Thursday, June 1, 2017


I wrote a post during a particularly dark day last week, and I've been debating with myself whether or not to post it.  It's not edifying (so maybe don't read it if you're in a bad place yourself); it could be classed as whinging or an attempt to get "You're not like that!" comments, which is the last thing I want.  In the end, though, I've decided to post it, because it might help someone understand what a loved one with clinical depression is going through.

* * *

There are strange times you go through with depression where you care about everything and nothing at the same time.  Today was one of those days.

Having to keep your brain focused long enough to get some work done is draining, but then, when you go to relax, frustration kicks in because you just can't enjoy anything or do what you want to do.

Reading or watching TV or a movie is an impossible chore, and especially difficult if the material is emotionally demanding.  I find myself mindlessly scrolling through my social-media feeds again and again, seeing none of them.  Incoming emails make me cringe, and then I just can't bring myself to reply.

The future looks mind-deadeningly blank to me.  But it's frightening. 

I've somehow put on another kilo, and that is devastating, but at the same time I don't care anymore. I'll eat something else I shouldn't because it's one of the only joys in life right now.

I put on a romantic comedy because they're fairly mindless – you know, one of those bad Hallmark-style, holiday-themed ones on Netflix.  I want so much what the heroine ends up with, but I have to tell myself off because I'll probably never get married now and shouldn't get my hopes up again.  And that physically hurts, even though I thought I'd done my grieving and accepted it.  I feel the pain in my fingers.  I always do.  I don't know why.

My roots need doing, but I don't have the spare energy, and who cares, anyway?  It's not like I have anyone to impress, and even if I did, they'd never notice my middle-aged-librarian-ness over the extra 50 kg I'm carrying around and the dead-fish personality.

It helps to write these thoughts down.  My psychologist tells me I need to challenge them, but they thing is, they're true.

"OK," she'd say, "they may be true, but are they helpful?"

I don't know.

One thing that intrigued me about the movie Inside Out was the acknowledgement that sadness has its place.  If I still lived in a delusion where I thought all my dreams were going to come true because I work hard and try always to think of other people ahead of myself and be generous and dedicated and faithful, I'd be disappointed every day.  If I look ahead and realise that I may never be able to have my own home, or a job I enjoy that pays me enough to meet my budget, or a group of friends who get me and want to make music with me, or a husband, maybe I can deal with that pain and focus on what I can control.

But that only works on the days when everything goes well, my eating doesn't blow out of control, I don't get a migraine and my brain behaves itself.  And that's not today.  On those days, the pain is back, radiating from the centre of my chest to my fingertips.

What do I do on those days?

The only thing I can do:  I live through them.

I carry on.  Keep moving.  Take a bird's-eye view and remember that this bad patch won't last forever. They never do.

To everything there is a season.
Turn, turn, turn. . .

I cling to the hope that one day I'll be useful to someone, not useless; that I'll bring joy to someone instead of sucking the joy out of the room; that people will be pleased to see me and want to hang out with me; that I'll have overcome some of the obstacles in front of me.  Let's start with one:  today.

Friday, May 19, 2017

Chris Cornell, Depression and Prescription Meds

We lost another music legend this week, and so all the people ride out on their high horses, tsk-ing and shaking their heads at "prescription drugs".

You know what?  It wasn't the prescription drugs that killed him.  It was the illness that brought him to the point of taking more than the prescribed dose, affecting his behaviour.

Whenever I look at a Prince, or a Chris Cornell, or even an Amy Winehouse, I can't help but think, "There but for the grace of God go I."

Because I'm one of the lucky ones.  I've never been tempted to take more than my prescribed dose of meds.  I've never been tempted to mix them with alcohol when they're not working well enough.

My temptation, and my addiction, is food.  But, somehow, that's not as frowned upon, is it?

Broke up with your boyfriend?  Eat a whole tub of Ben & Jerry's.  Boss being a bitch?  Here's a packet of Tim Tams.  Enjoy your binge.

But excess food is just as deadly as excess fentanyl.  It just takes a bit longer to kill you.

Until there is complete healing, meds and therapy can help a depression/anxiety sufferer to function.  I can get out of bed and write this because my meds keep the black cloud at arm's length.  My psychologist is helping me deal with my emotional eating.  But these are treatments, not necessarily a cure, and so everyone does their best.  I'm sure Chris Cornell did his best.

I believe I know where my cure will come from, but many people don't share my beliefs, and so they must put their faith in other things.

That's where compassion comes in.  How many times does the Bible say, "Jesus had compassion on them and healed them"?  I can tell you, quite a few.

Instead of shaking our heads and wagging our fingers, we must do the same. We just might save a life.

(This is a post I wrote on ways to practically help people with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or similar illnesses, but most of the points are completely relevant to people with depression and anxiety, too.)

Tuesday, May 16, 2017

The Repurposing

Wow, it really has been a while.  I think the problem is that my head is so full of stuff these days, none of my thoughts come out more developed than 140 characters.
At the same time, I'm at a place in my life where nothing much new happens, so it's hard to come up with things to be Rant-y about.
So, in lieu of changing the title of this blog to The Bored, I've decided to repurpose it as a sort of accountability/life self-coaching page.  Maybe someone out there is in a place very similar to the one I've found myself in, and needs to know they're not alone.  I'd love it if someone was helped or encouraged in some way by my story.
Let me explain.
I battle with three long-term illnesses:  clinical depression, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome ("CFS") (or ME) and Joint Hypermobility Syndrome, which has recently been renamed Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder ("HSD") or Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome ("EDS"), depending on how severe you are and certain genetic factors.  All of these cause severe fatigue, pain, and various other problems that I won't go into right now.
The most recent part of my story is that, in February 2016, at the age of 34, I had to leave my home and community (and my beloved rescue cat, Lulu) in Chichester, England, where I'd felt almost settled for the first time in my life, and come back to the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia, to live with my parents, because I was so sick I could no longer support myself.
I had finished a university degree (which I absolutely loved doing) in May of 2015, and was looking for part-time work.  It had to be part time because, at my best  my "baseline", to use the clinical terminology, which means "my normal"  I can only work four days a week.  For some reason, probably a hangover from the Credit Crunch (or the GFC, as it's called in Australia), there was absolutely nothing around, job wise.  I had been working from home part time throughout university, so I continued to do that, but neither of my jobs paid very well per hour, and so I began working ridiculous hours to pay the bills  14-hour days, often.
Eventually and inevitably, in about December of 2015, I hit the wall, and all my long-term illnesses flared up.  By February of 2016, it had become clear that, despite my utter despair at the thought of it and all the difficulties that were associated with it, I would have to move back to Australia.
I expected that, after a few months of taking it easy (or at least easier) and not having to worry about paying the rent, I'd be back on my feet, back to my baseline, able to get a decent job in Victoria, where I'd prefer to live, and therefore able to move out and move on.  What has happened is that, although my mental health is now relatively stable again, my physical health has not improved.  If anything, it's gotten worse.
To be gut-wrenchingly honest, in the last year, I've put on 40 kg, and that is really adding to my physical problems.  It's one of my priorities at the moment to lose that weight  48 kg in all, to get into my "healthy" range.
Australia is more expensive to live in than the UK, so I'm actually in a worse position here, even though I'm not paying rent; the Sunshine Coast is notorious for its high unemployment rate, which has meant that I've still not been able to find better-paid, part-time work; and my "disabilities employment agent" (I use the term loosely, as she doesn't seem inclined to do much to find me employment) keeps saying I should apply for a Disability Support Pension, but I and everyone else I've spoken to knows damn well I'd never get it.
Exercising here is difficult, hence in part the weight gain.  In Chichester, I used to walk everywhere and do aqua aerobics.  Here, I live in the bush, so I can't just go for a walk out my front door.  It's stinking hot, too, so for a good part of the year you can't walk in the daytime, anyway (or not without giving yourself heatstroke  believe me; I've done it), aqua aerobics is too expensive and, although my parents have a treadmill, I can't use it because the feedback vibrations in my cervical spine give me migraines.  Sometimes the pain in my feet is so bad I can hardly walk.  So it's quite a struggle to exercise four times a week, even when I am feeling well enough.
I'm not telling you all this to get you on my side or garner your sympathy.  I'm not giving you my sob story, because there are people far, far worse off than me.  I'm simply trying to illustrate how, all in all, my life doesn't look how we think the powerful, faith-filled, "Christian" life should.  (Yes, I'm one of those. Deal with it.)  I'm not the superwoman able to balance life and work, the way all the feminists and the women's conferences and the tampon advertisements tell me I can.
There are many people out there who would say, and probably do say, that I'm just not trying hard enough.  I don't have enough faith or there's something I'm doing wrong in my life that's blocking my recovery.  I disagree.
In fact, a lot of my health problems actually come from trying too hard, from working my butt off and getting nowhere in life, from constantly trying to "do the right thing" and live how I'm "supposed" to live, and from the endless, endless rounds of negotiations  with myself, with God, with medical practitioners, with employers, with friends, with family...trying this, and trying that, and trying this but with that, and trying that but this way...
What I'm actually starting to learn is that I CAN'T DO IT AND THAT'S OK.
My amazing pastor has told me that he only really got fixed up from a major problem in his life when he let go, realised he couldn't do it himself, and left it up to the grace of God.  That is so counter-intuitive, and goes against everything we're taught in today's culture of pop-psychology and willpower and self-affirmation, but I think it's right.
The first thing they teach you at Weight Watchers is that willpower will never be enough.  It will fail you.  From a Christian perspective, where in the Bible does it say that we're supposed to strengthen our wills, anyway?  Quite the opposite, in fact.
Indeed, the whole point of Christianity is that WE CAN'T DO IT, so Jesus did it for us  right?  Not that you'd know it when you walk into a Christian bookstore and see "15 Steps To A Great Marriage", "The Pathway To Financial Freedom", "20 Prayers To Pray In Difficult Times", "How To Raise Perfect Children While Working Full Time and Running a Cell Group", How To Win At Everything In Life", "Success, The Christian Way"...I'm making these up, but it really does go on and on and on.
So I've decided to just keep a record here of my experiences as I live the next season of my life, continually reminding myself that I CAN'T DO IT AND THAT'S OK.  I'm going to take the pressure off myself.  Remember that His yoke is easy and His burden is light.  
I'm not always going to get heavy; some of it will be downright funny, I'm sure  like the sight of me in my gym gear as I started a personalised programme this last week (paid for by my generous father).  I don't have a photo but, trust me, it's a riot.
I'd love to hear your stories, too.  Maybe we can develop a little community where we can encourage each other as we go through life and discover again and again that it's just not like we imagined it would be when we were growing up – that $%*! happens, because we live in the world we live in, and it's actually impossible for us to do everything right so that our lives look exactly like we think they should look  or like other people say they should look.
For now, I'm going to get on with my day, tackling the physically exhausting task of doing my weekly food shopping and then having to come home and work, all the while leaning heavily on His grace.

Friday, November 13, 2015

WE ARE GROOT: WHEN MEDIA PRODUCERS AND FAN COMMUNITIES ENGAGE IN MUTUAL WORLD-BUILDING [CHAPTER 2]

Part 2, as promised... (For Chapter 1, click here.)


Chapter 2:  Extratextual World-Building

In November 2004, Albin Johnson’s young daughter, Katie, was diagnosed with cancer (Figure 7).  Johnson is the founder of the 501st Legion, a worldwide group of Star Wars fans who build their own stormtrooper armour and make charity appearances.  They are also frequently called in to help at official Star Wars events.  Johnson, reflecting on a scene in Episode II where the droid R2-D2 watches over Senator Amidala at night (Figure 8), wanted Katie to have an R2 unit, too – a pink one – to watch over her while she was ill.
Johnson’s wish came to the attention of the R2 Builder’s Club, another group of fans who build R2-D2 replicas from scratch – a time-consuming project.  Member Jerry Greene called for donations of parts to build an R2 unit especially for Katie, but as it was felt that Katie’s time was limited, another member, Andy Schwartz, repainted his blue R2-D2 unit pink and shipped it to Katie to have while her own was built.


Figure 7:  Katie Johnson after her cancer diagnosis.

 Figure 8:  R2-D2 watches over Senator Amidala at night.

The 501st Legion also rallied around Katie; the Japanese garrison even arranged a ‘get well’ video message from George Lucas and Hayden Christensen (who played Anakin Skywalker).
Katie died on 9 August, 2005, and her R2 unit, christened R2-KT, was finished in July 2006 and presented to her family.  R2-KT is used for charity work, paying visits to other sick children (Figure 9).  She is also now an official part of the Star Wars world, having made appearances in The Clone Wars (Figure 10) and Lego Star Wars: The Yoda Chronicles[1].  She has her own, official action figure that raises proceeds for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.[2]


Figure 9:  R2-KT visiting a children’s hospital in-patient.

Figure 10:  R2-D2 and R2-KT finally meet.

In this example, the extratextual world of the fan community is connected to the textual world of Star Wars by the activities of fans.  Fans appropriated an aspect of the textual world and repurposed it for the benefit of sick children.  Although R2-KT is used for charity, her appearances and action figure bring attention (free advertising, effectively) to the textual world.  Additionally, the textual world was expanded by her animated form.  R2-KT’s story will likely foster loyalty to both the textual and extratextual worlds in those who are emotionally affected by it.
Fans help to build the textual world, extend it and advertise it.  World-building is a collaborative process between producers and produsers, and respect for fans and their views is therefore vital.  Hence, the title of this paper is We Are Groot – a reference to a moment in Guardians of the Galaxy where the character Groot affirms that he and the other Guardians are finally ‘one’ – working as a team.
Jenkins has noted that, historically, media producers were dismissive of fans’ opinions, viewing them as ‘unrepresentative of general public sentiment.’[3]  However, recent marketing and advertising manuals, he writes, ‘point to a world where the most valued customer may be the one who is most passionate, dedicated and actively engaged.’[4]  Produsage is increasingly viewed as important to the value of the world as an intellectual property (‘IP’).  Grant McCracken, an anthropologist and marketing consultant, says,

Corporations will allow the public to participate in the construction and representation of its creations or they will, eventually, compromise the commercial value of their properties.  The new consumer will help create value or they will refuse it.[5]

Eleanor Baird Stribling lists four categories of fan activities that ‘contribute economic value’:
1.    Watching, listening, or attending
2.    Purchasing primary and secondary products
3.    Endorsing
4.    Sharing and recommending.[6]

Categories 1 and 2 contribute economic value in direct and more readily quantifiable ways – product or ticket sales, for example.  Categories 3 and  4 give a more indirect ‘payoff’ to producers, as these types of activities recruit new fans, ‘enhancing both the short- and long-term value, and thus the sustainability, of their projects.’[7]
In many ways, activities in categories 1 and 2 lead directly to activities in categories 3 and 4.  Operating within fan communities is what Sarah Thornton calls ‘subcultural capital’[8].  Value is placed on ‘being there’ or ‘liveness’ (‘I was there when…’).[9]  ‘Insider’ knowledge of production processes accords power within the community.  Fans derive pleasure from the participation and enthusiasm of their fellow fans at group viewings.  Therefore, making production and casting announcements, providing glimpses ‘behind the scenes’, and exclusively screening film footage at events like Comic-Con in San Diego serves two purposes.  Firstly, it rewards fans for their loyalty with advanced knowledge; secondly, fans will share knowledge with other fans and, with increasing frequency due to social media, non-fans.  This advertises the IP on behalf of producers and increases anticipation for new releases – important to studios reliant on strong openings at the box office.  (Likewise, merchandise gives opportunities to fans to recreate and extend the world through play while they simultaneously market the IP, particularly when using objects of conspicuous consumption such as t-shirts or bumper stickers.)  ‘Exciting your fans makes them contagious,’ writes transmedia writer Andrea Phillips.[10]
This potential was not always recognised by the media industries.  In 1976, when marketing director Charley Lippincott took Star Wars to a small convention called San Diego Comic-Con, he marched into a valuable new territory.  Lippincott’s strategy was to get the science-fiction and fantasy community talking about Star Wars well before its release.  Accordingly, he visited conferences and conventions, speaking about the film and its characters, showing the costumes and attempting to sell posters.  At one conference, he was heckled for promoting a film.  However, he persisted, making deals for Marvel and science-fiction publisher Ballantine Books to publish comics and a novel based on the film.  The novel, ghost-written by Alan Dean Foster, was released six months before Episode IV, in December 1976.  It became a best-seller, was sold out by February and was serialized in the Los Angeles Times.[11]  Jenkins, Ford and Green note that, in the early days of Comic-Con, attendees were asked not to share their exclusive knowledge.[12]  Post-Lippincott, Comic-Con is an important point of call for marketers.  ‘It is widely accepted that the convention’s early adopter audience can make or break a franchise,’ writes Taylor.[13]
The popularity of social media makes ‘evangelism’ by fans particularly effective.  Fans will attend events like early screenings and post their opinions on platforms like Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.  These posts have the potential to be seen by millions, and ‘suddenly the importance of recommendations from “the average person” have become a renewed priority, and word of mouth, the original form of marketing, is treated as a new phenomenon….’[14]
Of course, this makes it imperative that producers maintain positive, transparent relationships with fans, as negative experiences or instances of disrespect for fans may be spread just as visibly.  Jenkins writes that in December 2005, LucasArts announced that significant changes were to be made to its massively multiplayer online role-playing game (‘MMORPG’), Star Wars Galaxies.  The game had been designed by Raph Koster with the involvement of the fan community and it incorporated extensive user-generated content.  Koster’s view was:  ‘It’s not just a game.  It’s a service, it’s a world, it’s a community.’[15]  However, when Nancy MacIntyre, senior director of the game, announced the changes, she was dismissive of fans’ skills and creative contributions.  ‘Thanks to the social networks that fans have constructed around the game,’ notes Jenkins, ‘soon every gamer on the planet knew that MacIntyre had called her players idiots in the New York Times, and many of them departed for other virtual worlds….’[16]
Social media is an effective tool for producers to keep aware of the fan community’s tastes and demands.  Marvel has to date shown itself adroit at discovering and responding to fans’ wishes.
The power of social media was exemplified when, on 12 May 2014, Sophie Caldecott blogged about her father Stratford, an MCU fan who was dying of prostate cancer.[17]  Stratford had been too ill to see Captain America:  The Winter Soldier in the cinema.  Doctors had given him only 12 weeks to live, and the DVD release wasn’t until the August.  Sophie wrote that she would like to contact Marvel to arrange a screening of the film at Stratford’s home, and hoped to get the stars of the MCU to send messages of support via Twitter.  Mark Ruffulo (The Hulk), was the first to Tweet a message, directing Marvel’s attention to the cause.  His colleagues soon followed suit, as did many fans.  Within 48 hours, Marvel had contacted Sophie Caldecott to arrange the screening.



Differences of opinion within the fan community make it impossible for producers to meet every wish and demand, but it is important for them to maintain a dialogue which demonstrates transparency and respect.  Engaging with fans through social media is one method of realising this.
Producers are also beginning to utilise the social networks created by gaming for world-building and promotion, employing user-generated content such as characters, logos and ship designs.
When fans share the use of licensed content and add value to an IP through their labour (which is usually framed as play or competition), Johnson argues that they are placed in similar positions to professional producers, and they become stakeholders, albeit ones without economic claim.  They are, he claims, ‘enfranchised’.[18]  He therefore proposes a new understanding of franchising:  ‘[T]hat which industrially structures, organizes, and imagines shared, networked use of culture, not in opposition to but inclusive of produsage and other new creative patterns.’[19]
As previously discussed, the lines between producers and audiences are steadily being blurred, creating what producer Caitlin Burns calls the ‘final frontier keeping entertainment lawyers up at night’[20].  Jenkins[21] records an incident wherein Universal Pictures sent cease-and-desist letters to Firefly[22] fans (‘Browncoats’) who had successfully lobbied for a feature film and marketed both the series and the film at a grassroots level.  Universal demanded retroactive licensing fees for images the Browncoats had reproduced on t-shirts and posters.  Browncoats collaborated to send Universal an invoice for over $2 million (28,000 ‘billable’ hours), detailing ‘all of the time and labor (not to mention their own money) put into supporting the film’s release.’[23]  The Browncoats recognised, even if the studio did not, the value they had added to the franchise.
The difficulties with trademark laws and the protection of IP appear on both sides of the equation.  Fan-fiction writers have long feared prosecution for their use of trademarks; now producers are beginning to use fans’ creative ideas, calling into question these enfranchised fans’ rights to compensation.  For example, after the season two finale of Sherlock[24], writer Mark Gatiss looked at fans’ theories as to how Holmes had survived falling from a tall building.  He then wrote characters into the first episode of season three who presented some of those theories as possible explanations.  The television series Defiance[25] runs concurrently with an MMORPG set within the same world but a different city.  Gamers create their own characters, which may be appropriated by the producers and written into the television series.  Results of gameplay also affect the direction of the series.[26]
LucasArts’ policies on produsage have fluctuated between collaboration and prohibition, enablement and constraint.[27]  When the company found it could not shut down the sharing of fan fiction, it provided space at fan.StarWars.com for fans to post stories, but imposed strict guidelines regarding content (no slash fiction, for example).  Subsequently, it provided a similar space on www.AtomFilms.com for fan films, but stated that those films must either ‘parody the existing Star Wars universe, or be a documentary of the Star Wars fan experience.’[28]  In other words, any ‘fan-fiction films’ were banned.  In both cases, fans who posted their work signed over any IP rights they may have had to Lucasfilm[29], which meant that Lucasfilm could, if it were so inclined, use fan’s ideas or characters in future ‘official’ texts, without giving compensation or recognition.
Behind all of these difficulties lurks the issue of ownership.  Once an IP enters into popular culture, once fans are emotionally invested in it or enfranchised, they feel a sense of ownership that is not reflected by IP law and is often disregarded by producers.  As Brooker states, older Star Wars fans feel an ‘unhappy conflict’ in their loyalties:  they admire Lucas for creating their beloved world but feel betrayed by him for ‘despoiling the myth they grew up with’[30].  Their distaste for the SEs and the prequels caused them to lose faith in Lucas, to the point of reducing, in their eyes, his authority over the canon.  (Although Brooker claims that works written by the original creator trump all[31], there are fans who would consider the Heir to the Empire trilogy ‘more canon’ than, for example, the elements added to the SEs.)  One questionnaire respondent wrote, ‘George is like a mean father[.]  I appreciate the work but we’re better off not maintaining a relationship.’[32]
Of course, there are also fans who consider that, as the creator of the world, Lucas was entitled to do what he liked with it, regardless of fans’ feelings or wishes.


Figure 12:  older fans’ loyalties are challenged by their dislike of the changes Lucas has made.

The positions of the author and the auteur carry weight.  Just as each fan will make a different meaning from his or her own reading of a text, an author/auteur can also be ‘read’ in different ways and may affect a fan’s reading of a text.
A label of genre attached to a text communicates information about the context and tone of that text.  Likewise, the name of an author/auteur ‘work[s] as a shorthand, a tag, an abstract, and a primer for any item of media.’[33]  Joss Whedon’s name attached to a text, for example, communicates to potential audiences or readers that the text will have a feminist slant and will therefore contain ‘strong’ female characters.  It will also contain humour and intertextual references.
Fans will be drawn to a text by their favourite author/auteur simply because it is written/directed by him or her.  Hence, for media with cult potential, the author’s/auteur’s name will be made prominent in the marketing campaign, particularly if he or she has already gained a loyal fanbase through previous work.  Hills writes of the auteur’s ‘extratextual “presence”’, which is partly produced by the fans themselves, but initiated by the creation of this extratextual narrative in marketing.[34]
The notion of the author/auteur also connotes quality and ‘authenticity’, as opposed to ‘unauthored’ and ‘formulaic’[35] works perceived as ‘corporate hackery written by committee just to make a fast buck’[36].  In a media industry that now relies on franchising, there is always a risk that works not directly created by the author/auteur will be rejected by fans, or will be ranked lower in their ‘personal canon’.
Despite this, many Star Wars fans feel that the problems associated with the SEs and the prequels were rooted in the level of control granted to Lucas as auteur, and that his best works (Episode V is a common example given) were made through collaboration with other creatives.  During the filming of Episodes IV-VI, dialogue scripted by Lucas (never the strongest point of his writing) was often changed by the main actors, particularly Harrison Ford (Han Solo).  By the time of the prequels, however, any instances of ad-libbing or creative collaboration were extinguished by Lucas’s complete creative control, made possible by the latest technology and his position of power.  ‘“Now he’s so exalted,” Mark Hamill [Luke Skywalker] lamented in 2005, “that no one tells him anything.”’[37]
Nevertheless, Jenkins writes, Marvel has successfully employed a narrative of ‘centralized control and authorship against the multiple authorship of franchising’[38], and this narrative is often merged with what may be termed a ‘fanboy creator’[39] rhetoric.  Marvel executives have claimed quality and ‘authenticity’ for their productions by aligning themselves with the comic-book fan community.[40]  That community, Johnson points out, is only a small part of Marvel’s audience, but the fanboy-creator rhetoric gives them a niche identity among film producers.[41]
Accordingly, Marvel has also brought in creatives, particularly directors, who identify themselves as members of the fan community.  Joss Whedon is perhaps the most prolific example, having directed The Avengers and Age of Ultron[42].  He has long professed his own fandom in interviews, and his run of X-Men comics for Marvel was generally well received.  An obvious advantage of hiring a writer/director like Whedon is that he had a faithful fanbase of his own, many of whom presumably ‘followed’ him to the MCU.  However, fans also have a greater level of trust in fanboy creators to ‘get it right’ because they feel they are ‘one of us’ and therefore will understand what fans desire.  There is also, of course, an element of ‘that could be me’ fantasy in fans’ appreciation of fanboy creators.
Notably, for the new Star Wars films in production, Lucasfilm has followed Marvel’s example and hired directors J.J. Abrams and Gareth Edwards, both of whom have historically used the fanboy-creator rhetoric, particularly in relation to Star Wars.
For producers, collaborating with produsers and hiring fanboy creators can simply make good financial sense.  Taylor gives one such example:  upon meeting Lucas at a convention, when he was given a tour of their display, members of the R2 Builders Club informed him that each R2 unit built cost $10,000.  Lucas was reportedly shocked, as ILM had charged $80,000.  He and producer Rick McCallum joked that they were hired for the next film, if it were ever made.  In 2013, Kathleen Kennedy, the current president of Lucasfilm, was given a similar tour and immediately hired two British members of the Club to work on Episode VII.[43]

Bringing together various studies on participatory fan cultures, convergence, transmedia storytelling, world-building and franchising, this paper has explored how certain world-building techniques engage fans, and the ways in which producers and fan communities work together to build mutually beneficial worlds.  There are, however, additional important techniques that have had to be omitted – utilising branding and nostalgia, for example.
Effective collaboration between producers and fans is advantageous and achievable, despite difficulties that may hinder the process, such as attaining a balance between supplying new stories and bringing the world to a saturation point; appropriately apportioning ownership and control; reconciling differing creative visions; negotiating complications in relation to licensing, distribution and fans’ use of trademarks; and resolving any conflicting interests of producers and fan communities.
This paper has shown the importance of produsage to the continuation, extension (or evolution) and long-term financial and creative success of franchises.  It is therefore increasingly important for the media industries to work to encourage produsage, engage with fans through platforms such as social media, remain transparent about their intentions and strategies, and consider the opinions of the fan community when making decisions about world-building.
However, discerning and catering to a majority of the fan’s wishes can be problematic, as fan communities may be splintered due to the variety of ways in which each fan makes his or her initial emotional investment in a world.  It is therefore advantageous to work to prevent community splits such as the division between lovers and detractors of Star Wars Episodes I-III.  This goal is facilitated when producers endeavour to recognise which elements of a world are important to its existing fans and in which they are emotionally invested, and attempt to maintain consistency in relation to those elements.
Research conducted for this dissertation indicates that the aesthetic, the canon and the characters are particularly important in this respect; however, further research is required into the aspects of transmedia worlds that engender the deepest fan engagement, attachment and loyalty.
It would also be advantageous to examine worlds in an effort to understand where their ‘saturation points’ may be, at which point fan engagement and produsage are shut down.
Other areas for research include examining ways to manage licensing and distribution problems (for example, the difficulty of securing simultaneous world-wide releases, to combat piracy and meet fans’ demands); addressing legal problems arising from producers use of fans’ produsage; and finding ways to effectively and meaningfully enfranchise fans, to the benefit of both producers and produsers.


(C) Danica Issell, 2015


[1] Lego Star Wars: The Yoda Chronicles (The Cartoon Network, 2013).
[2] Many thanks to Chris Taylor for drawing the author’s attention to this story in his book How Star Wars Conquered the Universe (New York: Basic Books, 2014).
[3] Jenkins, Textual Poachers, op. cit., p. 279.
[4] Jenkins, Convergence Culture, op. cit., p. 73.
[5] Grant McCracken cited in Jenkins, Convergence Culture, ibid., p. 163.
[6] Eleanor Baird Stribling, ‘Valuing Fans’, Spreadable Media: Web Exclusive Essays, http://spreadablemedia.org/essays/stribling/#.VFaE3fnkcqc (accessed 14 October 2014).
[7] Ibid.
[8] Sarah Thornton cited by Hills in Ian Conrich (ed.), Horror Zone (New York and London: I. B. Tauris & Co, Ltd., 2010).  See also Fiske in Lisa A. Lewis (ed.), The Adoring Audience (London and New York: Routledge, 1992), pp. 30-49.
[9] Hills in Conrich, ibid., pp. 87, 92.
[10] Andrea Phillips, A Creator’s Guide to Transmedia Storytelling (New York: McGraw Hill, 2012), p. 112.
[11] Taylor, op. cit., pp. 169-162.
[12] Jenkins, Ford and Green, op. cit., pp. 145-6.
[13] Taylor, op. cit., p. 161.
[14] Jenkins, Ford and Green, op. cit., p. 75.
[15] Raph Koster cited in Jenkins, Convergence Culture, op. cit., p. 164.
[16] Jenkins, Convergence Culture, op. cit., p. 172.
[17] Sophie Caldecott, ‘Avengers Assemble!‘, Something for a Rainy Day, https://sophiecaldecott.wordpress.com/2014/05/12/avengers-assemble/ (accessed 3 January 2015).
[18] Johnson, Media Franchising, op. cit., pp. 199-201, 230.
[19] Ibid., p. 230.
[20] Caitlin Burns cited in Phillips, op. cit., p. 116.
[21] Henry Jenkins, ‘Joss Whedon, The Browncoats, and Dr. Horrible’, Spreadable Media: Web Exclusive Essays, http://spreadablemedia.org/essays/jenkins1/ (accessed 14 October 2014).
[22] Firefly (Fox Film Corporation, 2002-2003).
[23] Henry Jenkins, ‘Joss Whedon, The Browncoats, and Dr. Horrible’, op. cit.
[24] Sherlock (BBC, 2010—).
[25] Defiance (Syfy, 2013—).
[26] Wolf cited in Henry Jenkins, ‘Building Imaginary Worlds: An Interview with Mark J. P. Wolf (Part Four)’, Confessions of an Aca-Fan (9 September 2013), http://henryjenkins.org/ (accessed 27 October 2014).
[27] Jenkins, Convergence Culture, op. cit., p. 138.
[29] www.AtomFilms.com cited in Jenkins, Convergence Culture, op. cit., p. 159.
[29] Brooker, Using the Force, op. cit., p. 169; and
    Jenkins, Convergence Culture, op. cit., p. 157.
[30] Brooker, Using the Force, op. cit., p. xvi.
[31] Brooker in Annette Kuhn (ed.), Alien Zone II: The Spaces of Science Fiction (London and New York: Verso, 1999), p. 53.
[32] Questionnaire, Respondent 1.
[33] Jonathan Gray, ‘The Use Value of Authors’, Spreadable Media: Web Exclusive Essays, http://spreadablemedia.org/essays/gray/#.VFaEd_nkcqc (accessed 27 October 2014).
[34] Hills, op. cit., p. 133.
[35] Ibid.
[36] Gray, op. cit.
[37] Taylor, op. cit., p. 321.
[38] Henry Jenkins, ‘Rethinking the Value of Entertainment Franchises: An Interview with Derek Johnson (Part Two)’, Confessions of an Aca-Fan (16 January 2014), http://henryjenkins.org/ (accessed 30 September 2014).
[39] Jennifer Stoy cited in Roz Kaveney, Superheroes! Capes and Crusaders in Comics and Films (New York and London: I. B. Tauris & Co, Ltd., 2008), p. 202.
[40] Johnson, ‘Cinematic Destiny’, op. cit., p. 19.
[41] Ibid., p. 20.
[42] Avengers: Age of Ultron (Joss Whedon, 2015).
[43] Taylor, op. cit., p. 354.

Figure 7:   Katie Johnson (2006). Available at: http://www.r2kt.com/. Accessed 25 January 2015.

Figure 8:   Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (George Lucas, 2002) screenshot (2015).

Figure 9:   R2-KT’s visit to the Hemby Children's Hospital in Charlotte, NC (April 2013). Available at: http://www.r2t.com/. Accessed 25 January 2015.

Figure 10: Star Wars, R2-DT and R2-KT in the Clone Wars feature film (2014). Available at: http://www.starwars.com/news/the-power-of-the-pink-side. Accessed 25 January 2015.

Figure 11: #CapForStrat – various images (2014). Available at: //twitter.com/search?q=capforstrat&src=typd. Accessed 31 March 2015.

Figure 12: Artist unknown (2012). Available at: http://mattgoldammer.com/2012/11/07/disney-made-star-wars-might-not-be-the-worst-thing-ever/. Accessed 27 January 2015.

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

WE ARE GROOT: WHEN MEDIA PRODUCERS AND FAN COMMUNITIES ENGAGE IN MUTUAL WORLD-BUILDING [CHAPTER 1]

I wrote a paper on my favourite subjects:  world-building, fan culture, Star Wars and Marvel movies.  I had intended to get it properly published, but film studies journals don’t publish quickly enough or often enough – much of this may go out of date once The Force Awakens arrives in cinemas on December 17th – so I decided to publish it here, for your enjoyment or mystification….

Introduction

Legend has it that in 1893, when Sherlock Holmes was apparently thrown over the Reichenbach Falls by his creator, Arthur Conan Doyle[1], young men wore black arm bands in London’s streets to mourn his passing.  While the veracity of this has been hotly disputed[2], the public did actively engage with Holmes’ fantastic world in a ground-breaking way.  Historian Michael Saler notes:

[A]dults no less than children pretended that his world was real, inhabiting it in a communal fashion for prolonged periods of time.  Holmes fandom was the template for subsequent fan subcultures dedicated to fictional worlds and characters.[3]
In his essay On Stories[4], C. S. Lewis noted the different pleasures afforded to him and one of his pupils by their childhood readings about cowboys and Native Americans.  While his pupil preferred the danger and suspense of the plot, Lewis was interested in ‘that whole world to which it belonged – the snow and the snow-shoes, beavers and canoes, warpaths and wigwams, and Hiawatha names.’[5]
Fascination with other worlds is clearly not a new phenomenon, but as physically, sensually and conceptually immersive media[6] technologies develop, they provide more readily-available tools for world-building, and fan practices that were once considered ‘cult’ (for example, role-playing games) have become more mainstream.  The media industries are recognising the power of other worlds to engage fans, and shifting their approaches accordingly.  An article on cult-media news website Den of Geek asks, ‘Why is Hollywood building so many cinematic universes?’[7]  In an interview with Henry Jenkins, MIT professor Ian Condry recounts his experience meeting with the producers of a Japanese anime series:  the producers spent an hour describing the series’ characters and its world without a mention of the story, which in fact hadn’t even been written.[8]  When writer/director siblings Lana and Andy Wachowski auditioned actors for roles in Jupiter Ascending[9], they gave out a 300-page ‘“Bible” detailing the societal rules and regulations and all the technical whatnots of their latest “verse”.’[10]  In a review of the Wachowski’s Matrix franchise, critic Louis Kennedy notes, ‘[W]e should not fall into the trap of calling them bad storytellers.  They aren’t storytellers at all.  They are worldmakers.’[11]
In his book Convergence Culture, Henry Jenkins writes that ‘storytelling has become the art of world building’[12].  He implies that fans’ engagement with a world often results in productive activities that can become as much a part of that world as ‘official’ or ‘authorised’ ones.
Conversely, fan communities may themselves be viewed as ‘worlds’ with which media producers, increasingly, must engage to extend the range or value of their intellectual property.  This has become especially important in the present digital or ‘Media 2.0’ age, when fans’ opinions may be highly visible across digital platforms (social media, for example) and are potentially, therefore, extremely influential.  We might consider these two worlds – the created world and the world of the fan community – as ‘intratextual’ and ‘extratextual’ worlds.  Each world sustains the other.
In the mid-1970s, Star Wars creator George Lucas wrote one long screenplay – too long for one film – telling the adventures of Annikin Starkiller.  He also wrote outlines for several more films set in the same galaxy.  As, according to standard industry practice at the time, only one film had been initially greenlit, he was forced to choose one section of the story[13], which eventually became Star Wars[14].  Although a couple of novels were released around the same time as the original film trilogy, they did not significantly expand the Star Wars galaxy, and little thought was given as to whether they harmonised with or contradicted the developing film canon.  In February 1987, with new stories to hold its members’ interest, the Star Wars fan club shut down.  However, with the release of Timothy Zhan’s popular Heir to the Empire novel trilogy in 1991, the Expanded Universe (the ‘EU’), as it became known, was birthed, and grew at a rate unanticipated by industry professionals[15].  In 1997 alone, 22 EU novels were released.[16]
In contrast, when Marvel Studios released Iron Man[17] and The Incredible Hulk[18] in 2008, those two films were the beginning of an entire ‘phase’ of new film franchises, already planned, and all revolving around different characters living in the same filmic ‘universe’, known as the Marvel Cinematic Universe (the ‘MCU’).  (Marvel Comics takes this same approach – all its superheroes’ stories exist within the same ‘multiverse’.)  The stories and characters in this first phase would converge in 2012’s The Avengers[19], which for a period was the third-highest-grossing film of all time[20].  Subsequently, Guardians of the Galaxy[21] was the beginning of a separate franchise which also shares and extends the MCU.  Other studios have taken note of Marvel’s successful strategy and are following its lead in creating new franchises within existing ‘universes’.
The Star Wars and Marvel worlds, two of the largest transmedia franchises, and the fan communities connected with them, are useful case studies.  This paper uses them to examines certain methods of world-building that serve to engage fan communities and garner their loyalty, discuss the mutual benefits to media producers and fan communities of engagement and collaborative world-building, and consider some of the problematic issues that arise from producer-fan collaboration, world-building and transmedia storytelling.  It draws on the work of Henry Jenkins in relation to media fans and production, as well as Umberto Eco’s discussion of cult media, Derek Johnson’s theory of enfranchisement, Will Brooker’s arguments about canonicity and authorship, and Mark J. P. Wolf’s writing on world-building.  It also refers to the results of two qualitative questionnaires which were completed by 80 anonymous, self-identifying Star Wars and Marvel fans, contacted via postings on the website Reddit[22].
As much of this body of academic work relates to fans of cult media, it is necessary to define ‘cult’ and, indeed, ‘fans’, which are both slippery terms.
The Cult Film Reader’s definition of a cult film is too detailed to discuss in full here, but it may be summarised as follows:  a cult film is one that may cross boundaries (moral/technical/aesthetic); inspire a community of fans who are committed to publicly celebrating it and who appropriate its themes to build identity; have ‘legends’ or disasters associated with its production; make use of allegory, counterculture, ideology and/or mythology; and have continuing relevance and value.[23]  A cult film is therefore defined by the community activity that surrounds it as well as the characteristics of its production.
As the following discussions will demonstrate, both Star Wars and the MCU fit this definition.  They are technically, industrially and sometimes aesthetically innovative; they have ardent, active fans who appropriate their themes and incorporate them into their speech, beliefs and lifestyles; they have creators who are held up as inspirational to the extent of having a legendary status (additionally, the set of Episode IV was beset by environmental disasters, and Marvel’s future was threatened by bankruptcy prior to the release of Iron Man); they draw on elements of mythology, make use of archetypes and ideology; and they have maintained market and cultural values over significant periods of time.
The pervasiveness of these franchises would seem to contradict the common application of ‘cult’ to media or fan practices that are not mainstream.  John Fiske provides useful definitions of ‘mass culture’ and ‘popular culture’:  mass culture is ‘mass produced and distributed’; popular culture is a text which has ‘been meaningfully integrated into people’s lives’, regardless of its production and distribution methods.[24]  The two terms are not mutually exclusive.  This definition aligns popular culture with the above definition of cult media (if popular culture were set on a sliding scale of meaningful integration, we would find cult media at the more extreme end), which demonstrates how both franchises, while being part of ‘mass culture’, can simultaneously be considered cult.
The problem of defining ‘fans’ is tied up with common arguments in the literature about which fan activities can be classed as productive, and whether fans are ‘producers’ or ‘consumers’ who are ‘engaged’ or ‘exploited’ (or varying degrees of both).  Fiske writes, ‘Every act of consumption is an act of cultural production, for consumption is always the production of meaning.’[25]  Matt Hills, however, claims that, in order to cast fans as ‘good’ producers rather than ‘bad’ consumers, Fiske and his protégé Jenkins push the meaning of ‘production’ too far – that by their definitions, all fans are being productive merely by consuming media, and everyone who consumes media is therefore a fan.[26]  Jenkins and co-authors Sam Ford and Joshua Green later state that while they ‘respect’ Hills’s objection, they wish to lower ‘the barriers to entry to cultural production’.[27]
In a discussion on gender and fan culture wherein Anne Kustritz and Derek Johnson debate contradictory ideas of how to define ‘fans’, they conclude that ‘the scholarly enterprise of studying fans should strive for contextualization and multiplicity, rather than some unifying theory of fandom.’[28]  Hills, too, takes the position that ‘rigorous definitions’ and ‘clearly definable entities’ are impossible within fan studies, and that definitions should remain fluid and contextual.[29]
For the purposes of this paper, it is perhaps best to define the type of fans under discussion as ‘produsers’.  ‘Produsage’ is a term coined by Axel Bruns[30].  It is a combination of ‘production’ and ‘usage’, and it is helpful for a discussion of collaborative engagement between producers and audiences, as it removes any ‘moral’ divides between production and consumption and blurs the lines between producers and fans.
There is a related debate in the literature over whether or not fans are exploited when producers collaborate with them in world-building activities.  Jenkins, Ford and Green argue that audiences should be considered ‘“engaged” rather than “exploited”’[31], as ‘engagement’ comprehends mutual benefit to producers and fans.
Hills notes that one cannot ‘expect an argumentative position to operate entirely without contradiction.’[32]  With this in mind, many of the discussions in this paper may include contradictory arguments.  Therefore, the author takes a postmodern-relativist position that an attempt to resolve these cannot or should not be attempted.

Chapter 1:  Intratextual and Intertextual World-Building

Writing or production techniques used in building worlds that effectively and, indeed, affectively engage fans may be ‘intratextual’, in that they work within a text, or they may be ‘intertextual’, in that they work by referencing other texts.  This chapter looks at how various techniques work to engage fans and garner their loyalty to the created world.
Every creative writing student is taught what Mark J. P. Wolf calls ‘one of the cardinal rules’ of writing to engage your audience:  eliminate anything that doesn’t ‘actively advance the story’.[33]  Building a valuable world with a dedicated fan-base, however, requires the inclusion of additional elements that inspire produsage.
Umberto Eco states that a cult text ‘must provide a completely furnished world….’[34]  Matt Hills refers to this ‘furnishing’ as ‘hyperdiegesis’[35] – providing small details that stimulate the audience to imagine something much larger going on ‘off screen’.  Hyperdiegesis creates an immersive world that audiences can believe (to quote Will Brooker) ‘was alive before we arrived, carries on in the background while we focus on the main characters, and continues after we leave.’[36]
Hyperdiegesis creates ‘gaps’ in the text that encourage on-going speculation by audiences.[37]  This speculation results in produsage and, importantly for the media industry, repeated viewings (or readings).
One of these ‘gaps’ appears in The Avengers.  During a battle, Black Widow comments, ‘It’s like Budapest all over again’, to which Hawkeye replies, ‘You and I remember Budapest very differently.’  The history is never explained, leaving fans to speculate about what happened in Budapest (Figure 1).


Figure 1:  a fan-produced poster for an imaginary film about the mysterious events in Budapest.

Eco calls this type of text ‘ramshackle, rickety, unhinged’, and adds that ‘only an unhinged movie survives as a disconnected series of images, of peaks, of visual icebergs.’[38]  These ‘visual icebergs’ are often the elements that are echoed in popular culture, as they encourage parody and play.  They are examples of what Jenkins, Ford and Green have labelled ‘spreadable content’ – media content, usually digital, that is easily appropriated, recreated or repurposed, then shared by fans.[39]  Spreadable content reflects a shared fantasy (often nostalgic), or contains humour, parody, intertextual references, mystery, timely controversy or rumour.[40]  For example, at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy, there is a short, comedic scene where a character, who became known as ‘Baby Groot’, dances joyfully to The Jackson Five’s I Want You Back (1969) (Figure 2).  Audiences considered it a highlight of the film, and a social media ‘buzz’ grew around it soon after the film’s release.  Marvel, recognising this, quickly uploaded the scene to the internet in an easily-sharable video format[41].  (It also added a ‘Dancing Groot’ to its toy range.)  Jenkins, Ford and Green call this type of video a ‘quote’ which is ‘grabbable’ (made ‘easily portable and sharable’ by the producer).[42]  Producers who create content with ‘spreadability’ are ‘generating audiences through heightening popular awareness’ and ‘sustaining audiences through fuelling ongoing conversations.’[43]


Figure 2:  Baby Groot’s joyful dance proved extremely spreadable.

Star Wars is a benchmark for all of these aspects of world-building.  Although Star Wars contains many ‘icebergs’, both visual and aural (fans can and do utilise anything vaguely tubular to recreate lightsaber battles), its textual ‘gaps’ are what has really granted it longevity.  When Episode IV was released, fans were left pondering mentions of ‘Jabba’, ‘the Clone Wars’ and ‘the Kessel Run’.  The near-extinction of the Jedi went unexplained.  The Force was an elusive, largely undefined power that could be shaped to fit comfortably with almost any community’s belief system.
The EU rushed to fill these gaps.  As previously mentioned, the Star Wars fan club shut down in 1987, due to a lack of new stories, but interest was reignited in 1991 with the birth of the EU.  Since then, the supply of new stories (in novels, the prequel films, three animated television series, and various comic books and games), and fans’ produsage in response, have been relentless.
If new ‘official’ stories are not provided, fans will likely lose interest over time, and the world will lose its value as an intellectual property.  This can create other problems.  Derek Johnson notes, for example, that in 2003, games publisher Activision sued Viacom, the owners and licensors of Star Trek, for devaluing their exclusive games licence by ‘failing and refusing to continue to exploit and support the Star Trek franchise’[44].
New stories or, as Jenkins calls them, the ‘raw materials for playful re-workings’[45] keep fans interested, but there is a catch – they also fill the gaps that allow for fan engagement, eventually bringing the world to a ‘saturation’ or ‘breaking’ point.  Jenkins writes, ‘There has to be a breaking point beyond which franchises cannot be stretched…We just don’t know where it is yet.’[46]
Brooker, writing in 2009, suggested that Star Wars had reached this point.[47]  Lucasfilm apparently agreed.  Following its purchase by Disney in 2012, the company announced that the EU (in other words, everything except Episodes I-VI and two of the animated series[48]) would no longer be considered canon, and would be relabelled Star Wars Legends.[49]  This reopened the gaps and gave Lucasfilm more freedom when planning new films.  An alternative to ‘de-canonisation’ for worlds that have reached a saturation point is to ‘reboot’ them, as was done with Star Trek[50] in 2009.  Either option, no matter how carefully done, will likely divide fans’ opinions and loyalties.
Brooker[51] and Jenkins[52] both use the character Boba Fett as an example of how new material can shut down engagement.  Fett is first seen in Episode V, receiving a stern warning from Darth Vader against disintegrating main characters.  We are told nothing about him other than that he is a particularly ruthless bounty hunter.  His armour completely covers his body and face, and his voice, when briefly heard, is distorted by his helmet.  The mystery surrounding Fett caught fans’ imaginations and provided plentiful opportunities for speculation, invention and play.  His popularity led Lucas to feature him as a boy in Episodes I-III, but by doing so, Jenkins points out, Lucas ‘closed down those possibilities, pre-empting important lines of fan speculation even as he added information that might sustain new franchises.’[53]
There is another difficulty associated with the provision of new material:  to meet the current demand for transmedia storytelling, the world’s creator must relinquish a certain level of control to other producers, whose products may be significantly different in tone, or of poorer quality (several questionnaire respondents were pleased that the de-canonisation of the EU would remove ‘the bad stuff’ from the canon).
In any discussion of world-building, transmedia storytelling cannot be ignored.  There are pros and cons to a transmedial approach.  Jenkins says, ‘[T]ransmedial extensions are designed to serve one of three tasks:  explore the world, expand the timeline, or flesh out secondary characters.’[54]  They provide multiple entry points for engagement, catering to different interests.  They provide a deeper level of immersion as fans hunt for and share new information, building communities in the process.  The more details that fans know, the more they are rewarded by their recognition of ‘Easter eggs’, in-jokes and intertextual references (these are discussed below).
Not every fan will be interested in every aspect of transmedia storytelling.  However, director Ed Sanchez notes, ‘The people who do explore and take advantage of the whole world will forever be your fans, will give you an energy you can’t buy through advertising.’[55]
The publication of what historian Michael Saler calls ‘paratexts’ – ‘making of’ documentaries, maps, technology guides – helps fans to visualise the world and render it, he says, ‘not only more “real” but more “alive” or virtual.’[56]  There have long been jokes about ardent Trekkies (or Trekkers, if you prefer) investigating the location of the bathrooms on the Enterprise.
Different texts also engage different age groups.  Guardians of the Galaxy, an adaptation from Marvel’s comic book series, has in turn its own Lego comic book, which would appeal to much younger fans.
However, the market will be smaller for a transmedia world that demands a heavy investment of time and energy to be understood.  Neil Young, a digital arts executive, suggests that audiences need to be eased into a ‘deep love of the story’, which means ‘you might need to express it sequentially…rather than trying to put it all out there at once.’[57]
The release or viewing order of individual texts can affect fans’ experiences of the world.  Someone viewing the Star Wars films in chronological order (Episodes I-VI) will experience the world very differently to someone who views them in release order (Episodes IV-VI followed by Episodes I-III).  The former viewer may find the special effects in Episodes IV-VI ‘clunky’ after the slick CGI of Episodes I-III; conversely, the latter viewer may find the CGI in Episodes I-III objectionable and feel that it is not as ‘real’ or ‘substantial’.  The former viewer misses the surprise when the Skywalker family connections are revealed in Episodes V and VI, as it is spoiled by Episode III.  But fans will also experience the world differently depending on which type of media forms their entry point to the world.  A young child playing a Star Wars Lego video game will know essential plot elements of the films before they see them.
Another difficulty is distribution timings.  In 2014, Marvel set a precedent by linking its Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.[58] television series with the film Captain America: The Winter Soldier[59].  In the USA, episodes of the series that fitted narratively before and after the film were scheduled to air a week either side of the film’s release date.  However, simultaneous world-wide releases are not always possible, despite a growing need for them in order to combat piracy and the appearance of ‘spoilers’ online, and to meet the demands of fans and transmedia storytelling.
Finally, licensing agreements can cause headaches for transmedia producers wishing to create a cohesive world.  Two of Marvel’s most valuable properties, Spider-Man and The X-Men, exist in the same Marvel Universe as the Avengers.  However, licencing agreements made with Sony and Fox when Marvel was facing bankruptcy meant that they could not co-exist in the MCU (see Figure 3 for a fan's commentary on the situation).[60]


Figure 3:  licensing can stymie world-building – Spider-Man is part of the Marvel Universe, but he has not, until recently, been allowed to ‘play’ with the Avengers in the MCU, as he is licensed to Sony.

Even producers who resolve these issues cannot eliminate all of the potential problems associated with providing new stories.  There is always a risk that fans will react negatively to new ideas, as they did when Lucas wrote mentions of ‘midi-chlorians’ into Episode IStar Wars chronicler Chris Taylor notes that ‘long-time fans revolted’ against the introduction of a ‘rational, scientific component’ to the mystical Force.[61]
One way for producers to avoid negative reactions is to recognise from the beginning which aspects fans are emotionally invested in, and make efforts to maintain consistency in those areas.  Jenkins explains that a fan’s ‘closeness’ to a world ‘can only be sustained as long as the imagined world maintains both credibility and coherence, and hence the importance the fans place on even the most seemingly trivial detail.’[62]
When inconsistencies are introduced, fans often feel a sense of betrayal.  A similar ‘betrayal’ occurs when stories are poorly adapted from one medium to another (novel to film, for example), or when stories are ‘retconned’.  ‘Retcon’ stands for ‘retroactive continuity’, and applies when changes are made to a work after (sometimes long after) its release, usually to increase a world’s continuity, but occasionally for other reasons.  Wolf notes, ‘If a work is embedded in cultural memory, retconning can damage the relationship that an audience has with a work….’[63],[64]
Midi-chlorians are not the only problem that Star Wars fans have had with new material.  In 1997, Lucas released what he called the ‘Special Editions’ of Episodes IV-VI (the ‘SEs’), which were heavily retconned versions – digitally enhanced and re-edited.  He has since made several sets of further changes, and repeatedly refused fans’ requests for the original theatrical-release versions (the ‘TRVs’) to be remastered for DVD and Blu-Ray.
In the fan community, opinions are sharply divided in relation to the SEs.  The prequel trilogy was also poorly received by many fans.  The author’s interactions with fans suggest that this division is largely to do with the site and time of a fan’s original, emotional investment in the world.  Fans whose first experience of Star Wars was through the prequels or the SEs, or fans who first viewed them at a young age, are more readily accepting of them.  Many older fans, however, simply refuse to watch the SEs, resorting to grainy VHS copies of the TRVs or the poor-quality versions that Lucas grudgingly included with the 2005 DVD release.
Intriguingly, Lucas gave a testimony in Congress in 1988 against the colourisation of classic films such as John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon[65].  He said, ‘People who alter or destroy works of art and our cultural heritage for profit or as an exercise of power are barbarians.’[66]  Taylor concludes that Lucas would not have objected if Huston had made the changes himself.[67]  This raises the issue of ownership, which will be discussed in Part 2.
There are three areas where maintaining consistency is vital:  the look and ‘feel’ of the world, which we will here call its ‘aesthetic’; the canon; and the characters.
Discussing his intentions for Episode IV in 1975, Lucas said, ‘I’m trying to make a film that looks very real, with a nitty-gritty feel….’[68]  This aesthetic is often referred to as the ‘used’[69] or ‘lived in’[70] universe and was identified by several questionnaire respondents as an element that attracted them to Star Wars.  The overt, heavy use of CGI is one of the most common objections fans have to the SEs and the prequels.  Producer Gary Kurtz felt that Lucas’s digital retcons in the SEs did not ‘fit in with the mechanical style of the original film.’[71]
Significantly, J. J. Abrams, a long-time Star Wars fan and now director of the upcoming Episode VII[72], in an effort to secure fans’ support for the new film, has made conspicuous (through images released during filming) his use of physical sets and practical effects to echo the TRVs’ ‘used universe’ aesthetic (Figure 4).


Figure 4:  Episode VII director J. J. Abrams on set, filming a video for the charity Force for Change.

Maintaining aesthetic consistency also applies when a book or comic is translated to film.  Fans’ conceptions of Middle-Earth (the world of The Lord of the Rings novels) had long been influenced by illustrators Alan Lee and John Howe.  When Peter Jackson adapted the novels to film, he brought Lee and Howe in to help with the production design, in order to ‘get it right’ for the fans.
A consistent canon is enormously important to fans.  Debates rage all over the internet about the canonicity of different texts, along with attempts to explain away problems (such as Han Solo’s boast that the Millennium Falcon ‘made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs’, a parsec being a unit of distance, not time).  Improbable explanations given by producers to explain canonical changes are also problematic.  Jenkins quotes one frustrated Star Trek fan:  ‘[Eventually,] the fans will refuse to keep on “buying it” and will “check out” instead….’[73]
Despite the debates, an examination of the questionnaire responses suggests that each fan ultimately establishes his or her own ‘personal canon’, to use one fan’s phrase[74], examining the ‘truth’ of each text by weighing it against various factors, particularly its authorship, its quality and conformity to the existing canon[75], its age[76], and the consensus of the fan community.  Unfortunately, this does tend to splinter fan communities, making it harder for producers of new texts to please a majority of the fans.
The most infamous debate over a retcon has made its way into the zeitgeist as ‘Han shot first’ (Figure 5).  Brooker explains,
In...A New Hope, Han slides his gun from its holster while cornered by the bounty hunter Greedo, shooting his antagonist dead with a shot under the table.  In the Special Edition, Greedo fires first by a split second and misses, justifying Han’s retaliation.[77]
The problem with this retcon was that it altered Han’s character arc.  Han progresses from selfish, wily smuggler and ‘scoundrel’ – exactly the type of man to shoot before he is shot at – to self-sacrificing, team-playing general.  To ‘justify’ one of his more roguish actions is to flatten his character arc, not to mention make him look rather inept.[78]


Figure 5:  changes made to the canon of a world, including retcons, can splinter fan communities, as each individual fan will tend to adopt his or her own ‘personal canon’.

The Marvel fans who responded to the questionnaire overwhelmingly placed importance on character consistency for a good comic-to-film adaptation.  Comments from Star Wars fans in relation to the de-canonisation of the EU also show the importance of the characters.
If they want to toss away the events that’s fine….  But, please, some of the characters have been bigger fan favourites than some of the movie characters.  Adapt some of the characters to the movies and I’ll be happy (Mara, Han and Leia’s kids), because they’ve felt like canon for the last 20 years.[79]
Many fans feel that future diversions from the EU (now Legends) stories are acceptable, as long as their favourite characters appear.  The ‘Mara’ referred to above is Mara Jade Skywalker, Luke Skywalker’s wife, a character created by Timothy Zahn.  Many fans have read about Mara for so long that she is as established in their personal canon as Luke.  Other EU characters, such as the Skywalkers’ son, Ben; Han and Leia’s children; and Grand Admiral Thrawn, who led the Empire after the Emperor’s death, are spoken of by fans in a similar way but, to date, indications are that none of them will be written into Episode VII.  This may present a stumbling block to fans’ engagement with the new direction.
One final technique important to fan engagement is the inclusion of intertextual references.  ‘[M]edia fans take pleasure in making intertextual connections across a broad range of media texts,’ writes Jenkins.[80]
Intertextual references heighten or maintain the visibility in popular culture of the texts referenced.  As Wolf notes, H. P. Lovecraft encouraged other authors to use the ‘gods’ he invented, to create verisimilitude.[81]  The presence of an Alien skull (from the Alien franchise) in a trophy case in Predator 2[82] was responsible for years of speculation among fans of both franchises – which they now knew existed in the same world – about a ‘crossover’ film.  This extended the value of both franchises when, due to the demand, two crossover films were made after the viability of the individual franchises had waned.
Each MCU film refers to the already-existing world, but with successive releases, audiences became aware that MCU films also had ‘stingers’ – additional short scenes during and after their credits rolls – that gave hints of a future film’s storyline (Figure 6).  Johnson writes, ‘Dangling scenes and quick character teases in Marvel’s films foster not just narrative expansion but also an audience participation that extends the commercial viability of the films….’[83]


Figure 6:  a Lord of the Rings meme, appropriated by fans to comment on Marvel’s use of ‘stingers’

The MCU films, especially when in the hands of writer/director Joss Whedon, are full of intertextual references, and they come in many forms besides stingers, including in-jokes, cameos and ‘Easter eggs’.  Tony Stark makes frequent pop-culture references.  Stan Lee, creator of many popular Marvel characters, has an amusing cameo in every MCU film.  Whedon’s fans will recognise several actors who have worked with him on other projects in cameos or guest roles in The Avengers and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D[84].  Easter eggs – partially-hidden details that will appear significant only to viewers familiar with the comics – are included as a way of saying to comic-book fans, ‘We haven’t forgotten you.’  In-jokes bring pleasure to the select few who ‘get it’.  Sharing and discussing these types of intertextual references helps to build and strengthen the sense of community among fans.







(C) Danica Issell, 2015


[1] Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘The Final Problem’, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1894; London: CRW Publishing Limited, 2005), pp. 277-300.
[2] Peter Calamai, ‘A Reader Challenge and Prize’, The Baker Street Journal, http://www.bakerstreetjournal.com/armbands.html (accessed 8 November 2014).
[3] Michael Saler cited in Henry Jenkins, ‘“From Imaginary to Virtual Worlds”: An Interview with Historian Michael Saler (Part One)’, Confessions of An Aca-Fan (11 December 2013), http://henryjenkins.org/ (accessed 27 October 2014).
[4] C. S. Lewis, ‘On Stories’ (extract from Of Other Worlds), http://campus.huntington.edu/dma/leeper/dm101/readings/@word/on%20stories.rtf (accessed 27 October 2014).
[5] Ibid.
[6] Mark J. P. Wolf, Building Imaginary Worlds (New York & Oxon: Routledge, 2012), p. 48.
[7] Mark Harrison, ‘Why is Hollywood building so many cinematic universes?’, Den of Geek (13 October 2014), http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/cinematic-universes/32452/why-is-hollywood-building-so-many-cinematic-universes (accessed 27 October 2014).
[8] Ian Condry cited in Henry Jenkins, ‘“Media Mix is Anime’s Life Support System”: A Conversation with Ian Condry and Marc Steinberg (Part One), Confessions of An Aca-Fan (8 November 2013), http://henryjenkins.org/ (accessed 27 October 2014).
[9] Jupiter Ascending (The Wachowskis, 2015).
[10] Ian Nathan, ‘The World Is Not Enough’, Empire 302 (August 2014), p. 89..
[11] Louis Kennedy cited in Wolf, op. cit., p. 13.
[12] Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture (New York & London: New York University Press, 2006), p. 116.
[13] George Lucas cited in American Film Institute, George Lucas on How STAR WARS Got Made (30 October 2009), http://youtu.be/mztK3s63_OM (accessed 16 November 2014).
[14] Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (George Lucas, 1977).  The individual Star Wars films (Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (George Lucas, 1999); Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (George Lucas, 2002); Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (George Lucas, 2005);Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (George Lucas, 1977); Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner, 1980); and Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi (Richard Marquand, 1983)) are hereafter referred to by their episode number; for example, Episode IV.
[15] Chris Taylor, How Star Wars Conquered the Universe (New York: Basic Books, 2014), p. 289.
[16] Ibid., p. 290.
[17] Iron Man (Jon Favreau, 2008).
[18] The Incredible Hulk (Louis Leterrier, 2008).
[19]The Avengers (UK title: Avengers Assemble) (Joss Whedon, 2012).
[20] The Numbers, ‘All Time Highest Grossing Movies Worldwide’ (2015), http://www.the-numbers.com/movie/records/All-Time-Worldwide-Box-Office (accessed 16 November 2014).
[21] Guardians of the Galaxy (James Gunn, 2014).
[22] ‘/r/Marvel’, reddit, http://www.reddit.com/r/marvel (accessed October 2014); and
   ‘Star Wars’, reddit, http://www.reddit.com/r/starwars (accessed October 2014).
[23] Ernest Mathijs and Xavier Mendik (eds.), The Cult Film Reader (Berkshire: Open University Press, 2008), pp. 1-11.
[24] John Fiske cited in Henry Jenkins and Sam Ford and Joshua Green, Spreadable Media (New York & London: New York University Press, 2013), p. 200.
[25] John Fiske, Understanding Popular Culture (New York and London: Routledge, 1989), 35.
[26] Matt Hills, Fan Cultures (London: Routledge, 2002), p. 30.
[27] Henry Jenkins, Sam Ford and Joshua Green, Spreadable Media (New York and London: New York University Press, 2013), pp. 154-155.
[28] Derek Johnson cited in Henry Jenkins, ‘Gender and Fan Culture (Round Thirteen, Part One): Anne Kustritz and Derek Johnson, Confessions of An Aca-Fan (30 August 2007), http://henryjenkins.org/ (accessed 27 October 2014).
[29] Hills, op. cit., pp. ix-xv.
[30] Jenkins, Ford and Green, op. cit., p. 183.
[31] Ibid., p. 60.
[32] Hills, op. cit., p. xii.
[33] Wolf, op. cit., p. 29.
[34] Umberto Eco, ‘Casablanca: Cult Movies and Intertextual Collage’ in Mathijs and Mendik (eds.), op. cit., pp. 67-75, 68.
[35] Hills, op. cit., p. 137.
[36] Will Brooker, BFI Film Classics: Star Wars (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), p. 30.
[37] Wolf, op. cit., p. 60
[38] Eco, op. cit., p. 68.
[39] Jenkins, Ford and Green, op. cit., p. 3.
[40] Ibid., pp. 202-204.
[41] Yahoo! Screen, ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Clip: Baby Groot’ (2014) https://screen.yahoo.com/ guardians-galaxy-clip-baby-groot-234613832.html (accessed 27 October 2014).
[42] Jenkins, Ford and Green, op. cit., p. 188.
[43] Ibid., p. 188.
[44] Legal complaint cited in Derek Johnson, Media Franchising (New York and London: New York University Press, 2013), p. 44.
[45] Henry Jenkins, Textual Poachers (London: Routledge, 1992), p. 75.
[46] Jenkins, Convergence Culture, op. cit., p. 131.
[47] Will Brooker, BFI Film Classics: Star Wars (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) pp. 32-33.
[48] Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Lucasfilm, 2008-2014); and  Star Wars Rebels (Lucasfilm, 2014—).
[49] Graeme McMillan, ‘Lucasfilm Unveils New Plans for “Star Wars” Expanded Universe’, The Hollywood Reporter (25 April 2014), https://movies.yahoo.com/news/lucasfilm-unveils-plans-star-wars-expanded-universe-050000805.html (accessed 27 October 2014).
[50] Star Trek (J. J. Abrams, 2009).
[51] Will Brooker, Using the Force (New York and London: The Continuum International Publishing Group, 2002), p. 18.
[52] Jenkins, Convergence Culture, op. cit., p. 117.
[53] Ibid.
[54] Henry Jenkins, ‘Building Imaginary Worlds: An Interview with Mark J. P. Wolf (Part Three)’, Confessions of an Aca-Fan (6 September 2013), http://henryjenkins.org/ (accessed 27 October 2014).
[55] Ed Sanchez cited in Jenkins, Convergence Culture, op. cit., p. 105.
[56] Michael Saler cited in Henry Jenkins, ‘“From Imaginary to Virtual Worlds”: An Interview with Historian Michael Saler (Part Two)’, Confessions of an Aca-Fan (13 December 2013), http://henryjenkins.org/ (accessed 27 October 2014).
[57] Neil Young cited in Jenkins, Convergence Culture, op. cit., p. 130.
[58] Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D (ABC Studios, 2013—).
[59] Captain America: The Winter Soldier (Anthony Russo and Joe Russo, 2014).
[60] Following several box-office disappointments, however, Sony recently reached an agreement with Marvel to allow Spider-Man to appear in future Avengers films.
[61] Taylor, op. cit., p. 58.
[62] Jenkins, Textual Poachers, op. cit., p. 115.
[63] Wolf, op. cit., p. 213.
[64] See Hills, op. cit., pp. 131-143 for a discussion of the psychology behind this.
[65] The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941).
[66] Lucas cited in Taylor, op. cit., p. 315.
[67] Taylor, op. cit., p. 315.
[68] Lucas cited in Brooker, BFI, op. cit., p. 43.
[69] Brooker, BFI, op. cit., p. 33.
[70] Wolf, op. cit., pp. 43, 135 .
[71] Gary Kurtz cited in Taylor, op. cit., p. 312.
[72] Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens (J. J. Abrams, 2015).
[73] Jenkins, Textual Poachers, op. cit., p. 103.
[74] Questionnaire, Respondent 18.
[75] Wolf, op. cit., p. 266.
[76] Ibid., p. 273.
[77] Brooker, Using the Force, op. cit., p. 75.
[78] Ibid., p. 76.
[79] soulblade64, ‘What parts of the EU do you think will survive Episode VII?’, reddit, http://www.reddit.com/r/starwars/comments/1wh2fl/what_parts_of_the_eu_do_you_think_will_survive/ (accessed 27 October 2014).
[80] Jenkins, Textual Poachers, op. cit., p. 36.
[81] Wolf, op. cit., p. 190.
[82] Predator 2 (Stephen Hopkins, 1990).
[83] Derek Johnson, ‘Cinematic Destiny: Marvel Studios and the Trade Stories of Industrial Convergence’, Society for Cinema and Media Studies 52, 1 (2012), http://filmadaptation.
qwriting.qc.cuny.edu/files/2012/11/52.1.johnson.pdf (accessed 27 October 2014), p. 5.

[84] Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D (ABC Studios, 2013—).


Figure 1:   Artist unknown (2014). Available at: http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/hawkeye-and-black-widow/images/31881226/title/clint-natasha-fanart. Accessed 13 October 2014.
Figure 2:  Guardians of the Galaxy (James Gunn, 2014) screenshot (2015).
Figure 3:  Mauricio Abril, Poor Spidey (2014). Available at: http://geektyrant.com/news/poor-spider-man-doesnt-get-to-play-with-the-avengers-fan-art. Accessed 13 October 2014.
Figure 4:  Star Wars: Force for Change - A Message from J.J. Abrams (2014) screenshot (2015). Available at: https://youtu.be/XfNiC9iKM0Q.
Figure 5:  Sean McLean, ‘Who Shot First?’, Underwhelmed Comics (2011). Available at: www.underwhelmedcomic.com. Accessed 25 January 2015.
Figure 6:  Artist unknown. Available at: http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3u4wph. Accessed 13 October 2014.