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covenantscribe · 4 months ago

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Prejudgement: Jacob Anderson – Face of 'Woke' & 'Unnecessary'

Summary and disclosure:

This will be a series formatted post on the topic of Interview with the Vampire AMC and the reactions of Fandom before the airing of Season One. Following the conversations around the choices of casting and concentrating on the issues on some public takes.

This post will be used for reference in future posts on this blog. This post discusses racism. This post contains mature language.

Part One | Understanding: Permission, Author & Fandom

As a person who has been passively taking in fanwork for the majority of my life and not knowing it, I could not understand how it feels to be part of an hyper-active fandom. Nor did I understand how one feels to be in it.

The fandoms I have been a part of that I can compare to Interview with the Vampire is: Hannibal (HBO), Teen Wolf and Shadow Hunters.

By the time I came into the fandom it was already "dead" – meaning that the show had aired and 'finished' airing and not much discourse was around it. So what did I do to be considered part of this fandom and passively interacting?

Well I created pins, created Moodboards and watched some edits on YouTube and TikTok (when it became famous during 2020). And for a few of the fandoms I read Fanfics. Completed ones mainly mind you.

So imagine how unprepared I was going into Interview with the vampire fandom. Of course there was excitement. I was going to be one of those people that would see a Tumblr post on Pinterest and be able to say:

Who wouldn't be excited? I was there when Cord of Communion by weathermood was written which is crazy to say now that I think about. One of the most loved and well known Interview with the vampire Fics. I was there when the Helen of Troy meme started. It was absolutely insane. I felt like someone who had invested in Bitcoin and feeding off its success.

But I was not part of the fandom who came from the original text. And I - as someone who held themselves in high regard to come from those who read the books before the movies came into existence - put them in high regard.

This did not last as I realised that those who I put on high regard did not in fact want me - a black person - in the fandom. Or at least that is how I felt. Just as I felt when Ariel was casted black. I was quickly losing interest in the fandom I so desperately wanted to be in.

Let's start from the beginning:

On May 13, 2020 AMC announced that it entered an agreement to acquire Anne Rice's major literary works. It further continued to state in the article that Anne Rice herself was excited for her works to be represented so wholly and that she was more than satisfied with the deal. Anne Rice's son was also announced to be supportive and working alongside Rolin Jones.

It's acknowledged how big the franchise is with a large number of fans behind the works. This is said, paraphrased obviously, by Rolin Jones himself.

And I mean the guy is right. Damn is he right. Anne Rice works, especially The Vampire Chronicles in my experience, has a huge fan base. The Vampire Chronicles has, to this current date I'm writing in have over 3000 works on AO3. Has a different forum of Reddit from just the authors name to the works themselves.

And let's not forget those on Tumblr from tags to people dedicated to the series and the author.

Rolin Jones was making an adaptation of Anne Rice's works. Had permission to do so. Now before we go on let's look at the definition of Adaptation:

a film, book, play, etc. that has been made from another film, book, play, etc.: From Cambridge Dictionary.

A more descriptive meaning:

I am a firm believer that this would have changed and avoided many harmful idealogies and actions in the fandom. But I digress.

A fandom is described as to a community of people who are passionate about something, whether it’s a film, a band, a television show, a book, or a sports team. (x)

A fandom is important because it provides opportunities to connect with other like-minded individuals. It also serves a purpose of allowing easy discovery from an interest into another range of interest. More importantly: Fandom can shape and influence decisions of the media and how they interact with the show. Along with the creative decision of the creator.

The fandom of Interview with the vampire was already established from The Vampire Chronicles. People had a predispositioned idea on what to expect. The fandom in this time were, to no surprise, predominantly white fans. Not to say that no POC existed within this fandom that they were not the majority.

At the time of the announcement it did not make many waves to the unsuspecting people in the outside world. But the Fandom took note of this. [Obviously] Conversations and interviews were watched and re-watched of Anne Rice throughout the years and comments were made. This was about 4 to 3 years ago.

The casting was not released. No one really knew what was planned for these shows and when they would be aired. At this time I was still in my Hannibal obsession and the only thing about Interview with the vampire was from a meme with a white man saying: Not gay enough. On my Pinterest board.

So I cannot speak about my experience during this time in the fandom [though I do encourage people who were around this time to share your experiences with me if you want I'm curious how it was for different people] but the general consensus was trepidation and excitement.

I can understand this because not only did the fandom go around feeling like drug dealers in threat of getting busted by the police when writing and publishing Fanfic at the time but also Fanart and even Comics were made because of the love these people had for The Vampire Chronicles.

The fandom had an already made up idea on what this would mean for them. One of these ideas was definitely NOT a Black, Creole, 4b haired and green eyed vampire. Almost completely different from white, raven-chin length hair and green eyed Louis. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

At this time I can only imagine how the fandom was feeling about the adaptation because as much I can do further research and deep dive into digital foot print I do not have that kind of time in my hands at this point in my life.

Anne Rice works, I will say again, were celebrated and she was held in high regard by supernatural-loving fans. She was – and still – seen as the Mother of Modern Vampires and the depiction in media. She has influenced many well known and famous Vampire media such as Twilight and True Blood.

So I'm left with only imagining how it somewhat felt like for people looking forward to Disney live actions and the Teen Wolf movie. [The fandom was large in size but apparently not large enough to be a few hours of Google search away to be able to find out about the discourse around this point in time.]

But AMC worked fast (kudos to them honestly) and the next year around August of 2021. They came out with the main casting and...

Jacob Anderson was announced as our [cherished and loved] Louis du Lac of today.

This made waves in the fandom and lit the seat of the loyal fans to write about the current happenings in their fandom to all media platforms. Tumblr, Reddit, YouTube, Twitter X, etc.

As much as there were hesitant joy over it and encouragement over the happenings there was also...a lot of upset over the fans.

Shortly after this announcement Anne Rice died in December of 2021 [RIP🕊️]. She and her son had been working closely on the adaptation with Rolin Jones. Anne was survived by her son who stayed in the process of the production. This will ultimately be both significant and insignificant in the grand scheme of things regarding the fandom's reaction to everything before the airing of the Pilot episode of Interview with the Vampire AMC.

At this time I was also still absent from the fandom. Or rather I should say I was being introduced to the Pilot episode through one fated AMC TikTok promotion edit.

I was not online as much and thus wasn't affected as much during that time. Unknowing of the discourse around the Casting and the upcoming trailers brewing. I simply just saved the TikTok in my favourites and promised to watch it for later.

Though I can understand and sympathise at a certain point with the upset over the casting choices because as a book reader I can understand we do kinda gatekeep shit. But only up to a certain point because I get over it fast.

I understand what an adaptation is and what it means. It will mostly never mean a direct copy and paste of the book.

The cards had been shuffled and handed out and the game was about to begin. Word got around and before the airing of the Pilot episode of what would be the one of the most influencial piece of media to me, the people's feelings were simmering and were ready to burst.

How the audience reacted would forever determine what the Fandom looks now and how people interpret the characters. Unfortunately, in the long run, this transformation was not positive. But some, to this day would disagree.

Part Two | Reactions: Anger, Joy & Racism → Coming Soon

Part [1/?]

#iwtv meta #iwtv discourse #fandom discussion #intro to the rest of my post #trying to make this into bite sized chunks lol #edits will be made #iwtv #amc iwtv

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