicBook.com, BadAss Digest, and even more mainstream venues such as Yahoo! Movies UK and Moviefone. And I’m sure that there are many more out their too. And many of these articles rail against the idea as being very, very stupid.

Ramey’s complaints against these sites, saying that they are presenting his speculation as news or insider information, doesn’t sit well with me. All the examples above either make a point to say that this is speculation or copy the paragraph where he mentions Wonder Woman is a Kryptonian verbatim, including the part where he makes it clear it is only a bet (using Monopoly money, no less). Granted, some point out Batman On Film’s great track record and Ramey’s supposed connections, but none say explicitly that this is scoop or news. But even if they did, could you blame them?

Let me explain.

See that above? That’s the header that ran with the mailbag. Note the words “authoritative” and “definitive.”  This is how the site advertises itself. It is presenting itself as an authority on Batman On Film.

This presentation continues in the mailbox post as well.  Ramey makes the point that he has visited the set of at least one Batman film. He also states he participated in a Burbank press junket for Man of Steel and attended its premiere in New York.  These are all things that typically only people with connections to studios or producers have.

Also, Ramey makes some very definitive statements in the post. Lex Luthor will be in the film, Aquaman and Martian Manhunter will not. There will be a second villain that he knows the name of, but cannot say. There is no equivocation in these statements. Ramey presents them as facts.

And Batman on Film has published scoop in the past that no other site has, most recently the uniforms used in the football scene for the sequel.

This is empirical evidence that Ramey has some connection to the studio or to the production. While this doesn’t mean that his speculation is automatically fact, it does raise it to at least the level of an educated guess. It gives what he says, be it a news item, a rumor or a speculation, legitimacy. It gives it weight. It makes it newsworthy. Ramey should have known that.

And he also should have known how the Internet would react when they heard his speculation. He’s already written an op-ed piece about it on his site.  The fact that news sites, bloggers and regular fans would explode over such a major change to Wonder Woman’s history should have come as no surprise to Ramey.

And don’t get me started on his assertion that the BOF mailbags are not news and just a fun thing just between him and his fans. If that truly was the case, then he should have housed it on a message board or a usenet group (do they still have those?) or through an e-mail chain. No, he housed it on his site for public consumption, right next to other news items, opinion pieces, and rumors. The BOF Mailbag and all content therein became fair game for outside commentary and dissemination.

I’m not saying that the entertainment news media or the comic film fandom is blameless. One feeds off the other, and the food is gossip in any shape or form. But Ramey should shoulder some of the blame in this debacle himself. He threw some chum into the shark infested waters and he should have known better. As I told a friend of mine, the situation Ramey created was like an experienced pyrotechnic who throws a lit match into a bucket of gasoline and then expressed outrage and disbelief that it exploded.

So, in my opinion, Ramey playing the victim card, expressing outrage on how his words were twisted in order to infuriate fans just doesn’t hold true. He should have known his speculation would be widely picked up and distributed, that people would take it seriously, and react poorly to it.

Hopefully he can find a way to work past his anger and learn to enjoy the boost in unique visitors to his site that all this brouhaha will bring.