Meta rec

[sholio]

xparrot has a a great breakdown on the writers of SGA, which episodes they wrote and an overall analysis of their writing style. (Subjective, of course, but it's impossible not to be, and she's very up-front about that

Comments

[sp23]

That's one of the reasons I don't often listen to DVD actor/writer/director commentaries and find the technical commentaries completely boring. I don't want to know how they made the nifty CGI effect. I want to believe in what's happening on screen as something totally separate from actors/directors/scriptwriters even while I'm totally aware that it's only a show.

[sholio]

It's interesting, because I've never really connected the dots on that before. I knew that I liked and didn't like certain things, and that I don't often want to watch the DVD extras or interviews with the cast and crew, but I hadn't realized how much it all fits together. I think I've gotten a little more externally analytical in the last few years because it's so easy to access that stuff online, and it's interesting to see what other people think about it. But I doubt if I'll ever be as interested in the external analysis (why [x] wrote [y]) as I am in the internal analysis (why [x character] did [y]) even though I know the former is real and the latter is not.

[sheron]

Wow, word! I feel exactly the same way. That's why a lot of the time I will not watch the classifieds and will not try to look up information on the actors because once they become real people to me it's harder to slide into the in-universe thinking about their character. It's nice to see that other people feel like I do!

[sholio]

Yep! I certainly don't maintain that separation 100% (and I *do* enjoy little bits of interesting trivia about the props, sets and such) but generally I like to work from within the universe rather than without. It's nice to know I'm not the only one!

[ratcreature]

*nod nod*
I'm mostly into the intra-universe perspective as well, and rarely bother with the DVD commentary and such.

With comics I'm a bit more inot the production side because I'm interested in the "mechanics" of comics far more than into how tv works, but not really when it comes to characterization or plotting and how various "RL issues" affect storytelling (e.g. artist X got killed by an ACME anvil so the series editor had to switch unexpectedly and all is inconsitent), but more in the workings of storytelling with pictures under a techical perspective.

[sholio]

I just nodded along to everything you said about comics, because yes, as an artist and a writer, I'm very analytical about the process in both comics and novels (much more so than TV) but it's much more "What technical process did they use to do [x] effect?" than "How did the behind-the-scenes fighting between the writer and editor affect the plot direction of the Dark Phoenix arc?"

It's not really a deliberate effort to keep them separate, so much as I just don't *care* all that much. It doesn't enhance my enjoyment of the story to know that the writer quit because he had a disagreement with the artist, for example; it might be momentarily intriguing to know as a side note, but I doubt if I'd remember it because I'm just not all that interested.

"You're interrogating the text from the wrong perspective!" XD

[xparrot]

(thanks for the linkage

Re: "You're interrogating the text from the wrong perspective!" XD

[sholio]

Different people relate to things differently, that's all. My sister *really* has trouble reconciling two different versions of canon -- for example, the X-Men movies vs. the X-Men comics, or the Red Dwarf books vs. the TV show, which present events in a different order and style. That kind of thing bothers her a lot. She hates AU plots for the same reason. Me, I don't have the slightest difficulty holding two mutually contradictory versions of canon in my head at once (probably a survival trait gained through many years of comics fandom *g*). But thinking too hard about the meta-reality of the show makes it a little harder, or maybe just less fun, for me to accept the internal reality of the show. Basically, as both a fan and a fanfic writer, I'd rather handwave an explanation for a plot or characterization inconsistency than write it off as "the writer screwed up" (even though that's what actually happened). "Because the writers needed [xxx]" is not as satisfying for me as working out an in-universe explanation

Also...

[sholio]

The thought also occurred to me that another thing muddying the waters here is that authorial intent has a lot of meaning to me. I initially started to type "I believe in authorial intent" but that's a little misleading because it makes it sound like I feel that other people should be bound by it, and I don't believe that at all. However, for me, in analyzing the text I usually give the author's intent the weight of canon. I'm not going to get all wanky about it and argue "But Mallozzi [or JKR, or whoever] said it, so it must be so!" I don't care if other people believe differently. But if I've been reading one interpretation into the text, and then find out that the author meant it differently, I give up my own in favor of theirs. Which means, the more I find out about what the author meant, the less room there is for me to analyze and revisit the text from my own point of view, and it's especially unpleasant if I have something that I really WANT to believe about the text and then find out that it isn't so. I'm generally happier if

Re: Also...

[xparrot]

Hmmm...! Now this I can understand completely; I've run into it before, that an author's take counters my own, and it causes unpleasant dissonance. It's one of the things I like about TV, though, because the writer's say is not the be-all-and-end-all - the writer might intend one thing, but the other writers, or the director, or the actors, do not always agree. I think it might be why I get especially interested in the 'why's of TV shows I fan on, because there are so many different POVs, all of them valid in their ways, that I can somehow, hmm, justify my own interpretation? If the writer's take supports my own, it's great; but if they don't, it doesn't deny or devalue mine. While as I'm less interested in an author's deconstruction of a novel, because there is a single intent there, that I have a harder time denying

[rhymer23]

Interesting. A friend of mine has commented several times how, in his experience, fandom in "the old days" (i.e. pre-internet) was much more interested in out-of-universe matters - analysing episodes from a technical point of view, studying different writers' styles etc. - whereas "modern" fandom is much more focused on in-universe things. He's found very few modern-day fans who even want to know who's written an episode. They want to suspend their disbelief and talk about it as if it's real. (Although I hardly dare say it, I've also noticed that his "olden days" fandom was largely male, and his "modern day" fandom is largely female, and I wonder if this is a slight factor in the differing approaches

[xparrot]

!!! You're right! I wrote my whole post not thinking that way way back in X-files, we were all about analyzing Vince Gilligan's MSR or Darin Morgan's mad genius! (...it frightens me a bit that I remember their names. I wonder sometimes what I could know, if my head were filled with things not from TV shows

[rhymer23]

Oh yes. It's years since I've watched a single episode of The X-Files, but I can still reel off lists of episodes written by each recurring writer. I was never a shipper, but Vince Gilligan was my god... and, oh, the dread we all felt when a John Shiban episode was approaching...!

I'm so glad that you agree with my very tentatively-expressed male fan/female fan thing. You have no idea how often I wrote and deleted and rewrote and qualified that bit of my comment, afraid I'd be jumped on as sexist. I was quite put out when I realised that I relate to fandom in a "female" way, since in non-fandom life I have no interest in all those things that are deemed "female" by the media and much prefer "male" hobbies. I tend to score slightly as "male brain" on those (very simplistic) online tests, yet here I am writing angsty, hurt/comforty fanfic about emotions and feelings.

[xparrot]

Oh, John Shiban!! I remember when I first starting watching Supernatural, seeing his name in the credits gave me a start! (really, he wasn't that bad, all things considered. Especially considering what happened to the show later seasons... XP