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rusty_halo) wrote2010-06-08 01:54 pm
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.
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Ooh, I didn't know Marsha Thompson was British either! Also, I would totally eat your cookies if only I were in NYC.
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It's kind of a chocolate cake fic--I know it's bad but it made me happy. I loved seeing Alec at the center of the narrative and seeing Max appreciate him, and I adored the Logan-bashing (it's not even that mean, it's just having the characters react to his passive-aggressive whiny bullshit as if it's bullshit instead of ~long suffering herodom~). The h/c is also a bit gratuitous (but I kind of like that). The only thing I actually didn't like was the portrayal of Max as inferior to Alec--she was still kickass but secondary and did too much groveling to the awesome of Alec for my taste (and the elevation of the male to the heroic role in a canon driven by a female hero is obviously problematic). But the characterization of Alec is good (if a bit too heroic), the Max/Alec banter is great, and the adventure plot is excellent.
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For fic that isn't quite rec-worthy, but which definitely hits a lot of my banter-and-pining kinks, you should also check out
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I enjoyed reading your write-up, and I agree with you about Garson's closing comments and television storytelling. And heh, I was the one who asked Marsha Thomason about Diana (and Christie). Oh, man, was I anxious. I'm happy, though, that other people--and not just myself--found Diana's character (and Thomason's comments about her) to be meaningful.
I don't know if you'd be interested, as I'm a complete stranger, but I posted my own write-up of the panel at my LJ here (http://redjeweled.livejournal.com/20208.html). It's a bit tl;dr, and I come off as really excitable, but the relevant Marsha Thomason/Diana/Christie material is in the third part.
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I'm not sure if Bomer was the first
Yeah, I'm still not sure about that myself, but I remain thrilled that he felt comfortable enough to applaud at all! And that's the more important thing, really.
<3 them!