[This is the final of a three-part series highlighting some of Hannibal‘s unique contributions to the television world, in commemoration of its final week on NBC. Black-and-white art by travelersfarfromhome. See Part 1 here, Part 2 here, and please note that this post contains spoilers through episode 3.2]

I became interested in watching Hannibal after I attended a panel about the show at a fan convention geared towards young women. This panel represented the active fans that the show’s Tumblr had helped cultivate, the “Fannibals.” I was struck by how much they spoke of their love for the show’s female characters. Generally in programs with two male leads—especially shows with horror elements—female characters are peripheral and don’t stay alive for very long. Hannibal is ultimately also limited in this way—an issue that Hannibal actor Hettienne Park (Beverly Katz) has eloquently addressed—yet Hannibal still has many more recurring, sharply drawn female characters than do other shows of its genre (Supernatural, True Detective). Showrunner Bryan Fuller changed several key male characters from the source material (Alana Bloom, Freddie Lounds) to female characters and created a number of new female characters (including women of color). These decisions opened up many new points of identification for female viewers. As a result, Hannibal has expanded the cultural work of this gothic horror text and the resonance it has for contemporary female fans.

Here, I am focusing specifically on Hannibal‘s portrayal of teenage killer/survivor Abigail Hobbs because she has been so prominent in the fandom, particularly on Tumblr, a space where fandom and feminism frequently intersect. On Tumblr, fans’ larger cultural critiques focus on such topics as women’s devaluation through feminization and sexualization, particularly in the media; poor institutional and familial responses to women’s trauma; and the pathologizing of female deviance. For many of these viewers, Abigail Hobbs provides not only a point of convergence for these concerns but, in many ways, validates them.

Hannibal‘s grounding in gothic horror defines the kind of critical work it can do. As a genre, horror foregrounds deviant characters and thus puts the normative into relief. The subgenre of gothic horror has always had particular appeal for women, in part because its romanticism privileges emotional intensity over rationality, which in turn has the potential to de-naturalize the “rational” institutions and oppressive structures of patriarchy. The “monster” character central to the gothic often appears, initially, as an attractive male, a symbol of professional expertise, generous paternalism, and romantic sincerity, but these qualities are revealed to be deceptive and threatening to women.

Fuller invokes these gothic horror tropes in Hannibal in ways that particularly serve today’s female and feminist fans. For example, Fuller pledged not to show sexual violence toward any female characters on Hannibal (another change from the source material), a move that has impressed his female audience and has given the show’s feminism real weight. This is not to say that the show does not depict eroticized violence. Like a vampire, Hannibal exerts a sensuous appeal and he derives pleasure from bloodletting and feeding. Significantly, as in vampire narratives, the site of Abigail Hobbs’ penetration is displaced onto her throat. This permits the show to allude to sexual violence without engaging in representations of rape.

Abigail Hobbs is a central figure of Hannibal‘s first season, and her presence haunts the text (literally and symbolically) thereafter. Abigail is initially introduced as a traumatized girl whose throat, in the pilot, is slashed by her serial-killer father (an attack from which she recovers). She brings out paternal feelings in Hannibal and Will, yet as the season progresses, she kills a man (impulsively, but in self-defense) and reveals that she served as a procurer for her father, luring adolescent female victims to him. She is smart, socially alienated, suspicious, reserved, and plagued with worry that her father’s hunter/killer training (whether organically or through socialization) has made her a monster too. Abigail’s social deviance as, at once, a trauma survivor and a killer, has made her a source of identification and love for many fans, who have devoted Tumblr sites to her, written fanfic about her, and created art featuring her. Abigail’s fears are vividly conveyed in this fanvid by kiki_miserychic [warning: graphic violence]

Reading Hannibal through Abigail’s point of view, we see how men in the text constantly misunderstand, abuse, patronize, deceive, and undermine her. With the exception of Hannibal, men do not see her as a complicated person. Will views her only as either a childlike victim or, later, as a pathological killer; she resists his paternalism very directly: “Just because you killed my father, doesn’t mean you can become him.” Likewise, we see how patriarchal structures (the justice system, the family) only serve to further traumatize her. She lies to the FBI and the police because she knows the criminal justice system would not put her crimes in context, and we know that too; the recent decision to try two 13-year-old girls as adults for attempted murder—the Slender Man case—points to the inability of the justice system to countenance violent girls. Hannibal also highlights Abigail’s persistent attempts at self-definition and agency, including an attempt to ensure her financial independence from Will and Hannibal by selling her story to journalist Freddie Lounds. Fans indicate their approval of these moments by reblogging “Abigail’s sassy face” on Tumblr.

Ultimately, however, Abigail cleaves to Hannibal because he does see her complexity and value (the ability to truly “see” another person is a significant theme in the series) and because he puts himself outside of the law, openly rejecting the social norms and boundaries that oppress her. Both Hannibal and the gothic horror genre provide fantasies of escape from social oppression, and a lot of the Fannibals’ dark humor comes from their pleasure in fantasies of deviance and subversion. For example, Abigail’s role as the daughter in the “murder family” with Will and Hannibal is the subject of much fan creative production.

At the same time, Hannibal provides a cautionary tale that taps directly into young women’s concerns about daily survival under patriarchy. In a contemporary context, Hannibal is the textbook abusive parent or lover who literally traps her, and Abigail’s abuse, captivity, and eventual death at his hands is the central tragedy of the series. But it’s because Hannibal allows viewers to see her struggle that her death has the significance and resonance that it does, haunting both characters and viewers.

[Note: This is the first of a three-part series highlighting some of Hannibal‘s unique contributions to the television world, to commemorate its final week on NBC. The images and video in this post contain spoilers. Also macabre humor.]

Hannibal completes its third (and last) season this week, despite its critical acclaim and the devotion of its passionate fanbase (known as “Fannibals”). Critics have praised the program’s reconceptualization of the horror series and its compelling version of the familiar Hannibal character, but Hannibal has left its mark in other ways as well. This short series of posts examines how Hannibal has engaged with questions of gender: in remixing the markers of quality TV, in embracing the potential of its position within the fannish archive, and in privileging a complex teen girl character within its narrative.

A common exclamation for new viewers of Hannibal is “I can’t believe this is on network!” This astonishment reflects the dominant cultural hierarchies of value in which television critics have elevated non-network shows as “quality TV” for discerning viewers over network shows largely assumed to be mindless fodder for the undiscerning masses. As Elana Levine and Michael Z. Newman have argued (and critic Noah Berlatsky recently affirmed), such critical divides of taste and value perpetuate inequalities of class and gender in which quality is associated with middle class, male audiences/”masculine” tastes, and non-quality tv with mass, largely female audiences with “feminine” tastes.

This divide has become even more obvious as white middle-class audiences have largely fled the networks, preferring the suburban pastures of original programming on HBO, Netflix, Amazon, etc. In the face of this divide, networks have been even more willing to serve the audiences that remain by developing programming for undervalued viewers such as teens, women, queer people, and people of color, many of whom still watch live TV. In addition, networks have developed more programming from less critically regarded pulp genres (as opposed to “adult dramas”) such as musicals, science fiction, and horror.

NBC’s Hannibal is unusual in its ability to bridge this cultural divide by successfully developing a “class and mass” brand that has provided an innovative, unique model of program and promotion. Hannibal‘s brand appeals to and actively serves both quality TV audiences and an intensely invested fan base, led primarily by young women utilizing social media. The easy co-existence of these seemingly odd bedfellows is particularly remarkable given that the presence of young women is often seen to degrade (“feminize”) the quality bona fides of any media product. Yet just as Hannibal queered its source material, the program’s producers were able to develop a mode of promotional address that combined quality markers with overt acknowledgements of its fandom. Far from “degrading” the text, this integration has resulted in a richer, more experimental, more politically progressive program and a more inclusive viewer experience.

In 2011, amidst the backdrop of reboots, rebranding, origin stories, and sequels, Hannibal seemed to be a perfect fit for NBC. The recent popularity of horror on American television—in series like The Walking Dead and American Horror Story—suggested to the network that a reboot of the familiar character of Hannibal Lecter would allow them to tap into this growing viewer demand. At the same time, NBC sought to establish a “quality” brand for the show. For example, the network committed to thirteen episodes rather than a full season, a break with network traditions that replicated the practices of cable’s prestige programs. The network also chose to skip the pilot stage because of the involvement of the French Gaumont studio group, who purchased the rights to the novel—and thus the characters from—Thomas Harris’s Red Dragon, which would serve as the foundation for the series. The inclusion of Gaumont as a producing partner gave the show an international feel; European high-art aesthetics were evoked throughout the series, which included location filming in Paris and Florence.

Gaumont’s CEO Katie O’Connell then hired Bryan Fuller to write the first script and serve as showrunner. As the creator of several critically acclaimed series including Pushing Daisies (2007-09), Fuller brought with him his own auteur brand. He promised to reimagine the source material by altering key aspects of the original books, including diversifying the cast; focusing on character development and motivation; and establishing a signature lush, beautiful, and sophisticated style for the program that would look and feel expensive. Likewise, NBC promoted these “quality” production aesthetics throughout its publicity for the series.

Still, Hannibal struggled to find an audience on NBC, which, unlike premium outlets, needed the buy-in of at least a portion of its mass audience for the program to succeed. In this regard, the network and the program’s producers encouraged the activities of the Fannibals. Demographic research suggested that a significant portion of the audience was “young, smart, well-read women,” which delighted Fuller, who adored their creative production, their appreciation of the show’s dark humor, and their emotional investment in his development of a romance between Hannibal and Will Graham. The network embraced the community, setting up an official Tumblr account for the series and sponsoring a fan art contest (winners below). The NBC Hannibal Tumblr mods have been widely praised for their understanding of the platform and their supportive, respectful interaction with fans.

In addition, Hannibal‘s producers and cast members, led by Fuller (in flower crowns, below), have frequently used Twitter to encourage fan activity, including regularly live-tweeting episodes; re-tweeting fan art and GIFs; and giving fans access to script pages, production details, and set photos. This sense of community between the series producers and its fans generated tangible results in the form of a third season renewal, as network officials and producers have openly acknowledged. This final season has both rewarded Fannibals’ ardor and affirmed quality TV tastes by further shifting the series from its procedural beginnings. Set partially in Europe, this season utilizes an art-house style of filming and focuses on character relationships in even more depth and detail, particularly that between the two leads. By developing program content that appealed to viewers across gender and class lines and by involving and supporting their “feminized,” network audiences, Hannibal constructed both an innovative program text and a series brand that will hopefully inspire television producers working across platforms to explore more ways of blurring cultural hierarchies.

The hostility of this rhetoric often conflated the organizers with the attendees, who were primarily female and queer teens, many of whom were local and attending their first con. The largest concentration of this rhetoric is the Dashcon tag and user reblogs spread it quickly; one early Tumblr post – reblogged over 67,000 times – characterized con-goers as “white kids in flower crowns rioting for the anti-sexualization of women in media while holding panels about homoerotic subtext.” Comments on other social media sites like Jezebel swiftly adopted this derisive tone, describing attendees as “dorks who live in their parents’ basement” or “hormonal teenagers who enjoy drama way too much” in contrast to the “mature” fans on Tumblr “who discuss theories.”  Such misinformed and misogynist discourse was accompanied by paternalistic horror about the possible exposure of teenagers to an informational 18+ BDSM panel.

As a counter to this discourse, I want to highlight some of the more productive social and cultural aspects and implications of the con. For attendees, it is a vital safe space for self-expression and community bonding, intellectual engagement, counseling, and social empowerment for attendees. In turn, the implicit discomfort and hostility directed at them reveals how this space threatens social hierarchies regarding, in particular, female sexual pleasure and knowledge, “feminine” cultural production, “mass” tastes, and non-normative sexual/gender identities and practices.

I attended DashCon because I am interested in the way social media sites, particularly Tumblr, and their related cons provide young female and queer fans the opportunity to fulfill social, emotional, and educational needs that more traditional institutions do not. Last year, I participated in a series of articles for Antenna about LeakyCon, an established convention with a similar demographic. The advanced publicity of DashCon indicated a related agenda, with a “social issues” track of panels devoted to overlapping concerns of Tumblr users, including feminist politics and mass media representation, LGBTQA support, social justice concerns, mental health care and, ironically, ways to combat online hate and bullying. I enlisted a couple of con-goers who were also media studies students, and we shared the coverage of various panels and activities (although these observations are mine alone).

The most visible way DashCon created a safe space for female self-expression was the community’s respectful treatment of its many cosplayers. In cosplay, attendees dress as their favorite media characters, often spending days creating costumes. Because attendees respected the maxim that “cosplay is not consent,” they did not touch or take photos of cosplayers without their explicit permission. Veteran cosplayers often noted with relief how unmolested they felt at DashCon compared to mixed-sex cons where they are often groped.

In addition to cosplaying, the activities of this con followed others of its type, and included games, singalongs, autograph signings, fan art sales, as well as panels. The “social issues” and media analysis panels frequently overlapped in content and politics. Media fans, especially in this demographic, are often already engaged in trying to locate alternatives to dominant ideologies through media texts, and DashCon attendees were eager to analyze the social aspects of media culture. My colleague Paul Booth has called fandom, “the classroom of your life” and it certainly had that role at DashCon, where attendees were able to learn about topics that are still largely not covered in high school or even college classrooms, where gender and queer studies are rarely integrated into the curriculum as a whole.

The panelists, a combination of academics, activists, and/or social media specialists, embraced more radical rather than liberal political positions, drawing on many aspects of queer theory and critical race theory as well as media studies. Media analysis panels emphasized the importance and lack of strong female characters, queer characters, and characters of color, and the discussion leaders were able to personally speak to these issues as well as offer strategies to advocate for more diverse representation. Straight and queer women’s investment in male/male “slash” pairings was addressed in nuanced ways tied to, for example, the lack of equivalent development of female characters.

The panelists crucially tied media production to larger social structures, noting that “people blame the media, but these are institutional problems, social hierarchies that get represented by the media. There is no villain in the tower.” Instead, they emphasized the importance of education, an understanding of historical context and change, and an appreciation of the intersectionality of identity. Panels about contemporary feminism offered both scholarly analysis and an opportunity for young women to share their stories and concerns.

The rape culture panel, for example, began by asserting that instead of telling women how to avoid rape, we as a society should instead be focusing on teaching men and boys not to rape, a message that is prevalent on Tumblr but rarely appears in the mainstream.

All the panelists, while critical of DashCon’s management, have noted how impressed they were – as was I – with the engagement and thoughtful questions of the attendees. They have also tried to debunk misinformation, noting, for examples, the racial as well as gender/queer diversity of panels and attendees, and protesting their misrepresentation and the attacks on them.

This con provided young people with an opportunity to further expand the alternative communities that Tumblr offers them. While its larger problems are disappointing, DashCon’s grassroots project should be appreciated for what it did accomplish despite its organizers and attendees’ lack of social power and resources. Other attendees felt the same. Panelist Brin posted a video of her participation in the LGBTQ&A panel (below) and another con-goer posted that he found its cost was “a small price against my first time truly feeling in a community of people who would love and understand me with almost no effort at all.”

Facebook page for “Peter Capaldi is the 12th doctor fan girls get over it.”

When Peter Capaldi was unveiled as the new Doctor Who in August, The Daily Mail reported an “ageism row” as fans purportedly dubbed Peter Capaldi “’too old’ to play the Time Lord.” Although The Daily Mail cited negative responses from both male and female viewers and included positive responses from female fans, the negative responses were quickly ascribed in much of the press, and on social media, to “fangirls.” Witness the Facebook page, “Peter Capaldi is the 12th doctor fan girls get over it.” In claiming that fangirls alone were critical of the choice of the new Doctor, people simultaneously dismissed fangirls as lesser fans than male fans or “true” Whovians, and assumed that fangirl interest in the show was exclusively romantic or sexual, that Capaldi was seen negatively because he was not as erotically attractive as recent actors David Tennant, or Matt Smith. This, despite such fangirl reactions as the YouTube video “Peter Capaldi is the new Doctor! (A fangirl’s thoughts on this),” posted immediately after the announcement in which the self-identified fangirl says she is “glad it is not a younger guy. I am tired of these plot lines between the Doctor and his companions and all this… sexual tension.” As L.B. Gale writes in his online essay “In Defense of Doctor Who Fangirls,” “The assumption behind this ‘true Who fans’ conversation is that the ‘true fans’ are the geeky men who were able to get the ‘big ideas about humanity’ behind the show while the fair weather fans were all the little girls who were just pornographically enjoying the series because of how good looking Smith and Tennant are” The dismissal of fangirls is familiar to those of us who study pop culture as a stereotypical denigration of feminized mass culture in opposition to masculine “art.” It assumes that female fans are an add-on, derivative, and lesser than male fandom, which is assumed to be motivated by more serious interests (e.g., the vagaries of time travel vs. the appeal of TV stars).

In opposition, I would like to suggest that fangirls are not one fandom among many, or an add-on to the Whovian empire, but the ur-fans of Doctor Who, the original targeted audience and point of identification within the show. Jill Lepore’s recent New Yorker essay on Doctor Who (“The Man in the Box: Fifty Years of Doctor Who”) makes clear that capturing a female audience was essential to the show’s original plan. When Sydney Newman, then head of BBC drama, decided to produce a science fiction series, he commissioned a report that argued against doing so: the report claimed that sci-fi was not only too American, but also, and more problematically, too unappealing to women. Intending to create a “loyalty program” that people would watch every week, and one that would appeal to women as much as men, Newman decided to “flout the genre’s conventions.” Newman hired Verity Lambert, the only female producer at the BBC, and together they determined that the Doctor should have a female companion to “add feminine interest.” Thus, the companion provides a relay for female viewers, a point of identification within the show.

Given the companions’ penchant for crushing on the Doctor, at least in the recent series (“all that sexual tension” the fangirl YouTube video cites), is it any surprise that young women might identify with Rose, Martha, Donna, Amy, and Clara? All of whom, except perhaps Donna, at one point or another kiss and/or flirt with the Doctor. The companion is a built-in fangirl, one who encounters the Doctor accidentally, but once let into the Tardis (bigger on the inside, like a TV, as Lepore notes) commits to a “loyalty program” of traveling with him, leaving her everyday life behind (even bringing her boyfriend along for the ride in the case of Martha and Amy) – a life that Keara Goin says in her previous Antenna blog in this series is “made to seem secondary, bland, and lacking excitement.”

Osgood (Ingrid Oliver) in “The Day of the Doctor.”

The importance of the fangirl to the series, and her embeddedness within it, was reaffirmed in the 50th anniversary “The Day of the Doctor.” This episode featured among its characters a young geeky girl, Osgood (Ingrid Oliver), wearing the fourth Doctor’s scarf like a cos-playing fangirl, and enthusing over the Doctor, whose exploits she has studied. In this special episode, former companion Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) plays the Time Lord’s “conscience,” and wittily describes the basic premise of the series when she notes that he is “stuck between a girl and a box – story of your life, eh Doctor?” Here, the Doctor’s conscience reminds us that the fangirl fantasy is not external to the show but stitched into the fabric of the narrative, the essential story of the Doctor.

Nonetheless, while fangirls have been ascribed a certain role within the narrative and as spectators, fangirls have veered from the plot in fascinating ways. Looking around on tumblr, the fangirl epicenter, one finds numerous sites dedicated to Doctor Who. In addition to cute images of Tennant and Smith, or fantasy “ships” (or fan fantasy relationships) of the Doctor and his companion, there were images of Daleks, GIFs that celebrated reading (quoting the Doctor’s claim that books are the “best weapons in the world”), and archival images detailing the history of the show and sorting its timey-wimey logic. There are frequent gay “ships” related to the Tennant’s Doctor and captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman), auteurist links between Steven Moffat’s Sherlock and his Doctor Who episodes in queer Sherlock “ships” between Sherlock and Watson or Sherlock and the Doctor, or pages that juxtapose fandoms for Harry Potter, Supernatural, The Hobbit, and more. Assuming that fangirl activity is limited to expressions of heterosexual attachment to young actors denies the range and complexity of these responses. It is a misplaced fantasy about the girl’s proper place in the Whovian universe.

As the latter example indicates, it is no surprise then that the political aspects of large-scale public shaming–which can be defined as a form of punishment that purposely attempts to humiliate someone by showcasing the person(s) and their offensive actions in a public space–would intersect with the “ordinary” social media user. No longer applicable to mainly public figures, now even physically “local” acts of shaming, such as holding a sign in a street, can easily go viral through retweets and posts. One such site is the tumblr Public Shaming, an uncensored online “hall of shame” that highlights everyday, yet highly troublesome (e.g. racist, sexist, etc.) social media posts. As creator Matt Binder describes in a Racialicious interview, his site’s “point is to show…readers that these [ignorant] people exist” and by “calling out” these people on a public stage, Binder “thought that was an interesting way to go about [debating with someone].” He goes on to hesitantly state that “there is social activism involved in [what he does],” although he massively backtracks on these statements later.

Although one Racialicious commenter described Binder’s interview as “self-congratulatory back-patting,” Public Shaming does have its aspects of activism as it sheds light on comments that illustrate ideologies that create and maintain acts of social injustice. While this action of drawing attention to injustice is very important, it is only the first step. To induce social change (which arguably is the key principle of activism), I believe some form of discussion and action must occur and be reasonably maintained after inequality has been publicly exposed. Optimistically, it is in these debates that ideologies begin to subtly evolve and mutual understandings of different groups can be slowly established. In this case, Public Shaming is very limiting; Binder disturbingly states clearly in the interview he has no desire to see if people on his site change and rarely engages with these people beyond his tumblr post.

To examine the dialogue that results from Public Shaming, we must follow the site’s followers, who very often establish lines of communication with those in the “hall of shame” over social media. For the rest of this post, I wish to focus on a post revolving around racist tweets in the aftermath of the Asiana Airlines crash in San Francisco and explore how and what kinds of dialogues about race are or are not occurring. [Note: Due to my uncertainty with the ethics of public shaming, I have blocked out most the the users names to avoid becoming a shaming post myself (though I assume most of you could track them down). I have kept twitter handles of the offending parties as they are already exposed in the link above. To ease reading, I have color coded key players, while black blocks consist of multiple users.]

Similar to the response to Adria Richards, the left image above (click for larger images) clearly shows that reactions to public shaming can be violent, sexist, and much more offensive than @LittleSlav’s original tweet of “Asians can’t fly either.” It is obviously problematic to counter a racist statement with another racist (and sexist) statement. This create a vicious cycle where both sides use each others’ hate speech to defend and qualify their own hate speech, and by positioning themselves as both victims of a hurtful comment, both ignore their own words. To be clear, nobody, including @LittleSlav (who appears to be a 30-year-old White/European American Female), deserves to be threatened with rape and she has a legitimate right to be a victim. I also understand there are complex hierarchies of class, gender, and race at play and power is moving over uneven terrains (i.e. these threats/”ironic jokes” can never be equally comparable). Nevertheless, this does not entirely negate the offensiveness of @LittleSlav’s original tweet. Instead of answering to the issue of her comment from calmer and more logical users like the one in Red, the discussion is not one of race or even issues of tastefulness, but deflected to the realm of freedom of speech and a never winnable (or useful) debate about who has it worse. Again, @LittleSlav raises a fair point, but is unable to recognize that an act of hate speech should not be the reasoning and/or defense behind another instance of hate speech and this applies to all parties involved.

For @treyrolfson, a 14-year-old white male who tweeted a “chink” joke his dad told him, the situation is very similar (see more here). For the user in Light Blue, a college-aged Asian American male, the issue of race is brought up, but only for the topic of insults or a launching pad for hashtaging threats of physical violence. In addition to falling into the same logical fallacies mentioned above, I would like to quickly note that many of these aggressive and violent tweets are coming from college-aged Asian American males, including Green and Purple above (although this is not universal as Orange is an African American female and Red is an Asian American male). Perhaps channeling their inner Angry Asian Man (or Woman!), this aggression is interesting as it may be a counter to larger portrayals of weak and emasculated Asian (American) males often present in the media. Still, these comments follow in the same vein as @LittleSlav, where they do not realize how their Asian American identities intersect with other ethnicities and aspects of gender and class. This produces shallow and contradictory discourses of race that don’t seem to be pushing for long-term social change.

For many twitter users, accounts become private or deleted, effectively shutting down any chance of social change as conversations never fully develop. In this case, the lesson is not an increased understanding of race, but rather one about privacy and how you shouldn’t list your workplace on twitter if you are to make racist comments.

To end on a positive note, while I am hesitant to say online public shaming is a particularly successful tool for social activism, it does show people–especially those supposedly apathetic kiddos–do care about issues of race, even if there are many problematic effects of this. People are active and angry, which can sometimes be good. And for all the rape comments, there is at least the potential space for dialogue and change in 140 characters or less:

2) I was wrong about “NeXtBox,” but at least the “Xbox 720” people were wrong, too. The Xbox One is coming, and word on the street is it wants to replace everything hooked up to your TV someday, or at least before Apple can. While that’s been Microsoft’s goal for some time now, don’t expect changing the device to change the service. If you’re like me, though, it’s still primarily about the games, so don’t trade in your 360. If you’re even more like me, it’s also about committing yourself to one brand over another, even if you own multiple systems per generation. Back in the day, I was a Sony person, thanks to Kojima-san and company. (That theme still gets me riled up…) Look for a gritty, futuristic War Horse reboot for the new home entertainment system (or not). And, because it can’t be stressed enough, won’t someone please think of the archivists?!

3) A few bits of news from the world of apps caught my eye since the last post, making me wish that I owned a smartphone. (App-arently – anyone? – I’m not contributing to the elimination of the Digital Divide.) First, everyone makes apps for iOS, even you (but not me). What’s available these days? Well, you can watch ABC and be counted at the same time. Or you could tell secrets to strangers. Or you could get your carefully considered drink on. Or…you could scare yourself silly incrementally. (Narratologists, take note.) Just trying to keep up with the latest thing? This little trick might help you out. It’s not enough to have the app, though; you’ve got to use it! For example, you, too, can be a Vine auteur with the right idea and a little attention to detail. And, in case you’re keeping track of how they’re keeping track, here’s a little information about how downloads get counted. Maybe someday I’ll be a statistic …

4) Johnny Lawmaker turned his eye on a few media giants over taxes since the last post. Apple CEO Tim Cook defended his company’s accounting practices on Capitol Hill. Elsewhere, Cook played up Apple’s plans to bring some of its manufacturing back stateside, which may or may not turn out to be a long-term commitment. Google suffered a drubbing from government officials across the pond and responded, “You make the rules, not us.” (I’m paraphrasing.) And because I don’t want Microsoft to feel neglected, I’ll pass along this story, too.

5) Back in the States, Google was making litigious eyes at Microsoft over the latter’s YouTube app for Windows Phone, which prevents advertising from standing between you and a chimpanzee riding on a segway, the dapper monkey, and Muppet Show bloopers. Microsoft had a cheeky response ready, but eventually the two companies made nice. Speaking of litigation and YouTube, no luck for copyright holders looking for a class action suit against the site. Oh, and happy birthday, YouTube!

6) While governments are trying to keep media and tech companies honest, the White House is dealing with some recent bad press (too easy?), which got me thinking about who’s watching whom and how. (It’s Ozymandias, using his supercomputer.) The New Yorker launched Strongbox and made the software (developed by the late Aaron Swartz) available to other news organizations. A Congressional caucus working on issues of privacy had some questions about Google Glass, and Google had preliminary answers. Meanwhile, the CIA continues to just act natural, the Aussies experiment with web censorship, South Africa finds another peaceful use for drones, and I’m eagerly anticipating 2015. To quote Ron Swanson: “It’s a whole new meat delivery system.”

7) In the span of two weeks, it became impossible to avoid hearing about Yahoo’s intentions to acquire Tumblr, speculation ran its course, the deal became official, and the analysis  began. $1.1B is a lot of money, and I hope Yahoo gets what it thinks it’s paying for. It’s definitely getting what it knows it’s paying for.

8) Cable providers are circling Hulu. First it was Time Warner, then it was DirecTV, along with Amazon, Yahoo, Chernin Group, and Guggenheim Partners, which also happened to be advising Hulu’s owners about a possible sale as far back as mid-April. All of this reporting and speculation is incredibly premature, though, but isn’t it fun?

9) Speaking of TV, did you know there’s a renaissance on? If you’re feeling sluggish, perhaps this’ll anger up the blood: “Conformist, passive and disengaged was the traditional spectator – proactive, inquiring and interventionist is the new spectator.” Sorry… no more of that. What has been on many minds is binge-viewing. Don’t trip over the buzzwords sure to follow that discussion. “Hyperserial,” for example. And don’t forget the classics! Before there was Walter White, there were Pauline, Elaine, and Helen! Reboots all around, say I! Get ready for the PSAs, too: “When you binge, you’re not just hurting yourself.”

10) Speaking of binge viewing, as I write the final countdown has begun. Vodka rocks and toast all around! (Just like Tobias.) E-books continue to gain on real books, but (IMHO), sleek is not as sexy. Choose your poison to match the contents of your book/media shelves. Disney’s temporary insanity may have ended. The newest member of Wyld Stallyns has revealed herself. And physics continues to be awesome!

1. The Cannes Film Festival lineup is out, with heavy representation of English-language films, and the jury is also set. Meanwhile, the Tribeca Film Festival has wrapped up, with jury award and audience award winners that include a film whose Cuban actors are now seeking asylum in Miami. But Robert Levin says the big impact from Tribeca will come from its new model of digital distribution via the Tribeca Online Film Festival. And Toronto wonders, can there be too many film festivals?

2. In film production tax credit news, a British tax credit system is credited with offering a big boost to indie films, California has passed a 5-year extension, and we wait to see if Ohio deems its tax credit scheme worth renewing. We’ll also wait to see if there’s anything to the suspicion that Hollywood studios bribed the Chinese to allow them access to the Chinese film market (a deal mentioned in a previous WAYM). The SEC should also investigate to see if Russians were bribed to go see John Carter.

3. More directors are clamoring to get their films on IMAX screens, while Martin Scorsese has fallen hard for 3D, but Peter Jackson is one-upping them all by going to 48 frames per second, and even though it apparently looks crappy, Jackson says there’s no stopping it now. Some think recent indie films haven’t looked crappy enough.

4. Howard Stern’s lawsuit against Sirius XM has been dismissed, but this may not be the last we hear of it. The British will get to hear more live music, thanks to new rules that will streamline the process for small venues to book live acts. And we could soon be hearing Spotify sound just like Pandora.

5. Nintendo is struggling, so much so that they’re making video game sales overall look bad, and it might even be time for Nintendo to sell, but Nintendo thinks the Wii U and especially the 3DS will save it, with a new digital distribution strategy also offering hope for growth.

6. YouTube’s video service has turned seven years old, and for its birthday, Germany wants to give it a massive music royalty bill and demand that it better police copyrighted content, though this could mostly boil down to a negotiating tactic. A group of Hollywood studios failed in their attempt to hold an Australian internet provider responsible for piracy, but Voltage Pictures just won’t quit until they chase down every last Hurt Locker pirate. And it remains to be seen if Hollywood will go after a 92-year-old shipping bootleg DVDs to American soldiers overseas.

7. Facebook has had a drop in ad revenue this year for the first time, but it apparently doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme. After all, Facebook is nearing one billion users, over half of whom visit daily, and makes about $1.21 from each user per quarter. And yet, with 58% of its user base female, Facebook somehow hasn’t found a woman to appoint to its board of directors.

8. Apple is killing it in China with iPhone sales, and, in a fascinating story, apparently iPads can only be made in China, not due to cheap labor but to rare earth elements, which China has almost exclusive control over. Meanwhile, Microsoft is looking like the anti-Apple in the smartphone market and the consumer technology arena, but it hopes it can be all China-like in controlling Windows apps on iPads.

9. Is a Facebook “like” protected free speech? Apparently not. Is a tweet yours to own? Apparently not. Is a Tumblr with ads still a Tumblr? We’ll find out starting May 2. Will we get the internet and be able to tweet about a Tumblr we like once we’re on Mars? Maybe.

10. Some of the finer News for TV Majors posts from the past few weeks: TV & Diversity, Media Use, Political Posting Imposed, Web’s Impact on TV, Hulu Partner Out, NEA Giveth & Taketh Away, David Simon’s Blog, More News Corp Trouble, Future of TV is Broadband, Assessing CNN, The CW Online Impact, Sunday DVR Slam, Girls & Race, Girls Coverage, Hulu’s Growth.

1. With indie movie theaters fighting for their lives against the big chains, and indie distributors continuing to struggle for profits, some argue the future of independent films lies in video-on-demand, a route which Lars Von Trier’s new film Melancholia is trying out (just don’t ask Von Trier to comment on it). Netflix may or may not be the future for indies (at least one indie filmmaker likely feels definitely not). Maybe the future lies in serving booze, like at the Alamo Drafthouse, which is looking into new LA and NY outlets. They can save time by not looking into Utah, where a theater got fined for serving alcohol during a film deemed sexually explicit (The Hangover Part II. For real.).

2. Hollywood films are increasingly getting the video-on-demand and online release treatment, with Paramount making the latest Transformers movie available to rent on its own website and UltraViolet finally launching next week with Horrible Bosses. But while those films have had standard theatrical windows, Universal is poking the theater owner hornet’s nest by planning to release Tower Heist on VOD only three weeks after its theatrical debut. The Cinemark chain says it will refuse to screen the film in protest, but Will Richmond says the VOD charge for the film – $59.99! – is likely to make it a flop anyway.

3. None of these Hollywood stories are related, but they all interest me so they all get included: Lions Gate STILL can’t shake Carl Icahn, the MPAA reversed a content rating ruling on an upcoming drama, most of the Hurt Locker file-sharing defendants are off the hook, religion-focused films are on the rise, the foreign language Oscar race already has its usual share of controversy, a woman is suing Drive’s distributor for false advertising and racism (no, really), and the Academy might finally build a film museum in LA (no, really).

4. iTunes is spreading even further across Europe, and Apple is also working on global cloud-music rights. Rhapsody has acquired Napster in a bid to better compete with Spotify, and in Sweden, music piracy has dropped since Spotify arrived, illustrating that people are willing to pay if the service is worth it (and overall sales in the US happen to be up this year), while one new label is going to give out its music for free.

5. Nielsen scoured social media to come up with a list of the top 20 video games on holiday wish lists. Music video games are no longer high on such lists, though Rock Band is still picking up likes. Not picking up likes is Bill Bennett, who says gaming is destroying our country’s manhood.

6. Magazines are having to adapt to the mobile age. Spin, for one, is reducing its print run and expanding its online presence. Others are trying to get on board with the Kindle Fire. But one expert argues magazines might ultimately see their lifeblood – advertising – threatened by Facebook. Apparently Vogue is doing something right, because it’s been named Ad Age’s Magazine of the Year. (Apparently magazines don’t do much from October through December.)

7. Twitter is either doing well: over a thousand more advertisers on board than last year and ad revenue predicted to grow by 210%. Or it’s falling apart: internally it’s a mess and morale is low. A lengthy NY Mag profile of the company fittingly notes that anxiety and optimism are found in equal measure at the company. Maybe Twitter can measure it own mood as well as it can the world’s.

8. Tumblr is the latest social media success story, now with more page views than Wikipedia and valued at $800 million. It’s no Facebook, which is now as big as the internet itself was in 2004 (but not as big in Brazil as it is in Singapore and elsewhere globally), but it’s making more noise than Google+, which claims that it’s a good thing there doesn’t appear to be a lot of action going on there.

9. Google is huge. Amazon is huge. Delicious is redesigned. Chrome is catching up. Open Range is dying. Diggnation is dead.

10. Some of the finer News for TV Majors (@N4TVM) posts from the past two weeks: Canadian Cancellation, BBC Cuts, Behind TOLN, Fox News Reflection, Hulu’s Problem, Future of TV Report, MTV Remade, Spectrum Fight, The ESPN Dilemma, Cable A La Carte, More Screens Are Better, GLAAD Report,  FX Ad Drama, News Study.

1. The NY Times says Hollywood’s summer was bad; the LA Times says Hollywood’s summer was strong. Resolving this East Coast-West Coast feud is David Poland, who rips the NY Times for ridiculous spin. The Midwest’s Kristin Thompson argues that 3D had a rough summer, but drive-ins are still somehow holding on, plus now so-called microcinemas are coming on strong.

2. Lionsgate is finally free of its stalker, Carl Icahn, but who knows where it goes next. The Wrap analyzes where Revolution Studios went, and more European producers are increasingly saying they don’t need Hollywood to get where they want to go, yet many are going to Toronto rather than Venice in order to get American attention. Venice was good enough for the graphic Shame (full frontal Michael Fassbender!) to grab American attention: it’s been picked up by Fox Searchlight. (And Fassbender won the top acting award for his, um, performance.)

3. Wal-Mart claims it’s happy to work in tandem with Netflix, not against it, with its Vudu video service, but it earned a strategic victory in defeat from a lawsuit. Netflix might have to step up its lobbying spending even more to keep its edge, and it’s also seeing what it can do in Latin America, taking on another piracy hotbed. The Weinstein Co. is now embarking on a video-on-demand effort, and Kevin Smith’s Red State-on-demand experiment continues and will be augmented by a one-night simulcast theatrical screening.

4. Music sales in 2011 are up thanks to digital sales, and Hypebot’s Natalie Cheng says even stores that sell physical music media are reflecting the impact of digital. The National Association of Recording Merchandisers (yes, that’s NARM, Nate Fisher fans) is fighting to find its place in the digital/cloud world. Justin Timberlake is fighting to give MySpace a place in the future of music, and Facebook may get involved in the music game soon too, while it was clarified this week that the iTunes Match cloud service will not offer streaming.

5. Bitmob’s Rus McLaughlin says digital distribution is the new console war, though that doesn’t mean the console wars are over, as we might see a new Playstation by 2013. Business Insider gets us chartastically up to speed on the state of the video game business, while another Bitmob writer laments how much gaming costs the consumer these days. He might be interested in the new WiFi-free PSP being developed for budget-strapped youth.

6. Apple fought Flash and apparently has won, but the iPhone is still fighting to catch up to Android for the biggest share among the 40% of mobile phone users who have smartphones (and here I thought I was the only one whose phone only makes phone calls). Apple’s also fighting against Samsung all over the world and against counterfeits all over China, where a fake Viagra expert could come in handy. And Apple’s opening real stores in Hong Kong and London; the latter will literally block the sun.

7. Craziness at AOL this week. Craziness at Yahoo this week. Hey, maybe AOL and Yahoo should get together! Bad idea? Or not even an idea?

8. Google just turned 13 years old, and the company started its teen years by buying a shiny new company, Zagat. This could add to Yelp’s and Groupon’s already existing troubles plus raise concerns about search neutrality.  Google is also ridding itself of some excess baggage in shutting down a group of products. Meanwhile, Amazon is working on a significant website redesign that seems to emphasize digital goods over physical products, and the company cut a deal with California on sales taxes.

9. Tumblr has reached 10 billion posts, Twitter has 100 million active users and just had an $800 million funding round, Facebook is on track for a $3 billion year (if not quite the year originally projected), and Google+ is well short of millions and billions of anything.

10. Some of the finer News for TV Majors (@N4TVM) post from the past two weeks: Men in Crisis, Sorkin & HBO, Decline of Female Writers, Soap Oral History, NFL Overexposure, Reality TV Lives, Nielsen Numbers, Soap Stars Sign, TV Cloud, BitTorrent TV, Global Streaming Increases, Starz Leaves Netflix, Warner as TV Factory, DMA Rankings, State of AMC, British Sitcom Appeal, AMC Talk, Arts Losses, Google & TV, Hulu’s Performance.

2. Social media now occupies the top spot on the list of ways our time is wasted spent online, with Facebook overwhelmingly dominating the category and upstarts like Tumblr on the rise. This is affecting how we consume news, as well as how movie companies market films to us. But though it’s hard for my addicted self to imagine, 21% of Americans say they don’t use the internet at all.

3. The book is dead, the book is dead, long live the book, or at least the bookfuturist. If books die, where we will ever find the room to bury the 129,864,880 we have now?

4. The big internet news of this fortnight has been net neutrality & the Verizon-Google proposal; if you missed any of it, I suggest Wired’s links to ten media takes. Otherwise, there’s been good news for Internet Explorer, Skype, and Auto-Tune the News; bad news for Google Wave, AOL, and Digg; and unsettling news for Amazon Prime members and internet users who don’t realize how much their personal data can be tracked online. Finally, the news handed to Forbes bloggers is either good or bad depending on how they feel about basically being paid per hit.

5. Hollywood needn’t rush home to show its mid-summer report card to its parents, and even 3D earnings are starting to slow, while resistance to 3D within the industry is growing. Matt Zoller Seitz wants 3D filmmakers to push toward a more radical future. In light of the WSJ’s piece on the ever-rising clout of international distribution, one wonders how the overseas reception of 3D will factor in.

6. There were some good profiles this fortnight on the challenges and successes of indie cinema, from a look at the long journey of Colin Fitz to a five-part chronicle of the making of the Emmy-nominated documentary The Way We Get By to tips from the writer of The Disappearance of Alice Creed on how to write for a low budget. Meanwhile, Michael Moore is fighting for the future of single-screen theaters.

7. Blockbuster is partnering with Comcast to make its DVD-by-mail service more competitive with Netflix, and the company has also added video games to its delivery offerings. But Netflix is pushing its services more toward streaming than mailing, landing a significant deal with Epix that was an expensive but, says David Poland, necessary gamble. The rental delays that Netflix and Redbox agreed to earlier this summer are apparently paying off for DVD sales, but libraries might beat everybody out in the end.

8. American Idol has jumped to Universal for promotion and distribution of its music, which could be a big blow to previous partner Sony, and Universal has also made nice with MTV over digital advertising rates for streaming videos for Video Music Award voting, though all other streaming rights are still in dispute. Kazaa has made a lackluster return, and the summer tour scene has also been a dud, while HD radio is on the rise and public radio is standing strong.

9. The video games industry is in a state of disruption right now, such that it’s hard to pinpoint what the term “video game” covers anymore. But a group of gaming panelists still tried to predict the future of video games, and that future could include playing games with only our eyes. Looking back on the past, ESPN’s Outside the Lines offers an in-depth look at the development of the colossal “Madden NFL” game, the Entertainment Software Association has released a report detailing the economics of the video game industry from 2005-2009, and Nintendo says it’s sold 30 million Wiis since the unit’s 2006 launch.

10. My favorite News for TV Majors links from the past two weeks: Sportscenter Changes, Content Industry Doomed…Again, Satellite Up, Cable Down, Aca-Fan Dialogue, Tabloid News Middle Man, Cable & Network Ages, Miles & Reality TV, Questioning Ryan Murphy, Modern TV Online, CBS-Comcast Retrans Deal