Ｊａｙ＇ｓ"Ｔｅｌｅｖｉｓｉｏｎ"░Ｂｌｏｇ
Ｐｏｓｔ░１＆２ （ふえの煙ゥ）
‘What does ‘television’ mean for me in my life?’
To begin answering “What Does Television Mean For Me In My Life?” I have to go back to the old university philosophy of defining what television is before offering a self reflection. I have to do this to get anywhere because, for me, it’s changed over the years. Overarchingly it seems many of the themes what make ‘television’ or even ‘good television’ have some kind of uniform agreement. However through my own experience and reflected by the academic culture of television culture it’s apparent it’s subjective and ambiguous.
On a personal level one of the reasons I have to start from the basics when addressing the question is If you had have asked me 4 years ago if I watched television, my angsty self would’ve said no. Being a millenial who had just moved out of home, I hadn’t interacted with a television (box) outside of watching Mad Men or Game of Thrones with my fam. I was still in the mindset of the television being the so called ‘hearth of the household’ I use my computer for majority of online viewing, and I believe it’s with my new age habits of media consumption I find it hard to identify with ‘television’ having any meaning for me in my life outside of nostalgia. Personally I’d believe the best indicator for the definition of what television is, is to how we culturally use it as a word. However because of my new age habits, the word ‘television’ doesn’t have context. In the sense that ‘television’ it’s what we call the technology, plus a lot of what we call what’s aired on the technology the same thing - but I view it all on a computer. For example, you don’t say I’m going to watch television on my television. Or, perhaps if you’re online chatting with your friends like myself, but then decide to watch a show on the same computer. I wouldn’t say I’m going to watch television, I would say I’m watching a ‘show or a ‘series’. If one of my mates online said that they were going to watch television, it would imply they were going to the living room. So you leaving your computer to watch television on a television (EVEN IF IT’S THE SAME SHOW) you might call it television.
This is the beginning of my paradoxical experience of televisions meaning in my life. Similar to myself, Robert C Allen offers a plethora of reasonable definitions, under five dot points at the beginning of The Television Studies Reader, to determine ‘How are you defining television for the purpose of this book?’ But similar to myself throughout the text shows the obscure nature of the study. One definition he offers is “Television is the arrigate of all images and sounds carried by television and produced organised and experienced as television program.” - This definition for me is super fucking lacks. Furthermore C.Allen continues to he goes on the say - there has never been a consensus on to ‘why or how television should be studied.’So with all his vast interpretations of TV I would say over a period of time while the landscape of platforms like netflix stan and hulu have had time to settle (and I have begun to use paid online services more.) I can start to see how in many ways I am still a viewer of TV within a category of Robert C.Allens definitions. However the word television has no cultural context for me. A counter argument would be, while I may have been an early adapter compared to my parents in this regard, It’s in Robert C Allens definitions I can see similarities between the shows I watched online compared to traditional airing that all while in a medium sense differ, but in a production sense mirror each other. - that allow them to be classified as the same. To emphasize this comment I’d say my example of identification with and of television shows how cultural the concept of television is, in some sense, come full circle. To believing whether I’m a television watcher or not. So through my interpretation what does television is, what does it mean for me in my life? The word ‘television’ both benefits and suffers from the infrastructure from where it came._________________________________________________________________________
Post 2 (Question 1) The Dilemma Of Online Web Series -Distribution and Fandom.
To pay tribute to my first blog post I hope I’ve portrayed how I struggle within the theme of how we define what TV is. The most memorable shows I have enjoyed growing up have been made possible via independent online distribution. So after hearing such statements as “In its bypassing of the studio system, the distribution model of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog has been hailed by media commentators and fans alike as something which heralded the beginnings of an irreversible shift in the way cultural text reach their audiences” feels a bit rich. While I agree with a lot of what Anouk Lang forbodes in his analysis and statements made about Dr.Horrible, I believe it’s worth critiquing.I grew up on super nerdy online culture shows such as ‘Pure Pwnage’, which is ‘a day in the life of super nerd’ mockumentary released in 2004 (before YouTube!) on their personal site. Over its lifetime we can see many similarities that Pure Pwnage had in comparison to Dr.Horrible years beforehand. Pure Pwnage had its own universe. However because of Its’ niche catering audience of ‘gamers’ a lot of the terminology and plot structure had to change when it got picked up in 2009 by Showtime. Failing to pick up a second season it moved back to its original universe as director Geoff Lapaire launched a indiegogo campaign In September 2012, to create a feature length film. Within 24 hours of the campaign being launched, the project had received their goal of $75,000, and by the end of the campaign, they had reached a total of $211,300. Despite this being a relatively small film budget, Jarett Cale and Geoff Lapaire have said that with their experience of making the web series with an extremely limited amount of funds, they are confident that they would be able to make a quality film shot in countries across the world, mentioning hopes of filming in South Korea.
The similar notion in Joss Whedon's project can be seen in the budget. Being released in 2008 Joss Whedon funded the project himself (at just over $200,000) Whedon had the "freedom to just let the dictates of the story say how long it's gonna be. We didn't have to cram everything in there is a lot in there but we put in the amount of story that we wanted to and let the time work around that. We aimed for thirty minutes, we came out at forty two, and that's not a problem."
I’d argue this ‘known freedom’ within these projects empowers audiences to be apart of the narrative journey more as a contributor, than just a viewer as Lang mentions, but Lang gives evidence of this from online feedback not from the structure of unique production process.
To emphasize this point I’d only need to google a plethora of other examples of online fandom that beckons into the world of narratology and plot structure to make a point that Dr.Horrible wasn’t necessarily groundbreaking, it’s just evidence of the new environment we live in. By creating the the ‘Evil league of evil’ essentially creates ‘discussion porn’ in our modern landscape. We can see this within the success of Game of Thrones the Marvel Universe or even Adventure Time or Steven Universe. While Dr.Horrible did a good job at creating a fictional world within three episodes, that left it’s audience creating its own conclusions. Given enough time, fan fiction can be created from just about anything and the so called “freeze framed” audience reaction could easily be applied to an array or other distribution methods. I’d argue that Pure Pwnage offers the same level of community that Dr.horrible has had online. The communities engage with their shows and even offer a similar anticipation years later - still erking that they still might continue the story. (similar to Dr.Horrible's audience) e.g:
So what irritates me about Anouk Lang’s engagement with the text, is the lack of exploration outside it. I would argue that the only reason that Dr.Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is able to herrald such a statement is because of its base in traditional production. Joss Whedon already having an established brand in his writing style with Buffy and Angel offered the audience some pretext into the abrupt ending of the series. Whedon’s interaction with ‘so called’ legitimate TV compared to director of Pure Pwnage, Geoff Lapaire seems to have created this idea that it was in some way groundbreaking. Overarchingly I would argue that the comparison of these two series show how the proclaiming nature of Dr.Horrible and it’s fans can be diminished. In my opinion it offers more of a commentary of what we deem to be legitimately disrupting and game changing within the industry, as Pwn Pwnage started from true online independent distribution and Joss Whedon had access to higher level production but chose otherwise.
References
Allen, R. and Hill, A. (2004). The television studies reader. London: Routledge.
Baldwin, D. (2008). Joss Whedon Interview: The Web Has Been Wonderful For ‘Horrible’. [online] Tubefilter. Available at: https://www.tubefilter.com/2008/07/14/joss-whedon-interview-the-web-has-been-wonderful-for-horrible-2/.
Collins, V. and Losciale, M. (2017). 'Steven Universe' creator caught in the crossfire over alleged fanartist suicide attempt. [online] The Daily Dot. Available at: https://www.dailydot.com/parsec/steven-universe-fanartist-bullied-controversy/.
Indiegogo. (2013). Pure Pwnage: Teh Movie. [online] Available at: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/pure-pwnage-teh-movie#/.
Lang, A. (2010). The Status is Not Quo. 18th ed. The Ohio State University Press, pp.367-381.
Comments