The Extremely Good Fan Strikes Orange is the New Black

Warning: this post contains spoilers for Orange is the New Black.

In her commentary on this past week’s episode of Breaking Bad, Emily Nussbaum brought up the idea of “bad fans”:

All shows have them. They’re the “Sopranos” buffs who wanted a show made up of nothing but whackings (and who posted eagerly about how they fast-forwarded past anything else). They’re the “Girls” watchers who were aesthetically outraged by Hannah having sex with Josh(ua). They’re the ones who get furious whenever anyone tries to harsh Don Draper’s mellow.

She even notes that some shows eventually build their “bad fans” (or Bad Fans) into the shows in some way: Sopranos had the Cleaver horror films, Breaking Bad created Todd who worships Walt, etc.

Of course, the idea that there are Bad Fans necessarily implies there are Good Fans. Good Fans note the subtlety of the show. They see Breaking Bad as the morality tale it is meant to be. They appreciate the familial drama of the Sopranos and enjoy watching the gradual invasion of the feminism and racial politics and Vietnam into Mad Men. They may find the protagonists fascinating or charming, but they never side with them.

In fact, if any show had a Good Fan built into its universe, it would be Sopranos with Tony’s psychiatrist, Dr. Jennifer Melfi. Throughout the show, Melfi seems to flirt with the idea of growing to like Tony as a person, or allowing herself to be taken in by his affability; ultimately, however, she always shocks herself back to reality that he is a mob boss and a Bad Man. Even when she is faced with a trauma (and I won’t go into detail for those of you who haven’t watched it), she considers acting like one of the other characters on the show, only to remind herself of her superior moral compass.

That’s what a good fan does: like the character for his craft and his charm, but ultimately remind herself that she must deplore that character for his morality.

But is there such thing as an Overly Good Fan? Is there a fan so adroit at reading the genre of Quality TV that s/he overreads a new protagonist and ultimately passes the steps of being charmed and evaluating to go to the typical endpoint: despising the protagnoist? In the case of Orange is the New Black, I would say so.

From my current experience, Orange is the New Black does not have a lot of Bad Fans. I haven’t really met anyone who views Piper as the model that all other characters must be judged against, or agrees with Piper's statement that everyone who is in prison deserves it (and has made bad choices), or thinks that prison is a good system.

It has a decent amount of Haters (the paranoid readings of this show are countless). In fact, the only people who take the line about Piper and all others making “bad choices” as the show’s POV (a job that should be left for Bad Fans) are the Haters who do so in order to critique the show.

It has many Good Fans, who grasp that this show interrogates Piper’s POV and racial/class priveledge and that Orange is the New Black does so in order to explore the interiority of other characters of less frequently showcased races and classes.

And then it has Extremely Good Fans. These people hate Piper. To them, she is nothing but a stuck-up, privileged, self-centered rich white bitch. Even very smart, nuanced readers of the show (as shown, for example, here in the last caption in an otherwise brilliant, incisive article) do not like her.

Now Piper has her problems. She’s definitely narcissitic at times, she’s lived a sheltered life, and to an extent gets preferential treatment (until that turns on her). But does she really in fact deserve to be lumped into the same category as the murderous Tony Soprano and Walter White and the solipsistic, avaricious, deceitful Don Draper? Even if she did, doesn’t she deserve at least to get that “We find her really likeable but…” detour that these characters get from Good Fans on their journeys?

It seems as if these fans have taken Alex’s and Larry’s season finale comments about Piper at face value: she is a force of evil narcissism - nothing she suffers is anything but her fault. They disregarded how self-centered Larry is and how Alex had admitted just the prior episode that she’s a “ruthless pragmatist” who ready to sell Piper out. Heck, they even seem to take Piper’s own depression-fueled self-hatred at face value. Ultimately, Piper has earned and deserved all that has happened to her in the first season. She may be the real villain of the show.

Orange is the New Black, a very smart show, a show that almost feels designed for grad students who debate representational politics, to me seems like it has anticipated this reading. And where other shows create avatars for their bad fans after the fact, I cannot help but wonder if Alex, or even Piper herself, become avatars for the Extremely Good Fans. The critiques these two lodge against Piper in the final episodes seem to anticipate much of the internet reaction. But if Orange is the New Black has shown us anything about itself, it's that one person's point of view should never be fully accepted.

Call me crazy (or privileged) but I find Piper to be flawed but sympathetic. She’s not our moral compass by any means. She probably needs a good deal of therapy and the occasional slap of reality. But she’s a pretty real-feeling person who, despite her problems, is ultimately a character I like and want to see turn out okay by the time Orange is the New Black reaches its final episode. So why don’t Extremely Good Fans feel the same way?

One reason simply could be that these fans have gotten too used to Quality TV and immediately assume characters aren’t supposed to be sympathetic or relatable any more. The hatable protagonist is almost formulaic now. And no one wants to be the naive Bad Fan.

Or perhaps Piper starts from a less likeable place. Walter White, for all his problems, may appeal more to a Cultural Studies mindset; he needs to defy The State to cope with Capitalism, whereas Piper’s whiteness is thrown in our face. Walter’s story is about the underdog climbing up; Piper’s is the high being brought down. We’re more used to cheering on the former.

Maybe it’s an unfair comparison since the Extremely Good Fans of Orange is the New Black may be turned off by Mad Men or Sopranos due to all the Bad Fans. Insert your own Apples and Oranges joke here. Maybe it's the fact that we think we know Piper will turn out fine and write a book and sell that book to Netflix (though honestly, by now, considering this show to be in any way a biopic seems to be risking being another Bad Fan). Or maybe, just maybe, we’re just more comfortable with guys breaking the rules.

Whatever the reason, I’m not so ready to leave Piper to the SHU so I can focus on the other characters. In the end, I may be Team Suzanne (and even she thinks Dandelion’s all dried up), but I still need to remember that as wise as she may have sounded that scene (and as awesome as she can quote Shakespeare), she still can get pissed off. She's still written as human. She's still fallible. She's not an author's mouthpiece. She’s a combo of sympathetic and messed up, like most of the other inmates are, thanks to the nuanced writing in this show. And maybe only seeing the former in Piper would make you a Bad Fan…but only seeing the latter, as some of the Extremely Good Fans are doing, just turns you into a Bad Fan by any other name.

Diversifying Your (Artist's) Portfolio aka My Gay Spider-Man Entry

Spider-Man, Spider-Man

Does it with either gal or man

Not restrained by gender

Unlike the author of Ender

Look out! Here comes queer Spider-Man!

Recently, Andrew Garfield made pseudo headlines by intimating that Mary Jane (or MJ) could be a dude for the next Spider-Man film and that Peter could be moving a few spots up on the Kinsey scale. As is to be expected, there were unhappy fanboys. And happy gays. And once more, the internet was at war. Ultimately, Garfield declared that, despite his wishes, there would be no queer Spidey, but people are still talking.

Ultimately, as a gay fanboy and someone who thinks about representation politics far more than the average Joe or Jane, I have mixed feelings about Garfield's ruminations. On one hand, I acknowledge that someone needs to intervene on comic book canon if we are to have anything slightly resembling diversity. Let's face facts:

there have been VERY few iconic characters who emerged after the 60s (the All-New, All-Different X-Men, Venom, and Harley Quinn are the first ones that come to mind). What that means is that most of the staples for superhero movies originated in a time where heroes were predominantly white men and (with the exception of 40s Wonder Woman and, if Dr. Wertham is to be believed, Batman and Robin) heterosexual (not to mention cisgendered). If no one intervenes, we are stuck with endless blockbusters with the diversity of 50s entertainment. Think of superhero movies up until now. Gays are non-existant and women and characters of color are often relegated to the sidelines (Lucius Fox, Pepper Potts, etc) or there's one-per-team rule (Nick Fury and Black Widow). Admittedly, the X-Men films have MUCH better gender stats, but again, that's because they draw heavily from characters which emerged in the 70s and 80s.

On the other hand, Peter Parker is very straight. In fact, he may be the straightest of superheroes. Spider-Man was the super-hero comic most defined by romantic woes - possibly the first major superhero one to focus so intently on

them. Of course, gays have romantic woes...but is being a gay teen the same as being a straight one? Is thinking we can just make Mary Jane into a guy risking universalizing the queer experience? We may live in the age of Glee and Modern Family and I'm sure things are different than when I was in high school, but I still think some things will be the same. Sure, Peter would be bullied as much as he always was, but were he queer and (more importantly) out, his bullying would probably be less likely to make him romantically unappealing to other guys (who would also be bullied) instead of how it's been so far, where he just looked weak to girls. Also, Peter would be more experienced with having secrets and a double life (even if he was out by the time he was bitten) - being Spider-Man would not equal the first time he had to have barriers between him and Aunt May.

In short, diversity is never as simple as "Just add queerness/lady parts/color." Being a minority often

entails a different experience and outlook and that should be incorporated in the character. Batman, for example, might be a great bisexual character. Bruce Wayne always wants to be dominating the headlines as luxurious and decadent - sexually fluidity might help that...and also maybe make Bruce seem more effete so no one suspects he's the uber-macho Batman. In short, some characters can be changed...and some may have a harder time.

Who cannot (without changing the character substantially)? I'd say, for starters, Captain America, Superman, and Thor, as far as gender and race goes...perhaps sexuality as well. [note of course, that there CAN be a variation on any of these characters...as long as the author is aware that they may be severely changing the mythos or some of the central character conceits]

Why? Well, for Cap, we need to consider that 1940s America would never choose a racial minority to be their icon, and that Rosie the Riveter occupied a very different spot from Uncle Sam. It'd be a white-washed history if we were to make the US government color-blind. Also...we'd lose something I always love: the irony that Cap is actually the embodiment of Hitler's Master Race.

[Granted, there is a black "Captain America" story - and an excellent one at that (Truth by Robert Morales and Kyle Baker) - but anyone who has read it knows it's not your typical Captain America story (i.e. get powers, represent the US, defeat Nazis).]

Superman is a similar story. He's the beloved of Metropolis, of everyone. Quite frankly, were a woman or a person of color to have that much power, the sad reality is that there would be more suspicion. Lex Luthor would be the norm...not the exception. Is this an interesting story here? Definitely - one that interrogate certain attitudes on race and gender and the foundations of the Superman mythos. But it's not a classic Superman story - and one that might be tougher to sell as the major, mainstream representation of the character for the decade. [However, apparently Man of Steel ends on this note, so maybe this is a moot point.] Also, I would say Lois Lane is so key here that I'd be hesistant to make Clark anything but straight.

As for Thor...yeah, I suppose he should look very Norse. And still be a dude. I'll give some precedence to mythology. Of course, Asgard isn't only white in the movie, so again, maybe a moot point.

But that leaves us LOTS of characters. And major ones at that.

A common retort though would be that fans don't want movies tampering with the characters. Hawkeye is a white guy - to make him an Indian woman or a Chicano trans-man would make him not Hawkeye. He's Clint Barton. Fandom has not been overly quick to accept these types of changes - the lukewarm reception of the Latino Blue Beetle and the now-dead Asian Atom attest to that. In short, some may ask why do Hollywood and the PC police need to mess with things?

The reality is that Hollywood messes with things all the time (to the point that, all my prior exceptions are loose at best). Joker in Dark Knight no longer had an acid-changed face but wore makeup (and thus Batman's creation of Joker was lost). Jarvis is no longer a butler but a computer program. Rogue's big crush is Iceman, not Gambit. And so forth.

Meanwhile in comics, there sometimes is not even an iconic iteration of a character. Is the definitive Flash Barry Allen or Wally West (or Jay Garrick or Bart Allen)? How about Robin: Dick Grayson or Tim Drake? In fact, we've seen Robin change genders in The Dark Knight Returns and briefly in the comics when Spoiler took over the role. Same could be said for Jon Stewart, though he often pales to the love for Hal Jordan or Kyle Rayner (but we'll soon get to why Stewart is 1000 varieties of awesome). Psylocke has managed to turn from British to Japanese without even changing her being Betsy Braddock! So maybe comic fans may be more pliable than they or others may think.

[Admittedly, part of this could point to an inherent racism/sexism/heterosexism/cisgenderism in certain areas of fandom, similar to that of the "Rue backlash" from The Hunger Games, that accept certain changes but short circuit at those of identity - particularly of major characters. But I don't want to push that argument just yet. I'll give those areas time to prove me wrong.]

[Also I should probably note that a lot of this problem stems from unconscious chauvinism - basically "write what you know." As one brave fangirl dressed as Batgirl pointed out at Comic Con in 2011 to many DC panelists, the comic world is a boy's club. Particularly, it's a straight white boy's club, despite our occasional Phil Jimenezes and Gail Simones.]

Furthermore, this has already been done, and successfully, in comics. The only reason Nick Fury is played by Samuel L Jackson in the Marvel movies is because Mark Millar and Bryan HItch reimagined him as a black man (who looked remarkably like SLJ) in the Ultimate Universe. Similarly, Wasp (sadly absent from the film Avengers) became Asian and Colossus turned gay. J Michael Straczynski's Supreme Power changes the old Squadron Supreme to essentially give us a tale of a Justice League

wherein Batman and Flash are black...and race is very much foregrounded. This choice was perfect for a retelling of Justice League that was meant to be darker and more realistic. In a series that did not shy away from the government realities in a superhero team, it only would make sense that the racial realities and tensions of superheroes should be considered. The DC Animated Universe's Justice League chose the lesser-known John Stewart (over Hal Jordan or Kyle Rayner) as Green Lantern and threw in the double wildcard of Hawkgirl - not only avoiding one of the more famous members, but even choosing her over her "man" counterpart. Stewart's race/class background and Hawkgirl's defiance of gender expectations helped make these characters arguably the two most interesting ones in the Justice League series. And Batwoman has finally returned to the DCU - now a lesbian. Diversity is not only good for politics and morality - it's good for storytelling.

[Of course, writing this made me realize how the transgendered comic fans are still being incredibly ignored in superhero representation. So my apologies for being unable to think of any mainstream success stories on that front.]

In short, if a Justice League movie comes out of the upcoming Batman/Superman film, perhaps it should have a Wonder Woman who looks more like she came from a Mediterranean Island or a Flash who looks less like the typical Wally West/Barry Allen. But also, we need to not only ask "which character can be less straight/white/male/cisgendered," but also why this character should be so and what narrative potentials are possible. Garfield is making a start of this, and I applaud him for not taking comic history as canon, but his comments do not seem to fully consider both the reality and the narrative impact of making Peter queer. Comic characters' identities should shift for diversity, but this diversity should be more than just an accoutrement or a selling point. The diversity should be diversity, not a universalization of such diversity.