 President Barack Obama awards actress Marlo Thomas the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2014. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/Associated Press) Every week, I answer a question from Monday’s Act Four Live chat in the Wednesday edition of this newsletter. You can read the transcript of the Jan. 30 chat here, and submit questions for the Feb. 27 chat here (the chat and the newsletter will both be on pause while I’m on vacation in February). This week, Mary Tyler Moore’s death inspires a reader to ask about another iconic show. On Hank Stuever’s chat Thursday the subject of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” arose. This led to a mention of “That Girl,” Marlo Thomas’ show which in many ways was the precursor of MTM. It was different in a number of ways….When the series ended, [her character Ann Marie and her boyfriend Don] were engaged. But, because Marlo did not want to perpetrate the idea that marriage is the culmination of a woman’s life, it did not end with the wedding. This was a huge disappointment to her fans, who had looked forward to seeing her in a wedding dress, [her best friend] as maid of honor, etc. Were her principles more important than her duty to her fans? I firmly believe that artists have no duty at all to deliver plot developments on demand. A fundamental part of experiencing art is submitting yourself to someone else’s intellectual and creative vision. It’s one thing if you commission someone to make a painting for you or write a story to your exact specifications; then you have the right to make demands. But if you’re just tuning in to a television show, you don’t have the right to demand specific outcomes at all. You can vote by turning off the dial, but that’s about it. It’s not merely that art is about turning yourself over to someone else’s ideas. It’s that pop culture has a big constituency; it’s not as if all the fans of “That Girl,” or “Game of Thrones,” or Marvel’s “Avengers” movies want the same things. Giving a group of vocal fans what they want is not necessarily the same thing as giving all fans what they want. How should creators pick which fans to gratify? And what if fans want something that gets in the way of a large idea an artist wants to convey, or a larger plan they have for the plot? TV showrunners may know what’s coming on an ongoing show in a way that’s not obvious to the audience, and have an obligation to their writing and technical staff to pull that off. And if Marlo Thomas saw the point of “My Girl” as telling a story that didn’t lead up to marriage, then yes, she has a right to stick not just to her political convictions but also to what she saw as the point of her art. | 
Twitter
Facebook
No comments:
Post a Comment