Interactive
multimedia paratexts are arguably the most prominent paratext for further
developing storylines within a text, as well as keeping the excitement
alive. Jonathan Gray discusses the
impact of these “primary paratexts” in his chapter entitled “In the World, Just
Off Screen” in Show Sold Separately (176).
A hit animated film series that I believe accurately assists Gray’s
claims is the Toy Story
Franchise. Because of its spaced out
releases of each of the three Toy Story films,
the franchise has been able to capture multiple generations in its hype. Through the use of paratexts such as action
figures, video games, and interactive online games, Toy Story has created deeper plot lines and furthered character
development with its fans and essentially boosted the text’s popularity.
Like
all Disney-Pixar released films, Toy
Story was an instant hit. The release
of the first film in 1995 instilled a love and wonder for toys in a generation,
and prompted a mass release of all kinds of Toy
Story themed toys. To begin, the
classic action figures released in 1995 still hold meaning today. These replica action figures do everything
the characters in the movie do. For
example, Buzz Lightyear has a “karate chop”, while Woody has an authentic drawstring
in which he quotes the same catch phrases from the films. The
authenticity of these toys allows the consumers and fans to take the movie home
with them, and continue the action on their own. This allows them to step into the director’s
chair and create any scenario they see fit.
Gray quotes Dan Fleming’s work by stating, “their ability [licensed
toys] not only to continue the story from a film or television program, but to
provide a space in which meanings can be worked through and refined, and in
which questions and ambiguities in the film or program can be answered,” (Fleming qtd. in Gray, 178). The accessibility of all the characters
replicated as action figures allows the audience to interact with in text in a
way that infiltrates daily life. Instead
of being restricted to only dealing with the text at the movie theater, or when
it is playing on TV, the fan has the privilege of having a “mobile Toy Story” of their own. Through the use of the action figures, scenes
can be recreated, altered, or added in to appease the fan’s imagination. The action figures also help to perpetuate
the films’ themes because although it is up to the fan to decide how they would
like to play and interact with the dolls, all of the dolls are consistent,
meaning that across manufacturers and retail outlets the characters will not
change (Gray 179). This consistency allows for the audience to
always know that Woody is a sheriff, Buzz is a space warrior, Bo-Peep is a
sheep herder, and so forth. The
characters functions do not change, which reinforces their roles within the
text itself.
Another
popular mode of interaction with paratext outside of the film is through the
use of video games. As a child, one of
my favorite video games was Toy Story
for the Super Nintendo. This game was
simple enough and followed the plot of the first film, yet was engaging because
it allowed the fan to delve into the actual text. In the game, the player being controlled is
Sheriff Woody, and the fan in then invited on an adventure as Woody – this is
literally placing the player in the movie, or “story world” (Gray 190). This
game allows the audience to “inhabit the world and its characters” (Gray 192)
by seeing extended versions of Andy’s room, house, and other places in the
movie. The fan has the chance to
interact with the text a new way since they can now freely explore certain
scenes from the film. This full on
interaction, according to Gray, becomes almost a necessity to engage the entire
text (196). Video games also allow the fan to relive the
experience, and for young children playing the game, it allows them to identify
with a main character. I believe that
this is an important fact because after this association with the characters
through a gaming world, the children will be more inclined to want to live the
experience, thus prompting their parents to buy them other Toy Storythemed merchandise. Also, as children (and occasionally adults)
are playing these video games that are set on one path in line with the film,
they are being taught to identify with the good guy – an inadvertent morals
lesson.
Along
similar lines of interaction, a third paratext is that of Disney Junior’s Online Toy
Story website. The website includes
media clips, a coloring section, and interactive games. Bearing in mind that this website’s target
audience is children, we can see how this paratext invokes the use of several
different means to engage the audience and promote the text as a key
platform. The media clips on the website
are a collection of clips from the three Toy
Story movies that are set up in a YouTube like fashion. This allows the audience to see their
favorite moments from any of the movies.
What I want to focus on from this particular paratext, however, is the
interactive game section. There are two
games currently available and are both themed with plots from the third Toy Story film. In particular, “Bonnie’s Flashlight Fun” is
about helping a little girl find her toys in a dark room. This game takes a character from the third
film, Bonnie, and develops her character outside of the film. This game gives Bonnie a little more
background, as the audience is prompted to sit through an introduction clip and
then asked (rather, instructed) by Bonnie to search for her toys. This extended side to Bonnie’s character
allows the audience to “enjoy a different relationship with the characters than
the film allows” (Gray 192) because it plays off of her characters – as well as
the fans assumed – love for her toys.
Moreover,
as Gray states, “toys not only intensified several themes of the films – the focus
on the cosmic battle, and the voyage of personal discovery especially – but
also allowed individual children or communities of children playing together to
personalize these themes, situating the child in the middle and as active
participant” (183). The paratexts associated with Toy Story help to shape the fan’s
experience with the text because it allows them to take it home, play with plot
line, and incorporate it into their daily experience.
In
Chapter five of Show Sold Separately, Jonathon
Gray embarks on a mission to explore the paratexts that fans create surround TV
shows and movies, and the impact that this self-created image of the text for each
individual fan has on the shaping and framing of the text on a personal and
network based level. In order to see
this concept at work, I will examine the popular TV series, The Walking Dead, and some of the fan
paratexts that are currently circulating the internet. Each of these individual paratext are
examples of how each fan (or the creators) are able to fully interact with the
text, and it shows the key elements that they pick up on in the show in order
to individually interpret it.
The Walking Dead is a relatively new
series on AMC that follows Rick Grimes, a sheriff’s deputy who wakes up from a
coma to find that his city has been overrun by “walkers” (or zombies). The show then focuses on Rick attempting to
make sense of the changing world around him while he searches for his family
and other survivors. The TV series is based
off of the comic book series The Walking
Dead. Since the TV series is a spin
off from the comic book, fans already have an idea of where the show will go,
and what the plot will be based off of. Producer
Frank Darabont does however, do an excellent job of incorporating his own
vision into the text and alters the script and plot of the TV series so that
the audience will always be kept guessing.
As the series has just finished
its second season with the season finale being the most watched cable drama in
history, it is reasonable to delve into the fan paratext surrounding this
widely popular show.
As Gray
explains, “the products of fan creativity can challenge a text’s industry-preferred
meanings by posing their own alternate readings and interpretive strategies”
(144), I believe this is most clearly seen through fan fiction for The Walking Dead. A simple Google search for “The Walking Dead fan fiction” leads the
curious to a website called “FanFiction.net”, where 898 relevant fan stories
were found in which fans were able to take which ever elements from the TV
series they enjoyed or were dissatisfied with and alter them, including adding
themselves to the story. The first fan
fiction story that appears is titled “Accident of Grand Design?” and has a
brief synopsis that states “All Leah wanted was a nice little road trip & a
chance to heal, but she got way more than she bargained for, Walkers, drama,
rednecks and one beaten down Winnebago that they now all call home.“ This fan fiction created by user “ChooseJoy”
incorporates the fan’s other personal interests outside of the show,
namely a love for country music, and
merges it with a brand new storyline in which the author has inserted herself
into The Walking Dead. She also focuses on character Daryl Dixon who
is seen as the quiet, reserved, misunderstood, and self sufficient character on
the TV series. Her story centers on an
adventure dealing with “walkers” and a love story with Daryl. Through her fan fiction, user “ChooseJoy” is
able to “contribute, augment, and personalize a textual world” (Gray 165).
Fan fiction stories are just one type of paratext that allow the individual
to put their own opinion in about a certain text. They allow the viewer to partially become a
producer, which influences their understanding and interpretations of the texts
around them.
A second
way that fans use paratexts to create their own pathways through texts is
through fan videos (Gray 143). These “viddings” that Gray discusses allow
the fans to show the rest of the world their understanding of the text, and
what seems important enough to them to be focused on almost in an academic and
critical thinking challenge. “Many of
the better vids send us ‘deeper’ into and ‘back to the text,’ having said
something of substance about it,” (159).
The fan video “The Walking Dead – Ain’t No Grave” takes the official TV
series trailer and adds Johnny Cash's music to it, which sends the viewers on a reflective
journey as the song chorus sings “There ain’t no gave that can hold my body
down”. Interestingly enough, Johnny Cash is infamously known as "the man in black", which makes this song more appropriate to pair with the trailer because he wanted to represent the hard working, unsung hero, who in this case would be Rick. These words, along with the
knowledge that the TV is based on a post-apocalyptic, zombie infested world in
which Rick Grimes is seen as a leader, leads the audience to associate Rick
with a savior-like figure. “Ain’t no
grave that can hold my body down” is a message that conveys the force Rick will
bring – there is no obstacle that can stop him or hold him back from saving his
loved ones and finding a cure for the “walkers”. The fan who infused the music onto the
trailer created a paratext that interacts with the network’s preferred reading
of the TV show, and adds a twist to it.
The song is a powerful indicator that allowed the fan to show their
close reading of the text and share it with other fans. This video is so easily accessible thanks to YouTube
that it is influencing the way fans and anti-fans are understanding and
internalizing the text.
The
third paratext that fans use to express their ideas about The Walking Deadis what I believe is complete internalization
of the text. Similar to fan fiction in
which fans write themselves into the story, this example shows how the fan
becomes a producer and is lured into captivity with the show through strategic
paratext. “The Walking Dead Forums” is a space where fans of the show gather
and post different blogs about spoilers, episodes, plot development, and all things
related to The Walking Dead. One fan posted a blog entitled “Map of the
Dead Helps You To Survive The Walking Dead” in which an elaborate Google
Map-based map of the United States is set up to highlight key resources in
cities, in case an outbreak of “walkers” were to hit. The map would basically be the only key to
survival in such a situation. From the
brief glancing at the map that I did, the areas and resources are personalized
and I believe somewhat accurate. This
type of paratext clearly demonstrates Gray’s idea that “audience members are
involved in this fashioning … as creators of their own paratexts” (173). The fan who created this paratext is sharing
an elaborate entryway into the text because it allows the audience to directly
identify with the characters in the TV series.
This paratext is interesting because it repeatedly reminds the viewer
that they must print out the map because when a zombie apocalypse happens,
there will not be internet access.
This kind of dedication to
paratexts and the actual text testify to the pull that fans have on
networks. Since The Walking Dead is a huge success and wildly popular TV series,
the third season has been renewed and will have more episodes than the previous
two seasons. The interpretations of the
fans are also seen through paratexts because they serve as creative outlets for
individual fans to get their voice, opinions, and thoughts on the text heard. The widespread accessability of these
paratexts also helps to frame the actual text for viewers because they begin to
focus on pieces of the TV series that are presented in fan fiction, forums,
blogs, and fan videos.
----- I have acted with honesty and integrity in producing this work and am unaware of anyone who has not. Lizette Villarreal
How I Met Your Mother
is a hit TV series that airs on Monday nights on CBS. The show is set as a flashback, as one of the
main characters, Ted Mosby (played by Josh Radnor), sits his children down and
begins to tell them the story of how he met their mother. The show has just currently ended its seventh
season and is gearing up for the new plot twists season eight will hold. Scholar Jonathan Gray writes extensively in chapter
three of his book, Show Sold Separately,
about the hype that paratexts can build or destroy for audience members. Through using the success and popularity of How I Met Your Mother, I will explore
the different ideas behind a few different paratext mediums, and how everyone
from the audience members to the creators and producers of How I Met Your Mother have a way of expressing themselves through different
paratext and how these paratext help build the TV series.
To begin, the show is set as a flashback from 2030 to
present day and follows five friends around New York City as they live out
their 20s and 30s. As the show is being
told as a flashback, the audience is therefore constantly being engaged during
the show, or in media res, to
remember that they are “watching the past”.
There are often times comedic moments where certain details will not be
remembered (such as an episode in which people’s names were not remembered so
they were referred to as “blah blah”) that are added as elements to the show in
order to remind the viewers that a story is being told to them. This narration-type element sets the show up
as if it is just a conversation that wants the audience to constantly be
connecting past episode details with “future” plot lines.
Once the show ends and the viewers decide to surf the
internet out of boredom, they are left with hundreds of different options to
keep furthering their obsessions with the TV program and characters’ lives. One of the most popular sites that I
personally enjoy is a FaceBook fan page called “Your Mother” with the tagline “Home
of the How I Met Your Mother Super
Fan”. This fan page allows the audience
to voice their thoughts and opinions on the show, particular episodes, and to
connect with other fans. What I love
particularly about this fan site is the level of interaction that happens –
memes and wittily captioned still frames are constantly being posted and shared
amongst other fans, creating their own kind of imagined community full or inside
jokes and TV references. Digressing, Gray
discusses that the audience and their interpretations of different paratexts
are key parts in the construction of any text.
He writes about the “ethos of surveillance” and how audiences must somehow
feel a connection to the text (p. 85). Through the use of fan pages, audience members
get to do just that – talk about how they relate to certain characters, or rant
about how they are happy or sad about a certain plot line – as if the
characters are real people that they personally know. Paratexts such as these reel the audience in
through allowing them to express themselves, as well as have an outlet to
constantly be updated and talking about all things surrounding How I Met Your Mother.
Example: Fans often post creative memes about the show and characters.
Another interesting point about the perspective of the show
is the spin off paratext in which characters from the show have “live blogs”. For example, one of the writers for How I Met Your Mother, Matt Kuhn, writes
and updates the character Barney Stinson’s “blog”. He writes the blog from the viewpoint of
Barney, which allows Kuhn the creative freedom to add his input and develop the
character as much or little as he wants.
I feel this idea relates to Roland Barthes’ idea of the “death of the
author” (Gray, 108) because it serves as
a way of solidifying that these characters are real people who the audience can
relate to. It helps to over look the
fact that there are people like Matt Kuhn sitting in an office looking for
inspiration for new episode ideas, and at the same time, the blog allows these writers
to gage the feedback for new ideas from the fans who read the blog. This helps to sort out the fans from the
anti-fans by seeing how certain ideas expressed through different paratext will
be received.
Jonathon Gray notes that TV is littered with “on demand”
material that is presented on cable television through Hollywood’s all access
shows like Entertainment Tonight or
late night talk shows (p. 107). These
programs allow audience members to learn about their shows more in depth by
getting to hear what the authors, directors, or producers say about their role
in producing the show. For How I Met Your Mother there are multiple
cast interviews where the cast gets to explore their thoughts about the show
and their characters. One of my favorite
lines comes from an interview in which Josh Radnor (the father telling the
story to his children) in which he notes that one of the most common things for
fans to tell him is how the show is “just like their life”. This is an important concept because the show’s
success is due to the fact that the audience can relate so well to the
characters and their lives. The
interview also establishes that the director is able to fully express her
vision for the show, as well as merge her vision with those of the show
producers and actors. The interview
notes that the actors are never expected to do anything outside of their
comfort zone. I feel that this interview
validates Michael Focault’s “author function” concept (Gray, 109).
Focault describes the author function as someone who can create a “constant
level of value”, “stylistic unity”, and “classifactory”, amongst other
things. There are two creators for How I Met Your Mother and four
producers, two of which are the creators.
In the interview, the creators mention that the show would have never
been successful without the unity and individual creativity of each producer. This shows the multifaceted dimensions of the
TV series are uniquely created through a partnership and function, rather than
death, of the authors.
Example 3:
Moreover, it is important to note that each of these
paratext examples help to finish hyping up the TV series, How I Met Your Mother. Jonathon
Gray explores the idea of paratexts helping to make a text “the real deal” with
audience, cast, and crew members (p. 89).
Each person within the creative process has their own outlet to help
develop the storylines of the show. For
example, audience members get to express their opinions on fan sites where they
can further their own interest and investment in the show and characters by
interacting with other fans. Cast and
crew members get to relate the characters to themselves through either acting
as the character off screen, or making the character have their own flare and
traits. All in all, each of the hundreds
of different paratext waiting online to be engaged with serve as a means to
help spread the popularity and success of How
I Met Your Mother, and other shows and movies.
Disclaimer: I have acted with honesty and integrity in producing this work and am unaware of anyone who has not.
Lizette Villarreal
Monday, May 14, 2012
Although I have never seen the film,
I believe that Spike Jonze’s film Where
the Wild Things Are accurately captures what Gray was trying to convey in
Chapter 2 of Show Sold Separately. Where
the Wild Things Are was originally a book written by Maurice Sendak in
1963, and has since been adapted into an animated short, a musical composition,
and most recently, and arguably most popular, a feature length film. I will study Gray’s concepts on”hype, intros,
and textual beginnings” through the examination of the original book, the 2009
movie poster, and the film trailer.
The Where the Wild Things Are original book form was a widely popular
story about a little boy and his escape into a magical kingdom with “Wild
Things”. These creatures were depicted
as giant and friendly creatures that were going to take the protagonist, and consequentially
the reader, on the adventure of a lifetime.
The book was a huge hit, and has since sold over 19 million copies
worldwide. This preface to the movie
alone already indicates that the paratext has set up a correlation between the
success of the book and the eventual success of the film. The story dates far enough back to be shared
by two generations, thus having an already established name as a well written
and good natured book. These facts and
previous knowledge help to hype the release of the 2009 film. The familiar plot line can almost coincide
with Gray’s idea of “six degrees of promotion”, where the promo and ads attempt
to make the viewer connect with the text.
The story and idea that anyone can escape to a far away land is sure to
sit will with the audience, as at one point or another, every child has
fantasies of faraway lands with distant creatures – the idea still appeals to
older audience members through Science Fiction.
The premise is that the original book serves as a paratext to hype the film’s
release.
As all good stories do for their
audiences, a certain picture is painted for each reader of any book. The details, no matter how specific, will
always look different from one reader to another. The release of a film that is based on a book
will always change those perceptions and somehow find a way to unify the images
and characters in said story. The Where the Wild Things Are movie poster
does just that, as it brings to life a furry, giant, creature who is gazing
upon the little boy protagonist who is wearing a fox costume while they stand
in some sort of desert. The poster
simply states the title of the film and underneath, the statement, “There’s one
in all of us”. As Gray talks about in
chapter 2, the film’s theme and tone are set from just looking at the movie
poster. By just a simple glance, the
viewer will gather that the film is a family film centered on adventure in some
sort of magical land with “wild things”.
The poster is not threatening, and craftily engages all age groups
because children will be drawn to the monsters, and adults will be drawn to the
repetitive idea that children’s films are uplifting and full of inspiring and
positive messages. The poster conveys
the idea, whether with or without knowledge of the film, that it will be funny,
dramatic, and adventurous; this will allow the audience to decide whether or
not the film is worth a shot.
The final paratext used to hype the
film is the film trailer. The trailer is
what I believe to be the strongest selling point for the film, because it is
wonderfully executed and shows a great balance between the film’s plot, and a
tug at every individuals heart strings to remember a time when they were young
and just wanted to get away to mystical places and faraway magical
kingdoms. The trailer reels the audience
in through its use of a slow paced song that evokes the listener to remember a
simpler time in their life (unless they are children!). This song is paired up with visuals of a
little boy in a fox suit who just wants to escape his problems and ends up
meeting massive creatures frolicking in beautiful green pastures. There is perfectly placed phrases such as “inside
all of us there is hope”, which plays the role of allowing the audience to let
the idea of childhood innocence and wonder sink into their minds. “Hope” was also a buzzword as President Obama
had just began and ran his whole campaign on the word and idea. The next line states “inside all of us is…
fear” and is followed by darker clips of emotional hugging and explosions. This shows the audience that the film is well
rounded and will be more complex that just a simple short animated children’s
film. The next line states “inside all
of us is…adventure” and the final phrase flashed across the screen to end the
trailer is “inside all of us is a WILD THING”.
I have never seen this film and the trailer alone does a good enough job
of allowing me to figure out that this adventurous film full of furry creatures
will somehow make my day better. It
allows me to make my own judgments about the film, as Gray notes in chapter 2,
even though I have only gotten a 2 minute preview of the entire film.
In retrospect, Where the Wild Things Are had successful paratexts because they
were able to remind the viewers about how it felt to be a wide-eyed child who
believed in different lands and creatures.
These paratexts set up the hype for the film by conveying that there is
a sense of wonder left in the world, and that the film will show it to
you. In a larger context, this case
study shows that the film is able to communicate an idea of success and
survival in the world. It shows how the
endurance of one little boy in his troubles and woes in the real world are
offset by the “wild things”. This is an
attempt to tell society that no matter what impossibilities one may be facing,
there is always hope that something just might come true.
