Shining a Spotlight 10.07.10: Part of the Show

That argument got me to thinking of how the same question pertains to wrestling fans. So often, it seems that fans (especially in the IWC) aren’t judging wrestling by what it is but what they want it to be. That they spend more time railing on about how WWE or TNA or even ROH is hurting the fans by not doing what they want. It comes down to the question as at what point does something belong to the fan base rather than the people producing it?
　

The Base Debate

Fans of something big are always bringing it close to themselves, making it a part of their lives. The movie Fever Pitch has a great bit where Jimmy Fallon’s die-hard Red Sox fan turns down a chance to go to Paris with his girlfriend because it would be in September and “that’s when they need me the most.” That pertains to a lot of sports fans but fans of movies and television shows as well. These are people who can take the mentality of how it’s not just enough to enjoy these things, they have to be a part of it as well. It’s one thing for sports as fans back teams a lot but something else when you get into fictional properties.

Star Wars is the major example with fans who claim that Lucas has disgraced his legacy with the prequels simply because they weren’t the height of perfection. I think Kevin Smith summed that attitude up well in an article where he said “have any of you watched the original trilogy lately? Bad dialogue, wooden acting, plot holes, it’s all in there, just smaller budget.” Star Trek has an even more powerful fan base, people treating it like practically a religion with debates on characters and such, taking it to a point you can see most of the stars/producers sharing William Shatner’s “get a life!” routine for real. From Lost to Twilight, fandoms will take it upon themselves to judge what does and does not constitute greatness…and even if you’re the creator, you do something they don’t like and they’ll rake you over the coals.

Star Wars is my all-time favorite movie, I watch it constantly. I enjoy the whole saga, I read the novels, the comics, the behind-the-scenes books, web sites, video games and the rest. I love this thing with a passion. However, I think the prequels are actually that good, I prefer Return of the JedI over Empire Strikes Back and I don’t even mind Jar Jar that much. Therefore, I have had people actually tell me that I can’t be a real Star Wars fan because no “real” fan can feel that way. Likewise, if you love the first three Indiana Jones movies (as I do), you “have” to loathe the fourth one (which I don’t). As far as these people are concerned, they, not George Lucas, are the ones who dictate what Star Wars is, how it should be done and damn anyone who feels differently. It’s not just those movies, either. I’m not a fan of Twilight but I have read the massive forum postings on how the final book of the series was a complete travesty that anyone could have written better (then again, I think that can apply to the first three books). And Lost fans still debate whether the final ten minutes were utterly brilliant or ruined the entire series.

What makes it more intriguing is how these fandoms can have their own divisions. Contrary to popular opinion, there’s a very large portion of Lord of the Rings fans who hate the movies with a passion as to them, nothing less than a word-for-word adaptation of the books will suffice (Never mind such a thing would be about sixty hours). There are a bunch of people who read Twilight knowing it’s poorly written and overdramatic but liking the camp aspect of it all. You know why the Comic Book Guy on The Simpsons works so well? It’s because every single comic shop in the country has a guy just like that (either owner or customer) who spends hours discussing the minute details of every issue and rip into writers for the tiniest flaw. In pretty much every genre of scripted entertainment, fans will cease to judge a show or movie or book by what it is and instead by what they think it should be.

Lucas gets a lot of that flack but the man has shown an ability to not take the whole thing too seriously. He okays the parodies on stuff like Family Guy and Robot Chicken (him voicing himself there saying he had to the prequels himself because “the last time I let someone else take control, we got the Holiday Special!”). When you talk of a guy who got too wrapped up in his creation, Gene Rodenberry springs easily to mind. I’ve read books by guys who worked on the Star Trek movies who said a key issue was Rodenberry constantly putting down dramatic ideas because they didn’t fit his utopian vision of the future. With the sixth movie, he was constantly demanding rewrites because he refused to accept members of Starfleet planning to kill their own President to keep a war with the Klingons going. One producer had the great observation on how Rodenberry truly believed that in only a few centuries, mankind could get rid of all the bigotries, violence and failings that have haunted us since time began. Producers on Deep Space Nine and Voyager have confirmed that with talk on how they could never have gotten away with some of their darker stuff if Rodenberry had still been around.

It still continues with stuff like Heroes as fans dismissed the later seasons as being horrible, often saying “this way would be so much better…” This leads to the fan mentality of looking back at the past with rose-colored glasses. The Heroes haters will elevate the first season of the show to a level of perfection that even an uber-fan like myself will acknowledge it never attained. Some of these judgments also take your own personal feelings into consideration a lot. Fans getting into Star Trek today will have a different viewpoint with nothing fresh but the recent movie. My nephews are huge Star Wars fans who see the saga as a whole, not dividing it up into “new vs. old.” Keep in mind, by 2012, there will be a lot more young people who have never seen the movies on the big screen and be interested in seeing that, no matter what.

Another facet to consider is the perception of these fandoms by those outside it. Not all Star Wars fans despise the prequels and want Lucas’ head on a platter. Not all Twilight readers are teenage girls who eat up all the craziness with a spoon. I’m a Joss Whedon fan in that I like Buffy, Angel and Dollhouse but I find Firefly to be incredibly overrated, a good show but in no ways one of the ten best sci-fi series ever. And there’s still the perception that Trekkers are uber-geeks who always dress like the characters while most are really well-adjusted professional people. But they all share the tendency to take it on themselves to judge what does and does not constitute the material they love so much.
　

Taking it to Wrestling

I know I went off for a while but by this point I’m sure most will have seen the parallels to wrestling fans. We too have a tendency to judge not by what we see, but what we want to see and that can interfere with how we enjoy the show and the performers. Judgments are all over the place, particularly with WWE as most people consider Vince McMahon evil incarnate and therefore anything he touches must be horrible as well. People may complain about me being against TNA but trust me, I’ve read plenty of guys who go off even worse on the company and refuse to accept they can do anything well. Even the ROH fandom can be prone to snap judgments and the mentality of expecting perfection all the time.

It’s as if it’s not enough for people to just be fans, they have to believe they are the show. I think a lot of that attitude in wrestling can be traced to ECW and how so many of their histories talk of the fans being a huge part of things and such. Of course, those same fans completely ignore how they were played like a fiddle by Paul Heyman, made to think they were “in the know” when they were just as much marks as anyone else. Fans are the backbone in sports and in wrestling but as far as the promoters, owners, etc are concerned, our participation ends with us buying the ticket or merchandise. They may listen to concerns on some acts (especially when the fans start backing somebody) but time and again, they’ll push who they want and ignore the cheers or boos of the fans or the “smarts” online.

There’s also the “I can do it better” mentality. I always get a bit annoyed when Entertainment Weekly or USA Today does stuff on how to “save” a TV show as it’s a lot to expect these magazine writers with no experience handling budgets, scripts or studio interference better than the experienced producers. It is interesting to note how so often wrestling fans (especially in the IWC) can be like fans of TV shows or movies railing about how wretched they are and they could do so much better. I acknowledge Star Wars has its flaws (all six movies) but to assume that some twenty something fan boy, given $100 million, can make a movie that all Star Wars fans will adore equally is pretty foolish. It’s easy enough to dream able to do better but the reality is a far different cry.

The attitude of these various properties to the fan base can be love-and-hate. Had the Internet existed at the time, the fan reaction to Star Wars would have no doubt been a lot different, perhaps even shifting its perception as such a perfect classic. Supernatural did a fun episode where the two brothers discover that someone has written a popular comic book based on their demon-hunting exploits, allowing the producers to take shots at some fans’ over-zealous take on things (“For fans, they sure do complain a lot.”) There’s also the great Simpsons bit where Bart gives a speech to the Comic Book Guy on appreciating the people who go to so much effort trying to entertain you with a television show and CBG just replies “Worst…episode…ever.” With wrestling, it’s more unique as the fans are always being worked (the smart ones especially) and promoters will use that as WWE with their brilliant swerve on Daniel Bryan seemingly let go. Yet wrestling fans (and this is more true with the IWC) give themselves far more importance to the daily operations than we really are. Plus, we too undergo perceptions by non-wrestling fans like the constant one on how you automatically have to be dumber than most in order to enjoy the business.

Yes, fans are the lifeblood for any form of entertainment. But there is still a line between us and what we read and watch. George Lucas is going to do the movies however he wants as he created the damn thing and owns it. JK Rowling and Stephanie Meyer wrote their novel series as they saw fit, not listening to what fans wanted. I get the frustrations, it’s what I felt watching those last scenes of Lost and ranting “I waited six years for this?!” But I respect that’s the ending the producers had in mind and they took a chance with it. The fact is, for all their talk on “we’re doing this for the fans” you hear from writers and producers and the like, these guys will do what they see best and think it’s a great thing and that’s their right. We can rail and we can complain but at the end of the day, it’s not our true call. Sure, this may be the age where TV writers listen more to Twitter and online forums and they may pay mouth service to listening to what fans want but the fact is, we’re not TV writers, we don’t handle the pressures they do or the massive expectations. To assume we can do better than them is a foolish idea. We can love this stuff and all that but to assume we’re a true part more than just fans is just delusions of grandeur.

Summation

It’s great to be a fan of a movie or TV show, it’s fine to be passionate about that. But to assume the show lives or dies by your approval of it is short-sighted and foolish. Too often, we judge not by what we see but by how we’d do it ourselves and that’s pretty bad as well. It’s a trap for any form of entertainment and wrestling falls into that category. We can judge it, that’s part of being a fan, but there are lines between what we see and how things work behind the scenes. Thinking you can book or plan things better is like thinking that a person with no experience in filmmaking can produce a multi-million dollar movie that can appeal to all parts of a fan base. If you want to be a fan, go ahead and don’t let others dictate to you what a “real” fan should be like; as a sign at my local library says “Never apologize for your tastes in reading.” But you should recognize that we’re not part of the show, it doesn’t truly belong to us, no matter how much we might love it. Wrestling is great entertainment that gives us highs and lows but at the end of the day, it’s not like it lives and dies by one fan’s opinion of what works and what doesn’t. There’s always going to be that line on what truly belongs to fans but at the end of the day, we’re still the ones who live on the side that doesn’t run things. Maybe we wish it did but for all we know, it could ruin the very thing we love and that’s something fans of all kinds can agree shouldn’t be happening.