"It's just a show."

[author_by_night]

 

I see that ^ statement a lot in discussion spaces, mostly in Reddit and Facebook groups.  And I wanted to tackle that.

I do think that you have to acknowledge that a work of fiction is a work of fiction. You can't expect storylines to be 100% realistic when they're very much reliant on plot. To quote a song from Crazy-Ex Girlfriend: "If you watched a movie that was like real life, you'd be like, 'what the hell was that movie about?'" The same applies to all works of fiction. 

At the same time, the characters do not know they're fictional. There should still be some rationale behind their actions (unless they're meant to be incredibly impulsive and/or irrational people). Storylines can push the boundaries of reality, but should still follow a somewhat logical course, unless they're meant to be absurdist shows where logic doesn't apply. Characters should still act consistently with who we understand there to be, unless, again, they're meant to be inconsistent, or we're seeing a side of them the show has always hinted at but never tapped into. Of course, fans are bound to disagree on what works for them. One person might think a storyline is too contrived, while another person thinks it makes perfect sense. The issue, then, isn't "it's just a show", but whether or not even within the context of fiction, XYZ worked for that person. 

I also think that "it's just a show" is often said by VERY casual fans who aren't really up for discussing TV, but have still entered those spaces. There are a lot of people who take a very casual approach - they watch something, they like it or don't, that's it. So it is very easy to say "it's just a show" when your investment is minimal. The problem is, they're not bearing in mind that it's a discussion space, meaning people will want to discuss. Another example might be joining a bird watching group, despite not wanting to bird watch. It's fine if you're good just listening to birds chip and smiling when you spot them in the bushes, but a bird watching group is going to take it to the next level. (Which is why I'd never join one.)

IMHO, anyway. What do you guys think?

Comments

[delphi]

I also think that "it's just a show" is often said by VERY casual fans who aren't really up for discussing TV, but have still entered those spaces.

I've noticed that too, particularly in the spaces where different kinds of fans (people who want casual water cooler chat, people who want to do deep dives, theorycrafters, character admirers, transformative fan types, curative fan types) all end up in the same tag or general forum because that's how modern mainstream social media rolls. Those are all perfectly valid ways of enjoying media, but wires can get crossed when people have different expectations about what talking about a show will look like, and when they think their expectations are universal or the default.

The funny thing is that I feel like I see a lot of people say "It's just a show" while counter-intuitively discussing something like it isn't a show. It's part of what I vaguely think of as the Found Footage Approach, which to be fair I've seen from both people who are casual fans of something and people who are intense fans of something—but either way, where someone rejects the idea that conscious choices were made by multiple people in the writing, directing, acting, and editing of a show, and the idea that different choices could have been made. Not just Death of the Author but Death of the Medium. A show is instead something that just is, sprung into existence fully formed, and talking about how it got there or how it could have been different is as weird as going on about why the sky isn't a slightly different shade of blue.

[author_by_night]

Those are all perfectly valid ways of enjoying media, but wires can get crossed when people have different expectations about what talking about a show will look like, and when they think their expectations are universal or the default.



Definitely part of the problem. Now that I think about it, I once had the opposite problem, where I was the only one in a community who wanted deeper conversations, and I definitely thought my stance was the default. I hate to admit it, but I was actually a bit of a brat, because I was like "what do you mean you all want to discuss the actors, and not the deeper motivations of each character?" So, it makes sense that some people may not even be trying to be rude or miss the point, their "point" is just different. You say tomato, I say tomato.

where someone rejects the idea that conscious choices were made by multiple people in the writing, directing, acting, and editing of a show, and the idea that different choices could have been made.

Yes! This has occurred to me as well. Okay, I get that they're fictional characters, but people actively sat down and wrote those characters. Then, yes, someone directed them. Sometimes actors are part of the writing and/or production team, too.