Artist Disillusionment: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

 

[[Internal Subtrope|Sometimes this can result in]] an [[Artist Disillusionment Farewell]], where the character publicly ends his career - often with a heavy dose of [[Take That, Audience!]].

 

 

 

Over-familiarity can play a part; some artists have been doing their job for decades, which is easily long enough for boredom to kick in. They might be sick of all the [[Executive Meddling]] they have to face, or have achieved [[Protection From Editors]] to such a degree that anyone daring to raise a word of criticism is going to rub them up the wrong way. And sometimes the artist is just naturally a bit grouchy, intolerant and impatient, or is a [[Small Name, Big Ego]] type. All of which is going to make an unpleasant experience for the poor sap who happens to get on the wrong side of their temper.

 

 

 

 

 

{{examples}}

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* In the American Manga ''[[Drama Con]]'', famous fictional artist Lida Zeff has shades of this. When talking to a hopeful with dreams of becoming a manga artist, Lida lists all the difficulties of being an artist: finances, inconsistent job flow, criticism, self-doubt, and the difficulties of the business end of things. Nonetheless, she still seems to find enjoyment in her job even with the disillusionment

* In ''[[Bakuman｡]]'', Kazuya Hiramaru, an overworked businessman, picked up a copy of Weekly Shonen Jump on the way to work, decided he could draw manga for a living, and quit his job that day. He's now so overworked that he often does not sleep, drinks himself silly, and the only thing keeping him drawing is the fact that his editor knows a ''lot'' of pretty girls and promises to introduce him to them if he does well.

 

* In the graphic novels about [[Johanna and Helena]], Helena becomes a successful stand up comedian, but really hates it. The worst part is that her inane babble is considered deep and true art and all that kind of bullshit. The emperor is indeed naked, but in this case the emperor and the child is the same person. (Actually, the authors doesn't portray her shows as bad. Them being "inane babble" is her ''own'' opinion.) Eventually she publicly denounce it all, pretty much claiming that the word must be a [[Crapsack World]] after all since people obviously actually like a show such as hers.

* In one issue of ''[[Riskhospitalet]]'', a news anchorman is saying all kinds of nasty things during a show broadcast in real time. As his finish his speech with mooning the camera, his staff receives a phone fcall from the hospital - explaining that they mixed up the lab results and that the anchorman is in fact not dying.

* The "fame sucks" song has a long-standing place in rock and roll. One example is "Across The Sea" by Weezer, which details Rivers Cuomo's dissatisfaction about the music business while singing about a fan letter from Japan.

* [[Barenaked Ladies]] go into this in "Testing 1, 2, 3".

* [[Counting Crows]] practically made their entire second album, ''Recovering The Satellites'', about this, although "Have You Seen Me Lately" and "Monkey" particularly stand out. Ironic, perhaps, when you think about how their first hit, "Mr. Jones," is about how much they want to become famous. ''Across a Wire'', a live album which the group put out at about the same time as ''Recovering'', contained an [[Rearrange the Song|acoustic, much more somber version]] of Mr. Jones, about how wanting to be a star is "about as fucked up as you can be".

* [[The Beatles (band)|The Beatles]] famously dealt with this - they stopped touring in 1966 due to several factors, most of which can be traced to disillusionment with touring (due to issues from protests about the famous "[[Bigger Than Jesus]]" comment to being unable to hear themselves play at venues).

* [[Pink Floyd]] suffered from two major bouts of this. The first affected Syd Barrett, who found himself increasingly uneasy with their growing exposure, audience sizes and TV appearances, and didn't want the group to become any more famous. None of the others agreed with this, their rising fame was impossible to halt, and Syd sought greater and greater refuge in drugs, leading to his downward spiral into paranoia and insanity. (This was later commemorated in the album ''Wish You Were Here''.) Roger Waters also suffered from the vast audiences and changed audience composition brought by their mainstream success following ''[[The Dark Side of the Moon]]''. While their old psychedelic fans tended to be quiet during the numbers and appreciative at the end of them, the new mainstream fans, though very appreciative, were also very loud and rowdy, and usually spent the whole set calling for "Money". This culminated the infamous incident during the ''Animals'' tour where Roger spat on a particularly loud and rowdy fan (and the fan ''loved'' it). This lead to the jokey suggestion that they needed a wall between him and the audience... which led to ''[[The Wall]]''.

* [[ABBA]] wrote two songs about this, "I'm A Marionette" and the live-only "Get on the Carousel". Both songs are from an unfinished musical called "The Girl with the Golden Hair", a story more than loosely based on Agnetha's life, and how she went from being an enthusiastic young singer excited to begin her career ("Thank You For The Music" and "I Wonder") to being an exploited media-puppet trapped in a cycle of terror and despair ("I'm A Marionette" and "Get on the Carousel"). Some lines of "Super Trouper" also address the disillusionment and isolation experienced by everyone in the band.

* Quite a lot of veteran ''[[MUGEN]]'' content creators/converters aren't too attached to the engine itself and its community either.

* There are those who have theorized that this may have been the case with Hideo Kojima toward the [[Metal Gear Solid]] series after having received death threats. Considering how the [[Base Breaker|fourth game turned out]] this is entirely possible and people have [http://metagearsolid.org/reports_mgs4_soldout_1.html written quite alot about it].

 

== [[Web Comic]] ==

* A big plot element in ''[[Megatokyo]]'' is actor/fan relations. Among the main characters is former idol (and [[Broken Bird]]) Erika, who found that her idealistic dream of being a voice actress was destroyed by fan obsessiveness, the negative impact her job had on her personal life and her own disillusionment - that resulted in nearly killing her best friend. Her experience at the height of her fame has only left her aloof and cynical ({{spoiler|until Largo comes along...}})

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

** The reason why [[Walrus Guy]] retired from pooping is because he feared that was what he was becoming best known for, rather than flash animation where his real passion was.

* [[Tucker Max]] has been suffering from quite a bit of this, having run into a combination of having his target audience outgrow ''him'', and finding his current audience childish and stupid.

* Craig Charles (Lister in [[Red Dwarf]]) has expressed his exasperation at spending "half (his) adult life at ''Red Dwarf'' conventions" on the DVD documentaries of the series. Given that ''Red Dwarf'' has been on the go since 1988...that's a ''lot'' of conventions.

* ''[[Star Trek]]''

** A notable aversion was James "Montgomery Scott" Doohan, who absolutely loved the convention circuit and went out of his way to accommodate fans. On numerous occasions he has told a story about a fan who came to a convention, only to tell him that she intended to commit suicide afterwards. Doohan pulled a Sheherezade and told her that he expected to see her at the next convention, and the next, and the next, and it apparently worked.

* The "Hollywood Diva" archetype is a strange example. They're expected to be nasty to the press and condescending to their fans - in fact, most of them retain their following ''due to'' their negative attitude, not ''in spite'' of it. After all, when did ''E!'' ever do a special on "The Top 100 Genuinely Nice Actresses in Hollywood"? Actually, that doesn't sound like a bad idea...

** When [[Penny Arcade|Michael Krahulik and Jerry Holkins]] were guests of honor at an event with Ellison, Ellison mocked Krahulik (Gabe) in front of the entire crowd ''merely for not having gone to college''. Holkins (Tycho) summed it up like this:

{{quote|Let's be clear here: We're talking about a person that a couple of ''[[Self-Deprecation|total assholes]]'' find rude. }}

* In the 19th century, Russian playwright [[Nikolai Gogol]] wrote a often cited letter about how he was disappointed by the way the actors played the characters in "the Government Inspector" (also called "The Inspector General"), completely misinterpreting his intentions and failing to give them proper depth. He was generally quite prone to such [[Creator Breakdown|breakdowns]], though.

* ''[[Bonus Stage (web animation)|Bonus Stage]]'' creator Matt Wilson ended the cartoon one 'season' earlier than he originally intended, citing at first his desire to make money from his animations, then changing his mind and saying that he just got sick of [[Two Gamers on a Couch|making video-game references]] and the cartoon's trademark [[No Fourth Wall|self-deprecatory humor]]. After pitching some ideas for a new series of his, Wilson seems to have cut off connection with the internet, and what he's up to now is anyone's guess. (Mostly criticizing webcomics on The Awful Forums.)

* Tracey Torme, the creator of ''[[Sliders]]'', had to deal with a whole ton of [[Executive Meddling]], and according to the fan site [http://earthprime.com Earth Prime.com], he hated what the show turned into. Go to the pages about the double episode "Exodus", and read the part about what he thought of it, you'll see.

* [http://www.youtube.com/user/DominicFear Dominic Fera] is [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aLIP94KBlw&feature=channel rather sick] of [[The Lazer Collection]] overshadowing the rest of his Youtube videos, as well as fans of the videos nagging him to hurry up on the next one.

* Hideaki Anno was reputed to be so sick and tired of the [[Misaimed Fandom]] of ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' as well as the death threats his fans sent him after the [[Gainax Ending]] of the series that he created [[The Movie|a film that more or less replaced the last two episodes]] as the true ending. Without giving anything away, it was EXACTLY OPPOSITE of fans of the series wanted and, in some cases, expected. The clincher? The truth is this was the original ending before [[Executive Meddling]], and with the exception of one or two scenes the work was not intended as a [[Take That]] against the fans. He did show the death threats sent to him ''on screen'' after the movie was over, and a certain scene of [[Fan Disservice]] is interpreted to target some of the fans. Never has a bigger "Fuck you." been given to an [[Fan Dumb|overly rabid fanbase]].

* The cast of the second season of the 80's ''[[War of the Worlds (TV series)|War of the Worlds]]'' series were subject to this. When the second season premiered, viewers were reportedly incensed that the entire framework of the series had changed (including the deaths of main characters and the changing of several plot-related elements) that they decided to make their displeasure known with hateful letters written to the cast and crew. Their biggest targets were actor Denis Forest and actress Catherine Disher (who played the leaders of the Morthrai on the show). Disher was so angered by the derogatory and negative letters she received (both during and after the show) that, to this day, she won't talk about it at fan conventions.

* This was a major factor why [[Dave Chappelle]] pulled the plug on [[Chappelle's Show|his eponymous show]], as [[Discredited Meme|he'd grown sick]] of all the people who would walk up to him saying lines like "[[Memetic Mutation|I'm Rick James,]] [[This Is for Emphasis, Bitch|bitch!]]" (once, while he was with his wife and children!), also believing they [[Misaimed Fandom|missed the point]] of his show's sketches. In one live concert, Dave chewed his fans out:

{{quote|'''Chappelle:''' You know why my show is good? Because the network officials say you're not smart enough to get what I'm doing, and every day I fight for you. I tell them how smart you are. Turns out I was wrong. You people are stupid.}}

* The late [[John Hughes]] [http://wellknowwhenwegetthere.blogspot.com/2009/08/sincerely-john-hughes.html?commentPage=8 once told someone] that he left the Hollywood scene out of fear that it would have a negative impact on his kids. Plus, he felt that the film industry overworked his friend John Candy to the point that it killed the actor.

* Follow [[Jhonen Vasquez]] on [http://twitter.com/JhonenV Twitter for a while] and it becomes abundantly clear that his fans really irritate him.

** Examples may include [[Christina Aguilera]] and [[Delta Goodrem]]. Of course your opinion may be different.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Trivia Trope]]

[[Category:Creator Standpoint Index]]