Just Shut Up And Make Your Art

I was just watching the last DVD of the last season (4)* of Heroes. Right after the penultimate episode, instead of going to the big final episode, the creator breaks in.

"I just found out that Heroes won't be renewed for another season so I insisted that we put this spot on the DVD, blah, blah, blerg, zzzzzzzzzzz"

I fast-forwarded through it. Really, guy, I like Heroes. Not you. Shut up.

I see that a lot lately. Brooke McEldowney is actually re-running an entire Pibgorn storyline with commentary. And Pibgorn storylines are long. So, he's taking something like a year to basically replay the storyline with the commentary track turned on. I almost never listen to commentary tracks. At least, it's been fodder for endless snarking on The Comics Curmudgeon.

I've been reading my way through the archive of another great strip, Questionable Content, and each strip comes with a little news post, and the author actually seems guilty sometimes if he doesn't have anything interesting to say. Even if he has nothing to say, he says something like "Here's the strip!" which is fairly redundant and pointless, if you ask me.

This modern penchant for the artist or creator to inflict his thoughts on us outside his work is really grating. Frankly, very few producers of entertainment (painters, playwrights, fiction authors, and so on) are particularly interesting in and of themselves. They have a talent. They should shut up and use it. Let their work speak for itself.

I can imagine if we had to listen to a composer commentary track of Mozart, a lot of people would be like, "Oh. My. God. Shut up already, you weirdo!" That's the thing: at its worst, creator commentary cheapens and demystifies. A very rare writer -- a C.S. Lewis -- can expound thoughtfully on his own writing, but most creator/actor commentaries these days aren't thoughtful expositions, they're "Uh, yeah, in that seen, Ali Larter had to hold really still for about two hours while we sprayed the fake ice on her. She hated that, but she was a real trooper. Hah, hah." (I'm just making that up, by the way. If that's a true story, it's entirely coincidence).

Thankfully, I'm usually able to just skip past such things, thank goodness. I suppose they're popular in the fan market, but I really think they detract from the art or entertainment itself.

* Mostly off-topic, but God-damnit, can't the studios have a little respect for the fans and let shows go a full run, so they can wrap up the plots in a satisfying manner? Do they have to make all these renewal decisions on a yearly last-minute basis? I am pretty freaking sick of shows like Heroes and Firefly getting the axe without even getting a chance to finish their story arcs while trash like Jersey Shore and America's Next Top Model goes on and on. Can't they have a little self-respect and show faith in shows with some depth, creativity and quality? Shows you can't necessarily "get" with a 10-second synopsis? It really shakes your faith in humanity to see what's popular.