There's an early Peanuts cartoon with the punchline, "Rosebud was his sled"

[scarfman]

Today I think I've figured out why it is that the twenty-first century anti-spoiler militantism, in online Doctor Who fandom and online in general, bothers me as much as it does, and it's much the same argument as my - and others' - position on fanfiction and copyright.

First of all, I probably ought to disclose that I was a U.S. Whofan in the 80s and spoilers don't scare me. I'd prefer that, the first time I hear a story, I do so as the storyteller(s) intended, including being surprised by the surprises. But I've read transcripts of The Christmas Invasion and New Earth. I've read reviews of Tooth and Claw and Class Reunion, and I'd read transcripts if I could find them. Besides, as Steve Allen Bennett Cerf (I think) once put it, if surprise was all there was to humor [or drama], what about the teenager who listens to Bill Cosby albums over and over? It's in the delivery, folks.

Plus, there's a genuine phenomenon going on in which people don't know any more what's a spoiler and what isn't. Cast lists are news - they weren't spoilers in 1986 and they aren't now. What happens before the main titles isn't a spoiler, it's a teaser - hell, that's the technical term for it in screenwriting: that's the Teaser, and what starts after the credits is Act One. Episode titles are teasers, not spoilers. Previews are not spoilers, though for a preview to include footage from late in the episode can be pushing it, depending on the footage. I've argued these points in other fora over the past years and in other LJs over the past months, and I stand by them. But I think I've only just articulated to myself what I feel my real issue is.

Henry Jenkins, director of media studies at MIT, once wrote, "Fan fiction is a way of the culture repairing the damage done in a system where contemporary myths are owned by corporations instead of owned by the folk." To paraphrase, some intellectual property morally belongs to the culture. The differences between online fanfiction and fireside tales of Hercules or Paul Bunyan are the electronic communications revolution and modern intellectual property law. My perception may be wrong, but Doctor Who seems to be a solid underpinning of online culture, during this transition period between the era when our phones, televisions, mailboxes and thermostats are all separate devices and the era of whatever comes next, just because the kind of person who likes to make full use of online culture tends also to be the kind of person who likes cult tv. But Serenity is a better example of what I'm talking about now, not just because it seems more popular online than Doctor Who but because Firefly isn't a serial still in production.

There are real spoilers in Serenity for those who have watched Firefly (I'm not going to be explicit, because someone who that'd piss off is someone who I want to consider this argument with a level head). In fact for months previous to Serenity's theatrical premiere it was shown to preview audiences while the final cut was being tweaked, and Firefly fandom was very accommodating to Joss Whedon's plea to the preview audiences not to give those spoilers away. I have nothing against those who don't want to see genuine spoilers before this film or that book are even legitimately available. However, that premiere was last September or October, depending on which side of which ocean you are. The region 1 DVD came out in December; I can't tell from entries at amazon.co.uk when the Region 2 DVD was released but it seems to have been no later than the end of February. And, see, the thing about online culture is its propagation speed, and you can't have it both ways. You can't pull Saturday's 18:00 BST Doctor Who airing off of a bit torrent feed Saturday at 18:00 CDT, and still complain in a webcomics community in April that the other guy is spoiling a movie you could have seen last autumn or could have rented at any time in the last two months.

Now, I don't know that the person I saw complaining in that webcomics community is actually someone who torrents Doctor Who. In fact I would guess not. But I think the point is still valid. I think if the electronic communications revolution had happened sixty years ago, you couldn't hang out on IRC or LJ and maintain a reasonable expectation not to learn, just from casual conversation months later, that Rosebud was his sled.

There'll always be anomalies. I know a guy who saw the Batman movie in 1988 with a date who got mad at him for telling her that Bruce Wayne is Batman. But there comes a point when a spoiler passes into cultural myth, and if you watch Michael Keaton's first unmasked scene in Batman you see that the film expects you to know who Bruce Wayne really is. Online that point of mythology comes an order of magnitude sooner, and during this transition period people are learning that at different rates. I'm not saying you have to like it once you've learned it, I'm only saying that eventually everyone will learn it and so far not everyone has. But - and here's the bit that bothered me, though it's not that there's any conscious maliciousness to it - the ones who are learning more slowly are trying to retard that culture and the natural propagation of that culture, same as intellectual property law does. It's not evil, it's not malicious, it's not that retarding anything is their intention - which is something I needed to realize - it's just behind the times. Things Are Different Now.

I don't expect that anyone's behavior will change as a result of what I write about this (same as with the soapboxing about canon I do). Just, sometimes you have to express it.

Edit April 2007 In recent weeks I've actually backed off my previously adamant position on what constitutes a spoiler and what doesn't. I'll still express my opinions on individual cases, but I've come to realize that a spoiler, like an obscenity, is determined by the standards of the community.

Comments

[larksilver.livejournal.com]

There is most definitely a Statute of Limitations for spoilers.

24-hours after the Harry Potter book? Way too soon.

However... when someone gets mad at you, in 2006, mind, when, after a screening of Sin City (and in response to said friend's complaint that it wasn't a happy film), you say "well, he was the guy who killed Batman." Dude, he said. They killed BATMAN?

That was 20 years ago. Waaaay too long for me to be uber-sensitive of spoilers.

I am carefully watching my words about how I feel about the way this season of Doctor Who ends, by the by. Because I *did* torrent it, and now it's my responsibility to shut the heck up til it shows on TV.

Anyway.. er.. the point was.. I agree with you. yeah. That. hee!

[elliptic-eye.livejournal.com]

To paraphrase, some intellectual property morally belongs to the culture.

I don't know about it morally belonging—and I literally mean that I don't know, not that I disagree—but I do think that it can't properly live without belonging in some way to the culture, as epitomized by fanfic. But one way or another, intellectual property law is the practical tradeoff for being able to make a living at that kind of creativity.

[scarfman]

Ah well, that's another discussion entirely, which I take up in this teal deer LJ post from the time of the Star Wars/Amazon incident, recapping a discussion I had on Usenet years before.