So about the Bridgerton lawsuit…
First, I don’t hate Bridgerton. I like the music though it’s effectively pop songs in classical form. I like romance but don’t know if it’s right for me. I don’t mind escapist romance as I can tell you what escapist romance I do like.
I like musicals though that’s a result of growing up with Disney.
To understand how the Bridgerton musical started, we must go back to the Ratatouille musical trend that lasted half a year or so.
The Ratatouille musical started off as a joke but became a sincere tongue-in-cheek creative trend from the amateur to the pros. Just to be clear, it felt like once the pros and those in training got a hold of it, that’s when it became a Diamond in the rough.
The Seaview production has to combine an ultimately disjointed mess of ideas into a coherent story. That means having the apparent I want song that wasn't even written by Tiktokers and writing coherency all around basically. Not every piece will be selected as I'm pretty sure behind the scenes this happens. We just don't know what songs were cut.
At the end of the day, the Ratatouille Tiktok is a creative outlet that somehow provides only the ideas that had talented performers throw their hats in the ring spread by influential people in the industry.
With Bridgerton the musical, however, Bear and Barlow made an even more basic musical than Ratatouille. At least that came from a homegrown community. This album is nothing more than Bear and Barlow trying to get validation and independence despite being rich girls.
It's really bad just knowing they appropriated a gay man's words for a white straight girl's albeit interracial relationship. They missed the metaphor so badly that I wanted nothing more than to strangle their album's existence just for that. The LGBT has so much oppression and while Bridgerton is an escapist fantasy yet still only has two queer men with small exploration but not enough to explore and have more queer characters in the mix, to see white straight women appropriate the gay text is alarming and tone-deaf.
With Netflix dropping the case, it seems fandom can return to normal. Fans and small creators can breathe a sigh of relief.
Because what Bear and Barlow had done was create more pressure on fanworks.
Fanfiction had always been censored and had lawsuits put upon them. Anne Rice is the most infamous example. X-Files and Anne McCaffrey are fiascos on their own too. Fuck, fanfiction in the days of Star Trek and the rise of Spirk can only be read in zines. Lucasfilm even sent out a cease-and-desist for Star Wars slash zines! Disclaimers are so routine that not needing them on AO3 was a gift for fans by fans though it's still a habit.
Bear and Barlow’s recklessness put any fan creator at so much risk after what fans have to do just to have peace in making fanworks that admittedly the achievement had lulled a false sense of security in the creation of fanworks Bear and Barlow was not willing to toe the line for their own benefit. What about the tiny creator on TikTok making Steddie videos? They don’t have any lawyer who can help them at all in the lawsuit that will destroy them.
This is why AO3 is so important because it’s run by fans for fans, the money also goes to the lawyers needed though a well-known board member on AO3 outright said the IP lawyers are fans who donate money as well and do the lawyering pro bono. On an aside note, the server had been going down in intervals by the time I was writing this but just to be clear, the beta is there and it’s maintained.
Hence after what I heard about this lawsuit, I have no sympathy for them. They seemed to be expecting support as an independent creator but when Netflix was the reasonable one here, they lost goodwill.
Stealing from female creators here is a huge red flag, particularly from two white straight women from a black woman. Shonda Rhimes and Julia Quinn spoke up about their disappointment in Bear and Barlow after the initial support.
Bear and Barlow had doors shut on them, fandom goodwill lost, and their Grammy gathering dust as their only sign of validation. All these things about independence and all they show about themselves are egotism and entitlement. What they should've done was move on and create more but kept moving back to Bridgerton because that made them famous.
It’s disappointing that it ended up that way. I don’t enjoy Bridgerton as a romance even as an escapist fantasy for my romantic heart yet the Grammy no matter how much the other nominees or even others deserve it more was a step towards creators getting their songs made into theatre.
With Ratatouille showing a community banding together to create something albeit with some help from trained and talented people throwing their hats in the ring and Bridgerton's only contribution was the Grammy win, it's now Epic the musical to be brought onto the stage and showcased.
The soundtrack is released to critical acclaim and the people behind them are planning to put it on stage.
Epic has been followed since its inception. Unlike Bear and Barlow, the creator has graciousness, allowing the audience into the process. A three-year process, unlike Bear and Barlow who just don’t let other people unless it’s to participate in their monetary gain like Darren Criss.
I’m gonna be harsh to them, both as a queer person and a fandom ‘old’. They made mistakes but I don’t know if they can restore trust in the fandom again other fandoms have known just how destructive Bear and Barlow just had done and would’ve caused a major event in fandom history had the case not been dropped and drawn out excruciatingly.
TikTok has been used to scout talent for the musical theatre kids. No matter how basic their music is, it’s a diamond in the rough.
It has gotten to a point where people have front-row seats for the creation of a musical that had the potential to be staged. This is the future of musical theatre.
TikTok has its highs and lows. There is no denying that after Ratatouille, scouts and professionals have been looking at the site.
I’m not a fan of TikTok nor do I wish to become an influencer. I can see where these platforms can be used as stepping stones for professional spaces.
TikTok ARMYs have so much misinformation going around. Yeah, I don’t think I can fix that. The No Dynamic Pricing is another matter though.
For the musical theatre folk in New York’s Great White Way, TikTok was a godsend for seeking out budding talent.
Because while I don’t think musical theatre isn’t going anywhere and don’t need Hollywood validation, the lack of innovation is deafening. LMM is the only innovation we got so far for musicals. There are more jukeboxes though there are originals like Some Like It Hot.
Heck, even Epic is based on Odyssey similar to Hadestown’s Orpheus and Eurydice. Well, Moulin Rouge was based on that myth too but the Broadway failed to keep the walking away so I don’t count the Broadway version to be an Orpheus and Eurydice in any way. The thing they went in forgoing that element led to one of the worst decisions the show had ever made and I’m glad that decision cemented the final score much more than one of the worst librettos and jukebox musicals I have seen yet.
I’m not even hammering that Broadway doesn’t have that much originality, just a lack of innovation to keep things fresh or do something new else it goes the way of opera where opera remained that instead of innovation.
Again the movie musicals need to be reinvigorated to the point that LMM shows what can be done and more than just literal interpretations or be in the hands of people who don’t get/embarrassed by musicals or people who should’ve understood musicals but failed right now (looking at you, Bill Condon). Even Baz Luhrmann tried to recreate though without the jukebox musical formula with his own movies.
We’re getting back to the triple threats at least from Wicked casting alongside TTB, WSS, and ITH. I just hope that Hugh Jackman actually has a better role in a movie musical because his last movie musical turnout though bolstered by his enthusiasm was dampened by the poor storytelling that really didn’t have anyone’s talent highlighted outside of isolation. TGS is more built as a guilty pleasure (definitely not mine to be clear). Still, at least Moulin Rouge the movie has a lot more to say about love with the central theme of Nature Boy’s last line (admittedly it’s one of my favorite songs combining both a sense of mysticism, storytelling, and sincerity hence why Singularity already with its jazz and atmosphere and Black Swan with both the usage of Swan Lake and the instinctive knowing the song is about creativity are why I latched on those BTS songs including Truth Untold whereas Stigma was definitely when I’m in the mood to lament my closeted self though Wings is the album if I’m in the sad queer woman state. V’s music taste is far up my alley than say Jungkook’s) than what TGS has to say about anything really.
TGS has a leggier run just as much as MR had in the theaters. TGS doesn't really offer much outside of superficial talking points about othering and musical numbers that are definitely written independently from the plot that had been rewritten and passed over many hands since. MR has a singular vision of a melodramatic love story that is shamelessly self-aware of itself and leaned into the melodrama.
Antis had yet to make a peek at why the pop media landscape can do everything not original. Sure there are complaints of cliche outside of the nostalgia bait but that’s as far as unoriginal it takes. There's the remakes going on but largely it's more of the same but with safer choices for money for these studios and executives. They won't take chances and even if they did, it would be a surprise hit or an underrated gem. However, while people made it clear it's tiring to see remakes of perfectly fine adaptations and want adaptations of those that didn't have a chance in the spotlight, it's a combo of nostalgia and safer options for money that is the way it is. At least, for this, it's for franchises and nostalgia that people see as a problem especially when they do gain money and not every actor and actress can be the superstar seen decades prior. Not even the Rock even when he did bring in millions wasn't exactly a superstar Leonardo DiCaprio was in the 90s.
Yet when fanfics do it, they are lambasted just for not only being fanfics but also doing things to media with all the fix-its, AUs, and happily ever afters.
It's not as if anything funded in pop culture isn't anything fanfiction had done and more. The difference is that it is capitalism. That one has to make money out of creativity and doing creative work on others' creative work isn't doing anything creative. It has to be capitalized on for money and for the antis' sense of moral superiority.
Because that's the thing, isn't it? Fans' will to create is enormous and a space where no lawsuits and censorship reign supreme as it does everywhere. Godoka, you know, how happy I was to see not a single 'unalive' in AO3.
These antis don't give a shit about making real reforms. They think they see child pornography on AO3 when it's not. It does not feature real children having sex as much as it featured fictional underage sex. All they care about is their moral superior authority for they think they are the arbiter of all things best shown to them and the world when all they have done is follow in the world's footsteps of before and step down on unadulterated creativity. They'd rather waste time for authorities about AO3 than actually do something beneficial regarding actual children getting hurt rather than fictional kids.
So it's a-okay to have & Juliet, West Side Story, 10 Things I Hate About You, and original Shakespeare plays take place not just in their original location but anywhere it can like say after a war of any kind like WW1 but fanfics can't make a happier AU or fix-it when there are fucking Shakespeare adaptations that fucking saved Juliet and even Romeo?! Shakespeare can't place in the modern day when they clearly can as be seen with the modern adaptations and with Baz Luhrmann's 90s mafia take while still retaining the dialogue and stage directions.
These guys truly don't give a shit about why fanfiction matters and have such a punk-like attitude to media they like, caring about wanting happiness and all the shipping.
Is it that much different from adapting Shakespeare and the Elseworlds and What-ifs that are in popular media?
It isn't. Except fanfiction isn't barred from mainstream constraints from depicting queerness.
Fandom does have its problems with -isms that are ever so present but there is no denying the creativity that was drawn up.
The shipping also gets intersected with this as the purity factor invaded shipping. Please I loathed one ship in particular when my nearly two decades of experience I never hated a ship ever until that ship so yeah. I don't give a shit about proshipping and antishipping which is just pure nonsense. I'm an adult who knows to avoid ships I don't like and am unbothered about the hate poured onto my kind of ships. I'll take shipping wars over absurdity about what kind of ships I should ship just because it makes me seem better as a person.
Antis truly have a problem with fanfiction and AO3 due to their misguided sense of moral superiority when all they are doing is just puritanical moral guardians espousing things that had already been said to normal media which can't depict anything without getting backlash whereas fanfiction, the smallest target they could possibly get, they see as an easy target.
And the fact they easily utilized the law against fanworks just so they can feel good about themselves. I wonder how they feel about how Bear and Barlow's debacle impacts fanworks should the case go forward in any possible way. Joy because it meant all fanworks are impacted therefore censorship and all the things they want can be used to stifle any creativity.
Fanworks have to be protected because, in the past, companies and creators shut them down, primarily aimed at queer works made by women. Instead of taking them down via lawsuits and cease-and-desists before, they are using their pop culture media to attack these fans because seemingly these fans invalidate their worthiness to their male audience, peers, and superiors. Again, I haven’t heard of any major lawsuits until the Bear and Barlow case which knowing fandom history could have many repercussions.
Yeah, thanks for thinking women including women over thirty, teenage girls, queer, BIPOC, and marginalized women invalidate worthiness.
If it were not for the women, then they wouldn't have anything at all. This is why when creators actually acknowledged its female base, it's all the more relieving that they understand that even when they clearly believe the entirety of the fandom is toxic rather than different bases of people interacting.
Female fans are trivialized whereas male fans for better or worse acknowledged as either geeks/nerds who are often gatekeepers. I still don't know much about Gamergate and still don't know how to find reliable info on it that isn't propaganda.
Still, fanworks written by women are not well-regarded primarily because the superstructure and what is popularized came from women. Slash zines are by women for women.
Anti-fujoshi eventually circled to anti-M/M, which is annoying to see.
I mean there are already many of the -isms in fandoms too but outside fandoms, women and shippers are often the targets of derision.
In fact, all the more people don't understand just how fandoms have been pushed forward by the women and the activities, the more they see it to snuff it out because canon is so much better.
I mean there is a thing between canon and fanon. However, when the fanon is so pervasive, the canon might have more to say while the fanon can still have to know what the canon is saying coupled with the fix-its and happily-ever-afters.
Because of how much fandoms thrived on using what they love to tell stories they want to explore and more, the creators often see it as either hitting the bottom line, thinking fans failed to understand anything, or seeing it as outright stealing.
While IP laws are there for a reason, there is really no need to attack fans just to create something from something they love. Yes, it's thievery in a sense but there is no denying that fans are the ones who are building a community around what the creation had done.
Bear and Barlow's case shows that the line between the law and the law does not protect the fanwork. What we have now is the enthusiasm that produces many to the point that the creators directly interact with the fans in some way or another.
However, it must not be monetized unless it's public domain lest it hits the bottom line. Not that Potterheads are disappointed in JKR who want merch and are all but making their own and commissioning. Hey, it's better to supply fans with money rather than let a miserable woman who is unfortunately too powerful as being around her stuff inevitably.
As of now, while creators are willing to interact with fans and give them leeway now to make all the fanworks, it's still a tenuous process to even get there and even then, just as the Bear and Barlow case reveals, still have the tendency to destroy others through others' recklessness.
