My Argument Against "It's Just A Movie"

I'm not gonna make this a big debate or a whole thesis discussing people's views on the media and art and culture and all that stuff, i could, but I just don't want to. I, like many people, am a fan of multiple products, Star Wars, Mass Effect, Comunity, Harry Potter, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, just to name a few of things I would consider myself to be a huge fan of, and I am one of those people that will complain whenever something gets screwed up. I mean don't get me wrong, when Michael Bay gets his hands on Ninja Turtles, i'm not there yelling "he's gonna rape my childhood!" because he's not, the stuff i love is still gonna be there, and Ninja Turtles has had plenty of shit before. But when Mass Effect 3 has a shitty ending from a videogame series I love, or Transformers 4 becomes the most successful movie of the year, I am gonna get angry about that, I can go on long rants about why they're ruining something good. And so many times people who aren't fans of these things, or cinephiles, or gamers, they always say "It's just a movie" or "It's just a game" and that really pisses me off because it is more than that. A movie or a game or a TV Show can be more that "just" it can genuinely affect people, it can get them emotionally and it can make them think in ways that they haven't before, media is art, and art is culture and culture can change everything.

Religion is a massive part of culture, and there have been literal wars started over people's different religions, now this isn't me bashing religion, you believe whatever you want. But when actual wars have started over something which people don't even know if it exists, over people getting in passionate debates over something they know is fiction, which one seems worse? I mean when I say The Last of Us changed my life, I know it exists, I can hold the game, I can play it, I can watch Behind the Scenes on how it was made. But religion is all speculation at this point, and i haven't seen any wars started over people's feelings for a videogame yet.

Why is it accepted that people can live their lives by the bible when for all we know, that's just as fictitious as To Kill A Mockingbird, yet one of these probably teaches better life lessons than the other (I'll give ya three guesses which one).

-Danny