Interesting Buffy Fandom tidbits - when should a writer cater to fans, if at all?

[shadowkat]

1. Nicholas Brendan according to the SlayAlive post does not like the Dawn/Xander pairing.
In related news, at Hallowhedon, Brendan revealed that he and Gellar talked about Xander and Buffy getting together and pitched it. Whedon said no. And apparently Whedon had planned on killing Xander off in S7, but the other writers talked him out of it - stating the fans would be *really* upset, *vehementally* upset.

They weren't wrong about that - but it does bring up a question that I'd like to throw out there: Should fans have a say in the plotting, etc of a story? Should the writers have convinced Whedon to cater to their fans? Should it matter that it would upset the fans if a character was killed or a beloved character did a horrible thing? Should a writer EVER cater to his or her fans? And if so, when? And to what extent would catering hurt the story? And what extent does this kill the reality of the story - after all people we love do die, and people we love do horrible things - to what extent should writing reflect that reality and to what extent should it merely entertain and comfort?

Okay that's a lot of questions. I don't know what I think on this right now. I really don't. I know that I wish sometimes the writer would ignore the fans, but other times, I don't. I can argue it both ways to be honest. So feel free to persuade, discuss, etc!

As a sub-thread of that question - to what extent has the internet changed how fans can affect the writing/plot of a tv show, novel, or movie? Is this a good thing, bad thing, or neutral thing??

2. James Marsters on youtube did a really interesting bit on kissing on camera - how difficult it is to do well, how awkward, and how much you have to trust your partner. He said if you do it for pleasure - it looks horrible. So you never enjoy it. And if he had to choose anyone to do it with again it would be John Barrowman - who went out of his way to make Marsters comfortable. Marsters also gives some great hints on how to keep a guy from mauling you - which I already knew but are quite useful - sneeze, step on his foot, elbow him in the gut.

3. Apparently Caprica has three cameras, a bit budget, and is scarey - with great scripts.
Marsters plays a terrorist that everyone is terrified of, and he's been told he's doing rather well. Hmm. Okay, that and the trailer and Eric Stolz is making me really look forward to Caprica. (Of course it helps that I love Espenson's tv writing, and adored BSG).

4. Apparently Georges Jeanty is better at drawing Joss Whedon than Sarah Michelle Gellar, who knew? (Brad Metzler's blog has a picture of Whedon and Buffy together drawn by Jeanty.)

Comments

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I've heard all the Xander stuff before. I think Nick Brendon said he found the idea of Xander/Dawn squicky at the Hallowhedon convention last weekend.

As for whether a writer should ever cater to his/her fans, where TV is concerned I think it's inevitable. TV shows rely on ratings so when a very recognisable trend appears among the fans (you mention the hostility to re-Spuffy after the AR, which I still can't for the life of me believe Joss hadn't even thought of)then the writers/producers/whatever would be foolish to ignore it completely.

Unless the show is ending and it doesn't matter any more.

4. Apparently Georges Jeanty is better at drawing Joss Whedon than Sarah Michelle Gellar, who knew? (Brad Metzler's blog has a picture of Whedon and Buffy together drawn by Jeanty.)

:Snort: So true.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Sneaking online because dreadfully frustrated/bored at work. Ugh. Lots of things bottlenecking but zip I can do about any of them.

I think Nick Brendon said he found the idea of Xander/Dawn squicky at the Hallowhedon convention last weekend.

Hee. He should count himself lucky, at least he didn't have to perform it on screen like Charisma did with VK, she had the same reaction. (CC was 32 and VK 17). That and VK apparently disgusted her. LOL!

As for whether a writer should ever cater to his/her fans, where TV is concerned I think it's inevitable. TV shows rely on ratings so when a very recognisable trend appears among the fans (you mention the hostility to re-Spuffy after the AR, which I still can't for the life of me believe Joss hadn't even thought of)then the writers/producers/whatever would be foolish to ignore it completely.

I've been trying to skirt around the AR topic, because it tends incite strong emotions in people but, this brings up an interesting point. There's a group of fans that believes Spike's story was screwed up by catering to Spike fans or differing views amongst Spike fans, and that the story would have been better if Spike/Buffy had not been a couple at all in S7 after the AR. They believe they are b/c of fandom.
There's another group that believes the opposite.

I can actually understand why it didn't occur to Whedon that the AR would be huge problem.

1. From all reports - the filming went differently than planned. They planned it to be less violent and more humilating, more like Lilah throwing herself on Wesley.

2. Whedon was watching and had watched American daytime soap operas, specifically Passions, which went a lot further than the AR scene (and I mean a lot!) yet the couple got together and had no issues. (What he failed to understand/recognize is a) he had a different audience, or an audience that held him to a higher standard than daytime soaps, primetime is usually, and you can get away with stuff on soaps, you can't do in primetime or couldn't for years. b)and that the soaps took much much longer to put the couple back together and redeem the rapist/attempted rapist than Whedon did. Often years longer. Holly didn't forgive Roger in GL ntil 25 years had passed for example. And Luke didn't get Laura until almost two years later. (And since soaps are on every day of the week - we see all the nuances, all the angles, and all the moral issues from every single perspective. You just can't do that in a primetime series.) c) Whedon in his head was writing a horror show a la Terminator, while his fandom was watching a supernatural gothic horror romance/soap opera/adventure series a la Twilight. In horror - the AR scene works beautifully.
As does the fact that she goes back there - because it's horror, scarey, squicky. But in romantic/gothic it doesn't so much. The disconnect probably comes from the fact that the writer was writing one thing, and the fans were watching something else. Which is why people got so upset and the writer got confused. He's thinking - hey, I'm writing a horror series, nothing ends happy. They are thinking - no, you are writing a fun horror comedy/romantic series - with cool quips, and angsty romance - which to be fair was what the network and marketing people thought he was writing as well - they saw Buffy as Twilight, Whedon saw Buffy as Terminator.

[shapinglight]

That and VK apparently disgusted her. LOL!

Yes, I think I read somewhere that she said he didn't wash enough. Or was it that he smoked? I can't remember.

Re: your point 1) I had never heard that before. I thought they set it up very deliberately to be exactly what it was, hence the lack of music and the stark lighting. Can you tell me where you heard this? If true, of course, it makes me even more angry that they did this to Spike. Why didn't someone tell James he was doing it wrong?

Mind you, it wouldn't be the only time such a thing happened to him. I definitely remember Fury saying the the Spike/Harmony desk-hump in Destiny came across as much harsher than he meant it to.

I'm also a little puzzled by your 2). Of course, I know about the Luke/Laura thing. Could hardly miss it, especially as Jane E said that Joss and co had cited it to her as a reason why it would be okay to do the AR and still have Spuffy only for Joss after BtVS ended to say that Luke/Laura was the reason why they didn't do proper re-Spuffy in season 7.

However, I've not ever had the impression that he thought BtVS was a completely different beast, as it were, to what the audience thought they were watching. I thought he was always fairly clear that it was a sort of supernatural soap.

As for fans arguing about whether or not Spike's arc in season 7 was down to fan pressure, I've seen it said many times that pretty much everything to do with Spike in the whole show after season 4 is 'fan service.'

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Sorry took a while to respond - was offline.

Anyhow..regard VK/CC - CC said that he had bad breath, smoked, and his toenails were disgusting - apparently they had fungus or something. (I found it amusing, b/c VK's career has taken off and CC's has more or less stalled. CC was a huge problem on Angel, apparently she didn't just act Cordy, she was Cordy, of course that's why they hired her.)

[Some people find the personal lives of people interesting, me? I'm fascinated by what people do for a living. So I went nuts over the interviews about how people were cast, how they made the show, what caused problems, and the disconnect between script to screen. The process fascinates me - that's why I know all this stuff. I literally read or listened to every frigging interview I could get my hands on and talked to fans who had inside info back in 2002-2007.]

RE the A/R - uh...there are contradictory interviews online regarding what happened, many of the links are dead now. Everyone involved says something different, the only two who have not spoken at length regarding what happened are the two who matter and made the decisions: the guy who directed the episode (it was not Deknight) and Whedon (who edited it). What a lot of people don't know is they do numerous takes for every scene. The bathroom scene probably took an entire day. It takes a week to film 43 minutes. They probably did at least 20 different takes, 20 different ways. The actors didn't know by the end of the day which take would make it to air. Also every script submitted is edited by Whedon and Marti. I would not be at all surprised if Whedon wrote the dialogue between Spike and Clem, or Marti did all the Willow/Tara scenes.

As a result, we don't know what the decision process contained. What I do know is Marti pitched a humilation scene based on her experience. Whedon listened to it and decided to turn it into horror, he
said that an attempted rape would be more effective -
in convincing the character that he needed to get a soul, it also fit with the vampire biting metaphor - which is a rape metaphor, that he had dropped. It also had the same impact that Angelus killing Jenny did.
And it was about power - and it fit the theme of his season and episode. So rightly or wrongly, Whedon chose the story. People blamed Marti, but it was Whedon's choice and he has said very little about it, outside of the fact that he wanted to show that an act does not demonize you, it does not condemn you forever, it is what you choose to do afterwards that..well we are works in progress, each new choice changes who we are and what we become. That's all he said, leaving the rest open to interpretation.
And we all interpreted it differently. Mileage varies a great deal on this.

I think Whedon saw Buffy as many things, part supernatural soap opera, part horror tale. He's a horror writer, horror fan not a romance one. He's studied mostly horror films and critiques them. The film he watched the most in college was Terminator.
He's not a romantic. So I think he saw Buffy as a horror soap opera, emphasis on horror, with a bit of the X-men thrown in. Horror is not easy to watch.
I've always struggled with it. And in horror - you don't ride off into the sunset with your lover. Especially not in noir horror. Anyone who thought Buffy was going to end up with Xander, Riley, Angel or Spike was going to be really disappointed. Whedon would have never done that. He planned on ending the series - with Buffy dying, Xander being killed for housing Glory, and Willow being killed by Buffy for going all dark and veiny. (or rumor had it). And the Frayverse exists because Buffy took the demons into another dimension and closed the door after her - dying to save the world. Whedon's a lot of things, but not a romance writer.

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(I found it amusing, b/c VK's career has taken off and CC's has more or less stalled. CC was a huge problem on Angel, apparently she didn't just act Cordy, she was Cordy, of course that's why they hired her.)

Yes, I had heard the same. I know she was second choice after SMG for a guest appearance on You're Welcome too, but am very, very glad SMG couldn't make it.

I know the origin of the AR scene in something Marti did to a boyfriend she wanted to get back with. I also know that Joss had to have signed off on it. Of course, I did know they must have done multiple takes (I believe there are AR dailies around on the 'net, or used to be). It's kind of squicky to imagine Joss poring over them and choosing which ones to use. I would like to know his criteria, but I suppose we never will.

I've also read his interview about how the AR and Spike's subsequent soul quest (that plot line was so botched, I just hate it) was supposed to show that such a crime doesn't make you irredeemable, which is undoubtedly true in some cases. However, since one rarely hears of RL rapists admitting their guilt, let alone changing themselves into completely different people in order to atone, I can only say again that I think Joss made a wrong choice, not a brave one (or maybe brave in the foolhardy sense) and that I much preferred the way he deal with rape more recently in Dollhouse, even if it was more simplistic. That suggests to me that even Whedon may now regret what he did to Spike and feel it was a step too far, though of course he's going to stand by his story, which is why we'll never learn what really went on during the process that led up to that decision.

And I take your point about Joss not being a romantic. Anything but. When he tries to do romantic - notably in Amends, Family and IWRY it always veers into cheesiness.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Yes, I had heard the same. I know she was second choice after SMG for a guest appearance on You're Welcome too, but am very, very glad SMG couldn't make it.

Agreed. I'm glad she couldn't do Girl in Question either. Not sure I'd have liked it - I think it would have been a repeat of what happened at the beginning of Chosen.


On the other hand, I'm admittedly curious.

The thing about Seeing Red and the whole AR? I knew they were going to do it as far back as Dead Things, maybe before that. And no, not through spoilers. I was hunting spoilers in the hopes that I was wrong. (got the opposite of course.) When I say the AR and what followed afterwards is a trope in romantic fiction, I'm not kidding. Laurie McBain, Rosemary Rodgers (particularly Rodgers and particularly her modern romances) and Katheleen Woodwiss - did what many call the bodice ripper romance. It was very similar to the S/B relationship in S6. I'd also seen it done in every daytime soap opera in the US. Todd Manning ended up in a romantic relationship with Marty Saybroke 15 years after he gang-raped her, he'd redeemed himself, admitted guilt, felt deep remorse. The storyline played out this past year on One Life to Live. Whedon wasn't reinventing the wheel - he was commenting on a trope in female romantic fiction - written by women.
Although - it does actually happen in real life - there are men who do what Spike did, regret it, and work hard through counseling to win back their wives.
Dollhouse is doing the other version - which is also quite popular and I've seen done to death.

Interestingly enough the people who had troubles with the AR and Spike after the AR, also could not watch Dollhouse.

Anywho..I knew they were going to do it, just as I pretty much knew he would either get a soul or turn human or something that would make him more man than demon - because the A/R was a demonic crime committed by men which causes us to demonize the man forever, so Whedon did the opposite, he had the vampire attempt to comit the demonic crime and seek to become human to demonstrate he hated that "demonic crime"and to separate himself from that crime. It's laced with layers and layers of irony that continue to fascinate.

I wish he hadn't done it - because I was online and had to deal with people who could not appreciate the layers of irony, but if I were writing it? I probably would have done something similar - I would have gone for biting her, stuck with the metaphor, but in retrospect it would not have been as effective (if you think about what I said above regarding that layer.).

[shapinglight]

On the other hand, I'm admittedly curious.

Yes, me too, though if it had to happen, I would preferred it to be in TGiQ, simply because YW being AtS's 100th episode, Spike was bound to be shortchanged in it, being the new kid on the block. At least TGiQ was set up to be a silly Spangel romp rather than a landmark episode of the entire show.

As for the AR, I also knew about it around the time of Dead Things. As you can imagine, it did not go down well on the Spike redemptionist boards where I mostly posted. People kept hoping to the day the wild feed broke that there might be some kind of mitigating circumstances, or that Spike would stop himself (I so wish he'd been allowed that) or that he was being mind-controlled by Warren. But no.

Interestingly enough the people who had troubles with the AR and Spike after the AR, also could not watch Dollhouse.

Yes, I've observed this too. Different triggers, I suppose. My own trigger moment is in Entropy. I find it very hard to watch the end of that episode.

I know there are many people who will never forgive Spike because of the AR, and that's why I can't quite forgive Joss for doing it, no matter what comment he was trying to make about soap opera tropes or about rapists not being irredeemable or whatever. I would find it easier to forgive him, though, if the soul quest had been less ambiguous. I know Joss is all about the layers and the ambiguity and the plot twists, but I think in this one instance he was wrong. It needed to be made absolutely clear that Spike went to get his soul back because of remorse. I like the character and I can fanwank what we actually got to explain the way we see him behave in the last three episodes, but those who don't like him aren't going to bother and that's why I wish it had been unambiguous.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

People kept hoping to the day the wild feed broke that there might be some kind of mitigating circumstances, or that Spike would stop himself (I so wish he'd been allowed that) or that he was being mind-controlled by Warren. But no.

Yep me too. I sort of went to the spoilerboards after Wrecked - because I was worried they'd go in that direction. (I'd seen too many soaps in my life time and knew the trope far too well - could see the AR from a mile away and really didn't want it, for the reasons you mentioned.)

Yes, I've observed this too. Different triggers, I suppose. My own trigger moment is in Entropy. I find it very hard to watch the end of that episode.

Hee. Definitely. And I think We may have the same trigger. Haven't found many who do. Dollhouse and AR don't bug me, but the last scene of Entropy and the Xander/Buffy scene in Seeing Red where he goes on about the whole soul bit - makes me wince. As does a good portion of Hells Bells.

People online had troubles with Spike - for me, Xander, Riley and Angel pushed my buttons. Riley in AYW (an episode I still have troubles watching and still yell at the tv set during), Xander in Entropy,
and Angel in IWRY (which pushed my buttons).

I know Joss is all about the layers and the ambiguity and the plot twists, but I think in this one instance he was wrong. It needed to be made absolutely clear that Spike went to get his soul back because of remorse. I like the character and I can fanwank what we actually got to explain the way we see him behave in the last three episodes, but those who don't like him aren't going to bother and that's why I wish it had been unambiguous.

I agree. I think as with Dollhouse that Whedon often "overestimated" his viewers. People are very literal minded and aren't usually aware of nuance nor can be bothered with it. What "they" see is all there is. And in regards to button-pushing or trigger pushing issues or emotional volatile or politically volatile issues - ambiguity is often not the best choice. Because with those issues, people aren't willing to think, so much as react. And they keep on reacting. And as with anything highly emotional or with an intense emotional reaction - Rational thought has left the building.

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And I think We may have the same trigger. Haven't found many who do

I only know of one other person on my flist, in fact, and haven't met anyone else in all my years in fandom.

I think as with Dollhouse that Whedon often "overestimated" his viewers.

Well, of course, he's playing to all 'levels' as it were. However, that works better in some cases than in others. In this one, it really doesn't work at all. He really couldn't have done anything more damaging to the character of Spike, except perhaps for having the AR be premeditated.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

For most people - the problem with Entropy is the infidelty and they are angry at Spike. For me it is that last scene of the episode - Xander...I yell at the screen every time and I spent half of Seeing Red saying Xander - you totally deserve everything that comes next! (But I haven't met anyone else who got it.)

I think Whedon is a little oblivious to his fanbase or viewer sometimes. He's interested in plot twists and shocking the viewer - surprising them. He wants that gotcha moment. To not be predictable.

But the AR scene from my perspective was predictable and possibly the most cliche thing he'd done. I understood why he did it. I adore what came afterwards - Beneath Me is amongst my favorite episodes, as is Sleeper, Lies, and Never Leave Me.
But, I think he could have gotten there in another way.
A way that would have made it easier for fans of the character to deal with the fans who...for whatever reason decided they could not handle what happened in the scene and wrote the character off as forever irredeemable after that, which I still think is the height of hypocrisy. I well remember defending myself and my love of the character to two women fans at a fanboard in person meeting...it was uncomfortable and awkward. I changed the topic.

Fandom. Sigh. Sometimes, I think I'd have enjoyed the show and still would enjoy it more if I didn't know what some fans thought of it. ;-)

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For me it is that last scene of the episode - Xander...

Yes, for me too. That scene has very unpleasant RL connotations for me and echoes my own experience.

I well remember defending myself and my love of the character to two women fans at a fanboard in person meeting...it was uncomfortable and awkward. I changed the topic.

God, I'm so glad I've never had to do that. I hate that Joss has put us in the position of having to defend what is basically indefensible if a person persists in seeing it in RL terms and outside the context of the show.

Of course, there are plenty of other moments like that too, but none arouse the same level of fury among fans if you try to defent the character or persist in liking him or liking Spuffy.

There was another outbreak just last week. It makes me so tired.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

That scene has very unpleasant RL connotations for me and echoes my own experience.

Me as well.

I hate that Joss has put us in the position of having to defend what is basically indefensible if a person persists in seeing it in RL terms and outside the context of the show.

We did have a rather engaging debate about it on the atpo board once.

The hypocrisy is what annoys me. I don't think they realize it. They can't see that their favorite character has also done indefensible things. They can't see - the other point of view, all they see is their own and any other view is well, wrong. ;-)

It's hard to write for that type of audience. I used to say online that they were watching the wrong show, and to check out Seventh Heaven.

There was another outbreak just last week. It makes me so tired.

Sigh. It is tiring. And you feel when you engage the person in a discussion that you might as well push the same rock up the same cliff. It's futile.