What TV Can Learn From ‘The 100’ Mess

Two years ago, journalist Mo Ryan gave voice and validation to an abused and heartbroken fandom.

The response of the showrunner has, outside of a few unenlightening interviews, has been disappointing. Rothenberg live-tweeted the March 10 episode of the show as if thinkpieces and damning critiques were not still being churned out. In the limited array of interviews he did in conjunction with the March 3 episode, he has given little indication that he understands the depth of the sense of betrayal or the multitude of reasonable objections to the death story line. Since March 3, it has fallen to co-executive producer Javier Grillo-Marxuach, who wrote the episode, to engage with fans in any significant and meaningful way, but his compassionate and committed response has only highlighted Rothenberg’s abdication of responsibility.

Femslash and the growing power of fandom | Smash Company

Fandoms influence on authors tends to be trivial. Two characters who have never kissed, but of whom there is slash fiction, end up kissing, and the fans, or the author, joke that this is fan service.

But the pushback regarding The 100 is a bit different. It’s different because its femslash, but its also different because of the directness with which some of the fans wanted to criticize Jason Rothenberg. I get that fans criticize comic books and movies all the time, but this had a political angle that is rare. The fans weren’t saying “I found that scene unrealistic” the fans were saying “This is a civil rights violation.” That is potentially something very new.

This article from April, 2016 is an excellent reminder of what went wrong with The 100 and the growing power of fandom.

Femslash and the growing power of fandom | Smash Company

oldschoolsciencefiction:

“This is the voice of world control. I bring you peace. It may be the peace of plenty and content or the peace of unburied death.”

1970 – Colossus – The Forbin Project

The AI inspiration for all that followed.

A little trivia: in 2007, it was announced that a remake would be done, directed by Ron Howard. The screenwriter attached? Jason Rothenberg. He was replaced on the project in 2011 and the project has not gone forward.

In 2013, Rothenberg became the showrunner of The 100, based upon the YA dystopian novels by Kass Morgan. The books never featured an evil AI – but Rothenberg’s series did.

So JRoth owes a debt to Dennis Feltham Jones (amongst others) for the ideas behind ‘his’ show (so do the POI folks).

When I see the numbers we trended with today – 120k tweets – I’d just like to wave that at Jroth and say

‘Here, look, you – look what you threw away. We would have loved you. We would have raised this show to the stars. For a brief time you had the happiest, funniest, most joyful fandom and you threw it away. It meant nothing to you. Did you honestly think it would last once the extent of your queerbaiting had been revealed? Did you really think we were all going to go Wow, what an amazing story this was, she had an AI all along! Let’s keep watching to see what other further enticement there be.

Your queerbaiting might have been just naive arrogance. Your willingness to kill off the lesbian beacon of fan’s dreams might have been a massive misunderstanding of her importance. You didn’t see it or you simply didn’t care. I refuse to believe you didn’t know. You saw the tweets, you engaged with many of them. You saw the artwork. You saw how fan’s were celebrating her and somehow it meant nothing to you. A story you hadn’t even thought through fully meant more to you. That’s fine, really. That’s what a writer is, ultimately, right?

Except you’re not just a writer, are you? You’re the show runner. You’re the one responsible for everything that goes on with your show, including the actions of your cast and crew. It’s your job to know everything that goes on, so you can sell it, make it work for your network, make them money.

Did no one at your network see the rising fandom? Did no one see the raising of the social media profile? Did no one else pay attention to the tweeting and tumblr posts and the like? Did no one say to you – there it is, Jason. The audience this show has been waiting for. Treat them with care. We don’t want to lose that. Did no one delight in our delight? Did no one think Yes, we’ve made people happy and let’s go on doing that because it’s going to make us money?

That last bit, really. It’s a business, of course. You are the manager in charge of one of their properties. You lost them a potential fortune with your behaviour, with your inability to keep your audience. Why were you not sacked?

If I were in charge of a huge department that brought in millions then suddenly dried up, I’d have to account for myself, for the loss, and either prove I can make up for it – or lose my job.

So series 4 is where you show them you can still ‘bring it?’ How is that going for you, really?

We would have loved you. You could have had a huge success, one with a grateful and joyous fandom that would follow you anywhere. You proved to not only be bad at business – not recognising your customers – but bad in the aftermath, too. You made yourself look ridiculous. No one, not in this crowd, is ever going to take you seriously again. They’ll never buy anything that has you associated with it. They hate you. You are, really, a liability for anyone you work for.

But it was art, I get it. Your half-arsed story was more important to you. The half-arsed story you came up with on the fly as you were making series 3. That’s how important it was. The half-arsed story that borrowed from so many other, better products. You were determined to show off, weren’t you? Bit you in the arse, didn’t it?

You hurt people, Jason Rothenberg. You hurt them and you didn’t have the decency of character to look those people in the eye and apologise, or try to learn about their pain and, maybe, if you could, ease it or make up for it – or, in your own vernacular – overcome it. You sat behind the screen like so many men of your privilege do, knowing your experiences and point of view are superior to theirs. These are just wanky, whingey kids. Ignore them, boss.

And we were, ignored by you and your bosses. Only – I don’t think that’s really true. The more you refused to talk about it, the more your bosses refused to acknowledge it – the more I think it really did get to you. I think it does bother them. I think they were paying attention. Not just to us, but to the negative media you received. To the dwindling numbers. Someone did say what the fuck is this?

But it doesn’t matter now. We’re all moving on in one way or another. You’ve helped galvanise a generation of queer youth to taking over your industry one day. Congratulations on that. I hope I live to see it.

It’s kind of funny, these days, especially, since Dump took office. The world is galvanised against him. We all want better, we all deserve better than the standard-issue white heteronormative, patriarchal bullshit we’ve been fighting against for so long. Believe it or not, you represent that bullshit. You are one of many. A liability to the whole world.

Think about that, if nothing else. You could have been loved, admired – an agent of change for many. You certainly wanted us to think you were. You’ll never fool anyone again. And these fans that trended so hard for their hero today? They will never let you forget.

10 days to the premier of S4 and Vanity Fair drops another one on the loo: vanityfair(.)com/hollywood/2017/01/online-fandom-tv-2017-riverdale-twin-peaks-better-call-saul-time-after-time?mbid=social_twitter

laradanvers:

commanderlexaofthegrounders:

THEIR LEGACY!!! (Vanity Fair)

What is that called when you’re a privileged white male in a privileged position and you harm a lot of women and your privileged white male boss protects you?

Without knowing them personally, Pedowitz and Rothenberg’s actions scream entitled, male, coward.

And no, ‘artistic integrity’ doesn’t cover them. When you sit in a seat of authority that allows you to potentially influence millions of people, you need to be held accountable when you create a harmful, offensive product.

hedaswarrior:

You know, i constantly see the excuse that it was due to Alycia’s schedule that she was killed off The 100. That she had to go to shoot FTWD bc she was a regular and that was the scheduling conflict. Now, what if the ‘schedule conflict’ was only for episodes 3.08-15? That Alycia could not be in these episodes due to her leaving to film FTWD 2a? But, maybe she said she could be in 4a since she would be on break?? And we know that she is on vacation for 5 months, and one of the writers said she wanted to comeback…

So, next time you see the ‘scheduling’ excuse….what if the only scheduling conflict was these episodes in 3b? Like Jason didn’t even think about Clarke leaving for Arkadia or Lexa going off somewhere, to then reunite in the finale and Lexa helps draw Clarke back to the ‘real reality’ due to their love; something that ALIE could not stop. You know love is strength….love is the greatest weapon.

Her schedule or ‘scheduling conflicts’ cannot be taken seriously as an excuse. There are only two that work: 1. the actor didn’t want to come back (and not found any interview to substantiate this) 2. the writers wrote themselves up a chimney.

The writing team/Jroth created this storyline. It fit the story they/he wanted to tell. Judging by all the pain this show likes to bring, he probably wanted a Big Pain Moment in s3 and killing Lexa was perfect. That is why Lexa is dead. No other reason. If her schedule was a concern (like the production team not wanting to worry about whether she might be available at such-and-such a time), they could have written any number of scenarios that made Lexa ‘disappear’ for a bit without killing her off. It was a failure of imagination. The entire season was an exercise in ‘how to write yourself into one corner after another.’

It’s hard to imagine a young actor landing such a prize role, a rare sort of part for a woman, no less, and just walking away from it. She had no choice but to go along with their choices. It was stupid, it was wasteful and it broke a lot of hearts. To blame all that on someone’s clearly flexible schedule, is just ridiculous and, in this case, considering all the hurt, the act of cowards refusing to accept responsibility for their actions.

‘The 100′: CW Boss Defends Controversial Death, Cast Member Exit

wonderswcman:

“We’re believers in letting showrunners tell their stories,” he told reporters after his panel at the Television Critics’ Association’s summer press tour Thursday. “If you start limiting certain things, you’re limiting their ability to be creative.”

Showrunner Jason Rothenberg caught flack for consummating the relationship between Clarke (Eliza Taylor) and Lexa (Alycia Debnam-Carey) and then immediately killing off Debnam-Carey’s character, citing the actress’s scheduling.

Pedowitz thinks the biggest lesson from the fallout is how showrunners and fans interact on social media.

“I think he got a great learning curve for what social media can do,” he said. “Be adored or hated at ny given time… My take on this is, that was much more of a social media reaction and how Jason handled the social media reaction.”

Pedowitz also addressed series regular Ricky Whittle‘s exit from the show, which was punctuated by an interview in which Whittle described being bullied by Rothenberg.

“We had conversations for a long time about Ricky’s character, Lincoln. It was a great character, Jason felt for a very long time that he had written that character into a box,” Pedowitz explained. “We felt differently. There was a long discussion about this. At some point, Jason found he had a great way for Ricky’s character to be written out so that Marie’s character could go forward in some way shape or form. Ricky’s comments about number of lines and all that – Ricky was a great performer for us, but it’s the showrunner’s right to decide how many lines an actor gets per episode.”

source

This is rape culture politics: TPTB (who happen to be white males), protecting a show runner (a white male) by downplaying/not acknowledging the harm he did (to women) and being otherwise dismissive of any other issues (racism) by re-framing it to avoid the discussion altogether.

And they get away with it.

We had conversations for a long time about Ricky’s character, Lincoln. It was a great character. Jason felt for a very long time that he had written that character into a box,” Pedowitz explained. “We felt differently. There was a long discussion about this. At some point, Jason found he had a great way for Ricky’s character to be written out so that Marie’s [Avgeropoulos] character could go forward in some way shape or form. Ricky’s comments about number of lines and all that – Ricky was a great performer for us, but it’s the showrunner’s right to decide how many lines an actor gets per episode.

Mark Pedowitz (CW president) | thewrap (via the100-news)

I want to laugh. ‘Jason found a great way’ – let’s tell it like it is… to kill off another minority character in order to further the story of a white character (read: totally offensive, but we don’t acknowledge that).

I like that they actually count lines for an actor, too.

Oh, wait…Jason ‘felt’ he had written that character ‘into a box?’ And he didn’t notice all the other corners he had written his show into?

I love that show. I really do. I just love that show. I was one of the people who encouraged Jason to go to a very dark show. For me, he knows how to tell stories. We had long discussions about the first part of the season last year in terms of it being a little bit confusing with the Ice Nation and everything else and then it picked up in the second half of the season.“ Regarding Season 4, Pedowitz noted, “It will be much more intimate stories this year.

Mark Pedowitz (CW president) | IGN (via the100-news)

Everything Wrong with Television #493

Deliberately ignorant white bros backing up their bros.

If nothing else, that he thought the ‘first half’ of s3 was confusing but it ‘picked up’ during the second half is convincing enough this man knows NOTHING about good storytelling – though I’m sure he was mostly watching ET’s returning cleavage.