Fans seeking greater say in their entertainment
Audiences today more apt to make demands in the development of pop media
SAN DIEGO— A fan at Comic-Con International here had a message for Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and director of two Avengers movies: We want you back.
In this hyper-connected, social media-driven age, Whedon has been missing in action since spring 2015. That’s when he pulled the plug on his Twitter account.
In discussing the breakup with a roomful of his most dedicated fans on Friday, Whedon had a nuanced, complicated answer, one that speaks to the changing relationship between those who create and those who consume.
The short version: It’s not me, it’s you.
“It could be something lovely,” he said of interacting with fans via social media. “It could be something funny. It could be ‘Hang yourself, here’s a noose. When can I kill you?’ That’s less fun. That’s less interesting. Eventually, it becomes kind of a white noise. You can’t remember what the dialogue was, so you stop having it.”
Whedon clarified that he didn’t leave Twitter because people were mean to him — although, for the record, people were awfully mean to him. Rather, he found himself at the forefront of a new era of fan entitlement that for some creators has raised tricky questions of ownership. Just who deserves a say in the development of pop media: those working to dream it up or those paying to keep a project afloat?
“I would like always to have a dialogue with the audience, but at the same time, you can’t create by committee,” Whedon said.
Increasingly, some can’t bear to even listen to the committee.
This month, Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones took her own temporary leave from Twitter, writing that she was in “personal hell” after being hit with a barrage of racist and misogynist remarks from those who were still upset that the film had been rebooted with a female-led cast.
And even when not levelling personal attacks, fans today are more apt to make requests or demands, depending on your point of view.
Online-driven campaigns have called for changes to the sexuality or race of popular characters. Make Captain America gay, some fans argue. Give Elsa (from Disney’s Frozen) a girlfriend, cries another contingent. Of course, it needs to be noted that when companies or artists do push for more inclusivity in genre entertainment, they are met with a deafening level of resentment (see the anger over the female Ghostbusters).
Other times, specific plot choices will be targeted, such as Whedon’s decision to stage a romance between two superheroes in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Sometimes, fans will just lash out at an author for not finishing a book (see Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin).
While some instances are rooted in a genuine and important desire to see more diversity in popular entertainment, they’re still illustrative of the growing desire of fans to have a bigger say in their entertainment choices.
“It’s a thing. It’s not a bad thing. It’s a thing,” said author and screenwriter Neil Gaiman, who was at Comic-Con to promote an upcoming adaption of his novel American Gods.
“It’s the thing that kept Star Trek going. It’s the thing that brought back Doctor Who. Fans are still creators. Fans demand and make things happen. Mostly, that’s great. But it can tip and, when it tips, it goes into strange places where people feel that by having watched a TV show or bought a book, they feel that you owe them something huge for having done that. Watching the level of crazy that can sometimes happen is hard.”
Gaiman would know. In 2009, he wrote a blog post defending the work ethic of Martin, noting that the Games of Thrones writer was not employed by fans. “George R.R. Martin is not working for you,” Gaiman wrote in response to a fan who wondered whether “the audience has too much input when it comes to (scrutinizing) the actions of an artist.”
It’s a topic that was grappled with by creators at this year’s Comic-Con, as well as the fans attending the convention.
“It is what it is,” said David Ayer, director of Warner Bros.’ upcoming villains-gone-crazy film Suicide Squad. “It’s the Roman arena. It’s thumbs up or thumbs down. The crowd votes. Hopefully, my movie doesn’t get executed in the sawdust there. But that’s why the genre has the connection and the power and the audience that it does, because there’s that ownership and there’s that participation.”
Still, he adds, “my hope is that we can just push the envelope a little bit and challenge people.”
If so, he may want to prepare for a backlash.
Whedon came under attack last year for the romance between Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff/ Black Widow and Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner/Hulk in Avengers: Age of Ultron. The two shared an emotional exchange in the film, with both characters lamenting their inability to have children, and Black Widow was viewed by some as wanting a rather trite, domesticated life.
Whedon said that he was working on something original and that it was “relaxing” to not have to worry about fan opinions. Still, despite the Ultron experience, Whedon cautioned against completely tuning out the concerns of the audience.
“You can’t draw a line exactly,” he said. “If we could, we would have. Sometimes, an advocacy group will say, ‘This character has to go through these things, because that’s what we went through.’ Sometimes, that’s stuff you did not know about and that is stuff you need to honour. But sometimes it’s, ‘Yes, but I am telling a different story.’ Every story is different. Everybody’s version of the same story is different. At some point, it has to come from inside your gut. Your gut is not on social media.”