Overall, I thought this article did an excellent job of explaining the contradictions at the heart of the Indie brand.
Newman's basic argument is that "Indie" no longer describes a mode of production but instead, has come to describe a counter-hegemonic "style" or "cultural category" of film or music, produced by mainstream media outlets. In the film world, the shift in definition occurred in the early nineties, when major Hollywood studios began distributing and marketing Indie films. Before this point, independent film was more strictly an industrial category: films produced outside of the studio system, usually small scale, low-budget affairs that offered creators more artistic autonomy as a result of being free from the meddling hands of corporate influence.
The mainstreaming of independent film became problematic for the status of the indie film aesthetic that is so entrenched in the economics of independent filmmaking. Films that look low-budget and "offbeat" but that are actually produced by big studios stand to lose a certain amount of authenticity or indie cred. Indie films produced by Disney (aka Miramax) must therefore, assume an oppositional posture or maintain what he calls a "rhetoric of distinction," in order to remain a viable cultural catagory within dominant media structures.
Newman maps out this idea of Indie as rhetoric of distinction through a couple of key examples: the critical reception to Todd Solondz's Happiness and the success of VW's "Driver's Wanted" campaign. With Happiness, we can see how the Indie taste is cultivated through a perceived rejection of mainstream culture; the VW ads demonstrate how this rhetoric of distinction creates an Indie aesthetic that is more portable than the proponents of "authentic" Indie culture might want to believe.
As always, my thoughts about indie culture gravitate towards television: is there such a thing as Indie TV? Newman has already written an excellent post on his blog that addresses the question of Indie TV. As he establishes, the binaries that exist in the film industry of Hollywood vs. Indie don't really exist in the TV world. With the emergence of the cable channels like HBO and Showtime that seek to offer an alternative to traditional network TV, there is now a space for indie shows
to thrive. As Newman notes, HBO shows give their creators the kind of artistic freedom that the indie culture is all about. He mentions David Simon of The Wire but I can of a couple of others: David Milch (Deadwood, John From Cincinnati), Alan Ball (Six Feet Under, True Blood), David Chase (The Sopranos).
To add onto to Newman's point, I think the emergence of the"showrunner" is important in defining what we might call "Indie TV". From what I can tell, "showrunner" is a relatively new term used to describe the person who acts as both head writer and head producer. Ten years ago showrunners might have been called an exec producers, but I would like to do some more in-depth research about the history of the position and how it is understood in popular media.
What I have discovered from my cursory findings is that showrunners are often described as the cinema auteurs of the medium.
This article that appeared in the NYTimes last year is about Mad Men's showrunner Matthew Weiner (my italics):Weiner (pronounced WHY-ner) is the creator and show-runner of “Mad Men,” which means the original idea was his: he wrote the pilot; he writes every episode of every show (along with four other people); he’s the executive producer who haggles for money (he says that his budget is $2.3 million per episode and that the average budget for a one-hour drama is $2.8 million); and he approves every actor, costume, hairstyle and prop. Though he has directed episodes, most of the time he holds a “tone meeting” with the director at which he essentially performs the entire show himself so it’s perfectly clear how he wants it done. He is both ultimate authority and divine messenger, some peculiar hybrid of God and Edith Head. “I do not feel any guilt about saying that the show comes from my mind and that I’m a control freak,” he told me. “I love to be surrounded by perfectionists, and part of the problem with perfectionism is that by nature, you’re always failing.”
The notion that showrunners are "starry-eyed artists" or an "ultimate authority and divine messenger" suggests that TV showrunners share in the kind of artistic autonomy usually exclusive to indie film directors. And the celestial descriptions of these showrunners certainly play into the rhetoric of Indie "distinction" that Newman speaks of: these are not just directors or writers or writer/directors. Showrunners are Gods.
And wouldn't it be interesting if these showrunners were able to pave the way for the Indie TV movement in the post-network era, where shows could actually be produced and distributed outside of networks? Say on the internets? I think one famous showrunner has already jumped on the new wave.
As of now, internet TV hasn't taken off in a significant way. We've got internet TV networks like VBS.tv but no one yet has able to translate web TV into something BIG. During the WGA strike however, when network television was at a stand-still, a major showrunner like Joss Whedon was able to use to the web to circumvent the networks, by putting up his own money to produce Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. Through DVD and iTunes distribution sales, Whedon was actually able to make a profit from an Internet TV venture.
It will take a major showrunner like Joss Whedon, who may be able to raise the necessary funds to produce a popular web series, to pave the way for some kind of authentic independent TV movement.
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