The Many Faces of Celebrity

News
No introduction on this glorious day, it got absorbed into the local section. So let's get down to it!

Local

During Mainly Me Productions segment of the Minnesota Fringe's May 6th fundraising event "Five-Fifths of The Terminator", Chris Kluwe made an appearance as The Terminator. I have never been as regretful for missing a fundraiser as I was at the moment I checked Twitter and Facebook and realized what had happened.

I'm going to miss Kluwe--the same day he performed was also the day he was released from his punter position with the Minnesota Vikings. The speculation is that his gay rights advocacy, instead of his on field performance, was the reason behind his release.

If so, it made me angry--Kluwe made me interested in the Vikings more than any other player before him. Players, in the NFL especially, are marketed as warriors. To me, Kluwe carried that warrior mentality off the field and into the public sphere, advocating for what he believed to be right. In a sport filled with problem role models, he is the example that many can look to. And Vikings tossed that aside.

But--by the time this post goes live, marriage equality will be one step closer to reality in our fair state. All it will need is Governor Dayton's signature, which will happen at 5 p.m. today.

Thank you, Chris. Thank you, MN United. Thank you everyone who made it happen.

National/Let's Talk About Kickstarter

The controversy surrounding Zach Braff's use of Kickstarter isn't a new thing--it's an outgrowth of the ongoing conversation about how to use the service. I love Kickstarter and have used it to fund projects for board games, theatre, and artwork. When I jump on a project, I want to get something cool while also helping out a person who believes in their project but doesn't think they can get the funding through traditional means.

That's my line and I admit it's an arbitrary one. Where Braff has got into trouble is that he is a celebrity and is perceived as not needing Kickstarter to fund his movie, Wish I Was Here. Because he crosses my arbitrary line, supporting his Kickstarter doesn't appeal to me, nor to a lot of other people, but Braff has fans and they have proved more than willing to be backers. And it seems, from Kickstarter's own metrics, that when a celebrity like Braff comes in, he brings his fans with him and they go on to fund other projects. More people coming into the Kickstarter system means that smaller projects get funded.

In one of my first blogposts for Minnesota Playlist, I talked about my theoretical Minnesota Fringe board game. Say I wanted this to become reality, had worked on producing all the cards, tokens, the game board, and the rules, but didn't have the funds for a run of 1,000 copies that would justify a printing. I could go to Kickstarter and offer backers a copy of the game at the $45 backing level. In that case, you're getting a product, and hopefully I would have a score of other backing levels to give you further rewards for your support. Those are the sort of projects I like to back--projects that get a project out into the world. And of course, any excess funds would then likely go into to settling the lawsuit the Minnesota Fringe brings against me for using their name without permission.

For Braff's Kickstarter, you're becoming a backer/investor of a movie--should you be given compensaion beyond those awards? What if I sell my board game to a big publisher a tidy sum and it goes on to become the most successful board game of the century, and all you got for your $45 backing level was a copy of the original run of the board game? What are you owed in either situation? Being a backer of a film seems like a big deal, something that can pay dividends down the line. That's a problem we'll likely see more of as time goes on, and hand-waving away the legalities won't suffice forever.

I'll say what every theatre producer should be aware of already: be cognizant of your audience and what you will give them. Don't just think of them as piggy-banks. That's the impression I get from Braff's Kickstarter, whether or not he actually deserves support.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a Christmas-themed slasher movie to back.

International

Wrapping my brain around this next one is difficult. The Royal Shakespeare Company is partnering with Google Creative Lab for a project called Midsummer Night's Dreaming, a live weekend event over Midsummer weekend (starting the 21st of June) consisting of live blogging through Google+. I'm intrigued by the idea of performing A Midsummer Night's Dream in real time, but have no idea how it will be carried out in practice. I suppose that will be why I tune in that weekend: to see how they actually pull it off. And I'm excited to see what other elements, social media and otherwise, they throw into a real time staging.

Tabloid Culture

When I first started writing about Orphans, I wondered what the fuss was about. Shia LaBeouf turned out to be the wrong actor for the role, he was let go from the cast and replaced, and that was that. The e-mails LaBeouf released only seemed to confirm that he was wrong for the part. But the e-mails were posted with an air of controversy, as if someone did something wrong.

Before Alec Baldwin launches into a screed against New York Times theatre critic Ben Brantley, he makes a fair point in his Huffington Post article about tabloids and the nature of media in our current world and how it pertains to theatre. There's not much sensational about the events surrounding the Broadway production of Orphans, but it was treated that way. It was blogged about extensively, and I commented on it repeatedly in the News & Notes blog.

Was Orphans even a good production? Maybe. What people will remember though is that Shia LaBeouf was fired, not if the production was any good.

A Final Note

Without my intending it, this entry turned into an extended rumination on the many faces of celebrity. You can bet your bottom dollar that every opinion about them has an opposite--people hate Kluwe for his gay rights advocacy (I hope I'm never in the same room with them), love everything Zach Braff does unconditionally, and believe that Shia LaBeouf's dismissal from Orphans was THE GREATEST TRAGEDY EVER. But as examples for framing discussions about our society, the art we value, and the media we consume, they can be endlessly useful. It just takes a little perspective.

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If you have feedback or comments on any of the articles above, or suggestions for future blog and news items, please leave them in the comments or e-mail me at [email protected].

Headshot of Joshua Humphrey
Joshua Humphrey
Joshua Humphrey is a writer/performer/miscreant that blogs and podcasts at Twin Cities Theater Connection dot com. When not producing agitprop disguised as podcast interviews to push his political agenda, he enjoys supporting theatre the Tallulah Bankhead way: being an audience.