I really do think the biggest problem about show runners, authors, and suchlike responding to fandom—online or otherwise—is that they’re fundamentally misunderstood what fandom is.
They see a group of fans and they assume that they, the author, is like unto a god for these fans and that they can send decrees down to them from on high.
That’s not what fandom is at all.
No one is more critical of art than fandom. No one is more capable of investigating the nuances of expression than fandom—because it’s a vast multitude pooling resources and ideas. Fandom is about correcting the flaws and vices of the original. It’s about protest and rebellion, essentially. Fandom is the voice of a mob that can do better than the original, that often flies in the face of the original, that will accept nothing less than the best the medium (and the human at the helm) is capable of. Fandom is about putting debate and conversation back into an artistic process—-especially if the artist or author in question has become so vain that all criticism falls on deaf ears. (Moffat, I’m looking at you.) Fandom is about mutual creative expression—-there are no gods in fandom and every time someone thinks they’ve become a god of fandom, fandom corrects them again. (Cassandra Clare, I’m looking at you.) Fandom doesn’t need permission and it’s certainly not waiting for it. (Robin Hobb, I’m looking at you.) And fandom doesn’t actually want your attention; often, they’d rather you left them alone to get back to what they’re doing better than you anyway. (Supernatural, I’m looking at you.)
I would bet dollars to donuts that most of the people who run into this post could name five fics off the top of their head that could go head-to-head with canon any day of the week. I could name five fanvids with more biting commentary than a NYTimes review of the same film. I’ve definitely—and this is the easy one—seen hundreds of thousands of better fanart than the promotion materials for a lot of mainstream films and television shows.
Fandom is not worshipping at the alter of canon. Fandom is re-building it because they can do better.
This. I write fanfic because your show was almost good enough.
It’s Not the Fans, it’s the people holding the microphones.
Saturday’s madness with the Empty House screening was the not just the last straw, but a turning point.
For nearly a year now I have been hearing people connected with Sherlock make snide remarks about crazy fans, or aggressive fans, and complaining that people writing fanfic or who shipped Sherlock and John were just wrong so wrong.
I would argue back that there was nothing new about shipping Sherlock and John, about half the people who read Sherlock Holmes think he’s gay. I did when I read the books as a 13 year old, and this summer, my niece was reading “The Engineer’s Thumb” to me as we drove across a radio dead zone in New Mexico, and when she got to a remark about Watson’s wife Mary, she came to a skreeching halt.
“Wait, Watson’s married? I thought they were gay.”
“Welcome to the wonderful world of the Sherlockians” I said.
On my Twitter feed I would see people from the show responding to fanfic as if WE were trying to force them to change THEIR show to fit our narrative. Remarks were made that “We just didn’t get it.” ”The show is not about Sherlock and John being gay.”
All the while they complained about our personal narratives with these two famous characters they wanted us to change to fit their personal narratives.
“Hypocritical” I would point out, “since Moffat and Gatiss took two canon characters – Mycroft and Adler- and made them undeniably gay. Where is your canonical principal now?”
And, we did not write the scripts to Sherlock (with the “Its fine.” ”I know its fine” conversation at Angelo’s or the “I’m not gay.” ”I’m still not gay” ”We’re not a couple” or the “We need to get out” “I’m going on a date” “That’s what I said,” exchange. Or the “Does your’s snore?” ) None of that had anything to do with the people making fan fic or fan art. We did not write those lines or shoot those scenes.
And when Norton or Letterman pulled up fan art- that was nothing to do with us either. Tumblr is like Vegas. What happens here stays here. You don’t talk about it. You don’t show your parents, or in my case, your wife, and you sure as hell don’t beat your OTP over the head with it like a cricket bat.
Fan fic and fan art are for us to explore different ideas and directions that the principal parties ignore. Just for an instance, the remark about “high functioning socio path”. I have read some brilliant fics that explore that aspect of the Sherlock character further. And why not. Moffat and Gatiss brought it up. Not us. We are just taking a closer look. The same way that other writers are exploring young Sherlock and his drug use or John and his days in the war. These are all terrific narratives that deserve to be explored. Hell, if Sherlock was a regular TV series with 13 episodes a year, the show’s writers might have written some episodes exploring these topics themselves.
But back to Saturday…
Once again it was made crystal clear that the problem between the cast and crew of Sherlock and the fans is not fan art and fan fic, but the army of press junkets and talk shows and panels that these poor bastards have to sit through, and each interviewer has to try to find something to say or ask that will justify them getting paid to sit there in the hot chair opposite BC or MF for 2 minutes. So they desperately grab something off Tumblr and shove it in Benedict’s face. Or Martin’s. And the more salacious the better. Anything to get a bloody reaction out of these guys who have had to sit there and answer the same questions over and over until they question why the hell they ever became actors in the first place.
I think we all saw how even the boundless energy of RDJ started to flag by the time he got to China on his Iron Man 3 premier tour. And it is evident when the childlike nature of Benedict has been crushed and you see only exhaustion in his eyes as he looks into the millionth camera. And when he tells some newspaper journalist that he feels like the bunny being squeezed to death.
It is easy to blame the fans. After all, if we weren’t fans, the show wouldn’t be popular and the actors could all be home or in their vacation villa in Greece or (as in RDJ’s case) back in Malibu with his new born baby.
But it’s not us. We aren’t the problem. Fan’s love their people. We don’t try and get their autograph just to sell. We don’t try to make them uncomfortable. We don’t want that. The actors may feel pressure from producers or agents or even from their own desire not to disappoint, to go out and sign every last thing that is shoved in their face, but if they just waved and said thank you, we would be just as happy.
Saturday, we saw again and in Big Flashing Neon Letters, just how it is not the fans that are the enemy. It is the people holding the microphone and digging for a reaction that create the conflict.
So what do we do?
There must be some new kind of protocol developed for this day and age. We on Tumblr already serve as our own news and entertainment resource. There is no good reason at all for the actors to go through a million interviews. Just do as Matt Smith did, take the microphone, look at the camera and say “Hello Internet, It’s me again.” We will do the rest. Frankly there are no better film editors in the world than the gif-ers on Tumblr. Honestly , once one interview has been reblogged 300,000 times, why should the actor do another?
As for poor Benedict. I wish we could all give him a hug and a pat and let him know we want him to get some rest, have some down time, read, sky dive, what ever. But my advice to Benedict, were he here in front of me, would be to go and talk to Jude Law. He lives in London, he is there right now doing Henry V. Martin did “Breaking and Entering” with him, so he even has an “in”.
Jude could tell him how he had to suffer through SIX years of the News of the World and Rupert Murdock trying to destroy him. They illegally tapped his cell phone and his girl friend’s cell phone and his personal assistants cell phone, so that where ever Jude went there was an army of paparazzi dogging him. They made outlandish attacks against him. Headlines that he was an adulterer sleeping with the nanny, when he was unmarried and his girl friend was off in L.A. banging Daniel Craig. Murdock tried to systematically take him down, just to sell newspapers.
Jude could tell Benedict about his early 30’s when he was “the Sexiest Man Alive” and had 5 movies out in the same year and was nominated for Oscars and BAFTA’s and TONY’s. He was doing Cold Mountain and A.I. and Gattica and The Talented Mr. Ripley and Enemy at the Gates and Alfie and Breaking and Entering and so on and so on… Just like Bene is filling up his dance card with Star Trek and Osage County and 12 Years a Slave and Parades End…
Jude could tell him about taking on the role of Hamlet, which Benedict is going to be doing soon. He could tell him to remember to spend time with his family and friends to keep sane.
That would be my advice. To Benedict. Martin seems to be handling things okay.
Hopefully, after Saturday, there will be a sea change. I tweeted to one of the producers of Sherlock today that it must be clear to her after Saturday that it wasn’t the fans who were the problem…
She said “I never said anything about the fans. I love the fans.”
So that’s a good place to start.