Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Supernatural Fandom - Its Own Worst Enemy

I posted an article several months ago about needing a truce in the Supernatural fandom. Today brother wars and season wars and show runner wars and heck, possibly even toothpaste wars, are rearing their ugly heads again. There's something about this fandom. It can be the most supportive, loving, and fabulous fandom on the internet. What other show raises so much for charity, builds orphanages in Haiti, supports people into trying things beyond their comfort level, and wins every freaking poll on the planet. However if we are not bonded together to win a poll or convince someone Supernatural is great, we are actively tearing down each other and as a by-product, this show. The cast and crew of Supernatural work way too hard for us to denigrate all they do to keep Supernatural on the air. Since I am heartsick and far too weary to continue to fight the never-ending battle of trying to get fans to be respectful of each other, I am posting a response from Elizabeth Madsen. She put it beautifully. If Supernatural is no longer your thing, more power to you. But don't ruin it for everyone else and for the love of all things beautiful, stop being a fandom that actively ticks off people so they don't even want to try our show.

From Liz Madsen's Tumblr account:

#Supernatural as a Piece of Art - A Call for Sanity

Supernatural is a story that was conceived by Kripke, and for six wonderful years has been brought to life through the combination and cooperation of one of the most amazing teams of writers that I have ever seen on television, incredibly talented actors, and a production crew that routinely produces amazing results on a very tight budget. This group of people work together, put in tremendous amounts of time, effort and love to produce art. Collectively, they have a vision, and endeavor to put it into a form that they can share with us, the viewers. Like any artist, they care what we think, but it is their vision! Would you tell a novelist that he should change his story, his vision, because you don’t agree with every little plot turn? No, you would just choose to read books by a different author! Just as it would be inconceivable to flood a painter with angry emails because her choice of brush strokes doesn’t fit your notion of the way her style should be. It seems to me that we need to take a step back, and remember that we are the viewers, and just like patrons in a museum, it is our place to observe. When we find a piece we love, we can linger, enjoying the nuances, and hope for more from the artist. And when we don’t find pleasure in the artists vision, it’s time to move along, for surely there will be another piece waiting for us around the corner. Stopping in front of such a piece and loudly proclaiming unhappiness with it does no one any good. It reduces the enjoyment of those surrounding us, it prevents us from finding pieces that we will love and being happy, and it is not going to change the work of art, for it is the artists’ right to produce art to fit their vision, and really, we wouldn’t want it any other way.

So I suggest that we respect the Supernatural team’s right to tell their story the way they feel it should be told. We can’t know where they are taking the story, but based on their track record, I believe it will be amazing and go places we never expected! And if, in the end, their vision is not for you, there are many other pieces of art waiting to be seen, so move along.

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