Weekend Update: If you love X, then try out Y. Or not.
I've been pondering a trend, such as it is. Not a trend in that it's the current hot thing at the moment, but rather a pattern of behavior as I see it. Behavior that I used to practice, that I see friends practicing, and it made me wonder: do you, or do you know others who have, practiced this particular trend?
I didn't grow up reading fantasy and science fiction. I didn't start earnestly reading that genre until the very end of 2001, and you have The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring film to thank for that. That film reignited my desire to write, and suddenly I wanted to write science fiction and fantasy, and on top of that, I realized I hadn't read anything in that genre except Star Wars novels, which of course didn't count. So I started reading the genre at large.
Wait, did I just say Star Wars novels? Why yes. Yes I did.
Flashback to 1994, the very end of my seventh grade year. When the year is over, classwork is finished, testing is done, but you've still got days you've got to show up? Teachers show movies. Yay movies! Well, my reading teacher, whose name has completely escaped me but her antics and threats will live forever in my mind, popped in Star Wars: A New Hope. I'd never seen the movie before and didn't have any interest. After all, this was a movie about space and robots, and, well, I was a GIRL after all. But, with nothing else to do, I sat there and watched the movie.
It took a few days for us to get through it, but when we were through, I liked it quite a bit. One of the other classmates suggested we watch the sequel, The Empire Strikes Back, but there wasn't enough time left in the school year to do so. I didn't think much of it at the time, and happily went on with my merry little self.
I can't remember if what happened next was the immediate summer or the summer following my eighth grade year. But what happened was this: my grandmother and I were driving to Florida (she was driving, I was reading) to visit family, and we stayed overnight at a hotel before continuing the trip. I started flipping through channels on the television and happened upon the USA network, which had just started showing A New Hope. I perked up and decided to watch. My poor grandmother was zonked out. But I stayed up in the dark, with the volume carefully just loud enough to hear, and watched the movie. And then learned that the USA network would be showing the other two movies the next two nights, which had me star-struck. I knew there was a second movie, but a third? I prayed that my great-grandmother (at whose house we would be staying) would have cable, and thank god, she did.
I watched The Empire Strikes Back. I watched The Return of the Jedi. And I fell in love. It's one of those giddy moments that happens at least once in fangirl's life: watching it utterly changed the way I looked at things.
I wanted more. I remembered that I'd seen Star Wars books at the grocery store in the past, so as soon as I could go to a bookstore, I checked out what was available. My timing was excellent: Kevin J. Anderson and his wife Rebecca Moesta had just released their young adult series Star Wars: Young Jedi Knights, featuring the twin children of Han Solo and Princess Leia.
They got married? Had children? Who are training to be a Jedi under Luke Skywalker? OMG!!!
Since that day, I devoured every Star Wars book I could get my hand on, and as soon as a new one was released, I nabbed it off the shelves. Of course, there's only so many books that come out in the year (especially then), so even if I was already caught up on my SW reading, I'd still meander over to the science fiction section of the store and just stare at all the shiny, unused copies of books I'd already read.
Never once did I look at the science fiction or fantasy titles surrounding said books. Oh, I'd look, but not with any real interest. See, Star Wars was safe. But there was so much of the OTHER stuff that I wouldn't know where to start even if I wanted to. So I stayed safe, and was happy to do so.
What got me thinking about this was reading Facebook recently, about how one of my college friends, who is a bonafide Star TREK geek, talks a lot about watching television shows that aren't sci-fi at all. In fact, she seems to be a big fan of procedurals. I'm not saying she doesn't watch ANY spec-fic television, but I remember highly recommending the Battlestar Galactica reboot to her, and she shrugged it off. And it always perplexed me, until lately, when I remembered my own habits and interests and how I limited myself to what I knew and loved.
So what's the point? If someone had taken my young teen self and said, "If you like Star Wars, you should really read THIS instead." I would look at whatever was recommended, decided there were no Jedi, and put it aside.
Just because my friend was a Trekkie doesn't necessarily mean she wanted to read or watch other, non-Trekkie SF.
Which makes me think about today's fandoms and the current trends. Harry Potter. Twilight. The Hunger Games. All of these things have started out as BOOKS that have been adapted later to movies, not the other way around, where the movies (or television shows) inspired a series of spin-off novels. And the thing with these franchises is that once their over, they're over: the hankering for more can then only be fed with re-reads and re-watches, writing fan-fic, or looking to see what's similar on the market.
I don't know. I just wonder if there are still people like me in today's entertainment world: people who latch onto one fandom and refuse to look at any other, despite the fact they might very well enjoy it.
Thoughts? Anyone? …Bueller…?