Thread: The Desolation
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Old 02-06-2014, 04:34 AM   #145
Zigūr
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Interestingly, the article author made a comment of his own (which can currently be found by loading the first lot of additional comments below the ones showing up immediately beneath the article at present).
Quote:
This is the author, Thomas Monteath. I've just been reading the comments on this article. Thank you to everyone for posting. They make fascinating reading. This review seems to have triggered a debate - which was in part my intention - about the nature of the TORn community. What does it mean to call oneself a 'fan', as opposed to someone who enjoyed the books/ movies? What is the difference between a 'fan' of Tolkien and a 'fan' of Jackson (bearing in mind this is after all a site dedicated to the works of Tolkien not Jackson)? Is there a difference between being a 'fan' of what is put on screen and a 'fan' of the people putting it on screen, and if so, does that effect how we judge what is put on screen? As a social scientist in real life, I find the manner in which the discussion is being conducted here absolutely fascinating. It's very interesting how the responses are almost wholly polarised - I'm either an 'arrogant, pompous troll' or a 'brave, courageous truth-teller'.

The meta-commentary on the 'fan-base' (as those who self-identify as part of it call it) in the review was made precisely to stir up a reflexive discussion on the nature of 'fandom'. I find it curious that many people who self-identify as 'fans' appear to engage with Tolkien's work as a community exercise, rather than a private imagined one. For me, and for most people engaging with most literature and cinema, its consumption is a private experience. Yet in the case of these wholly and vividly imagined alternative/ fictional worlds - star wars; potter; tolkien; star trek; game of thrones - there tends to grow a community. And like any community, it tends to trend towards an exclusive consensus, and tends to try and censor. Where that fails, censure occurs. The community begins to act as a hive mind, and individual critical faculties tend to be suspended in the context of that community. This is widely noted characteristic of communities everywhere, particularly where the community is defined around a central idea, principle or precept. Or in the case of fansites, a legendarium.

One of the more interesting characteristics of such communities is that disagreements that challenge things from which people derive or on which people assert or by which people associate their identities end up being ad hominem (I should note that ad hominem - personal - attacks are ones directed at an individual. In my review, I do not attack any individual 'fan', but rather gently mock - and it was clearly done somewhat tongue in cheek by the way - a caricature of a 'fan' that was general in nature, not specific. It is extremely interesting that, despite the set up of a caricatured archetype, there is clearly a tendency for some people to slot themselves into it, despite it being a overly-simplistic caricature. So before anyone says I 'insulted' the fans, please note that there is a huge difference between insulting an individual and lightly mocking a caricature, especially when it is done as part of a broader and largely absurd satire, largely written for the mischievous fun of it). Thus it is especially interesting to see some of the ad hominem comments made about me - an individual, not a type of person, remember - in the comments. In light of the hostile comments, I expected to receive similarly hostile private emails. Instead, what is interesting is that in direct email, I've received 9 that are extremely supportive (often phrased in relatively strong terms, with asides about not wanting to comment on the article itself for fear of being 'flamed' by other commenters), and only one that was disagreeing with me, and that one was very polite. Comparing the public and private responses the article has received has been fascinating, and says something about the culture of how we interact on the internet in public forums.

The one mildly hostile email I've received did, however, make some interesting points. The correspondent self-identified as a fan, and went on to implicitly claim to speak for other 'fans', and then chided me for 'hating on their movie' (by which the correspondent implicitly meant 'our movie'). This is one of the curious things about the 'fan communities' that appear around these sorts of stories. For the Hobbit etc is, of course, not their/ your movie; it is just a movie. It is precisely this sort of community-based conformity, where the world is organised into 'likers' and 'haters', that is curious and arguably quite distasteful. It is a barrier to dispassionate discussion. Where, in my review, I talk of 'fanatics', it is precisely this sort of binary thinking that I'm addressing.

I therefore would not describe myself as a 'fan' of the books or the films. What I am is someone who has thoroughly enjoyed the Hobbit and LotR since I first read them as a child, and thought the first trilogy was a largely brilliant (if often tonally and thematically flawed) attempt to bring the LotR to the screen. I had extremely high hopes for this new trilogy, as evidenced by articles I posted to theonering.net in July-Dec 2012, largely focused (optimistically) on the possible way the films could be structured over three films.

However, no matter how much I wanted the new films to be wonderful, in the end I am sorely disappointed. I then found myself thinking why that might have been the case. What was wrong with them? And that process is what has led to the review. You have an intuitive response to a piece of art; you try and put it into words and give it a structure to communicate it; and then you disseminate it. Fiat justitia ruat caelum - do justice and let the skies fall. The point of a review is to state an opinion, and to eschew caveating it for the sake of not offending people. An opinion is not an opinion if it is watered down simply to avoid the ire of people don't both disagree with it and are emotionally invested in the thing being opined upon. Is the reviewers job to say what they think, or is it to tell people what they want to hear? Which has more integrity as a review?

Having read a lot of the other reviews of this film on TORn, I was aware that a lot of writers were careful to caveat or downplay or balance their criticisms. While this possibly to give the filmmakers the benefit of the doubt, I suspect it was in part to avoid being 'flamed' in the comments, which can actually be upsetting when it gets personal. Writing any article is like standing on a stage in front of an audience you can't see, but who can heckle you anonymously. I can fully sympathise with the tendency to couch and caveat and water down negative reviews in such a forum as the theonering.net. And this is why I decided to go with the reflexive comments on the nature of 'fanatical' followings. I was well aware that those paragraphs would be like poking a nest of hornets (I'm not saying people are like hornets - that was just a metaphor, relax folks). But I think the goal - beyond reviewing the film - of sparking a debate about the nature of 'fandom' on sites like TORn has been achieved. How should the community here define itself? What is the community? What are it's basic points of consensus? These are valid and interesting questions. I'm glad the review has triggered a discussion.

One final point: my point about the 'fanatics' not seeing the light of day was, as with much of the first section of that review, clearly satirical, tongue in cheek and mildly teasing. It is a stereotype - the tolkien 'geek' who never leaves their bedroom. People should lighten up and not get so sensitive. I'm a regular reader of Tolkien myself, and I am given a friendly ribbing from many friends as a consequence. It is important in life to be able to laugh at oneself. And also to be able to see a running gag when it sprints past you.
I think the author raises some interesting points about consensus. This is why, as a general rule, I think fandom can, in its own trivial way, be a dangerous thing. The establishment of a consensus which drowns out critical discourse and motivates outrage and hostility based on nothing more than differing opinions is surely an unhealthy thing. The kind of 'aggressive consensus' that things like internet comments (as opposed to discussion forums) and like/dislike ratings have given rise to make serious discussion virtually impossible.

Then again adopting an 'us and them' philosophy is a deeply ingrained human trait, and I despair of any way of our society as a whole escaping it. Yet it seems so utterly absurd when applied to enthusiasts of Professor Tolkien's work. What would he think of the desire for us to all walk in step?

EDIT: (Addendum) I think even a change of vocabulary would help. Instead of people saying something was "good" or "bad", saying that one "enjoyed" or "didn't enjoy" something would probably be helpful. Everyone knows opinions are subjective, but they still don't like opinions being phrased as objective truth (even though the assumption, generally, is that it's just the opinion of the person making the judgement).
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Last edited by Zigūr; 02-06-2014 at 04:55 AM.
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