The problem with the era in which we live is that on the one hand pop culture is completely beholden to pre-existing intellectual property, but on the other, the current caretakers of these properties has seen fit to inject their current-year sensibilities into it, no matter how incompatible. The end result is a clear case of bait-and-switch in the sense that everything the IP once represented is twisted and subverted. For some, this is a feature, not a bug. But for the most part, it comes across as a sort of cultural vandalism. The most recent dumpster-fire was related to Snow White, but what caused me to post was this piece on Riverdale, an adolescent soap opera comic book property that originally comes from the wholesome 1950s.

In current year no taboo related to hedonism or “alternative lifestyles” is off-limits, even for entertainment presumably targeted to kids. Lines that used to only be crossed only with R-rated movies are now routine in “mainstream” entertainment. And it’s really unclear whether fandom today really wants this or not. At the very least, there seems to be some signs that things have gone too far, that at least some out there are still attached to the original concept of the work, despite how far removed its sensibilities may be to today’s.

Since I come from a creative background I have a strong respect for the sanctity of “authorial intent”. The genesis point of these IP franchises started from an overarching worldview or message. Whether it was the cold-war mad-men sensibilities of James Bond, the JFK optimism of Star Trek, the Joseph Campbell mythos of Star Wars, all these things had an underlying reason to exist in the minds of the original creators. And in almost every case, these have been co-opted and twisted to suit modern (or more appropriately, post-modern) sensibilities. Sometimes the audience has been brainwashed into thinking that the new approach is in fact a straight continuation of original intent, where in others there is open dismissal and problematization of the original, that the mission is to somehow right some fundamental wrong.

The era in which we live, creatively, seems to revolve around creators treating intellectual property as if it is real property in the sense that they invade, occupy, and figuratively ethnically cleanse. This is all done under the legal shield of corporate ownership.

The problem is that a work that exists for no other reason than to subvert the original doesn’t really have much inherent value. The value (love it or hate it) of the work remains firmly in its original form. If its qualities didn’t trigger a response in the first place, there wouldn’t be a conversation to be had anyway.

I think there is a real blind-spot in creatives who are too busy patting themselves on the backs for how they are modernizing (i.e. “fixing) problematic outdated old works that they fail to acknowledge that in the end their work would not exist without the original, and that the original was just that, the true starting point. Not that originality is absolute (as everything is a remix) but work that was inspired by earlier works is still more original than work that serves no purpose other than to essentially bury into and destroy the host like a parasitic virus.

–othreviewer