A "Sopranos" Update

I’ve finished three seasons of “The Sopranos,” so I figure it’s time for an update. This will be pretty spoiler light. A long story short, I’m not enjoying the series much. I’m appreciating the hell out of it, but this is not a show I ever would have started watching on my own if it didn’t have the reputation that it enjoys. I’ve never been much of a fan of mob stories, or any of the related material. Watching “The Sopranos” has reminded my why.

The biggest problem I have watching the show is that I find it very difficult to empathize with any of the characters. I became disillusioned with Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) very quickly when the storylines began involving the criminal activities more and more often. On the job, Tony is a bully, surrounded by and enabled by other bullies. The occasionally feels guilty about ruining other peoples’ lives, but not badly enough to ever take the high road or do the right thing. I know that I’m supposed to be rooting for his redemption, alongside Dr. Melfi (Lorraine Bracco), but instead I’ve been quietly hoping that Tony will get what’s coming to him. Unlike other television antiheroes, he’s a bad man whose steps toward self-improvement and good mental health are only helping him to be a better criminal. On a moral scale, he’s been a bad nut from the start, and watching him indulge his vices, put out fires, and occasionally wrestle with a shrinking conscience only serves to make this more obvious.

This is not to say that Tony’s story is not well written, that Gandolfini’s performance isn’t excellent, or that the show hasn’t done many, many interesting things with the character. Even though I find myself caring less and less for Tony, I admire the world and the web of relationships that the show has drawn around him. My favorite part of “The Sopranos” is the part I suspect most of its really ardent fans dislike – Tony’s home life. His marriage to Carmela (Edie Falco) is built on lies and compromises, and it’s been fascinating to see how that works, and the effect that it has on each of them. The kids, Meadow (Jamie-Lynn Sigler) and AJ (Robert Iler) have seen their roles slowly expand, even though Meadow went to college at the start of Season Three, which would mean less screen time and reduced importance on most other shows. On “The Sopranos,” Meadow moving out actually puts her in a position to be more involved in the season’s big mob storyline.

The biggest strength of “The Sopranos” is this big cast of characters that it slowly builds up, familiarizing us with them gradually through the aggregation of many small encounters. It’s never predictable how any of the big, season-long storylines is going to play out, because so many different people are usually involved. As a result, it never feels like the smaller stories with side characters like Janice (Aida Tutrurro), Junior (Dominic Chianese), Christopher (Michael Imperioli), or even Charmaine and Artie Bucco (Kathrine Narducci, John Ventimiglia) are a waste of time, because everyone is connected so well in “The Sopranos” universe, and who knows which of them is going to be the next one to get in trouble, and maybe end up dead? They’re not always equally compelling, but everyone gets their moments. Even Christopher, whose brushes with show business were some of the worst episodes I’ve seen so far, can be great with the right material. The one “The Sopranos” installment I love without reservation is the famous “Pine Barrens,” where he and Paulie (Tony Sirico) literally get lost in the woods.

However, the more I watch these characters, fleshed-out and well-rounded as they are, the more ambivalent I am about their fates, and the more clinically I find myself viewing them. The only exception is Dr. Melfi, who is appearing less and less as time goes on. It's fun to watch the mechanisms of the mob stories unfold, but because I have so little emotional investment in anyone, the big events resonate as deeply with me as they probably do with other people. I'm surprised at how little I sympathize with Carmela and Meadow, who are such strong characters despite fitting some unfortunate tropes. I suspect a lot of the apathy comes from knowing too much about how some of these stories are going to play out, and not having the benefit of uncertainty regarding the fates of Tony and those around him.

Still, I'm hopeful for the second half. The first three seasons managed to spring some surprises on me that I didn't see coming, and the little moments of humor and humanity count for a lot. I can certainly see why "The Sopranos" is considered one of the best television shows ever made. The level of quality has been consistently phenomenal. But I'm never going to be one of those people who becomes a rabid fan or will watch the series multiple times. I'm glad I got to know all these characters, but I just don't see myself getting too attached.
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Canon v. Fanfiction

There's a Slate article that was posted yesterday about Before Watchmen, a series of prequel comics about the origins of the major players in Alan Moore's "Watchmen" universe. Alan Moore has made it clear that he does not approve of this, and while some fans are rejecting the new stories sight unseen, most have been fairly ambivalent. Everyone agrees that the move is a cash grab by DC, meant to capitalize on the higher profile of "Watchmen" after the recent movie version. Not many particularly care.

What caught my eye were the comments about fanfiction, first comparing a "Before Watchmen" cover image to "fan fiction detritus," and then suggesting that fanfiction was a more suitable avenue for this brand of derivative works than the "official" comics, and noting that Moore essentially wrote fanfiction himself with "Lost Girls." Cue multiple comments in the discussion section arguing the proper use of the term fanfiction, which I'm not going to reiterate here, because I've already had that argument and written those posts. Instead, I'm going to try to answer the question nobody quite managed to ask here - what makes a derivative work, a piece of intellectual property based off of a previous piece of intellectual property, a legitimate extension of the original? Where is the border between the canon work and the fanfiction? And what is the mechanism for granting that authority?

Well, you start with the original author first as the prime authority on their own work. If J.K. Rowling says that Dumbledore is gay, even though it was never stated anywhere in the "Harry Potter" books, then Dumbledore is gay. If she decides to anoint a new author to continue the adventures of the Potter kids, her word carries more weight than anyone else's. Film and television series, which are more collaborative mediums, often depend on a creator incorporating the work of others. There are only a handful television creators, for instance, who will write every episode of a show themselves, but if they retain creative oversight over the finished product, the show is still considered their work to a large degree.

However, you can't call something a derivative work until the original author is out of the picture. These days that's very common, as many creators of popular media don't have the rights to their creations. Legally, whoever controls the rights to the property controls the official canon, the right to add or change a story as their see fit. So DC can hire other creative talent to write "Before Watchmen" comics without paying any attention to the wishes of Alan Moore. When Bryan Singer made "Superman Returns," he chose to ignore the third and fourth theatrical "Superman" films and pick up the story after "Superman II," with Warner Bros' backing. In the case of comic book characters, they’re often passed around between so many different writers and artists, each making their own contribution, it’s hard to say who really was really the primary creator.

When most people think of fan fiction, they think of the amateur stories passed around online by hobbyists. However, what professional writers do when they work in one of these existing universes isn't any different, except for the money and the legalities. They're using existing characters and concepts to tell new stories. However, what the money and the legalities give them is immediate legitimacy because they also get the right to profit by the work's association with he original. Anything written for profit is taken more seriously than the stuff written for fun and self-indulgence, and the involvement of whoever is holding the rights, even if it's as licensor for a bad tie-in novel, will at least give the appearance of oversight. Something "official" suggests that there's quality control at work somewhere, that there is a protective gatekeeper acting in the best interest of your favorite franchise, Of course, most of the time it's really about exploiting a piece of IP to the fullest extent possible. Do you really think most "Spider-man" fans are all that excited about the new reboot?

Now when the rights holder and the original author clash over the canon, who wins? It depends in each case. J.K. Rowling’s reputation is such that she’d easily win out in the court of public opinion over any company that managed to wrest the “Potter” rights away from her, and try to launch additional sequels with a different writer. Her writing is so integral to those books, she is irreplaceable. However, there's hardly any fuss when Marvel plays musical chairs with the writers and directors of its "Avengers" universe movies, or make decisions about their content that any previous creative talent would disagree with. In the television world, fans raised a fuss when Dan Harmon was fired from "Community," but nobody blinked an eye when "Whitney" got a new showrunner.

The final arbiter is really the audience. They're the ones who draw a lot of the lines between what is considered canon and what isn't, who will challenge the authority of the people who control a beloved media property, and sometimes even the original authors. They're the ones who ignore lesser movie sequels, who pretend that "After MASH" and the third season of "Gargoyles" never happened, and are quick to remind you that Han Solo shot first, despite what George Lucas thinks. No amount of hype or marketing was enough to convince them that George Lazenby was meant to be James Bond, or that Halle Berry was Catwoman. The fans are the ones who care the most about what is and isn't canon, so it makes sense that they often have the most say over the matter in the end.

There are very few instances of something originating purely from the fans being incorporated into canon, because the amateurs and the professionals exist in separate universes to everyone's benefit. but it does happen once in a while. There's Derpy from the "My Little Pony" cartoon, "Figwit" in "Lord of the Rings," and Lt Uhura's first name. And of course that's not counting the number of fans who ended up writing for "Dr. Who" or "Batman" or "Star Trek" officially, with all the money and the legalities. You'll hear writers for many of these properties touting fan credentials these days, and for good reason. If the original author is out of the picture, and the motives of the rights holders are suspect, sometimes a derivative work can still be good and worthwhile if the new creator is significantly invested in it.

In the case of "Before Watchman," DC did one thing right. They put some of their best talent on the project, including J. Michael Straczynski and Brian Azzarello. You can argue that DC is disrespecting Alan Moore and that they're only doing this for the money, but nobody can say whether or not the miniseries are actually going to be any good. If the quality is up to par, and they're accepted by the fans, they'll become a part of the "Watchmen" canon whether Moore likes it or not. And if they're terrible, then the fans will reject them, like the "Psycho" sequels no one remembers, or "The Blues Brothers 2000," and we can all move on.
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