The movie rule
davewitley
dfrankiswork at davewitley.yahoo.invalid
Sun Aug 1 23:49:29 UTC 2004
I have no knowledge of the internal debate that led to the re-
imposition of the stronger line on movie-related posting on the main
list. However, based on the wording of the admin and my knowledge
of the history of the movie list and its relation to the main list,
I feel Petra's and Dicentra's replies to Geoff miss the point a
little.
Here is the relevant text of the admin:
"Due to the recent very high message volumes on the main list, and
the inevitable tendency of any discussion referencing the Warner
Bros. Harry Potter films to drift off-topic, the elves have decided
to reinstate the old rule banning discussion of the films on the
main list, effective immediately. If you wish to post about the
films, even if you are using them as support for a book-related
point, please direct your post to the Movie list:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-Movie "
My understanding is, that, other things being equal, there *is* a
valid place for the movies in canon-related discussion ("support for
a book-related point") and that, in that sense, Geoff has logic on
his side.
We don't know the extent to which the movies may indicate canonical
developments not yet revealed, or partially revealed, in the
existing books, and JKR herself has dropped intriguing hints on
this. Furthermore, there is the interesting question, not much
discussed, of the extent to which JKR's portrayal of characters in
OOP may have been influenced, consciously or unconsciously, by her
viewing of the first two movies. (There is a moment, for example,
where Nearly Headless Nick is cut short in conversation; I wondered
if that was a playful reference to the way John Cleese gets so
little screen time. (If anyone wants to respond to *this* point,
they'd better do so on the movie list))
Also, it has in the past been a valid main list topic to discuss the
extent of 'canon' itself - some, unlike Dicentra, do not accept
anything from JKR's interviews as valid, for example. The movies
are legitimately part of that discussion, especially as not all
would accept there just two simple categories, canon and not-canon.
My understanding of the reason for the rule, however, is that it is
impossible in practice to hold the logical line ("the inevitable
tendency of any discussion referencing the Warner Bros. Harry Potter
films to drift off-topic"). Threads which validly discuss the canon
implications of the movies just too often fail to stay that way.
People start discussing the content of the movies themselves
instead. So the rule is about pragmatic control of the content of
the lists, not about whether the movies have a place in canon
discussion.
For that reason, I feel that discussion of the extent of JKR's
influence on the movies is beside the point as far as this rule is
concerned. Anyone who wants to suggest an alternative needs to
look, not to logic, but to a practical and easy-to-understand-and-
enforce definition of what is on-topic for the main list.
Dicentra's list of acceptable and unacceptable posts missed out the
kind of post that, I thought, has now changed status as a result of
the rule:
"I think that Lupin's references to Lily in the movie foreshadow a
Lupin/Lily ship which JKR revealed to Kloves and Thewlis, which she
is intending to put into HBP."
As I understand it, that was acceptable before the rule change, and
now is not. I thought all the unacceptable ones listed by Dicey
were already unacceptable, because they illuminate no canon point.
Is that right?
David
More information about the HPFGU-Feedback
archive