In the early to mid-2000s there was an amazing TV show called Teen Titans based on the comic books by the same name. It had a distinct anime style, though it was an American production, and the theme song was performed in English and Japanese by Puffy Ami Umi. The show ran from 2003 to 2006 and spawned the annoying spin off Teen Titans Go (which I will continue to be salty about since that's the show my little cousin watches [descent into incoherent ranting]).
Anyway back to the original Teen Titans TV show.
It lasted for five seasons and concluded with a show down against the Brotherhood of Evil. Much of season focused on the comic relief character Beast Boy and the recruitment of new Titans to fight the bad guys. This culminated in a two part finale that was absolutely amazing.
Except those weren't the final episodes.
The actual final episode was "Things Change" and featured the five main characters returning to their home city to clean up and regroup. While assessing the damage, Beast Boy spots a former love interest and character who was presumed dead a few seasons prior. The person Beast Boy sees insists he has the wrong person and asks to be left along. The episode ends on a bit of
a downer cliff hanger with a ton of questions left unanswered.
And that's because it wasn't supposed to be the last episode of Season 5. It was supposed to be the first episode of Season 6 - which was axed by the studio. Since the episode was already finished, they still aired it - leaving many a young fan confused and left wanting.
Teen Titans Go did not fill that gap. Nor did the spin off move where the Titans went to Japan.
I was 100% one of those kids. I was frustrated by the lack of conclusion, upset that one of my favorite series was over, and left wanting so much more.
At least there were DVDs, and later streaming services, available for me to reexperience the series and share it with the next generation. I can also turn to Fanfiction to fill in the gaps (not that it makes up for a lack of an official Season 6).
That's something the current generation is not as lucky to be guaranteed.
If you guys haven't heard the news, HBOMax recently merged with Discovery+ and the new CEO has been making one infuriating decision after the next.
Yes, I am incredibly salty that I won't get to see Brendan Frasier play a villain in the canceled Bat Woman film - which was nearly complete.
However, that's small potatoes to the absolute devastation happening to the fans of animation and children's programming that had been available to directly stream on HBOMax. A whole slew of TV shows very suddenly got the ax - with some of their creators finding out via social media. Whole seasons that were completed won't be released and their back catalogues wiped from existence.
Fans don't even have the ability to rewatch these series via DVD or BluRay because they were streaming exclusives. Creators have seen their hard work vanish without any proof it ever existed except in screen shots and fan pages.
Tons of work gone because an executive wanted to make some money and not pay creatives for their work.
Animation already struggles to have a presence and be taken seriously (which is another issue to touch upon later), but this is like rubbing salt in a wound and then wrapping it with a band aid made from the butt of a skunk.
Will this work be considered lost media? Some are predicting it will be. There are people who are keeping track of modern lost media. Most cinephiles are aware that roughly 90% of movies made before the 1930s are considered lost due to poor storage conditions and melting the film down to use for other products. Is the same thing about to happen to the media that only goes on streaming platforms without a physical copy to store?
Some might say that we don't need all the physical media. Its really just junk waiting to collect dust. They have a point, but not everyone agrees.
Some people equate the loss of this media - these works of art - to the burning of the Library of Alexandria. The loss of the art stalled progress and much would have remained lost, except for the hard work of preservationists in the Middle East. Some of the movies that did manage to survive from before the 1930s have done so in bits and pieces. Some were found in attics and basements - in poor condition, but in tact.
Where will art historians go to find the media deleted off of streaming services? Is our only hope that someone backed everything up on a USB or Laptop that was outside the reach of the cooperate overlords? There's a story that Toy Story 2 was nearly lost due to a glitch in the studio's computers and was only saved because someone had put the entire movie on a USB to work on at home.
I think we take a lot of the art we consume for granted. We assume it will be there and available for us to always consume. But the reality is that someone looking to make a lot of money in the short term can make a decision that is horribly detrimental to the consumer and absolutely devastating to the artist.
Barnes and Nobel recently announced a new policy that they would only carry recently released books that were the top 1 or 2 of any publisher. This means that a lot of debut writers, books in every niche genres, and lesser known works weren't going to be published.
This primarily effects minority and non-white writers.
I found out about this policy change from the writers I follow on social media. Many wonderful books featuring less traditional narratives and characters are going to be buried because one of the top physical book stores has decided not to carry or promote them. This puts a lot of pressure on new writers and writers with a lot less resources to promote their work.
I have a lot of feelings as to the loss going on. It's hard to put into words exactly what I am experiencing from an outsider's vantagepoint. Very little of this actually affects me in a direct way.
On the one hand, I understand that nothing in this world is permanent and there are many things that have been lost over time.
On the other, I am an artist and writer who gets very attached to their work. Though some of my pieces have been lost to me (either because I gave them away or they became destroyed for one reason or another). I would be positively devastated if I saw in real time my life's work vanish in a desolation of pixels.
From an intellectual point of view, we're also losing our creative history. Some of the animated shows lost by HBOMax's purge were critically acclaimed and will likely inspire other works. Media analysis will have gaps. Historians might have debates about the content - like they do about those lost early movies.
Again, I'm not directly involved with what is happening. It's not my art. It's not my work.
However, I still feel a sense of loss and melancholy - as if someone had ripped a chunk of my spirit away and I no longer fill every inch of my body. It's an abstract loss, a frustrating state of being that isn't physical.
I'll never get the official conclusion to the questions posed in that last episode of Teen Titans. I can only read the plans for what was to happen and fan theories. More creative work will come from what is lost, but at least I can relive what is available.
That's not always possible.
Artist have always faced barriers to exploring and showing their work. In the modern age, it feels like we should be making greater efforts to alleviate those barriers rather than constructing more.
In conclusion: support your local artists, watch some animated movies (Perfect Blue recently broke me guys), and buy your books from small presses and local book stores. Creativity takes work and should be appreciated... and compensated appropriately.
Until next week.
If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please, like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope y'all like hearing from me.
No comments:
Post a Comment