introduCtion: AdAptAtion in A ConvergenCe environMent
25
contemporaneous Sherlock Holmes adaptation Sherlock, stage themselves
as auteurs. His interest lies particularly in how this self-staging impacts upon
their interactions with certain parts of the show’s fan base and how this
strained relationship is, in turn, reflected in the main narrative of the TV
show. As Poore argues, the various tactics through which Gatiss and Moffat
try to maintain full control over the popular show and its interpretations
take place both within the show’s narrative and in public appearances in
which Moffat in particular tries to set a legitimate range of engagement and
interpretation. This negotiation is caught up in contradiction, because the
show at once depends on fan investment, which – like most truly successful
contemporary television shows – it caters to with added value hidden in a
“drillable” text, 35 while at the same time, having its showrunners adamantly
delimit the fans’ range of authorial/adaptive and interpretative involvement.
As Poore writes, “[t]o take fandom any further than one-way consumption is
to risk the lead writers’ mockery.” According to Poore, this keep-your-handsoff-our-show approach geared at both fans and journalists encapsulates
the show’s true politics.
While complex television’s lead writers can exact strong control over their
work, as Poore’s discussion of Sherlock’s lead writers shows, the expansion
of the fuzzier and more diversified Alien franchise that Rüdiger Heinze
examines opens up multiple “gaps” which – from a primarily narratological
perspective – result in the continuity between individual works becoming
much looser. As Heinze shows, each contribution to a franchise, no matter
how closely its makers try to fit it into a preexisting canon, also includes
contradictions. Even as they fill narrative gaps, these franchise contributions
create new loose ends, and thus new spaces for further elaboration, facilitating both further franchise production and spaces for fan interpretation and
participation. As Heinze contends in his conclusion, which Steven Moffat
and Mark Gatiss would do well to heed, it is impossible to fully control a
fictional universe and its commercial and cognitive receptions.
Focusing on The LEGO Movie, Joyce Goggin examines the toy-turnedtransmedia franchise to argue that LEGO in general and The LEGO Movie in
particular project a master builder trope that at once encourages creativity
and at the same time closely regulates this creativity. Goggin sees this trope
as germane to the greater context of political and economic neoliberalism,
in which employees are encouraged to build their careers and lives in a
brick-like manner to fit the ever-greater pressures of deregulated labor
35 The notion of drillable media goes back to Jason Mittell, “Forensic Fandom and the Drillable
Text,” accessed February 09, 2017, http://spreadablemedia.org/essays/mittell/.
25
contemporaneous Sherlock Holmes adaptation Sherlock, stage themselves
as auteurs. His interest lies particularly in how this self-staging impacts upon
their interactions with certain parts of the show’s fan base and how this
strained relationship is, in turn, reflected in the main narrative of the TV
show. As Poore argues, the various tactics through which Gatiss and Moffat
try to maintain full control over the popular show and its interpretations
take place both within the show’s narrative and in public appearances in
which Moffat in particular tries to set a legitimate range of engagement and
interpretation. This negotiation is caught up in contradiction, because the
show at once depends on fan investment, which – like most truly successful
contemporary television shows – it caters to with added value hidden in a
“drillable” text, 35 while at the same time, having its showrunners adamantly
delimit the fans’ range of authorial/adaptive and interpretative involvement.
As Poore writes, “[t]o take fandom any further than one-way consumption is
to risk the lead writers’ mockery.” According to Poore, this keep-your-handsoff-our-show approach geared at both fans and journalists encapsulates
the show’s true politics.
While complex television’s lead writers can exact strong control over their
work, as Poore’s discussion of Sherlock’s lead writers shows, the expansion
of the fuzzier and more diversified Alien franchise that Rüdiger Heinze
examines opens up multiple “gaps” which – from a primarily narratological
perspective – result in the continuity between individual works becoming
much looser. As Heinze shows, each contribution to a franchise, no matter
how closely its makers try to fit it into a preexisting canon, also includes
contradictions. Even as they fill narrative gaps, these franchise contributions
create new loose ends, and thus new spaces for further elaboration, facilitating both further franchise production and spaces for fan interpretation and
participation. As Heinze contends in his conclusion, which Steven Moffat
and Mark Gatiss would do well to heed, it is impossible to fully control a
fictional universe and its commercial and cognitive receptions.
Focusing on The LEGO Movie, Joyce Goggin examines the toy-turnedtransmedia franchise to argue that LEGO in general and The LEGO Movie in
particular project a master builder trope that at once encourages creativity
and at the same time closely regulates this creativity. Goggin sees this trope
as germane to the greater context of political and economic neoliberalism,
in which employees are encouraged to build their careers and lives in a
brick-like manner to fit the ever-greater pressures of deregulated labor
35 The notion of drillable media goes back to Jason Mittell, “Forensic Fandom and the Drillable
Text,” accessed February 09, 2017, http://spreadablemedia.org/essays/mittell/.