The author of “The Impossible Has Happened: The Life and Work of Gene Roddenberry, Creator of Star Trek”, asks whether the impurity of the creator inevitably stain the creation.
I've worked in the sf/fantasy book publishing field since the 1980s, and having seen a wide variety of fandoms for sf/fantasy books and media over the years, I find this piece very insightful -- not only regarding Star Trek fandom, but other kinds as well. I don't know if you caught the big exhibition on fantasy at the British Library last year, but it included fandom in both the exhibition and in the book published alongside it (Realms of Imagination), marking its influence on the field. This was a controversial choice: I was on the Advisory Board for the exhibition, and I admit I was originally unsure of giving up limited exhibition space for anything but the literature itself...but the curators won me over with an argument similar to the one that Lance makes here, and they were right.
Thank you, Lance, and thank you, Jonn, for a thought-provoking read.
Thinking right now of how much I love Neil Gaiman’s work and what a shitty person he’s revealed to be. Thx for a great thought provoking read. From a Star Trek nerd who came of age with TNG and lovingly rewatches the all the series every couple of years, starting with TOS all the way through Lower Decks.
I think this is a deeper muse than just "Gene Roddenberry was a cunt". Art is always more than the artist but is always similarly irrevocably linked to the artist.
However, film and television are always more than the output of a single individual given the herculean task of putting film, particularly television, together.
In a way, they are more an output of society rather than of any individual. You can call it "David Chase's Soprano's", "Brian Cranston's Breaking Bad" or "Josh Wheedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer" but in reality we will always associate these things with a society and a point in time rather than with the "creator", much as the creator was always perceived to have played an instrumental role in the creation of the work.
Television transcends traditional art; it is a social product, much to Gene's distress.
I think you're right that the collective nature of film and TV means that the narrative of the individual 'creator' or 'showrunner' can never be 100% valid, whether it's Roddenberry or Aaron Sorkin or Shonda Rhimes. And even writers generally involve someone else at some point, be it beta-readers, editors, whatever.
And WRT Star Trek, apart from the undoubted importance of the fandom, how much of what we now understand to be its ethos was really Roddenberry, and how much due to the input of writers, directors, and cast? I'm thinking of Leonard Nimoy and Nichelle Nichols particularly—and not forgetting that, according to legend, Nichols intended to leave the series before the end and was dissuaded by Martin Luther King.
A key thing I’d say is the conversation depends on how distant the artist is now from their art and how involved were they in the creation of the fandom.
We all know that HP Lovecraft was a loathsome individual and that Tolkien and C.S Lewis had issues but for obvious reasons they are no longer involved in the fandoms their work created, they weren’t around when fandoms started. The works belong to them them (and their families) but the ideals belong to the fandom.
Compare that to Harry Potter. That’s an IP owned exclusively by the author and it has no fandom, it has a highly consumerised fanbase. You can’t separate the art from the artist because the artist won’t relinquish control of the art.
This is excellent; proper thought-provoking stuff. Strongly recommended to anyone interested in the connection (or disconnection) between the character of the work and the character of the creator—you really don't have to be a Star Trek nerd to appreciate it.
Makes me wonder how many creators really embody themselves in their work ("searingly honest", etc.), how many consciously or subconsciously project a 'better' version of themselves—and whether some maybe paint themselves as worse than they really are?
On the last point about the music being about the dancing that comes from it, there is a song called What Light, by Wilco, from their album Sky Blue Sky. The last lines of the song are:
"And if the whole world's singing your songs
And all of your paintings have been hung
Just remember what was yours is everyone's from now on"
I've worked in the sf/fantasy book publishing field since the 1980s, and having seen a wide variety of fandoms for sf/fantasy books and media over the years, I find this piece very insightful -- not only regarding Star Trek fandom, but other kinds as well. I don't know if you caught the big exhibition on fantasy at the British Library last year, but it included fandom in both the exhibition and in the book published alongside it (Realms of Imagination), marking its influence on the field. This was a controversial choice: I was on the Advisory Board for the exhibition, and I admit I was originally unsure of giving up limited exhibition space for anything but the literature itself...but the curators won me over with an argument similar to the one that Lance makes here, and they were right.
Thank you, Lance, and thank you, Jonn, for a thought-provoking read.
Thinking right now of how much I love Neil Gaiman’s work and what a shitty person he’s revealed to be. Thx for a great thought provoking read. From a Star Trek nerd who came of age with TNG and lovingly rewatches the all the series every couple of years, starting with TOS all the way through Lower Decks.
I think this is a deeper muse than just "Gene Roddenberry was a cunt". Art is always more than the artist but is always similarly irrevocably linked to the artist.
However, film and television are always more than the output of a single individual given the herculean task of putting film, particularly television, together.
In a way, they are more an output of society rather than of any individual. You can call it "David Chase's Soprano's", "Brian Cranston's Breaking Bad" or "Josh Wheedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer" but in reality we will always associate these things with a society and a point in time rather than with the "creator", much as the creator was always perceived to have played an instrumental role in the creation of the work.
Television transcends traditional art; it is a social product, much to Gene's distress.
I think you're right that the collective nature of film and TV means that the narrative of the individual 'creator' or 'showrunner' can never be 100% valid, whether it's Roddenberry or Aaron Sorkin or Shonda Rhimes. And even writers generally involve someone else at some point, be it beta-readers, editors, whatever.
And WRT Star Trek, apart from the undoubted importance of the fandom, how much of what we now understand to be its ethos was really Roddenberry, and how much due to the input of writers, directors, and cast? I'm thinking of Leonard Nimoy and Nichelle Nichols particularly—and not forgetting that, according to legend, Nichols intended to leave the series before the end and was dissuaded by Martin Luther King.
Lovely article.
A key thing I’d say is the conversation depends on how distant the artist is now from their art and how involved were they in the creation of the fandom.
We all know that HP Lovecraft was a loathsome individual and that Tolkien and C.S Lewis had issues but for obvious reasons they are no longer involved in the fandoms their work created, they weren’t around when fandoms started. The works belong to them them (and their families) but the ideals belong to the fandom.
Compare that to Harry Potter. That’s an IP owned exclusively by the author and it has no fandom, it has a highly consumerised fanbase. You can’t separate the art from the artist because the artist won’t relinquish control of the art.
This is excellent; proper thought-provoking stuff. Strongly recommended to anyone interested in the connection (or disconnection) between the character of the work and the character of the creator—you really don't have to be a Star Trek nerd to appreciate it.
Makes me wonder how many creators really embody themselves in their work ("searingly honest", etc.), how many consciously or subconsciously project a 'better' version of themselves—and whether some maybe paint themselves as worse than they really are?
And which of these am I doing with my novels?
On the last point about the music being about the dancing that comes from it, there is a song called What Light, by Wilco, from their album Sky Blue Sky. The last lines of the song are:
"And if the whole world's singing your songs
And all of your paintings have been hung
Just remember what was yours is everyone's from now on"