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jemgirl86 · 10 months

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So, in the past 2 days, with 2 different friends, I’ve discussed actors being asked questions about shipping. And I’ve come to the conclusion, probably because I’m an elder millennial lol, and can remember before the words “shipping” and “fandom” were tossed around in casual conversation, and also because I’ve watched a shit ton of tv, that I might have a fairly unpopular, or at least different, opinion about the whole thing.

Quick note: I’m not picking on anything or anybody. This is just my two cents…

Okay, so, I think my main problem with this whole thing is twofold:

1. I’m sick of how these questions are being asked.

2. I’m sick of all parties involved acting brand new.

When I say I’m sick of the framing what I mean is, I’m tired of “fandom” and or fandom shit being brought up by interviewers and being used as a scapegoat/reason for them to ask questions they were always going to ask anyway, and have been asking about couples on various shows since FOREVER lol.

What do I mean? Well, at its core, the Syd/Carmy dynamic - the way it is presented and written, whether anyone wants to admit it or not - is a “will they/won’t they” relationship, in the most classic sense. Now, “will they, won’t they” might not have have been the original plan when the show was developed, which is often the case. They might’ve gotten to set and the actors just had natural chemistry together. However, at this point, the writing and direction has fed into it, also whether they intended to or not, at least to a certain degree, and no this isn’t a “men and women can’t be friends” thing, lol, they’re already friends on the show, and that doesn’t have to change, but their friendship isn’t stopping the other tension from bleeding through.

It’s a tale as old as time… Sam & Diane… David & Madelyn… Fran & Maxwell… Kyle & Maxine… Jim & Pam… Mulder & Scully… Janine & Gregory… etc etc, I could literally go on forever, especially if I started counting soap opera couples lol. These “we work together, or spend a lot of time together, it’s kind of antagonist, but in a fun way, we could be friends, or even enemies, sometimes we might legitimately fight, but also, sometimes it looks like we might kiss” relationships between the male and female leads have always existed, and interviewers have always discussed them, and questioned the actors about them, and it ain’t got shit to do with anything fandom posts online.

Which is why the following excerpt annoyed tf out of me:

She’s also been made aware of the (seemingly) sizable group of Carmy-Sydney shippers that have appeared, rising from the Twitter mist to declare their allegiances to an imaginary romance. These fan theories are something of a pain point for Edebiri, who says she is grateful that people are so engaged with the show, but that it’s “frustrating.” She adds: “It’s really not our thought process when we’re making the show, and I understand it can be part of a show’s culture — but I don’t think they’re going to get what they want.” Gordon told THR that while she also doesn’t subscribe to the shipper theories, she believes it’s a testament to the work of Storer, White, and Edebiri that they’re able to create something so passionate. “I think it’s incredibly cool to have this dynamic onscreen that isn’t romantic, but that feels charged and sexy,” she said.

Narratively speaking, Edebiri isn’t actually sure that Carmy should be in a relationship with anyone (“It’s TV, do you want to see Walter White go to therapy and then reunite with his family?” she asks with a laugh), but admits that she can’t resist falling — platonically! — for the character’s complicated charms. “I love this little fucked up guy in the kitchen,” she says before quickly self-editing. “Or wait, this messed-up guy.” (The more she reads her own interviews, the more she sees her own explicit language: “I think I do it when I’m telling a joke, like I’m putting a swear in there to let you know I’m saying a joke — it’s something for me to reflect on.”)

At this point, I remember — and bring up — a tweet I saw recently, that drew a line between the many years that Succession fans spent caring (deeply) about the show’s (deeply) damaged men and the way they were able to quickly jump to the stage of “babygirlifying” the men of The Bear. She looks aghast, the parasocial implications a step too far even for someone from her inherently online cohort. “That is so Internet,” she manages, her expression a flash of the face-acting that has become a hallmark of her Emmy-nominated performance.

That entire passage was weird and not because of “fandom,” or because a fan got out of pocket, but because a journalist working in the entertainment industry forgot how to do their job, and it made an actress not give the answer (I’d like to think) she’d give if she’d been asked the standard question.

Whoever the hell worked at Entertainment Tonight back in the day: “So are David & Maddie finally going to get together this season?”

Bruce Willis, in 1986 probably: “Well, ET anchor, you’ll just have to watch and see” *winks at camera*

Is that a real quote? No. Is that exactly like something I’ve heard before. Yes. Like… this is not rocket science lol. I have seen a version of that question asked (and answered) hundreds of times throughout my entire life about various tv couples without making it a big weird thing, whether they bring up fans or not. Hell, the journalist could’ve said: “Will Syd & Carmy ever get together? Viewers are dying to know.” And it would’ve been fine, totally normal, but instead they wrote all that and made it as weird as possible, to what? Throw fandom culture and shipping under the bus I guess…

But, see, my beef with this, and situations like this one in particular is, this isn’t a shipping issue. This isn’t an interviewer springing a question on an actor about a fanon relationship that no person with a functioning brain or any sense of reality could ever think would go canon. This isn’t someone asking about something impossible, some MCU fanon ship that only the most delusional 12 year old in the world would think they were ever going to see date anywhere other than their own Google Doc.

Whether you like Syd/Carmy or think they have all the chemistry of a wet paper towel, realistically, you still know that them getting together isn’t something TPTB at their particular studio will never allow… they’re just something that hasn’t happened yet, that might never happened, but still, at this point, just hasn’t happened yet. Something that one of the leads refers to as a “charged and sexy” dynamic.

I don’t know how to break it to the interviewer or the segment of society that seems to have gotten amnesia, and forgotten one of the oldest tv tropes around, but a “charged and sexy dynamic” between two leads on a show that hasn’t yet ended is a… ding ding ding, you guessed it folks, a “will they, won’t they” dynamic.

And here’s the thing, most of The Bear’s viewers and probably most of the people who think Syd & Carmy would be cute together NEVER stick a toe in fandom, will never ever read a fanfic, might not even know what all fandom entails, they’re just like the boomer guy I see at the coffee machine sometimes, they enjoyed the show and think “Carmy & Syd would be good for each other” lmaooo. They watch it the way I watch The Good Wife lol. They don’t ship Carmy/Syd - they’ve literally never heard that word used like that before. And they’re definitely not about to engage with other fans online in any significant way, it’s a water cooler show for them… much like Cheers actually.

Soooo leave fandom and fans, and the tweets you saw on Twitter, and the fics that got posted on ao3 out of your questions… and out of your answers too, tbh. Because at the end of the day, if everyone was honest with themselves for five fucking seconds, Syd & Carmy don’t fall into the “will they, won’t they” category because some people involved in online fandom, in any capacity, posted anything on ao3, Tumblr, Twitter, or anywhere else. Fandom as we know it could have never existed, and an entertainment journalist would still be asking Ayo & Jeremy something related to the potential of their characters’ having a romantic relationship, and anyone who’s ever watched a television show before damn well knows it. So, stop framing it as questions you’re bringing up because of shipping nonsense from a crazy fandom, frame it the same way you would’ve in 1986, before Twitter, and leave fandom out of it. If people want to be pissy they need to save it for the fans @‘ing actors with nonsense, and the fans ready to riot over fanon ships they knew were never going to happen. But being mad at someone who sees the possibility of a Syd/Carmy pairing at this point would be like being mad at someone in 1993 for thinking Maxwell Sheffield and Nanny Fine might end up together…

Ijs… if you wouldn’t frame that person as crazy because they saw an “imaginary romance,” then maybe look deeper lol.

It seems like I’m picking on The Bear in this rambling mess lol, but they’re just a recent example, so I used them because I’m tired of people conflating two issues. Yes, asking actors shipping questions is weird… when you’re doing it about two characters, you, me, the milk man, the lady down the street and the man on the moon, all know will never get together. But… ummm no, a reporter asking Cybil Shepherd in 1985 if her & Bruce Willis’ characters would eventually be together actually wouldn’t have been weird, and I think everyone knew that back then, so I’m trying to figure out why people are pretending not to know it now.

Yes, some people in fandom are unhinged: acting nutsy bobos because their ship that truly was just a ship didn’t go canon, even though even the Scarecrow could’ve told them it wasn’t going to happen; seeing queerbait where there was never queerbait; contacting writers/actors/etc. directly with their thoughts, opinions, and fantasies 🤢, instead of DM’ing that mess to their cousin/sister/friend or sharing it on their blog (lol) like a normal person. However, sometimes, really, a lot of time, it’s not the fandom at all. In fact, the fandom be minding their own fucking business, and the journalists (and actors) wouldn’t even know about fandom stuff if they didn’t go poking around.

And other times, times like this one, stuff gets framed as being nutty shipper shit, when it’s just regular viewer shit. Because, again, no reporter ever waited until Niles and Daphne kissed on screen to ask either actor if their characters would ever get together, so I need this journalist and others like them to please spare me the bullshit of acting like the only reason they fixed their mouth to ask Ayo about the possibility of Syd/Carmy was because of some “shippers” and “their allegiances to an imaginary romance.”

There is only one reason I could see any entertainment journalist back in the day, pre-internet, not asking about the possibility of a romance between these two characters in particular, and it ain’t got shit to do with their dynamic.

But that’s another long ass rambling post for another slow work day lol.

Idk how to wrap this up other than to say, fans and fandoms as a whole are more visible now than ever before. And lately the behavior of some fans has been off the hook lol (though realistically I’d argue that some of that behavior is sometimes encouraged, in one way or another, by TPTB), but that doesn’t mean we have to overcorrect by blaming fandoms for things that they aren’t responsible for, and it really doesn’t mean that we have to start acting like online fan communities created things that have existed, long before the online fan community in question. Folks are so mad at all fandoms and all fans, they can’t even tell the difference between the musings of an obsessed stan & the general curiosities of a casual viewer, and it’s got honest to god journalists conflating rabid shipping discourse with “oh I think they’d be cute together,” and forgetting that casual viewers even exist and still have opinions, and it’s very very weird.

Bring Back Normal Interviews 2024 lol

ETA: You want to know what’s funny? As I’ve said before, I don’t even want them together lol. Syd is my fave, and I think Carmy is about to (unintentionally) ruin her life. But, still, I couldn’t bite my tongue, so to speak, because it really grinds my gears when a bunch of people expect me to sit back and pretend I don’t see the same themes and dynamics I’ve seen countless times, and pretend that I’m only seeing certain questions being asked because of fans on Twitter… even though we all know that’s not true 🙃

ETA Again: Since I referenced it more than once, I feel like it’s only fair to mention that Moonlighting is actually infamous for being the reason that a lot of times even when the chemistry is off the charts between two leads on a popular show, TPTB will refuse to put them together. The episode of Moonlighting where the two main characters finally got together was the most watched episode… but it was all downhill from there. It ruined the show according to everyone and their mamas lol (though that’s not entirely fair). Anyway, the tension and chemistry and buildup was suddenly gone, and the show was no longer fun. The story goes that viewers gave up on it, and it became a cautionary tale about how you should always make the “will they, won’t they” of it all last as long as possible, or your show might die lol

#the bear #sydcarmy #syd x carmy #i will probably delete this later #of course shipping questions are weird #but this was only a shipping question because of the interviewer #in general asking an actor about the romantic future of their character on a tv show isn’t weird… and it’s not a question of shipping #TYPICALLY #it only gets weird if the interviewer makes it weird

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