creativity 2.0: creativity has never really been a democratic process

[sophiaserpentia]

I learned a lot, about myself and the nature of fandom, from the great WoW RealIDFail controversy of last week.

Being a fan of just about anything will generally get you a lot of grief, and so people learn in public not to mention that they are a fan. Unless you're talking about sports fans -- which makes me think that scorning fans is yet another secret form of misogyny, peppered with our society's general scorn for intelligence. I think this is part of why, whenever the producers or writers of an entertainment franchise do something that ignites fan controversy, discussion within the fan base isn't so much between opponents & supporters, as it is between opponents and people making fun of opponents.

But I got to thinking about the notion of being "emotionally invested" in something. A fan is someone who has made a significant emotional investment, not to mention a significant financial investment as well, in an entertainment franchise. That's not to mention the contribution they make to the community -- fan art, fan fic, etc., the glue which binds fans together and keeps them spending money -- and their enthusiastic free publicity for the franchise: word-of-mouth and viral marketing which advertisers dream of (because it means customers doing their job for them).

However, fans are not usually seen by the producers and creators as being co-investors at all. From the other perspective, the "investors" are the creative talent and the ones who sign the checkbooks at production time. This leaves fans in an incredibly vulnerable position: they are investors who have no real say in the decisions that are made.

This may be a large part of why so many people's relationship with a fandom, a very personal and intense experience, often quite literally a formative part of their lives, more often than not ends with sadness or disappointment. Fans make what is for them a huge investment in something in which they have no real say; the only vote they get is to stop consuming.

As a writer I can see how the flip-side might become somewhat harrowing; if you listen to fans *too* much, if you deliver only what they want, you might feel too constrained and feel as though you've had to sell your artistic integrity.

Before RealIDFail I would likely have sided with the writer 100%. But as I've said before, the meaning of a creative work is essentially the response intended to be provoked in the reader/listener/viewer. The writer or musician or developer does not develop subsequent works in a vacuum, especially at the point when there is a large, vibrant, active fan community. (So was Stephen King saying in Misery that he felt hobbled by his fan base?)

I'm not sure what I'm saying here in terms of how much an artist or developer owes to the fan community, I'm just... thinking about this and seeing if there's a dialog to be had about it. How much of a say do fans have? How much say should they have? Will artistic quality or meaningfulness suffer or improve if fans are allowed greater access and influence? There's a perception that an artist who caters too openly to fans will create inferior content -- is there any truth to this?

Comments

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

Similar questions can be asked of something like the casting in The Last Airbender. I have read some commentary from people who are deeply offended that the cast is entirely white, save for the villain, who is a person of color. The characters in the original series are Asian, from what I understand. So, did the creators of The Last Airbender owe it to the fan base and to Asian people everywhere to cast Asians in the leading roles? Are those of us who are offended by the casting interpreting the casting incorrectly, or does our interpretation/offense have some merit?

Where should the line be drawn between listening to the public too much and not listening enough? Should creators listen to the public at all?

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

I've read some of that same commentary -- and I think there's something to that. People who want to sell entertainment should IMO be sensitive to concerns of that sort. The fact that they can get away without doing so is a testament to the patterns of privilege in the larger society.

M. Night Shyamalan says he just cast the actors he thought best fit each role. Is this a statement about his internalized racism? Since he is Asian-American I have a hard time imagining he just didn't notice.

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

Since he is Asian-American I have a hard time imagining he just didn't notice.

Oh dear...yes, that makes his casting choices even more problematic.

It is entirely possible he did not notice, though. Seeing white actors play the lead in non-white roles may be so common to him that he never thought of the race implications. It could be that he has biases against his fellow Asian-Americans like some African-Americans have against their fellow African-Americans. (Too ethnic, not easy enough to work with, not classy enough, whatever.) That would be racism internalized, turned against one's own people, and then justified when challenged.

At least he didn't insist the actors use their real names and addresses in the movie. :-) Which I gathered (when I read the link you included in your post) was the issue with the WoW debacle. But it seems as though the community's uproar caused the developers to change their mind, so this would be a case where the fans did have a say...rather, they had their say, whether the developers wanted them to have it or not, and their say was uproarious enough that the developers felt they had little choice but to listen.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

There's also the possibility that he fell prey to a sort of white gaze, knowing that he was aiming for a predominantly white audience and perhaps decided "not to make a statement" with his movie. (Though this would require him to overlook or disregard the fact that the Avatar cartoon characters were all presented as being of Asian ethnicity, but the cartoon series did just fine anyway.)

[akaiyume.livejournal.com]

In the type of situation you are talking about there is catering going on. Not to the fan base of a particular work, but to the fan base of the current oppressive culture.