Article: "Brokeback Mountain Author Slams Movie's Fans"

[injest]

I know that Annie Proulx has corresponded with quite a few writers and people and is very nurturing and supporting. Who she is lashing out at is probably members of the slash/fan fiction crowd which has caused a lot of grief. In fact, she actualy had to move to another home because of them, as well as the right-wing conservative extremists.

yes the key to me was the word pornish....there is a subset of fanfic writers that have the attitude "Hey, it's been three pages....time for some more sex!!"

I can see where that would get irritating after a while...

[Katie77]

yes the key to me was the word pornish....there is a subset of fanfic writers that have the attitude "Hey, it's been three pages....time for some more sex!!"

I can see where that would get irritating after a while...

Yes, I agree with you there Jess, even though I have enjoyed reading some fan fiction, with some fantastic sex scenes. What I agree with is, that it would become irritating for Annie to have these fan fic writers trying to push THEIR stories onto her. I think that is a little absurd and foolish, for them to think that she was going to change HER story, or even want to read them.

Fan fiction has its place and plenty of people who want to read them and thoroughly enjoy reading them. Some of the writing in them is very professional, and the stories are very entertainng. But to push them onto Annie, is a bit delusional.

My irritation with Annie is her apparent desire to divorce herself from BBM. I remember reading here about 18 months ago, when some Brokies were going to see Annie in person, where she was going to speak. There was much disappointment then, that she did not discuss BBM, even though that was what most of the audience were hoping she would discuss. It was like, "that is in the past, I want to talk about what Im doing now." And I cant blame her for doing that to promote her new writings, but on the other hand, she probably would not have had half the audience she had, if it had not been for BBM.

Its a bit like going to see a pop star live, and they only sang all their new songs, and did not sing the songs that made them popular in the first place. The audience would be disappointed.

I think she uses the bombardment of fan fiction writers as an excuse to say that she is sick of all BBM fans. Like its all about who she is, and what she wants to promote, instead of realizing that BBM fans see her as the beginning of their obsession with the story and the movie. We want to know more of how SHE discovered Jack and Ennis, we want to know more about the story that she created, but she is telling us, to "go away, I dont want to talk about it anymore".

I have said this before and I will say it again.......I think she gets too much credit for the popularity of BBM.....she wrote a far too short a story, with very litle explanation and insight into the two main characters personalities and thoughts. It took a director like Ang Lee, and actors Heath and Jake to bring these characters to life, and subsequently the popularity and intensity of the story.  The movie will go on forever, the short story will eventually be filed away in bookshelves collecting dust somewhere.

[Marge_Innavera]

(I've just had some deeply weird things happen with posting -- one view shows my post displayed and no second page; the other has two pages with my post missing.  So I'm re-posting it -- sorry if this is a duplicate!)

The general impression I get is that they are bouncing off the film, not the story. There's more, but that is enough, ok?


It would be interesting to take a poll, just amongst our Brokies here, on what made them a Brokie.....

Was it the short story, or was it the movie?

Because I had not read the short story until several months, and several viewings, I have no hesitation in saying, for me, it was definately the movie. The genius acting of Heath and Jake, the magnificent screenply by Ossama and McMurtry, and the overwhelming direction of Ang Lee.

To me, they made the story that I became obssessed with.

I have never been a fan of Annie Proulx, and have always believed she has the fan base now, because of BBM.

The movie was what introduced the story to me.  Read the story afterward and while I liked it -- and liked it even better after hearing Rodney read it aloud -- it just didn't grab me the way the film did.  I've occasionally run across fans of the story who rather look down their noses at the film but sorry, that's how it happened for me.

IMO, her remarks are more than a little naive.  She's describing the experiences of a long line of writers whose work has been successfully translated to film; they often feel like that event has turned their life upside down.  Margaret Mitchell, who dealt with this with both her book and the movie that followed, once remarked in exasperation that "I made Tara (in Gone with the Wind) up, but people don't believe that."

On one hand I can sympathize but on the other, this is a tiresome routine we see regularly: someone works their butt off being successful and then when it happens starts telling all and sundry that 'I'm a very private person.'  WTF? ? ? ?   That's admittedly more understandable in a writer than in someone involved in performance art but it's still more than a little self-indulgent. 

If she's been getting inundated with fanfics, IMO it's understandable that she'd get pissed off after awhile. First, while I don't mind admitting that I'd love it if Annie read my own story, I don't know why anyone would think that she'd even be interested in BBM fanfics -- or that she wouldn't know how to find them if she was.  And second, some of the BBM fics do seem to have a lengthy sex scene every other page: I've read some that were generally good stories but I just started skipping over those parts. It's one thing to read a porno story that clearly isn't intended to be anything else, but when you have an interesting story and characters, the principals having sex every other page can get irritating and distracting. 

Jean Auel (Clan of the Cavebear and the rest of the Earth's Children series) is known for that.  You kind of get the impression that people in the late Ice Age didn't do much else. (Well, after all, they didn't have TV, or books.....)

[Marge_Innavera]

Its a bit like going to see a pop star live, and they only sang all their new songs, and did not sing the songs that made them popular in the first place. The audience would be disappointed.

Actually, that happens a lot -- and the musicians always seem to be clueless as to why the audience is ticked off.

[oilgun]

Not a member of the tact and diplomacy corp. then. It is at odds with what she is previously quoted as saying which is,a book is not finished until it has been read.That leaves us free to put our own interpretation on it,
I can understand that being bombarded with, in her opinion, poorly written, follow ups may be bothersome.Is it not also a compliment as to how seriously her writing is being perceived,and also that people re in their heads finishing the story the way they want.Something she encourages.I am sure the film also was instrumental in introducing both,BBM and other stories she has penned to a sector of the public who would otherwise have never given her work house room.

Fame always has and always will be a double edged sword.

Remember her attack on Scientology after the Oscar Farce? That's a good example of her 'lack of tact and diplomacy'.  Like we say in French "she doesn't keep her tongue in her pocket", she doesn't mince words and that ruffles a lot of feathers.  It's also refreshing in a way.

[Marge_Innavera]

Someone was bound to tag it as "refreshing" sooner or later but in this case she was talking about fans, not a fringe-though-fashionable religious group.

[oilgun]

Someone was bound to tag it as "refreshing" sooner or later but in this case she was talking about fans, not a fringe-though-fashionable religious group.

So what?  My point is that she is a blunt person who doesn't seem to give a hoot what people think.  You can't expect her to be a delicate nurturer with BbM fans.

[Marge_Innavera]

So what is that the first group you mentioned had nothing directly to do with her or her work.

She's certainly entitled to say what she wants, but fans are just as entitled and they're not required to sugar-coat her remarks.  The Dixie Chick concept of free speech never works.

[LauraGigs]

I tend to agree with Katie that the film (which is arguably much more engaging and fleshed out than the story) is what created the vast majority of Brokeback fans.  Proulx's statement, "...they are bouncing off the film, not the story" is telling, and I think there may be irritation and maybe even a bit of jealousy there.

Obviously, Proulx planted the seed — the original concept from which Ossana and McMurtry worked for the brilliant screenplay.  No Proulx, no Brokeback.  But if fiction writers are riffing more off of the film (and I imagine 99.9999% of them are), Ms. Proulx would probably appreciate it if they sent their stuff to Ossana and McMurtry instead!

[oilgun]

So what is that the first group you mentioned had nothing directly to do with her or her work.

She's certainly entitled to say what she wants, but fans are just as entitled and they're not required to sugar-coat her remarks.  The Dixie Chick concept of free speech never works.

I see your point but why expect her to change her personality when faced with obsessive fans.  Even I've been embarrassed by the antics of some of them, the audience members dressed up in cowboy drag when Jake hosted SNL comes to mind.  I guess I just don't take her comments personally because I'm not the one who's been harrassing her with god-awful fanfic (let's face it most of it is terrible), or pestered her about BbM at readings of her other work.