Pop culture purgatory

[textualdeviance]

I'm apparently a Very Bad Fan.

And for more reasons than just the whole pervy fangirl thing.

To wit:

So, the Primeval world just kind of turned inside out today with the revelation that there's a spinoff series in development.

Or, maybe that was just my world that turned inside out, as once I heard this, I proceeded to babble my pathetic ass off about it, trying to figure out exactly how they were going to approach the new series given some of the limitations of the canon and the fact that there's an entirely different production company doing the spinoff.

(Go here for the carnage. Yes, I write too damned much.)

This all made me come to a rather embarassing/frustrating realization: I'm increasingly finding myself far more fascinated with the process of putting together TV & movies (and other things) than the end results themselves.

Exhibit A: About half of the people I follow on Twitter are writers or directors of some sort: Fellow media wonks, partially, but also a flood of script writers, producers, directors, etc. And even most of the actors I follow are involved on a creative level, too: They do their own writing or directing or whatever on the side.

Exhibit B: I think I've watched the LOTR behind the scenes stuff more than the movies themselves. And I think I gravitated to writing RPS instead of FPS simply because I felt there was more opportunity for interesting drama with the showbiz/filming setting than what was happening in canon.

I am not, and never have been content to just be a passive consumer of entertainment. I have to be involved in it somehow. I have to at least be watching it with an eye for how the writers work through story arcs and what shots the director chooses, and how the editing works. I can't just sit there and watch pretty people do pretty things and blow shit up. Hell, I can't even really get into a story for its own sake these days. I'm too focused on how it was probably plotted and edited (and, if I'm honest, picking out which TV Tropes it has. Heh.)

Dirty secret? I actually can't stand being in the audience for live entertainment. I'm usually drowning in jealousy, wishing I were on the stage or at least behind the curtain doing something. (I also have a huge problem with secondhand embarassment, so I get very nervous about the possibility of something going wrong during a show.)

I don't think I can fool myself anymore: I am a creator. I can't get past that. I can't breathe if I'm not making something regularly, even if that's just trashy fanfic or animated .gifs. I went into journalism--and entertainment media, specifically--in part because it was the closest I could come, given various limitations, to being on the creative side of things.

Which, of course, makes me a bad fan. I can't just sit out there in the audience like I'm supposed to. I want to go see what's happening backstage. I'm in this really weird hybrid place--a sort of purgatory, maybe--where I'm not actually working in production, but I'm also not just a consumer of what they produce. I suspect this makes me annoying to both fellow fans (might even explain a lot of my LOTR fandom disconnect) and to the people whose work fascinates me so much.

It's one thing to be a groupie for an actor because he's cute and plays fun characters well. Quite another to be a groupie for him because you're impressed with the way he works and how he approaches his career. I think I've spent equal amounts of time wishing I could write a script for Andrew to work on as wishing I could get into his pants. If I ever got the chance to talk to him for any length of time, I'd probably talk his ear off about editing software or something.

I think I could manage just being a dorky fangirl. This? This is so much weirder. And I have no idea what to do about it, save for just pushing on, doing my own creating whenever I can, and trying not to drown in frustration and envy when I see other people doing what I really wish I could be.

Comments

[pieslut.livejournal.com]

I don't think you're a bad fan! I think you have to be careful where you indulge certain interests, because I know I've gotten in trouble for the same thing. If you know your interest is different than the community, you need to find another venue and so on.
It's always difficult for me to see if that's the case, but I figure it out eventually - hopefully before I make everyone else uncomfortable.

[van.livejournal.com]

I definitely, definitely experience this sort of thing. I often fan the actors or whatever I like, because that's as close as I can get, but there are so many times that I feel almost sick with guilt that I'm on this side of the curtain. Conventions are often the worst. I want to be the one on stage telling jokes and entertaininh the audience, not the one in the crowd lapping it up. I feel like I was born to do nothing other than create--write, act, direct, edit, draw, whatever--and society has made that almost impossible for me to do as a career. Generally I can pull off the whole fan without problem, but yeah. I definitely know where you're coming from. Sigh.

[textualdeviance.livejournal.com]

Clearly, the answer for this is that you and I need to collaborate on The Next Big Thing. ;)

<3

[van.livejournal.com]

I am so there. Just tell me where to sign.

[flippet.livejournal.com]

I understand too, to a large degree. I adore process. I get so geeked to see BTS photos or video. When there are DVD extras on things like researching the script, or building the set - I'm on the edge of my seat. When I watch shows, I firstly do actually get lost in story (I'm a lit major, story is where I live), but secondly, I'm looking for lighting, camera angles, set decoration, all the little details, because how you tell a story is half the storytelling all by itself.

And I just love to watch actors 'at work'. I love to watch *how* they do it. The process they go through to bring a character to life.

It's probably partly because I so wish that I could do that. I always wanted to act (or dance), but neither were particularly acceptable in the culture of my upbringing, and there was no money for lessons anyway, and without any experience or background or nearby role models for me, it didn't seem like a viable career option either. (I'm a bit insecure about striking out on my own without a safety net - being a working actor appealed to me, being a starving actor (the more likely scenario) didn't appeal to me at all.)

I'm trying to work up my courage (and find the time) to start looking into community theater, actually. Because I'm coming to the realization that I enjoy the actors I enjoy because I like them personally, but also because I like the way they approach their craft. I think I would love hanging out with them, 'sitting at their feet' just to learn from them....but that's never going to happen. So the next best thing ought to be trying to find people locally with perhaps the same sensibilities. Most of my current friends don't see these things the way I do, and it gets lonely, so just maybe I can find people who might understand, because they do it.

I don't follow many people on Twitter, but of those I do, it's mostly directors, or writers. My absolute favorite tweeter is one of the House writers, Sara Hess. Most of what she tweets isn't about House or her work (though some of it is), but she's just so damn funny all on her own.

[glofigs.livejournal.com]

you can still be around actors and not act. For instance, I am in theater but I am not an actor, yet I still get to hang out actors and see them do their thing. So, if you find you dont like acting but love the actors then there certainly are other ways to go about that.

as for me, I am still not sure if Stage mangement is what i want to do but I am keeping on doing it until I figure out what I really want to do with my life.