“ every thing is AWesoMe.” spreAdibilit y And THE LEGO MOVIE
197
are “embedded into the design and promote specific user behaviour,” hence
claims made by toys and games companies about offering complete freedom
of movement can only ever be partially true. 51 As Clare Parody has likewise
suggested, “convergence culture may even be conditioning consumers to
actively want to see” particular characters and storyworlds in various media. 52
Given that we all know that narrative and game worlds are structured by rules
and delimited by specific parameters, it would appear that we are destined
to repeat Hamlet’s lament: “Oh God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and
count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams”. 53
Moreover, because totally “free play” is both a heuristic and a utopian
notion, the issues I have just mentioned have plagued thought on play for
centuries; at least since Kant and Schiller were writing about play in the
18th century. So how is the current paradigm any different and how does
transmedia storytelling bring such irksome issues more sharply into focus?
In part, the answer resides in the increasing complicity between play and
industrialization at a historical juncture and in an economic paradigm in
which notions such as the “creative industries” have become thoroughly
naturalized. If this is coupled with Jenkins’ argument that “the encyclopedic
ambitions of transmedia texts often results [sic] in what might be seen as
gaps or excesses in the unfolding of the story […] so that readers […] have a
strong incentive to continue to elaborate on these story elements, working
them over through their speculations, until they take on a life of their own,”
the implications are many and serious. 54 But here again, as anyone who
works in the area of literary hermeneutics and gives much thought to how
readers are interpolated when a text is activated will tell you, this is nothing
new. What is different is the injection of technology and the immediacy
that the internet affords fan culture to participate in storyworlds while
also having considerable parts of their own worlds reciprocally shaped
by narrative franchises. Coupled with the economic developments I have
been at pains to sketch out here, the idea of spending time in LEGO Land
takes on new resonance.
Likewise, I would concur with those scholars who argue that “there is
one characteristic of modernity […] emphasised by intellectuals since the
eighteenth century: modernity is ‘disenchanted’,” while also considering
that, in the present era of financialization, what mystifies and enchants is
51 Lauwaert, 25.
52 Parody, 216.
53 Hamlet 2:2.
54 Jenkins, “Transmedia Storytelling 101.”
197
are “embedded into the design and promote specific user behaviour,” hence
claims made by toys and games companies about offering complete freedom
of movement can only ever be partially true. 51 As Clare Parody has likewise
suggested, “convergence culture may even be conditioning consumers to
actively want to see” particular characters and storyworlds in various media. 52
Given that we all know that narrative and game worlds are structured by rules
and delimited by specific parameters, it would appear that we are destined
to repeat Hamlet’s lament: “Oh God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and
count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams”. 53
Moreover, because totally “free play” is both a heuristic and a utopian
notion, the issues I have just mentioned have plagued thought on play for
centuries; at least since Kant and Schiller were writing about play in the
18th century. So how is the current paradigm any different and how does
transmedia storytelling bring such irksome issues more sharply into focus?
In part, the answer resides in the increasing complicity between play and
industrialization at a historical juncture and in an economic paradigm in
which notions such as the “creative industries” have become thoroughly
naturalized. If this is coupled with Jenkins’ argument that “the encyclopedic
ambitions of transmedia texts often results [sic] in what might be seen as
gaps or excesses in the unfolding of the story […] so that readers […] have a
strong incentive to continue to elaborate on these story elements, working
them over through their speculations, until they take on a life of their own,”
the implications are many and serious. 54 But here again, as anyone who
works in the area of literary hermeneutics and gives much thought to how
readers are interpolated when a text is activated will tell you, this is nothing
new. What is different is the injection of technology and the immediacy
that the internet affords fan culture to participate in storyworlds while
also having considerable parts of their own worlds reciprocally shaped
by narrative franchises. Coupled with the economic developments I have
been at pains to sketch out here, the idea of spending time in LEGO Land
takes on new resonance.
Likewise, I would concur with those scholars who argue that “there is
one characteristic of modernity […] emphasised by intellectuals since the
eighteenth century: modernity is ‘disenchanted’,” while also considering
that, in the present era of financialization, what mystifies and enchants is
51 Lauwaert, 25.
52 Parody, 216.
53 Hamlet 2:2.
54 Jenkins, “Transmedia Storytelling 101.”