DARK SHADOWS FORUMS
Members' Mausoleum => Calendar Events / Announcements Archive => Calendar Events / Announcements '24 I => Calendar Events / Announcements '11 II => Topic started by: David on August 30, 2011, 07:00:28 PM
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I have nearly 300 Facebook friends. Half of them are fellow DS fans.
I'm openly gay, super liberal, pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, anti-tea party, half Israeli and very open about that too.
So how do I react when I see fellow DS fans who worship uber-homophobes like Glenn Beck/Sarah Palin, or who are pro-life and anti-marriage equality?
I'm doing a good deal of soul searching about this right now, as I see some of these fans postings jokes about killing Obama, or speaking out against choice & gay marriage. I have 8 DS friends who Liked Glenn Beck's Facebook page, four who Liked Palin's.
Some of these same people are also uber-supportive of Israel, where I once lived and hope to live again some day, which makes things even more confusing to deal with.
These people are always super polite and never post these things on my page.
I've thought of deleting them, but I don't want to be rude or too judgmental.
When it comes to DS fandom, do we leave our politics at the door and embrace people whose core beliefs are offensive to our own, and who might not support our personal liberties?
I'm really in a sort of mini-crisis about this, because I don't want to be rude to anyone who's not been rude to me.
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David: I am afraid the reality is that a shared love of Dark Shadows does not necessarily signal somebody who will become a close friend, or even necessarily a casual acquaintance. I've met people who told me they were huge fans of DS and often as not nothing came of the meeting. In some cases, the people just seemed "off" to me in a way that usually makes me less than keen for further contact. I don't feel the need to go on and on about this. Every fandom has its share of "God's special children" (to coin a phrase).
I have found that some fans do become friends in a way that is very natural. A conversation that begins about the artistic genius of Grayson Hall may branch out into other areas of shared interest, and if you keep seeing the individual over the weekend, by the time you're saying goodbye, a friendship is born.
I personally don't think "Friending" someone on F-book is all that significant. Just my personal take on that site. I think though if someone expresses views that offend you, you are perfectly within your rights to unfriend them. In most of the cases there probably wasn't a genuine basis for true friendship in any case.
Just how I see things--your mileage may vary. Good luck.
G.
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I'm an absolute monarchist who's trying to have myself crowned the All-Powerful Royal Grand Potentate Emperor. Other than once being elected a back-up student council member my first year in college, I haven't gotten very far yet. But even if DS fans aren't in full support of my Imperial goal and rule, I still love sharing DS with them. When it happens, my first royal edict would be to make everyone love DS as much as we do.
Gerard
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Here is my thoughts. You have to respect the beliefs of others. Some of the people that don't agree politicaly have been some of the best of friends. It all depends on peoples actions.
Look at the times that people have worked together to get things done. When there is an emergency usually will work together to get things done. When someone has an emergency, most people don't assk them on what they believe.
I have always operated on, don't do something to somebody that you wouldn't want to happen to you. :)
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Unless someone is supporting violence against a particular group, I leave politics at the door when I'm into fannish things. I don't even want to discuss it. I say let's agree to disagree and watch DS or whatever. My wife and I don't even agree on many of the topics that were mentioned. Her views on illegal immigrants are much more negative than mine. Emphasize the word ILLEGAL. She has no racial prejudices against people who come to this country via the prescribed way, through customs. I'm on the fence about gay marriage; she opposes it. I'm anti-death penalty, she's pro. I voted, reluctantly, for Obama; she didn't. I love DS, and she thinks it's boring. The relationship still works.
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Hi David,
I have friends on my Facebook, fellow Dark Shadows friends, family, work and childhood friends and it seems many have opposing views from me. I consider myself very Liberal for the most part and try to keep my Facebook to people I have either something in common with as far as an interest ( Like Dark Shadows, Music, Movies etc) or just keeping up with cousins. Thankfully, my friends with different views respect mine and I theirs as well. If anyone is being antagonistic toward you and your beliefs or posting violence or hate then just remove them from your friends list. If their beliefs just hurt your feelings then it might be a good opportunity to reach out and privately speak to them if they seem worth the friendship. I have found most Dark Shadows fans to be kindhearted and tolerant. Remember it's not the quantity of friends you have but the quality. Delete away!
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Doctor, I'm shocked! You haven't divorced your wife?!?! She finds DS boring? My goodness, if that doesn't constitute grounds, I don't know what does!
Gerard
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I agree with the others in so much as that politics and fandom don't ever go hand in hand. Fandoms are so widespread and varied that you're going to have all kinds of crazies involved (aren't we all crazy anyway?!) and there will most definitely be a number of people that you totally and utterly disagree with on everything else but your love of Dark Shadows.
While I agree with pretty much everything you posted, that does not mean everyone will. I also agree that if someone you are friends with on Facebook is posting things that will appear on your Wall that you hate or really and truly disturb you, just delete them. Why bother yourself over agonizing whether it's rude? At the end of the day the only thing that matters is that you are surrounding yourself with positive energy or whatever you need to get through.
One thing that I completely do not understand about all of my friends--those I've met through Dark Shadows and those I'm friends with on a daily basis--is why everyone tends to shy away from talking about politics when that's one of the things we SHOULD always be talking about. I have several friends that I love to death but when we talk about politics I find myself thinking "I can't believe they're such a moron or that they're so ignorant about this, that, or the other thing." At the end of the day I'm still friends with this person because I appreciate intelligent conversation, even if our view points are completely different.
All in all, you have to decide what works for you and what doesn't. If people are ticking you off, check them OFF your friends list.
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thanks, everyone. I've been monitoring the replies and thinking deeply.
Gerard: ROFL!!!!! Good one!
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A good policy might be to allow anyone a certain substantial period as a FB friend, and if she/he doesn't put his/her foot in her/his mouth politically in that time... allow more time. And I don't mean just liking Sarah Palin or being a fundamentalist. Occasionally I find someone who has these inexplicable (to me) characteristics, and I turn out to get along better with them than I do with a hundred who supposedly agree with me politically. I'd say wait for specific distasteful ideas to crop up. Then address them, don't, or just drop the FB friendship...
Then again, I don't "friend" people on the basis of their being DS fans, anymore. If they like DS but have other interests too, and aren't FB gamne players, and don't use too many exclamation points, then I might. Above all else, I head off conflicts, because I'm no longer in any state to withstand any. I'm getting good at it, I think. I create havens for myself on the Internet where arguments don't get out of hand.
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Which raises something I wondered about - how many FB people here friend someone merely because they are a fan of a TV show? DS or anything else?
I do not friend people just because they like DS or any other show/program. I will friend someone for networking purposes even if I don't know them well. Come to think of it - I think most of my FB friends are made up of folks I've known/met outside of fandom. Whether or not they like DS hasn't ever come up that I recall.
As far as differing political viewpoints - I have friends who are more conservative and liberal than I am. The basis for most of my friendships is a mutual respect for differences we hold and not seeking to hurt other groups of people simply because we don't like them or think they are inferior. I will not have anyone in my life (or on FB) who actively seeks to hurt others because of some false sense of superiority. I have defriended people for that.
Nancy
Then again, I don't "friend" people on the basis of their being DS fans, anymore. If they like DS but have other interests too, and aren't FB gamne players, and don't use too many exclamation points, then I might. Above all else, I head off conflicts, because I'm no longer in any state to withstand any. I'm getting good at it, I think. I create havens for myself on the Internet where arguments don't get out of hand.
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I get a sense of there being a great mass of DS-only fans, or DS-mostly, and that they expect friending reciprocations from any and all fans. Despite being starved for online friends, contact, and good will, I friended them at first, then they all went off and played games and wouldn't talk! Many collect FB friends, and have thousands. I'm a drop in their social ocean. Me, the more friends I have who don't speak or know me (or vice versa), the more alone I feel. I'm going through that sort of phase right now. Friend-collectors won't notice if you drop them, that's one consolation.
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After rereading David's post, I think I would seriously consider "unfriending" anyone who supported even in jest, the assassination of the President, any president.
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I have a few "friends" on Facebook that I have never met, but with whom I share certain "passions" (e.g., "Dark Shadows"), and there are also friends with different political backgrounds. I try to be respectful of those friends (that I know in real life) who are fans of Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, etc. But if anyone were to post anti-gay comments, I would unfriend them immediately (since I am gay and very liberal and oppose bigotry). BTW, David, I am proud to count you as a Facebook friend! Brian
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Thanks Brian, Magnus & everyone.
I just unfriended & blocked two DS fans who Liked a FB page calling for Obama's death.
That page also makes snarky references to the deaths of Patrick Swayze, Farrah Fawcett, & Michael Jackson.
The Doctor is correct: calling for the death of any President is too much. A shared love of DS is not enough to get me to put up with such thinking.
And making fun about people who died tragically at younger ages? Nope, not even DS, which has had a profound effect on my life, will get me to be OK with that.
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The one calling for the president's death ought to be reported too (too late now I guess?) and not just to FB. The Secret Service ought to pay him a visit.
I like black humor when it's done right. Good, real black humor acknowledges the seriousness of what's being joked about, though sometimes it may not show on the surface. There's a difference between that and just making light of people's deaths. It sounds as if these people are doing the latter. No excuse for that.
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I'm openly gay, super liberal, pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, anti-tea party, half Israeli and very open about that too.
So how do I react when I see fellow DS fans who worship uber-homophobes like Glenn Beck/Sarah Palin, or who are pro-life and anti-marriage equality?
How may of these views, or any other important views you hold, do you believe that reasonable people could disagree about? If the answer is none of them, that may be the problem. I found it a bit unsettling that your post seems to equate people who advocate violence with anyone who holds any opposing view of any kind.
If one thinks that every issue is black and white, and anyone with a different view is a monster, then it probably does seem odd when the "monsters" like some of the same shows or movies that oneself does. I'm not saying you do that, but I know people who do. I had to unfriend one liberal friend on Facebook simply because she writes a dozen posts a day, all political, and all bigoted diatribes about how much she despises anyone with a different idea. Never any substance or argument, just raw emotion. Actually, it's so extreme that I suspect her life is going very badly, but I don't know her well enough any more to be able to ask personal questions, and it was simply too embarrassing to be associated with her. But there are other people with views on public policy identical to hers, who I'd never consider unfriending, because their views are based on a reasoning process that they're capable of selling and defending.
To equate Beck with somebody who advocates violence is a bit absurd. I've heard him speak a few times and he's one of those guys who specializes in saying nothing at all for long periods of time. I once saw him spend an hour talking about a book about George Washington without saying anything about it that he couldn't have read on the dust jacket. The first time I ever saw his show, I was playing Age of Empires, the show came on, and I was too busy to change channels. After a couple of minutes I thought "Gee, these introductory remarks are taking a long time. I looked at the clock and saw that I'd lost track of time, the show as more than half over, and he still hadn't said a darned thing. As far as inflammatory rhetoric goes, there are probably people you agree with who are much bigger offenders in this regard.
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I never equated Beck with violence, but Beck does use his platform to keep people like me from having full equality.
It's one thing to disagree, it's another to actively target a group of people to stop them from having the same rights as everyone else.
BTW, some of the religious groups now obsessed with homosexuality also tried to have DS taken off the air in 1968 because they found the Nick Blair story offensive & satanic.
At what point do we tell them to stop trying to force us to adhere to their views?
And when does it become OK to say: "you're not a nice person, begone!" (not saying this to anyone in this thread)
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Thanks for attempting a DS tie-in, but the truth is that the discussion isn't about DS or its fans anymore and is therefore far off topic.
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Just for the record, I honestly see the two (1968 & today) as being the same thing done by the same people.
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I remember TLATKLS once making what could be considered an opinion about DS's popularity and politics. She stated that when it aired, the country was mired in massive social and political change and turmoil, and the show (along with Star Trek) allowed people to escape and enjoy other times and places with their own turmoil far removed from where they audience was.
Gerard
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TLATKLS? I assume the KLS is Kathryn Leigh Scott, but what do the letters before siginify?
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"The Lovely and Talented," I'm sure. [ghost_smiley]
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The book TV Milestones: DS states that the show's explosion in popularity began during the Summer of Love, barely 3 months after Barnabas' arrival. The author argues that the show's radically different nature appealed to the Peace and Love crowd, who were rejecting the politics, morals & culture of their parents.
The show's huge audience among gay men & lesbians, according to the book, is directly tied to closeted vampire Barnabas.
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BTW, some of the religious groups now obsessed with homosexuality also tried to have DS taken off the air in 1968 because they found the Nick Blair story offensive & satanic.
Well, to play you-know-who's advocate) it is, isn't it? Nicholas is a warlock, trying to use Adam to create a race of Satanic Supermen, and in one episode, actualy goes to Hell for a meeting with the Big D (I guess they didn't have gotomeeting.com then). I found it more funny than offensive, but I can't claim to be shocked that someone might look askance at that. You could get in more trouble with Muslims for simply depicting Muhammad, so that was one of the milder reactions.
Anyway, if you haven't seen my rendition of the Angelique in Hell Sequence, and want to opine, I still have it online at
http://graeme.t15.org/burkedevlin/anghell/index.htm
It's got a little analysis, along with the scripts of the original episode for comparison purposes. Nicholas lays out the whole plan explicitly in Ep 628.
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I wonder if they tuned into a minute or two with Blair, and assumed he was meant to be the good guy! As long as the point of view of the show was clearly anti-Satan, which it was, calling it Satanic was insane!
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Do fans universally dislike Nicholas and Angelique, or are they often made to seem likable and/or sympathetic? I'm not sure about Nicholas, but Angelique is extremely popular, and not always in a "Love to hate" way. I remember kids playing Dark Shadows as a kid, and lots of people wanted to play her.
Change the setting from the supernatural to, say, a show about Nazis. A documentary is fine, but a show that made the audience identify and sympathize with Nazi characters would probably get a lot of blowback. That's why a show like Hogan's Heroes made the likable Germans like Schultz and Klink, into idiots. DS is in a similar situation, but unlike Hogan's Heroes, it really has very few good characters. Almost everyone is deeply flawed in some way, and the ones who aren't (like Vicki), are the dumb ones. I can see that some parents might object to it. In a way, it's a grown-up show, like a supernatural Peyton Place, but it did have a lot of appeal for kids.
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A show about likable Nazis would be offensive, considering how many people the Nazis killed, but to compare that to DS is absurd: DS is fun to watch, but it's also so far removed from reality that being offended by it seems ridiculous.
Funny, witty captions, btw.
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There may have been fans who were on Blair or Angelique's side, and liked their agenda, but it's hard to imagine. The point of view of the show was that they were villains, and had to be stopped. How anti-Satanic can you get? These churches should have been writing fan letters and asking parishioners to watch every day. Are the villains attractive characters? Yes, but they often are, and devils are supposed to be. They're supposed to be magnetic and entice you in. Dark Shadows should have been a Biblical literalist's dream TV show.
Never mind that the men of God on DS are also bad guys, and that the hero's a vampire. Details, details...
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In a way it is a Biblical literalist's dream. Check this dialogue from the transcript on my website:
"(Julia) Then... why did you come here? You have powers at your command, why don't you bring Eve to life?"
"(Nicholas) If that were the case, I could have used them to avoid the first two experiments. Why didn't I do that?"
"(Julia) You tell me."
"(Nicholas) Because it was imperative that Eve be created artificially, the same as Adam was."
"(Julia) Why?"
"(Nicholas) For the answer to that, I refer you to the book of Genesis. The original Adam and Eve were tempted by the Master."
"(Julia) By... Satan."
"(Nicholas) I know him... by another name. At any rate, the first man and woman yielded to temptation, sinned against their maker. For this they were punished. But they remained his children nevertheless. Now... now after thousands of years, there is a new Adam, a new Eve! Different from every living human being and yet... human, just the same. And they, and all who they breed shall be the children of my master!"
"(Julia) It's... monstrous!"
"(Nicholas) Yes. It is intended to be."
Side Note: This makes the whole Diabolos business even more convoluted than it was. The original idea was that having the Devil on TV was a bit too much, so they filed the serial numbers off and made him "Diabolos", a Prince of Darkness, but not any particular one, mind you. Of course they never called him that onscreen, so you had to read the credits to even notice it. But now Nicholas comes flat out and says that Diabolos is Satan, making you wonder what the point of the name change was in the first place. That's why my page has that one caption that always cracks me up no matter how many times I read it:
"(Nicholas) Genesis, Chapter 3, okay? Adam and Eve were tempted by the Master."
"(Julia) By Satan!!"
"(Nicholas) I know him by another name. A super secret name. A name that no mortal has ever heard and lived to tell the tale!"
"(Julia) Oh, you mean Diabolos."
"(Nicholas) D'oh!"
Anyway, it's true that Nick and Ang are the bad guys, but I can buy the idea that some might not think it a great show for kids. Like Peyton Place, there really are no Good Guys, or very few at least. On DS it's usually less Bad Guys vs. Good Guys than it is Bad Guys vs. Not-Quite-So-Bad Guys. From seeing it as a kid, I remembered Barnabas as being a good guy, but when seeing it years later, was surprised how seldom he was. Well, Julia was a good guy, at least. No, not really her either. Seeing it again years later, I was surprised how quick she was to abuse the doctor/patient relationship with Maggie, and cut corners whenever necessary to get what she wanted. At first she seemed to have some idea of winning the Nobel Prize for her anti-vampire elixir or something, and after that, she was Barnabas' enabler.
It's a good show, but not a great show for kids, as there are no real role models. Everyone is either deeply flawed, or perennially out of the loop. Some struggle against their flaws harder than others, but there's really nobody you'd want to emulate, at least not consistently. People have little flashes here and there. It really is like a supernatural Peyton Place, which wasn't a show for kids either.
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I could be wrong, but I don't think they started referring to the Devil or Prince of Darkness/Fire on the series until Cassandra showed up in the Spring of 1968. While Cass is incanting over her favorite Dr. Lang doll/pincushion, at one point she exclaims "my powers were given to me by the Devil himself!" If you go back and watch the original 1795 episodes, Angelique's original spells are all more like hedge witchcraft, involving herbs, object links belonging to the person, etc. Demonology enters the picture when she creates the bat to be her servitor and spy on Barnabas but even then I don't recall her mentioning the Devil, though Hell may have been mentioned.
I could never understand why they started up with the Satan stuff in 1968 but then it hit me: Rosemary's Baby was big news so the writers decided to introduce that element.
I guess that even though the Diabolos sequences come across today as atmospheric but on the edge of a little TOO extreme (GREAT voicework from the guy who played Diabolos), the production unit never again revisited this particular terrain. But it was enshrined forever in our memories because THESE were the episodes chosen for the series' Viewmaster reel.
In the booklet that came with the reel, incidentally, "Diabolos" is referred to as Balberith. I don't know whether that came from a DS script, or if whoever wrote the booklet came up with that name themselves. There's a Wikipedia entry on Baal-berith (who, like many demons, started out life as a Canaanite Deity) but I quite like this site where he is described as "chief secretary of Hell"... which fits rather well with the DS representation of him, don't you think?
http://www.whiterosesgarden.com/Nature_of_Evil/Demons/List_of_Demons/B_contents/baalberith.htm
cheers, Gothique (rhymes with "eek!")
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In the booklet that came with the reel, incidentally, "Diabolos" is referred to as Balberith.
I believe it's in one or both of the PomPress DS Almanacs that Balberith was Diabolos' original name.
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It may have been. That is the name that was used in the Dark Shadows Viewmaster Reel
http://graeme.t15.org/burkedevlin/viewmasterds/index.htm
And Viewmaster often worked with early drafts of scripts, that were changed by the time the show made it to the air. (For instance, in their Star Trek Viewmaster reel, the original name of Raintree is still used for the security guard, but in the show it was changed to Galloway when David L. Ross was cast in the part).
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Chief Secretary of Hell is pretty appropriate, considering he has a DESK. There are a few things DS did that I have a hard time believing were unintentionally funny. I think a few things, like Diabolos' desk were deliberate funnies on somebody's part, that they thought nobody would notice.
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BD-- Thanks for the information. I'd say that DS's muddy morality made it PERFECT for the forming minds of kids, though. It was certainly one of a few influences on me that saved me from acceptance of simplistic, dishonest morality. The Trasks especially, and Barnabas, who has a definite good man inside him, somewhere, trying to get out, however much this may be distorted.
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Yeah, there's some truth to that. A show where the Good Guys always and automatically do the right thing, and there's no question about it can be very facile.
You may know that Harlan Ellison and Gene Roddenberry had such a disagreement about Harlan's version of City on the Edge of Forever. In the original version, the conflict is initiated when a minor crewmember named Beckwith is running drugs on the Enterprise, and kills a crewmemeber about to expose him, then escapes to the Time Planet. Gene wouldn't go for it. "Our people wouldn't act that way." Harlan's attitude was if you stick 430 people on a tin can in deep space, doesn't it stand to reason that you might get a bad apple or two in the barrel? But no, Gene had these ideas about the ultimate perfectability of the human race, and didn't want any non-Boy Scouts in his crew.
The end of the show had a similar problem. In Harlan's version, Kirk is unable to bring himself to keep McCoy from saving Edith Keeler when push comes to shove, and so Spock has to do it for him. In the aired version, whatever angst Kirk may have about it, you know he's going to fall in line and do it when the time comes, and he does. I always found Harlan's version more believable. Old "change the conditions of the test" Kirk wouldn't just accept that somebody had to die, and do it. The way the problem was set up, it wasn't necessary for her to die necessarily, only to be prevented from forming her pacifist movement. There are lots of way of doing that. If Kirk were a real person, he would surely have saved her now, and worried about the other later. The aired version is very facile compared to the story originally intended.
Dark Shadows is similar. It's never a given that anyone is going to do the right thing. When these deeply flawed characters do break through and do the right thing, it means something, because they fail as often as they succeed. But still, I can sympathize with a parent who thought it wasn't a great show for children. It might be good for kids, if the parents sat down afterwards and talked out all the issues that were raised, but many parents don't want to do that, and just use the TV as an electronic babysitter.
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Gene had these ideas about the ultimate perfectability of the human race, and didn't want any non-Boy Scouts in his crew.
Yeah we can't have a bad apple on the Enterprise. It's OK though, for its sister ship, the Exeter to have a captain who sells out and is willing to commit murder for near immortality in "The Omega Glory". Ron Tracy was as bad, if not worse than Beckwith, and the script in question was written by Roddenberry! I guess I won't dwell on Merrick of the SS Beagle. He sold his crew to the Romans in "Bread and Circuses", but he was a "spaceship commander" not the master of a starship. They went to great pains to make the distinction. Still, he should certainly be consdidered more reliable than say your average yeoman. Either Roddenberry changed his mind, or he was just being silly.
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BD-- I agree, sort of, about DS morality. I think it's good to show kids things questioning traditional morality though, as with the Trasks being bad guys. It presented an opposing point of view to stimulate young minds, when so often parents wanted kids just to keep quiet, and obey mindless dehumanizing rules. As for explaining it to kids, I got DS more than my parents did.
I'll PM you on Trek...
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The reason why the characters on both Dark Shadows and Star Trek had angst came from the same source. On either show, in the years both were on TV, did you ever once, just once, see a "restroom" in either Collinwood or the Enterprise?
You'd have angst, too.
Gerard
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You'd have angst, too.
Especially on Dark Shadows, where, if you decided to use the great outdoors, you could never be sure you weren't peeing on your own grandfather.
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[laughing4]
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[laughing4]
Seconded, Lydia!
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[laughing4]
Do I say I third that. :)
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Doesn't 1795 Angelique admonish Jeremiah to return to his grave in the name of Beelzebub? But I agree, Gothy: 1795 Angelique doesn't seem demonic until after she dies. Maybe Nicholas got ahold of her at that point and Satan-ified her.
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1795 Angelique doesn't seem demonic until after she dies. Maybe Nicholas got ahold of her at that point and Satan-ified her.
Maybe Satan Satan-ified her. I imagine that the two met shortly after she died. You're just the kind of young go-getter I need in my organization, Satan probably said.