random whiskey-fueled pop cultural thoughts: i'm not a huge fan of the way serialized entertainment is consumed in our culture these days. i think far too much emphasis gets placed on "twists" and "spoilers," which are generally surface-level plot details that rarely account for the reasons a connection gets formed between a viewer and a good show. for example, i was in grad school during Breaking Bad's final two seasons, and i had little time for television as a result (i was also largely absent from kf.com during that stretch). but, because of the nature of internet browsing, it was damn near impossible to avoid news of BB's finale after it aired. pop culture websites aren't always careful with their headlines and taglines, and individuals on social media are even less careful in discussions of pop cultural ephemera (though, admittedly, i've since departed from the social media landscape--for entirely separate reasons). long story short: through no fault of my own, the ending of BB was "spoiled" for me...
that said, when i eventually found the time to watch the final two seasons on Netflix... man, i watched
the hell out of that finale. it was excellent. i loved it. and as it turns out, knowing the ending in advance didn't "spoil" it for me anymore than knowing the ending of a great historical film or a great adaptation of a novel i've read could "spoil" them for me. as a viewer, i guess i don't value the reveal of specific plot details as much as i value well-rendered thematic resolutions. now, i fully recognize that most individuals will not necessarily feel as i do, and i also fully recognize that anger is a perfectly valid emotional response when a major development in television programming is "spoiled" for fans of a particular show; one individual can't dictate another's emotional reaction to any kind of art or entertainment, after all. but i do wonder about the tenor of these cultural conversations, and i wonder if we're perhaps doing violence to our enjoyment of... well, everything... by placing an undue amount of emphasis on the wrong things. hell, HBO's 'Deadwood' is my favorite television drama of all time, and it didn't even
have a proper ending. it was prematurely cancelled... (
)
but when a show is lucky enough to actively chart a course for its ending, fans react so dramatically if it doesn't end precisely as they hoped it would. i'm not even sure most fans know exactly how they would want some of these shows to end, and i find that i'm quite bothered by our cultural emphasis on these aspects of storytelling, as if displeasure over the way something concludes should negatively color the artistry of everything that came before that conclusion. the same could be said for the endless parade of sequels/remakes/reboots that come out of hollywood. everybody gets so red-in-the-face when a film property is sequalized, remade, or rebooted, as if a new 'Ghostbusters' movie--good or bad--could ever displace the magic of the original. why should the mere existence of this remake/reboot negatively color the way we relate to the original? why should it "destroy our collective childhoods," as is the popular parlance for such an act of high pop cultural treason? my goodness, the melodrama. why let movie studios or critics or random bloggers have so much control over one's enjoyment and appreciation for something? it's hard enough sometimes just to find something i
like. actually liking that thing shouldn't require extra work...
personally, i hope to enjoy paul feig's upcoming 'Ghostbusters' movie, but if i don't, i'll go straight home from the theater, put on the original, and enjoy that instead. then again, maybe the remake
will be good, and then i guess we'll just have two good 'Ghostbusters' movies (because the 1989 sequel is something we've all agreed to erase from our memories, right?). and even though there is just
so much media to consume on a daily basis, i think there's probably still plenty of room for more than one version of the same thing. i'd certainly rather that the film industry invested much more time, energy, and money on original ideas, but that's a different argument than one that claims the
first version of something is always the
best version of something, and that any version thereafter is not only inferior, but its very existence tarnishes the original...
anyway, apologies for the meandering sermon. just felt like a bit of culture commentary. back to your regularly-scheduled programming...
