Fifty Shades & The aTV Fest

Even as the William Goldman “nobody knows anything”-quote about Hollywood slips further into cliche status with the passing years, we get reminded of how true it remains. Just think about this: the biggest selling novel of our time may turn out to be a book by a first time writer based on an erotic fan fiction of a popular Young Adult series.  It’s weird, but this week will see the release of the much-anticipated film version of Fifty Shades Of Grey.  Who could have guessed that a novel most critics labeled “poorly written”, “laughable”, and “a sad joke” would be so wildly successful?

Even the film is successful, although it has yet to be released.  Fandango has listed it as it's fourth largest ticket pre sale and it’s on-track to become the biggest R-rated film in the site’s history.  Two sequels are already on their way to the big screen (with the third likely to be split into two films, if Hollywood keeps up it’s trend of squeezing every bit of life out of a franchise).  And E.L. James has promised another novel.  We don’t have to wait until tomorrow’s release, Fifty Shades the movie is already a winner.

But how did Hollywood get around that pesky problem of not knowing anything?  Well, they did their homework and they planned ahead.  After setting a record for the fastest selling novel of all time, Fifty Shades Of Grey got a movie release date set in November of 2013.  That means fifteen months in advance, Universal Pictures made a play to own the 2015 Valentine’s Day weekend box-office.  They left nothing to chance.  They knew people wanted it and they planned to give it to them.

Jodie Foster explained recently at the Athena Film Festival that she's decided to work in TV lately because “That’s where story is now.” She said that the Hollywood studios directive now was to "create franchise content...So because there is very little support in the lower ranges, it means that story is going to cable and to TV and I think eventually that’s where it will be.”

Certainly, movies are franchised.  Fifty Shades is just one of many examples where that’s true.  But let’s not kid ourselves, TV is franchised as well.  From it’s Marvel and DC Comic shows to the countless number of adapted British series.  TV is creating new series around popular movies (12 Monkeys, About A Boy, Fargo), books (Man Seeking Woman), plays (The Odd Couple), telenovelas (Jane The Virgin), and even old TV series (Hawaii Five-0).

Maybe Foster was talking specifically about the TV projects she’s recently worked on, House of Cards and Orange Is The New Black- the former based on a British show and the latter based on a popular memoir.  Both shows were also well established programs by the time she came to them. Most would argue, those are franchises.

To the other part of Foster's statement regarding the story being in TV and cable now- maybe the longer story.  The only difference between the stories in movies and the stories in TV shows is the length.  TV can tell longer stories.  They can make an audience invest more time and emotion into a single character.  So when a character is killed off, the emotional impact feels greater, just like in a book series.  A good example of this can be seen in the hugely popular franchise/TV show Game Of Thrones.  TV is thriving on long-form stories in a way that soap operas have for years. Drawing stories out with cliff hangers and teases and surprise twists.  But making stories longer isn't necessarily making them better and the idea that TV has taken the story from films is ridiculous.  Don't forget that Hollywood's two biggest films this year, Avengers Age of Ultron and Star Wars Epsiode 7, are being helmed by seasoned TV writers.

At the aTV Fest in Atlanta this past weekend, I wanted to figure out why TV shows are so popular right now.  John Ridley observed perhaps TV's greatest development.  Promoting his new show American Crime, the show runner spoke about how TV isn't so much diverse now as it is reflective. He was pointing to networks producing content with more minorities, created by more minorities. Obviously, he’s right: Fresh Off The Boat, Black-ish, How To Get Away With Murder, Empire are all just some of the shows getting high praise and ratings.

But while TV is diverse culturally, it’s no more diverse in content than it’s ever been.  There are more shows, but they’re just more of the same we’ve seen before.  This is strange because usually more competition creates an environment of greater risk taking.  But although competition is high right now with cable networks like HBO, FX, AMC, and the CW growing in strides, not to mention Hulu, Amazon, and Netflix producing original programs, TV isn’t really taking chances on new subject matters or storylines.  The risks they are taking are completely based on ethnicity.

What networks today are doing is really not much different from what they did back in the 60s.  They are creating shows that shadow other show on competing networks. Like how Bewitched shadowed I Dream Of Jeannie, The Mindy Project is basically a shadow of The New Girl.  The shows could switch writers and most viewers wouldn't really notice.  The glowing difference in these shows isn't the story or comedy, it's the race of the lead characters- Zooey Deschanel is the quirky American girl next door, Mindy Kaling is the quirky Indian-American girl next door.

If you need further proof that TV stories are more of the same, just look at how they still rehash popular shows that have recently left the air.  You can watch Backstroke if you’re missing House. And if you're missing Breaking Bad, well, now you can watch Better Call Saul.

At this point I’d like to point out how extraordinary it is that episodic narrative shows are still with us. If you’ll remember, there was a brief time when we were told that “sitcoms” and “serials" were on their way out. This was when Honey Boo Boo and the Jersey Shore were being herald as the future, because reality TV was cheap and easy to make and everyone was talking about them at that time. And while we will forever be infected by the low bearing fruit genre they spewed the Kardashians all over our television screens, it turns out the situation wasn’t as dire as everyone had predicted for the episodic narrative show. In fact, it’s now more popular than ever, proving once again Goldman’s adage.

And how did the networks bring back the episodic narrative show?  They listened to what people said they wanted and they gave it to them.  A boring answer, but it was the viewer that told them they valued more culturally diverse content.  Viewers don’t really care about new stories.  Maybe they say they do.  But it turns out they’re happy with dressed up versions of old shows or some popular franchise that is already familiar.

TV and films are the same in this respect.  Neither of them is in the story business per se, but rather in the give-the-people-what-they-want business.  It was the culture that asked Hollywood for a Fifty Shades movie.  So Hollywood is giving it to them.  Not because they think it’s an original story, they know it’s a poorly written fan fiction.  And it’s not because they believe in the writer.  I mean, her original pen name was Snowqueen’s Icedragon, for God’s sake.  Do you realize how fucking ridiculous that is?

The studios are making the Fifty Shades Of Grey movie because there is zero risk involved.  It is already a success.  Even though early critic reviews of the film are not good and it’s Rotten Tomatoes rating is 44 percent, 87 percent still say they're going to see it.  And you can bet that TV is ready to follow in Hollywood’s footsteps.  They’re probably looking for a Fifty Shades show runner at this moment.  And viewers will likely tune in.  Because it’s not just TV networks and Hollywood studios who don’t know anything, audiences can be pretty clueless as well.

The Golden Globes and Biopics

By now, we all know awards are bullshit.  Hollywood congratulates itself in a 3-hour star-studded ceremony which is actually just a 3-hour mega movie trailer designed to sell us what the studios believe to be their most artistic achievement of the year.  In the end, even the winners don’t really matter because it’s about which company campaigned the hardest for it’s nominees.  The best you can hope for is enjoying the hosts ripping on the celebrities, but most likely they are just there to begin pushing a movie they have coming out next year around this time.  My point is the whole thing is one big publicity stunt that is meaningless to avid movie watchers who still genuinely regard film as a high art despite Hollywood’s need to constantly self-fellate on primetime television to move merch.

So, now that we’ve got that out of the way.  The 2015 Golden Globes left me a little hopeful for film, and here is why:

Biopics.  Hollywood has given us eight of them in the last month (Selma, The Intimidation Game, Theory Of Everything, Foxcatcher, Big Eyes, American Sniper, Unbroken, & Wild).  We get it.  This is award season bait.   Play a real person with a sad story and a couple of non-fiction books written about them and you’ll probably get a nomination.  We’re supposed to believe that your performance merits more than others because you weren't just getting inside a character’s head, you were getting inside a real human being.  

The common belief is if you don’t have “Starring Meryl Streep” on your movie poster, your second best chance at an award is to have "Based on a True Story”.  The problem is that these “true story” films and their blatant aspiration for award recognition have become so obvious and ridiculous that audiences are taking notice.  Nearly every biographical film this season is coming under fire for historical discrepancies (some warranted, some not).

The Globes chose to over look all of those films save for Selma’s original song and Eddie Redmayne’s Stephen Hawking performance (because let’s face it, he’s hot and famous paraplegic portrayals always seem amazing, right?).  Instead the Award show honored more independent films.  Film that seemed like out-of-the-box fair- Boyhood, Birdman, Grand Budapest, and Whiplash.  Each of these films has biographical elements though.  Boyhood chronicles 12-years in the life of a boy and his family.  Birdman perhaps unintentionally draws parallels between the career of it’s star Michael Keaton and the main character of the film.  Grand Budapest is told in a pseudo-biographical manner recounting the life of a fictitious concierge during a period of time that could be interrupted as the first World War. And Whiplash loosely recounts the writer-director’s time not becoming a proper musician.

My point is that none of those films will come under fire for historical inaccuracies because they didn’t need “Based On A True Story”.  “Based On A True Story” was unnecessary.  And yet the filmmakers knew audiences wanted something that felt like real life.  According to this year’s Globes, “Based On A True Story” didn’t work in its sheepish attempt to get statues (again except for Redmayne, but remember he’s a good looking white dude playing a genius white dude that defied the entire medical community, so let’s just drop it already).

I don’t think I'm alone when I say I love a good bio film.  But the problem is I’ve seen very few because a good bio film to me is one without all of the historical inaccuracies.

Sorry, what’s that you say?  It’s just a movie?  They had to condense and composite some stuff to make everything fit?  My smartass reply is usually “Maybe you’re just not a very good filmmaker.”  But my more constructive reply is, “Fine. You could try to make it two films, or focus on a shorter period of time with this one.  But as long as you don’t change the important facts of what historians actually know happened, knock yourself out.”

I say this because I go to a biographical film hoping to get biographical facts, not to see some filmmaker's desperate attempt to win a meaningless award.  Sometimes I feel I am alone in this sentiment.  That I am the only one that cares that “Based On A True Story” isn’t just award bait, but is a serious attempt to get what we know as the historical record portrayed correctly in this great medium that we call film.  And I am glad at least that the Golden Globes last night didn’t seem to take the bait.

I must say that at this point I have not seen Selma.  I am seeing it today and I’m looking forward to it’s historical accuracy because of all the articles I have read defending it from detractors.  But the unfortunate reality is that after the screening, I will be doing a lot of research to verify the facts I’ve just been presented under the guise of “Based On True Story”.  I will have to know, for my own enjoyment, that those plot points weren’t just plot points but were, in fact, true.  And this isn’t the Selma filmmakers' fault, but the fault of every filmmaker who has attempted to dramatize history to win a golden statue.  It’s the fault of awards shows that continue to shower films with awards solely because they brag “Based On A True Story”.

And that’s why I would like to propose The Biographical Accuracy Award.  This award will be given out to the biographical narrative feature film with the greatest amount of accuracy and the least amount of award show pander.  Foxcatcher, if Mark Shultz’s allegations are true, you are disqualified from this award.  Theory of Everything, you’re going to have to make do with Redmayne’s award because your make-up department didn’t even attempt to age the two lead actors- Wait, I guess you thought that maybe Redmayne wouldn’t have been as handsome if you aged him so you were probably crossed; "do I go after the Accuracy Award or the Popularity Award".  I see the flaw in my logic now.

Yeah, award shows are just bullshit.