Tag: Wonderfalls

Recipe for Success: The Surprisingly Charming ‘Hannibal’ Fandom

The ‘Hannibal’ fanbase has taken something potentially very twisted and grotesque, and reshaped it into something charming and cuddly, focused on love and flowers and puppies.

I don’t want my role on this website to be that of some gross White Knight, the dude constantly defending (largely female) fandom as if fans are incapable of standing up for their pretty little lady selves. But I do want to talk about fandom a lot, because the broader culture denigrates fandom in a way that is not, I think, unconnected to the (perceived) female dominance of fandom (*COUGH* MOFFAT *COUGH*), and I truly believe that fandom is a really important space for carving out counterreadings.

LOOK AT THEM. Look at girl!Supernatural and tell me it's not the best thing ever.
LOOK AT THEM. Look at girl!Supernatural and tell me it’s not the best thing ever. Source

I only started watching NBC’s Hannibal because of Bryan Fuller. Fuller created Wonderfalls and Pushing Daisies (and Dead Like Me, which I swear I will watch one day; please don’t let it ruin my credibility that I haven’t gotten to it yet), which are shows that seem tailor-made for me: they are charming and colorful and quirky and witty and delightsome, shows with a supernatural element and a slightly twisted edge and totally rad female characters. Much as I loved Silence of the Lambs when I was an angsty (and deeply closeted trans) teenager, I wasn’t at all sure how well the good Dr. Lecter would lend himself to the Fuller aesthetic, but it’s turned out quite interesting.

The aesthetic is definitely the most striking thing about the show. You’ll see it described in terms like sumptuous, operatic, Lynchian, bombastic. It’s a show that is deliberately dreamlike, blurring the distinction between fantasy and “reality” (where the reality is, of course, itself a fiction), exploring the beauty of horror in a febrile dream of refined grotesquery. It’s not, perhaps, traditionally “girly.”

Well, until the fans get their hands on it. Source
Well, until the fans get their hands on it. Source

The cast is also noticeably more male-dominated than Fuller’s previous shows. Even though IMDb’s cast listing suggests that Beverly Katz (Hettienne Park) and Alana Bloom (Caroline Dhavernas, or as she’ll always be to me, Jaye Tyler) are just as prominent as Hannibal and Will Graham, this is really not the case. Katz and Bloom are both pretty awesome, and the choice to genderflip the book’s Alan Bloom was a very good one, but they are definitely backgrounded in comparison to the main dudes.

I like the show fine, but to be perfectly honest I like the fandom more. The fandom is the thing that’s keeping me engaged. Fuller himself expresses it nicely in this Entertainment Tonight interview:

I was surprised at the demographic that the show was reaching. A significant portion was young, smart, well-read women; they really responded to this show and I typically relate to young, bright ladies [laughs]. It was nice to see how enthusiastic and passionate they were. And, also, happy in the face of the dark material. They found joy and hope in something that is arguably quite bleak. I found that really rewarding and as somebody who is a fan of many things myself, I appreciate and relate to being enthusiastic about a show you love. I think it’s wonderful.

Aw, he looks so much less murdery with flowers on his head! Source
Aw, he looks so much less murdery with flowers on his head! Source

One example of what Fuller’s talking about is the whole flower crown incident of 2013. Last year, for whatever reason (can you fathom the mysteries of memes?), the fandom started photoshopping flower crowns onto pictures of the Hannibal cast. The joke spilled over into real life at Comic-Con, where the show’s cast and crew wore actual flower crowns.

Then, of course, there is the inevitable shipping. Fans love their “Hannigram,” the proposed romantic pairing of Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham. Canonically, the relationship between Lecter and Graham is certainly intense and obsessive, but it’s fair to say that it’s not really sexual. Fuller’s reponse to the shippers is wonderful.

The correct response to, well, all of fandom.
The correct response to, well, all of fandom.

He’s gracious and respectful, recognizing that slash is an important creative outlet for a lot of people, and opening space for it to exist as a kind of paratextual AU with canon’s blessing. Bryan Fuller is the best at having fans.

The Hannibal fanbase has taken something potentially very twisted and grotesque, and reshaped it into something charming and cuddly, focused on love and flowers and puppies. That in itself is very Bryan Fuller, and it’s also something I find very delightful and redemptive. I think the (young, female) Hannibal fans are doing a really cool counterreading that’s extremely needed by our violence- and crime-obsessed culture. Long may it last.

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Max Thornton blogs at Gay Christian Geek, tumbles as trans substantial, and is slowly learning to twitter at @RainicornMax. You can donate to his surgery fundraiser here.

Why I Love ‘Wonderfalls’

If you want to be taken seriously as a television fan (and who doesn’t hold that as their highest life goal?), you have to know how to talk the talk. You have to have an opinion on when exactly The Office jumped the shark.You have to be able to namedrop characters from The Wire, even if you’ve never seen it (cough). You have to loudly lament, at the slightest provocation, the untimely cancellation of some of your most beloved shows: Firefly, Arrested Development, Freaks and Geeks.
And, if you really want to prove your credentials, you should have a little list of rather less well-known shows whose early demise you can bewail with even greater fervor. Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace. Terriers. Wonderfalls.
I have lots of squishy feelings about Wonderfalls. Hailing from the mind of Bryan Fuller, which also graced us with the late, longed-for Pushing Daisies and Dead Like Me, Wonderfalls aired all of four episodes prior to its ignominious termination. (It can’t have helped that one of its executive producers was Tim “Touch of Death” Minear.) The remaining nine episodes saw the light of day in a nifty little DVD set which you should own.
In this gif, the part of Wonderfalls is played by Daria. Wait, that’s kind of confusing.
With every passing show of his that is born into this world, shimmers momently like a beautiful dragonfly, and is mercilessly slaughtered by evil network execs, I become more convinced that Bryan Fuller is a cruelly underrated genius whose mind is a gorgeous happyland full of puppies and rainbows and sparkly cupcakes of loveliness. If I can whip the nerds up into a Whedonesque frenzy over the name of Bryan Fuller, then maybe we can keep his next project on the air longer than five minutes. To that end, I offer five reasons why Wonderfalls is supergreat and awesome and should be watched and loved by all television-minded lifeforms.
Inside Bryan Fuller’s brain. Artist‘s rendition.
1. Jaye Tyler
Jaye is one of the best female characters I’ve ever seen on a TV show, and one of my favorite TV characters full stop. She’s a disaffected twenty-something philosophy grad living in a trailer park and working in a Niagara Falls gift shop, where the souvenirs start talking to her and guiding her to help others – which, as a curmudgeonly cynic to the bone, is the last thing Jaye wants.
Not that Jaye knows what she wants: “There is no ‘like me.’ I’m not ‘like’ anything, and if I were it certainly wouldn’t be me.” In the episode “Karma Chameleon,” Jaye is taken as an exemplar of Gen Y: directionless, shrouded in a facade of ennui and many protective layers of irony, feeling suffocated by the weight of her successful family’s expectations.Considering in how many fields of life women are still considered a special interest group who can be represented by men but can’t represent them, I find it very awesome that this show’s schlubby everyperson character, who undergoes a slow but sure transformation from acerbic jerk to somewhat caring human being, is a young woman.
2. Female Friendship
Jaye and Mahandra

I love Mahandra. I love her so, so much. (I love everything about this show to a superlative degree; it’s possible you’ve noticed.) Mahandra is Jaye’s best friend, her witty, sometimes scathing voice of reason, and the lone character of color in the main cast. Although much of the series’ overarching plot concerns the budding relationship between Jaye and heartbroken hottie bartender Eric, it’s the friendship between Jaye and Mahandra that I find most memorable and delightful.
It would be remiss of me not to mention Jaye’s relationship with big sister Sharon, which is very strained at the beginning of the series but develops into an appropriately sisterly bond of mutual irritation but rock-solid support – largely thanks to Jaye’s inadvertently facilitating the meet-cute between Sharon and her girlfriend.
3. Feminist Sensibilities
Watching disturbing rom-com cliches get subverted is something I very much enjoy, and Wonderfalls has a great example in the episode “Pink Flamingos,” where Jay and Mahandra attend their high-school reunion and encounter mean girl Gretchen. Of course, Gretchen turns out to be a sad sack trapped in a loveless marriage; of course, she winds up in the bathroom trying to scrub a drink stain out of her dress; of course, the boy who had always admired her from afar takes this chance to tell her about the feelings he still has for her, which massages her ego – and then she tells him he’s creepy and threatens him with mace. It’s brilliant.
(The evil-cheating-manipulative-wife trope employed elsewhere in the show leaves a little something to be desired, but I’m trying to accentuate the positive here.)
And I’m supposed to believe Jewel Staite is evil and manipulative??
4. Metaphysics and Philosophy
It’s a show about a woman who follows the cryptic directives of talking figurines, to the betterment of her life and those of the people around her. That premise was always going to raise interesting philosophical and theological questions, and it’s enriched by Jaye’s philosophy degree and her older brother’s studies in comparative religion. I mourn the fact that Wonderfallsnever got a chance to explore all the fascinating possibilities raised here. It’s a cruel world.
5. That Awesome Theme Song
Okay, this one is nothing more than a personal bias. XTC is one of my all-time favorite bands, and the last place I expect to hear a song from their main man Andy Partridge is on an American TV show in 2004. I love this theme song A LOT. It’s catchy, quirky, and – to me at least – irresistibly loveable. Like XTC, and like Wonderfalls itself.
 
  
Max Thornton blogs at Gay Christian Geek, and is slowly learning to twitter at @RainicornMax.