White Collar Comes Clean

I went to the White Collar Comes Clean event at the Paley Center last night, which was kind of fun. I was a little out of it, though, because I’d been in the middle of reading a Dark Angel fic (via my smartphone) and couldn’t really focus on anything but wanting to get back to it. I am honestly a little bit concerned about my sanity. (It wasn’t even a particularly *good* Dark Angel fic, but it was an incredibly satisfying one in which Max recognized that Logan was a boring douche and that Alec was totally and completely awesome, and then Max and Alec had bantery romantic adventures together.)

Anyway, there are pictures and write-ups of the White Collar event here. I got there late but ended up in a lone seat in the fourth row. It would’ve been more fun if I’d known someone there and had someone to talk to. The audience was full of fans and must’ve been 90% female; the woman sitting next to me spent most of her time primping and leaning forward, blocking my view.

Marsha Thomason probably did the most talking of any cast member, and there was a very moving question from an audience member who talked about how inspiring it is to have a lesbian character of color as an accepted member of the team. Also, I realized why her dialog delivery seemed so stilted in the pilot–she’s English and was struggling a bit with the US accent. I definitely think she improved in her second episode. She was a lot of fun at the event.

Willie Garson closed the event with a surprisingly moving and thought-provoking speech about how television shows couldn’t exist without their fans, and how they become fan-driven as time goes on. It was interesting because it hit me how much more fan-driven and collaborative TV is than many other art forms, especially now that the Internet facilities so much two-way communication between show and fandom. This can be bad, obviously, if a show panders to the lowest common denominator, but it can also be really cool as canon takes on a life of its own and reacts to what fans love, and I think it’s a big part of why I keep returning to television as my fannish focus despite its many flaws. It’s a lot like a concert in a way, that when it’s good it’s a shared experience between artist and fan and each heightens the others experience. TV is like that symbiotic artist/fan concert experience, drawn out over months or years instead of the space of a few hours.

There was also some talk about how character-driven the show is and how Neal and Peter love each other (complete with Bomer/DeKay hug) but it wasn’t anything I hadn’t heard before in other interviews.

At the end, they gave out White Collar cookies. (Someone posted a photo here.) I couldn’t resist taking one because I wanted the label, although now I’m going to have to find a non-vegan to feed the actual cookies to. :P

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Dreamwidth now has expandable cut tags–you just click them open while reading your flist and don’t have to open a new tab. It’s awesome. I’m starting to seriously think about closing my hosted blog and moving over there permanently.

Originally published at rusty-halo.com. You can comment here or there.