Harvey vs. the Fanboys
February 29th, 2008 by nlang1
So given the topic of our first response papers and the enduring topics of fan interactions with media we have been discussing, I thought I’d bring up an ongoing story in the Star Wars fan world.
A film called Fanboys was filmed in early 2006 about a group of Star Wars fans that journey to George Lucas’s Skywalker Ranch before the release of The Phantom Menace in order to steal a copy for their friend who is dying of cancer and will not make it till the world premiere. Sounds like a pretty reasonable film premise…. albeit a bit similar to the “Free Hat” episode of South Park.
Well the film basically kept getting delayed until eventually reshoots were done by a different director almost a year after filming had ended due to scheduling conflicts. After all of this, a version of the film was edited which removed the cancer plotline altogether after certain test screenings found the subplot ‘depressing’.
When the news broke about this on Aint it Cool News and Darkhorizons, a petition was started by a group of fans to “Stop Darth Weinstein” – Harvey Weinstein’s The Weinstein Company is releasing the film -to ensure that the original version is released to theaters. The petition has picked up mainstream coverage including articles in the Daily Telegraph, Vanity Fair and the New York Post as well as less visible coverage through facebook and myspace petition groups.
I find this whole ordeal really interesting as it shows a level of dedication and assertiveness sometimes lost upon fans. It’s refreshing to see fans who care so much about their text are willing to work so hard to protect a little film like Fanboys. It remains to be seen if their efforts will actually have any effect as currently both versions of the film have been shown to test audiences and it is still unclear which version will get a release but in any case their petition has made a significant impact and is yet another example of fans exercising power over their texts.
Furthermore, much of our focus upon fan interactions with media has been upon the transformative aspects (I.E.-Slash as redefining character relationships, fan productions of non-canon or loose canon storylines, etc) but we have not discussed at length the degree of power fans can exercise over their text’s future. This form of power seems remarkably relevant given our discussions of the relationships between producers and fans; when a producer can have power over fan produced content such as in the FanLib example.
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Sorry for the format, I didn’t realize it was still doing this. Will edit the format on a PC.
I think that the Jenkins reading for tomorrow (Quentin Tarantino’s Star Wars) is really applicable here. When media producers want to use fannish productions, they want the creativity and enthusiasm for the source text, but they also want control. The negotiation of power between fans and the producers still seems to be in balance here.
I also think that it’s interesting that the movie is entitled Fanboys given the way that Star Wars fandom seemingly has such a gender divide. This fits more into the format of a traditionally male fan film, where it is “a documentary [or at least mockumentary] of the Star Wars fan experience” which Lucas and co. allow on their website, at least as of 2006.