All The TV

No apologies for the lost girl orgasm on my blog, but the writers owe us a HUGE apology for this last episode

astoryofrecovery:

Lauren let me hold you

Ok, slight apology to the OP. This is not solely directed at you, your post just happened to be the one I saw that caused me to snap and need to finally rant about this. I’m not trying to attack why you’re upset, you are entitled to your opinion about last episode and while we may disagree, I promise you that THAT is not why this post pissed me off so much.

Rather, it’s about the notion that “the writers owe you a HUGE apology” for this last episode. Too often in fandom, and especially fandom on the hivemind that is tumblr, people get the notion in their head that content is created specifically to be what they desire the show to be, and if the show doesn’t cater to their particular whims, the show is wrong/bad/should be ashamed of itself/needs to apologize. It’s a notion I’ve discussed before in my whole thing about how shipping was ruining fandom, but I feel the need to reiterate again: shows are not built to cater to the fans and they shouldn’t be. There can absolutely be a symbiotic relationship between the two, where fan response influences the direction of the show. See, for example, Emily Bett Rickards in Arrow. Felicity Smoak was introduced as a one episode character, but the fan response to her was so positive (as well as producer response), that she’s going to be a full regular in season 2. There is nothing wrong with that sort of relationship between a show and its fans. BUT, there IS a problem with fans expecting that a show will follow the direction that they want it to.

Beyond just the fact that every fan experiences a show differently and has different characters who they love and hate, thus making it impossible for the show to cater to every fan, fans dictating the direction of a show only ends up, in my opinion, clouding the creative vision. I think Jeff Davis, showrunner of Teen Wolf, is an interesting case here. Jeff Davis is very tapped into his show’s social media presence, and thus, is obviously aware of all of the crazy Sterek shippers out there. So he decided to throw them a bone and include some Sterek moments here and there out of appeasement. Nothing wrong with that (well, that’s debatable I guess, but this is more of that sort of symbiotic stuff). But the problem was, it turned into “If You Give A Mouse A Cookie” syndrome, where the Sterek fans now want more and have turned increasingly upset with the show for not making Sterek canon, even though, beyond throwaway moments and their own delusions (come at me Sterek shippers) there is clearly no basis for a romantic relationship between those two characters. This is a prime example of fans expecting a show to cater to them, and to an extent, Jeff Davis brought it on himself. It’s the same sort of problem that causes so many major studio movies to be shitty nowadays: it’s creativity by committee. Sometimes it works, but too often it ends up muddling the creative vision. And yes, while on TV, there is a certain element of creativity by committee anyways in a writer’s room, there is always someone at the top with the dominant vision for the show. And arguing that, as a fan, your vision is superior to theirs is not just self-important, but it’s only going to result in a watering down of the finished product. Yes, there can be flexibility in that person’s vision that the fans can exert influence on, but it should never be the case where the flexibility overtakes the unique vision.

But it’s not just shows where fans have gotten doses of creator appeasement that they are beginning to expect shows to cater to them. It seems to be the case with any popular element of a show’s fandom, which, not to target them, but often ends up being shippers, that they’ve begun to expect that their narrative, because the most people believe in it, has to become the primary narrative.The Doccubus contingent in the Lost Girl fandom, or Sterek shippers, or the constant ship war that is Stelena vs. Delena on The Vampire Diaries, these powerful factions, because they are the loudest voices in the fandom, seem to think that their opinion of what the show is, simply because they are the loudest voices in the fandom, should be heard and if the show is not hearing them, it needs to apologize for not hearing them because they are the loudest voice and how could they NOT be right? But that isn’t be the case. That’s what fanfiction is for, expressing YOUR particular view of how you would want to see a show play out. But the idea that the writers must cater to fans is incredibly problematic to me, not only as someone who wants to write, but just as someone who loves TV with all of their heart. There’s nothing wrong with headcanons, and being upset with shows for taking story turns that you consider bad, or being upset with shows because you feel like they are leading you on or toying with your emotions (something that I have frequently seen laid out by Doccubus shippers which, while I disagree, I can understand their point of view). But the notion that, because a show makes you upset or you feel like you are being toyed with, that you are owed an apology, is beyond ludicrous to me. Again, sorry to the OP, especially if you meant this in the usual tumblr hyperbolic way, but the idea of writers apologizing for their vision is something I have repeatedly seen on this site and it just grinds my gears to no end. If you’re unhappy with a show, complain about the story, write fanfiction that rectifies it, or just stop watching it, but don’t demand an apology for it, because you don’t deserve one and you’re not gonna get one.