For those of you not living in the Western Hemisphere, the final HARRY POTTER book came out last month at midnight, and a few days before the official release date, intrepid hacker-types took digital photos of each page and posted them on the Internet.  This is just the latest in a whole host of “spoiler” related activity in movies, music and television, whereby persons take great joy in telling the world what is going to be happening in popular media before it actually happens, “spoiling” things for people who want to be surprised.  I’ve been doing some thinking about what drives people to do this, and have broken it down into following types:

• The first and most obvious group are the “cool” people who want to show the world that they have the connections and the chops to get to new media before other people (test screenings, reviewers, Internet download, etc.) and want to tell you what happens to prove that they actually know.  These people then break down down into “It is so cool, you will love it, and I am cool for seeing it first” group and the “this sucks you will hate it and I’m here first to tell you it sucks” group.  But both groups want props for being a) first (witness all the ain’t-it-cool-newsposts that say “FIRST!”) and for b) re-setting your expectations for the upcoming media onslaught (which they actually have done on a number of occasions, such as the remake of ROLLERBALL, etc.)
• The second group is a bit more deluded — these are the people who have seen new stuff first and want to offer their “professional” opinion — you should lose this section of the movie, change the music here, etc.  Correct me if I am wrong, but (with the exception of the SNAKES ON A PLANE phenomenon [which, coincidentally, was  box-office disappointment]) I have never in my life read any instance of a major motion picture company changing film content based on the “notes” of  few early viewers.  But is sure is easier criticizing someone else’s film then getting up off your butt and making your own..

Now we get to the bigger question of “Why?”  Why can’t people wait?  And if they can’t wait, and they can get to it before the rest of the world, why can’t they keep things to themselves?  And I believe this breaks down into the following groups:

•  The “Stickin’ It To The Man” Group.  These people would argue that since the media “controls” so much of our life (by scheduling what entertainment product is coming out at what times and there-bye what the newspapers talk about for a given week), that they are “fighting back” by deflating some of the hype and excitement (even though you could argue that piracy and spoilers just help to increase the hype, because the press inevitably starts covering thatas well…)  These people could just, as my buddy KW has discussed with me, just turn their heads and ignore the hub-bub if they really cared so much. (Though you could argue in today’s media-saturated environment, this is hard for anyone but the Unabomber to do…)
• The Reductive group, who seem to believe that the “magic” of a book/movie/”artistic” experience can be boiled down into a few words.  “Harry Potter will die,” “Tony Soprano is in the diner when..”, etc., as if the “plot” of a book or movie is the entire point of the artistic experience.  And the sad thing is that, once they have “spoiled” the first thing, well then, it’s mission accomplished, and time to move on to spoiling and reducing the next thing, as if the artistic experience were just a series of merit badges to be accumulated until…what, exactly?

Now look.  I’m just like everybody else:  I wonder what will be in my presents on Christmas morning.  I may even pick them up and shake them.  However, that suspense, that excitement of “not knowing”  – that’s part of the fun!  That IS the fun!  I’m listening to the last Harry Potter book on CD right now, and I am very anxious about it, and bad things have happened to characters in the book, and I am genuinely worried — but I don’t just want to know.  I want to experience it.

All this spoiler mentality just cheapens and demeans what is, in the best of times, a very unique, very powerful relationship between artist and audience.  Most disturbingly, it illustrates a fundamental lack of respect for all involved, bringing everything down to a base level of “this happened” or “that happened”, with little or no discussion of what these things happening means, to the characters and to us.  It is symbolic of deeper problems in our society, and our current black and white political discourse.

Now if you’ll excuse me, Harry is on his way back to Hogwart’s to get the horcrux… 

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 9th, 2007 at 7:22 am and is filed under Existential Insights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.