In Defense of Affection

When The Tortured Poets Department was released last year, the usual immediate ranking and discussion among fans surprised me a bit. The title song wasn't well-received, with people calling out lines like "tattooed golden retriever" for being corny and weird, while for me it was instantly one of my favorites on the album. It explained to me, in a very clear way, the reason why someone (let's say Taylor Swift) would date another person who is clearly troubled by a myriad of problems (let's say Matty Healy.) The song doesn't deny that those problems exist but instead contextualizes those problems into a larger feeling of protectiveness and understanding that underscores the relationship. It focuses on deep moments of affection that balance out the stormy moods and carries the narrator through to the other side. The song is about the role that affection plays in a relationship - and I understood why it was hard for some fans to get on board with. Affection is often derided as immature or unsophisticated, but as a fangirl it's the primary quality I look for in media.

A lot of fan studies talks about "affect" in terms of how fans feel toward their objects. Fans have "affective" attachments to their characters or shows, that doesn't line up with logical, moral, or even emotional sense. But there's not as much talk about affection or how something seemingly one-sided can produce such feelings. (Art isn't one-sided, it's a mediated message, but it can certainly feel like talking to a wall/screaming at your TV screen. You get what I mean.)

Usually when I have affection for a character it's because the actor has put a bit of themselves into the role (way more common in genre) and seeing that humanity warms me to the art in a way that a narrative can't. It can be something of a reflection of myself, my habits or hangups, or a reflection of how I'd like things to be, a meeting of values. It also allows for things to be unselfconsciously silly and goofy, relying on the strength of the underlying relationship.

Affection by necessity also builds up over time. TV is so easy to have affection for because a traditional show with multiple seasons (ideally yearly) holds a significant chunk of our lives - we have either lived and "grown up" with these characters, or as streamers, watched them evolve over many years. The affection we have for the movies that were significant to us as teens can't be judged by qualitative metrics, it's kind of pointless to try to evaluate them as adults. There are movies that still hold up, but that's beside the point.

Instead of being impressive either narratively or filmographically, affection is often an acknowledgment of the seams - it requires vulnerability and intimacy, which often goes awry. The imperfections are part of the reason why affection is so powerful (the seams are where the light gets in.) No one actually wants to be in love with a perfect person, I feel the same way about my media. To me, Cats (2019) is proof of god. Why the hell were we put on this earth, and why the hell did it lead us to this? There is nothing more blatantly human than a horrible collapse of hubris, fueled by industry and capitalism, that becomes a mockery of itself by merely existing. We are the only animals on the planet, that we know of, capable of such a feat and I can't help but love us a little for it.

There are a lot of "broken" or imperfect pieces of media that still hold a lot of resonance for me and crucially, part of the reason I like them isn't that they succeed but that they are trying. I find that there's so much media that is so extremely self-assured in what it's doing that it leave no room for gaps or fuzziness - all the intimacy and exposure of being earnestly flawed.

Which is to say, I love broken things. And I have a lot of affection for broken things. I think fandom runs on its love of broken things. And oh baby, Hutch is so, so broken.

Side Note: This week I'm showing two films that lots of people have tons of affection for - The Wiz at A Baked Joint on the 19th and The Wizard of Oz at Spark Social on the 23rd. All my events and tickets are available on my Eventbrite.

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