🔥 Gotta do this for yah, because your unpopular opinions are the best
lol oh boy! @fucktrain-sama I’m sorry that this is so long but wow I had a lot to say about this.
Unpopular opinion: Death Of The Author.
This may be considered cheating since there are a few content creators out there who also don’t like it. However, I get the distinct feeling that many people on Tumblr are not only okay with this theory, but actively use it to their advantage. Don’t like something in your favourite show? That’s okay! Just completely disregard subtext (or straight up text) and input your own interpretations that make you feel better!
Now, I’m not saying that I’ve never used my own life experiences or preferences to analyze media, and I’m not saying that the concept of the “death of the author” is inherently evil. But, well… let’s look at it this way:
Let’s say you want to write a story about aliens who take over the Earth and start eating humans. In this story, humanity is powerless to stop the aliens from eating them. Every day, people are rounded up, put into cages, and spend their whole lives waiting to die and become an alien’s meal. The only ones lucky enough to avoid this fate are the humans who become pets for the aliens. This is the basic gist of your story.
Now, let’s say you had no political message to this story. You wrote it because you thought the concept of humanity being turned into food was interesting, or maybe you have a cannibalism fetish (hey I won’t kinkshame). Either way, you made this story because it interested you and you hoped that other people will be interested too.
So you publish the story, it gets popular… and people start accusing you of being vegan elitist. They say your story is about the meat industry and that you’re shaming people who don’t have a strictly plant-based diet. But it’s okay, because you also have fans… who like that you’re speaking out against animal cruelty through your story. They praise you for not supporting the consumption of innocent animals who are forced to live in cramp and unclean spaces until they die. Readers analyze the aliens as Big Corporations who don’t care for the suffering of others, and blah blah blah.
Maybe you’re flattered that people are putting so much thought into your story, or maybe you’re angry that people hate you and call you names because they assume you’re trying to push some agenda. Regardless, you tell them the truth. No, you’re not a vegan (or if you are, your story had nothing to do with your eating habits). No, there is no deep symbolism or double meaning to the aliens or humans. You just thought your book idea was cool/you were indulging a fetish, and that’s why you wrote it.
And do you know what your readers say after you correct them? They tell you that you’re wrong! You, the person who wrote the book, are wrong. The story is really about the food corporation and the evils of meat eating and You. Are. Wrong.
So you get angry, because of course you do. They’re not the ones who spent months- or even years- working on the book. They’re not who skipped out on parties or stayed up late at night to make sure the characters sounded natural and the grammar was perfect and the plot was solid. You’re the one who made the effort. You’re the one who came up with the goddamn idea in the first place! You know more than them about your own stupid story!
So you express your anger. You tell them that THEY’RE wrong, not YOU. And you know what? They say that you’re a control freak. They tell you that you don’t want your fans to have creative freedom with the source material. They tell you that “the author is dead” and they have the right to interpret your characters, your story, your blood and sweat and tears, in whatever way they want.
This is what I don’t like about the Death Of The Author.
Multiple times on Tumblr I have seen posts that say something along the lines of; “It is important to tell your story. It doesn’t matter if the plot has been done before. You have something important to say and no one else can say it. Your voice matters”. And that’s a great sentiment to have. But when people are so willing to completely disregard a creator’s original intentions to fit their own preferred narrative, it doesn’t make that sentiment seem realistic or worth anything.
Your character’s personality means nothing when people take advantage of the Death Of The Author. “This character is very complex, and although they have both good and bad qualities, they are ultimately a good person”. “No, not only is this character one-dimensional, they’re also 100% evil and if you think they have don’t flaws then you’re wrong”.
Your character’s sexuality means nothing when people take advantage of the Death Of The Author. “This character is straight”. “No, they’re gay”. “This character is gay”. “No, they’re bisexual”. “This character is bi”. “No, they’re asexual”. “This character is ace”. “No, they’re straight”.
Your plot means nothing when people take advantage of the Death Of The Author. “In this world, there are many grey areas, and though no one is 100% good or bad, there are characters who are light grey and characters who are dark grey”. “No, the characters I like are good and the characters I dislike are bad. And since everyone has grey morals, it doesn’t matter whether it’s light or dark grey”.
And if you don’t like it when people take advantage of the Death Of The Author, then there’s something wrong with you as a creator. You’re the problem, not the people who twist your work and turn it into something completely different. You’re a control freak, you’re a suppressor of creative freedom, you’re wrong wrong wrong.
This is what I don’t like about the Death Of The Author.
When fandoms and academic journals and English classrooms support this, it makes it hard to see why your voice even matters. How can you convince people that they have something important to say when their words will be chopped up and mixed around until it’s something unrecognizable? Why put richness and complexity into your stories when it’s just going to be watered down? Why not just make stories where everyone is flat and the world is paper thin, and just make the fans fill in the blanks since they’re just going to do that anyways? How can you convince someone that their stories are needed in the world, when this is the fate they’ll ultimately have? “Sure, write what you want, but we’re going to put your work in a blender and scoop out the good chunks when we’re done, and you can’t get mad at us or you’re dumb”.
Before I end this, I want to make it VERY CLEAR that I’m not against fanfiction or fan works of any kind. I’ve written fanfics before, some of which have gone against the established canon. I am also not against coming up with your own theories when plot elements aren’t clear. My unpopular opinion isn’t that you should never change canon for your own amusement. I’m not saying that you can’t, for example, take two straight characters and draw fan art of them dating because you think they’d be cute together.
What I am saying is that, when a content creator of a cartoon or comic or TV show says “X is canon”, and people go “No Y is canon not X”, that sucks. It sucks for the content creators, it sucks for people who want to be content creators someday, and it sucks for people who get harassed for following canon because the fan interpretation is more accepted.
It just sucks to put your heart and soul into something only to be told that you are incorrect, and it sucks to be told that there’s something wrong with you if you refuse to accept that.
