Pleasing An Audience vs. Challenging Them

Towards the bottom of the NEWS section, you'll find a video about Evangelion which I watched a little while ago which got me thinking about the audience of a work.

The author of the video refers a lot to what one might call mass media vs more individualized works. On the one hand you have a product which is being worked over. You have elements which have been researched to sell and need to be there. He gives the example of romance novels and the character types and later talks about the audience surrogate. At the same time, he mentions how once the points have been hit on a product, there's a point where the people creating can kinda work on getting stuff past the radar, so to speak, translate a bit of their own creativity into a work.

This is just one part of the video where he goes into the perspective of Evangelion and how it challenged what he even puts above otaku culture…the super-fan (which I consider by name to be an oxymoron because it's actually people who abuse that which they profess to 'love'). It's those who feel a sense of entitlement towards creators and characters and works. Those who want to be gratified by it. In many way those audience avatars are represented perfectly by the main character in the work. Why is this kind of thing important? Because it's kinda at the bubble of consciousness again because of a great show like Breaking Bad where you have an audience surrogate who is horrific in what he does but everyone wants him to succeed. There are super-fans who actually sent death threats to Anna Gunn, the actress, about her character challenging the main character and required her to write an op-ed piece about those same sorts of fans.

Now, I'm gonna say that I doubt these kinds of fans constitute a plurality, or even a significant percentage but they are vocal and they are depressing when it comes to a creative work. They want something. They want to be gratified. It's a power thing and with Breaking Bad you have a man who started out emasculated and at the depths of being helpless and gets the power he wants. He gets what he wants. He becomes "strong" but it's also a corruption of himself and everything around him. I would kinda like if Breaking Bad ultimately had him as the last man standing, powerful and ultimately useless. All that influence, all he's got and all he's wanted is nothingness because it doesn't meant anything beyond his own head.

The point on Evangelion hits close as well with challenging the audience at "Are you seriously rooting for this person?" Maybe there's a little bit of a personality change from the series to End of Evangelion with how the negative aspects of Shinji are presented but he does follow in his father's footsteps as a dysfunctional human being who objectifies women because in part about mommy issues and whatever else I'm forgetting.

At the same time, as the video notes, he's an avatar for the super-fan audience which the director is pointing at and communicating to about the tantrums they threw over not getting what they wanted or felt they were entitled to. They didn't get all the fan-service they were hoping for from the on-set. They didn't get the hero kicking ass and taking names and getting the girl. They got an existential treatise. Now you can go into the whatever of how that came about. But point is that people felt "betrayed" in the way only those so-called super-fan sociopaths can.

Here's my problem…they're still being catered to because it sells as a product. Something that lets them masturbate to completion (as the video reiterates over and over). I dare anyone who name an anime which doesn't have the catering built in. The gratification of the audience. I will even acknowledge at even the more subtle shows I watch which are still decently good on other merits, have things that I need to sigh over. Despite the fact it's just flipped gender-wise, I'm very amused to watch a show like Free and see the same objectification continue as a kind of parallel universe version of a moe show. I have to wonder if there's some degree of criticism in the fact it's so by the numbers in how exactly a show mainly with girls would go.

I think perhaps the best little quote you can take out of the video covers a lot of stuff I've explored and tried to work through creatively. I still kinda follow the idea that I am pleasing an audience. I am still kinda working in tropes. I know that. That's why I try to setup zappy scenes here and there at a certain pace. I know that part of my writing is to gratify someone out there. It's amusing how obvious a show like Genshiken is with the presentation of fan works and BL and how…while I wouldn't consider the girls and crossgendered boy to be super-fans…they're at least creativity. I'd consider super-fans to be more like "ENTERTAIN ME!" and then plop online afterwards to pick apart all the chances there could've been for more boob shots.

Basically…



Now that's 'challenging' your audience.

I wish more animes let themselves challenge beyond the margins. There are a few from this season. Uchoken Takoku is one of them. Silver Spoon is pretty good and among the few shows this season which passes the Bechdel test and its related tests. Of course then most comedy shows with female casts pass it too.

Many years on from End of Evangelion's gauntlet to the super-fans, it hasn't really changed in anime. And it really hasn't changed in blockbuster filmmaking. I should be more depressed than I am but there's enough stuff to notice on the margins behind the mass product to at least help me feel encouraged that creativity is somehow still alive somewhere. Maybe it's silly optimism. I dunno. All I know is if I ever do sell…my books, myself as an author into the culture…then I will know more about all than I ever thought I'd know. And maybe I'll turn out even more pessimistic than Anno.

The funny thing was, I did write one work that I think best approaches my "End of Evangelion" challenge to my audience. That was Zapper's Club actually. Or as I considered it, "this is how I will make you and me both sick to death of zappy stories". I didn't really realize it until about halfway through and in reflection but when my zappiest character get what they want…they can be selfish, dysfunctional assholes. I remember one comment about a reader feeling weird that they saw Katsumi as an antagonist. Really, I didn't write her any different. Really, I don't think I'd like Katsumi to meet her but I really like writing her because I really do want people to sympathize with her, there's a lot to dislike about her. I worried for a long time that was because I was writing her badly but I've come to understand it's actually a good thing because she's definitely one of my better, flawed characters. Lynx is similarly flawed even though she's only had limited roles but I feel she's a bit more admirable at points because of her willingness to seek balance whereas Katsumi has a vicious destructiveness which makes you rather uneasy at times.

In the rest of that story, you have characters with varying degrees and some complexity but really, looking back it was kind of a criticism on zappy extremism with Katsumi as the center point. Personally I'd love to think Cassandra was there just to chill and drink.

So yeah, I'm not immune from a sense of seeking to challenge things even though I do write sentimentally. I do want to let things go happily. Most of the time. Although I'm never quite satisfied unless I'm not giving quite giving people what they want in a work. But I hope that people still enjoy how a work comes about despite that ^^.

And that's my thoughts on audience a bit. I also liked the idea in the video that author is also a bit of the audience as well. They write what they like. It's something interesting to think about. Feel free to respond and reflect and take a look at the video. I marked the description with bold.

And I didn't watch much lately. Just been rewatching Breaking Bad to see the main character when he was still primarily a human being.

And now for NEWS, PICS, and PONIES

NEWS
[link] - Layton without Layton?

[link] - Disney to Distribute The Wind Rises.

[link] - A lot of titles for phones. Tales of series going there.

[link] - Really, China?

[link] - What pisses me off is that they mention "Character driven" sci-fi and yet they pointed out a few articles ago that selling sci-fi as character driven is a bullshit thing to say.

[link] - Springfield.

[link] - Chapter teaser.

[link] - The Dark Day.

[link] - Facebook will pay a $20 million fine for privacy violations, from which it made $73 million in profits. Why I don't like Facebook. Among other reasons.

[link] - A reason to like Starbucks.

[link] - Woah!!!

[link] - Brain to brain interface.

[link] - Patrick Stewart.

[link] - The state of Mississippi ranked 2nd in charitable giving in 2012, despite having the lowest per capita personal income in all of the US. Finally, something encouraging I can say about that state.

[link] - This can't possibly be controversial!

[link] - A new Storybundle.

[link] - Republicans who supported the individual mandate for health care.

[link] - One of the saddest scenes I know. The whole movie is actually.

[link] - Raptors.

[link] - Water!

[link] - Full OP of Watamote.

[link] - Random wikipedia page for today.

[link] - Attack on Metal!

[link] - A look at Evangelion

[link] - Random SCP of the day.

PICS
[link] - More of a screw you than a thank you.
[link] - Foxy.
[link] - Flying.
[link] - Lighting.
[link] - Woah.
[link] - Hmm.
[link] - Lovely.
[link] - Screw this.
[link] - Anyone missing some yellow paint?
[link] - Ow ow ow ow…
[link] - Woah.
[link] - Old friends.
[link] - Zombie weather.
[link] - Fresh pizza.
[link] - I like this. Even if it's not entirely accurate about animals.
[link] - I like to move it move it.
[link] - Yup.
[link] - Jelly.
[link] - Nice throw.
[link] - Following.
[link] - Ride on.
[link] - Oops.
[link] - Incoming.
[link] - Heh.
[link] - Classic.
[link] - Bulls.
[link] - Fly!
[link] - Weee!
[link] - Portable air.
[link] - Summer movies this year.
[link] - TPPPPPP.
[link] - What is it with anime and lines like this?
[link] - Uhhh.
[link] - Hmm.
[link] - Okay.
[link] - I guess that explains that.

PONIES
[link] - Aww.
[link] - Sunny.
[link] - Equestrian Rim.
[link] - *gulp*