A few weeks ago, a brand spanking new film adaptation of one of America's most famous novels came out. I am, of course, talking about The Great Gatsby.
With the new The Great Gatsby movie directed by Baz Luhrman, of Moulin Rouge and Romeo+Juliet fame, and starring Leonardo Decaprio as Gatsby, Tobey Macguire as Nick, and Carrie Mulligan as Daisy, came an onslaught of tie-in versions of Fitzgerald's American classic.
Returing home from school I passed by numerous book stores, and everywhere I saw stacks of The Great Gatsby with the new movie poster on it or Leonardo's Decaprio's face on it (scroll to the end of this article for the movie tie-in cover). This is not a one-time anomaly: I have observed before that the same book stores inundated with tie-in literature for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Not just tie-in book covers, mind you, but also books filled with concept art, original illustrations and maps, hardcover volumes of The Lord of the Rings, as well as The Silmarillion and lesser known works such as The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun - not to mention the scrapbook-esque collections of Behind-The-Scenes stills of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings movies, non-fictional analyses of Tolkien's works, overly detailed bestiaries and glossaries, and fairy tale and legend books that are not even distantly linked to the world of Middle-Earth.
I am not going into the keychains, bookmarks, soap cans, glass bottles, talismans, jewelry, post cards, statuettes, T-shirts and candy gift boxes that are sold alongside the books, all placed very decoratively and eye-catchingly on a center display unit in the store.
The main topic of this post is movie tie-in books and their covers. Are they just another way for those who've purchased the license to a work to sponge money from fans and promote a movie, or are they a good way to promote a great work among a wide audience of potential fans and garner attention for a book that deserves more attention than it gets?
Certainly the studios behind film adaptations of books and especially the publishing houses that have the right to print said books have dollar signs in their eyes and quintuple digit figures in their motives when promotional merchandise, or as some people would refer to as 'tat', is successfully sold in abundance in book stores, super markets and what not. I doubt the people behind the tie-in coloring book with the free box of crayons had the essence of the book in mind when they made those coloring books. But that is the way that the world bounces, at least, at the moment.
The laws of capitalism dictate that profit is the most important thing ever and that the Sun, Earth and the Moon revolve around it. To make a profit, one must sell, in this case, an item for more than its production value. This is a very, very watered-down fundamental pillar of capitalism. A psychological factor that plays an important role in sale - a factor of marketing, actually - is to hook a product line as quickly as possibly onto the tails of the latest trends and fashions. The product line in question does not necessarily have to be brand new; it can also be an old line that is re-awakened for a repopularized franchise, genre or trend. We, as customers, have observed this bandwagon-jumping countless times, so it is unsurprising for us when we see it happen to film adaptations of literature. As much as we may find it tasteless that George Clooney's face is on our version of Stanislaw Lem's Solaris, we, as consumers in a capitalist society, have to grin and bear it, simply based on the fact that it is a pseudo-natural occurence in a capitalist nation. I say 'pseudo-natural', because it is natural in so far that this phenomenon recurs on its own, although it is technically born out of the minds of managers, marketing departments and whatnot. However, it is not exactly fair to put the entire blame on capitalism, although certainly it is capital-oriented economy that creates the phenomenon of "franchise-merch" as an often profitable means to cash in on something that is already popular. Franchise-merch, as I have now decided to call the junk that is created to sponge money out of a trend or franchise, is hardly even a capitalist thing anymore: it is considered a social thing. It is hard for us to think of a society where companies do not create heaps of tat, and hearing the description of such a society makes us think of the past or of some sort of idyllic utopia.
So, as citizens, we have the right to express our disgust at most franchise-merch (The Great Gatsby perfume bottles, anyone?), but as consumers, we cannot really expect anything different to appear on store shelves. But what about us as capitalists?
For a businessman, franchise-merc is fantastic. You can save money and time on so many things, and make an increasingly fat profit. Consider: you do not have to popularize an item, because it is already based on something that is popular, ergo you will not have to go all out on marketing your product. Stores will buy the product and put it along with other similar products on one big display unit right out front for all customers to see. Secondly, you can take an existing mold or draft for an item, craft the product and do nothing more than repaint it. Or, if you're feeling really fancy, you can buy a mold that has already been used by another (perhaps bigger) company and use that to create a product. On a book level: you can just take the posters for the movie and slap that onto the book. It's the same book that's been on the book store shelves for years, but now, because it looks slightly different and is a tie-in for the recent movie, it stands a better a chance of being sold. And so little thought went into it, it is boggling.
Ultimately, as a capitalist, franchise-merch, including movie tie-in books, is a wonderful thing indeed.
But aside from the financial viewpoint, what other perspective could possibly promote a positive portrayal of movie tie-in books?
The perspective of a fan and loyal admirer of a franchise could very well prove to contain this portrayal - though, this perspective can go both ways in this argument.
Let's say, the movie tie-in version of your favorite book has proven extremely popular. Many people have watched the movie adaptation without having first read the book it was based on, and now, after spotting a book with the movie's poster on the front, they are eager to buy and read the original source material. For a fan, isn't that exactly what you want to have happen to your favorite book? Thousands of people who are going to join you in admiration of the novel, all thanks to movie tie-in books.
Those are, perhaps, the best arguments I can conceive in favor of movie tie-in literature.
But now we are getting to the good part: Why are movie tie-in books so terrible?Why do we despise their very existence?
All right, perhaps that is being a bit too harsh. After all, there are some books that are tied in with their respective film adaptations and yet still retain some sort of dignity: perhaps they have an astonishingly creative cover, or perhaps they include stills from the movie that are stand-ins for illustration, or perhaps they include information about the movie that makes the book an educationally good buy. Unfortunately, the amount of books that do not meet afore-mentioned criteria lack every kind of dignity and end up radiating a distinctly unpleasant feeling of shoddiness.
You can take the financial argument that I have used before in favor of movie tie-ins and use it against movie tie-ins. It's a two-way street. Sure, franchise-merch is a common characteristic of capitalism, but does that change the fact that companies, who don't give a damn about what they're peddling, are trying to charge us for books that are over-priced simply because they belong to a recent edition with a movie poster on the cover? That can hardly be considered in the spirit of good will, can it?
Even if you ignore the obvious financial motivation driving these books with their movie-poster-covers into the shops, you will still find arguments that blatantly oppose movie tie-ins, and many of these arguments resemble the same arguments that I have already mentioned above, only turned around:
Thanks to movie adaptations and their tie-in books and tat, thousands of people will join the fandom that you are already in, and as likely as not they are going to be completely oblivious to the core of the book. Fanboys and fangirls - not proper fans or admirers, mind you - will start cropping up like bamboo, writing idiotic R-rated fanfiction and drawing manga-renditions of all of your favorite characters. They will take the most bad-ass, most rugged and most virile character in the book and turn him into a bishonen-like figure that does not bear any resemblance to anything even remotely human. As for the female characters in the book, regardless if there is only one or if there are fifty, and regardless of their age, they will receive gratuitously sexist pieces of artwork that reveals that the artists, who've read the book and seen the film, have no idea what the word 'decency' even means and are probably too lazy to look it up in the online Oxford dictionary.
Not all artwork and fanfiction is going to be bad, of course.
But as Sturgeon's law dictates: 90% of everything is crud.
So, although roughly 10 percent of the fanart and fanfiction that occurs after a book soars into popularity thanks to a movie adaptation will be wholesome, humorous, entertaining or of generally good quality, the remaining 90 percent will be crud. If you're an initial fan or if you belong to the 10 percent, brace yourself for the 90%-wave that is going to hit the net, the public ads, the TV, and so many more public places - even the labels on lunchbox string cheese packets and huggable pillows (life-sized bishonen Thorin Oakenshield pillow, seriously?).
And there you have it. I have tried to come up with at least two (or rather, one and a half, now that I look at my article from afar) arguments in favor of and against movie tie-in literature. Personally? I am for tie-ins if they are of good quality and the film adaptation they are alluding to is also good. For example, that new Hobbit film. After the movie was over, I could feel my brain oozing through my ears out of sheer boredom. To see Martin Freeman's face on a copy of The Hobbit is sacrilegious. The adaptation was done so poorly and cheaply, with so very little thought for Tolkien's original tale, that I am more than appalled, I am devastated. And to think that I was actually looking forward to this film.
Conversely, my edition of The Lords of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring has a picture of Elija Woods as Frodo Baggins on it - and it is not even a movie poster, it looks more like a zoomed-in still from the movie or maybe a promotional photograph. Do I hate it? Nah, I'm fine with it, because I really liked the LOTR film trilogy, so I am not averse to seeing tie-in versions of the LOTR books.
And while I have nothing against the new Great Gatsby film, I do find the idea behind pushing Great Gatsby tat and along with it tie-in versions of Fitzgerald's immortal classic is ironic in itself. The new Great Gatsby movie, like the original novel, criticizes the ideals of capitalism and mocks the idle decadence of consumers buying worthless, flashy kitsch so as not to fall behind the latest fashion. But isn't that exactly what marketers are trying to do with Gatsby tat? Have we stooped to such an obliviously hypocritical level that we buy useless junk and over-priced Great Gatsby books, all the while throwing Great Gatsby-themed parties with flapper dresses and colorful tuxedoes? Do we, as readers and viewers, no longer absorb the spirit and message that a novel or a film proffers, but instead unquestioningly accept the franchise-merch that is thrown into our faces?
This is a point worth considering by everyone, regardless whether you are a fan of the film adaptation of some book, a fan of the book itself or a fan of both. Think about the effects of movie tie-in literature, or, for that matter, of franchise-merch in general. After due consideration, what is your take on movie tie-ins? Do you hate them? Do you love them? Or do you have a mixed reaction to them, like I have?
As promised, here is The Great Gatsby movie tie-in cover I was referring to, which, as I understand it, has sparked a miniature outrage among fans of the novel, which are understandably very, very numerous. I've also posted the German movie tie-in cover to The Hobbit, which I actually do not mind. Both covers are pretty much identical to their respective movie posters, but The Hobbit tie-in seems more modest in my opinion, since it doesn't have "BAZ LUHRMAN" and the actors' names right ON THE FREAKING COVER.
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