The second part of an informal and relaxed chat. I may be alone in this, but I am super uncomfortable with an interviewer, with one foot in the fandom, setting herself up as the message bearer for them and passing along fandom desires and habits. But that’s just me.
Armitage Agonistes 
You are not alone…there is a certain level of conflict of interest that makes me edgy.
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Really glad to hear it. I was particularly uncomfortable when she advised him that his answer to Boxers of Brief would become ringtones on fans’ phones. It may be true, but it still sounded like fans were the butt of a joke.
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There’s a kind of duplicity there that I find problematic. If she and we are all fans together, we can certainly rib each other for stuff like that, but IMO, it’s not cool to poke fun of fans who are not present to represent themselves…if she’d said “that will be a ringtone on *my* phone,” it would be different.
I’m donning my helmet and flack jacket for incoming fire.
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Not sure there will be direct flack.
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I hope not…we should allow be able to voice reasoned opinions without the need for body armor!
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Shade on us if the next @RCArmitage tweet is one of those thank-yous of his to Marlise Boland. Not sure how I’d feel about a slap on the wrist from Richard Armitage.
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That might force me to break my “no Twitter ever” rule. I’m all for civility, but civility is not the same thing as censorship.
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Or well meaning attempted censorship in the name of harmony or whatever that would be. :}. (iPad app keeps crashing, so if this shows up ten times…)
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i thought fangirling is liking his work 😉 i don’t feel i have to like or agree with his opinions or his likes 😉 And i am not at all convinced all those thanks are himself, may very well be staff. See my general opinion on gazillion interviews below, i don’t even think in the grand scheme of things all that stuff is vitally important, 90% of my colleagues have watched and loved the movie, zero! have watched any of this stuff or read any reviews for that matter 😉 But they loved him as Thorin and they are not even fans.
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yeah, or *we* will be making GIFs.
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That ” they” hit me the same way as the phrase, ” you people.”
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The problem seen from a fan perspective is that if she is a fan, maybe if she were trapped at a computer somewhere (as Armitage notes — a lot of people are fans who can’t leave their homes) she would be making GIFs. I think a lot of people miss the tone of subtle condescension in what she says.
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Ooohhh…I HATE the “you people” !
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I understand the whole new platform of media coverage and all of that, I can appreciate the notion of an informal, relaxed atmosphere lending to a more candid tone in the interview which is very desirable. I do similar things in my classrooms that makes them different from the traditional venue for my students. But, there is a point at which I must draw a line between my efforts to informalize the classroom to make it more approachable and the reality of my professional obligations to my students as an educator. I guess I’m just not quite clear on where that line is being drawn in this case and that is lending to my discomfort on the whole.
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She’s very touchy. She puts him into positions where he almost has to touch or return the gaze, and I have the feeling that when she does that or otherwise gets personal, she’s set herself up as the surrogate for those fans who fantasize about experiencing that. It’s almost like a benevolent voyeurism.
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P.S. I see WordPress has allowed you to follow the blog for a while. It’s possible that a decent percentage of my follows are all Obscura re-upping after I’ve been banished from your feed.
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LOL…noticed that did you?! I don’t know if I keep accidentally fat finger hitting the unfollow on the android app or what the deal is. Every so often I notice an absence of Armitage Agonistes posts in my reader and click follow again 🙂
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Well, keep in mind there is usually at least one post a day. But I chuckle now every time I get that message, ” Obscura is now following your blog.” I keep waiting for the email that tells me ” Obscura is NOT following your blog.”
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I agree. I was writing as you published.
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In answer to your just-published post ( in case anyone misses my comment there) I think since she holds herself out as a member of the media, it is totally fair to critique her work. Somehow, I don’t think she’s going to become the Sarah Dunn of Armitage interviewers, but that may be where she’s aiming.
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I do think that’s what she wants; that’s what her post on FB indicates.
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I can’t really watch these interviews in one go – too cringe-inducing. What’s the actual ratio of her questions to his answers? Seems like she does quite a bit of talking. Just my opinion.
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I know what you mean. I find that I’m always holding my breath the first time I watch one of these interviews. Not a good sign.
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‘Zactly. A couple of times it seemed like RA was getting in a little groove, riffing on a story & she’d talk over him & kill it. Like the wifi bit in part 1 – that could’ve been hilarious if she’d let him run with it.
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I was putting off watching the video, because just the teaser piece made me twitchy- references to fans and fandom behaviour aren’t something I feel comfortable listening to, especially when we have no say in how we’re being represented.
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Exactly. Her knowledge of the fandom comes from a limited group who have their own agenda, opinions and manner of expressing opinions that not everyone in the fandom joins or condones.
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To be fair, I don’t want to hear anyone discuss the fandom in an interview with RA, no matter how well informed- we’re not some homogeneous entity that’s easily categorised, and there would always be misrepresentation of one type or another.
I’m all for that fourth wall remaining firmly in place.
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i’m with you on that, there has been much mention of fans this time round and always with a bit of an ironic tone. It’s easy pickings for interviewers who can’t come up with any worthwhile subject, a reflection on their lack of professionalism and creativity. And it will always be an awkward subject, for both us and him, it’s an emotional reaction that can’t fully be explained or understood, so any discussion will always put him in a strange situation and lumps us all together unfairly. I always try to remember that it’s the interviewer’s flaws it exposes, not mine. It’s an equally unimaginative question as the one about the tall-dwarf.
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I said this over at Serv’s and I’ll say it here, too: the reason she had an in to begin with was due to fan labor. Perry, I remember your signal boosting voting for that award and so did a lot of other people. We did that for HIM, though, not her. That she’s mocking one type of fan labor when she benefitted from another rubs me the wrong way.
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I saw your comment there on Me and Richard. It’s not only the fan labor or creativity she belittled by her GIF/Ring tone comment. I think she belittled the notion that fans were going to want that soundbite.
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Agree.
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Yes. And the fact that she set him up to give it.
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yeah, and we saw a lot of that this press round, not just with her. The journalist asks a question that ends up sort of beginning for a mean remark about fans. It’s a step further than she went in February, when she at least admitted that she was sort of complicit in particular kinds of fan desires even as she recognized them to be problematic.
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threw in my excess of pennies over at Serv’s but just wanted to say i feel ‘over-interviewed’ with little info in the lot, haven’t seen all, but so far it’s a bit of blur, which tells me there wasn’t much substance in the lot. A couple things stayed with me, like a few jokes, that Apple QA as somehow there was more info in that than in the rest together – maybe because the subjects were actually allowed to talk at length ;-)) and it didn’t have the ‘cram everything in 2min feel’- and the other article which i loved was the Forbes on BOTFA, i actually re-read that 2x today to cheer myself up 🙂 Well written and good to read 🙂 I’m almost in the mood to shoo all interviews away to let me enjoy a couple extended well written articles and the film itself. It’s the thing that feels important to me right now 🙂 (and tbh i’m unlikely to re-watch more than 2-5 of these interviews, but i’ll certainly re-watch the movie many more times!)
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That’s always how it is with these press junket interviews – much repetition, but now and then, something new and interesting. It’s always helpful to wait for a quieter time and go through them again. I try to point out the one or two interesting bits in an interview, if there are any.
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I guess I just don’t take MB seriously enough in the first place to take offense at anything she does. Yes, I’ve always cringed at the low production and “journalistic” (if you can call it that) values of her interviews. I sigh in annoyance when she fusses with her hair and make-up. And her overbearing, chirpy manner is just not my thing. But it would never occur to me that she was trying to speak for me when she talks about the “fandom.” I think I’m smart enough to know when I’m being condescended to and I have to say the boxer or brief thing just made me roll my eyes. I know *I* would never make that (or anything) my ringtone, but judging by a lot of Twitter replies RA gets there are clearly a lot of women who would. I feel like she’s just pandering to the fandom by talking about them because their strong response to the earlier interview was a boon to her small operation.
All of that said, I feel that she does bring out a chatty, more relaxed RA than do many interviewers, and I enjoyed this latest interview as I did the spring one. It’s not the New York Times, but it has its place. During that earlier interview RA talked about “reacting” to the personality of interviewers in different countries and even commented on MB’s all-American enthusiasm, and I’ve always felt that MB’s strong personality just brings something out in him.
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He has appeared to be relaxed and enjoying himself in other interviews that I’ve seen where the interviewer is no fussing with her hair, being overbearing, discussing her make-up or chirping. I prefer those.
If you’re a fan and she’s speaking for the fandom, then how is she not trying or at least purporting, to speak for you?
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On your first point, we’ll just have to agree to disagree, as I do think his manner in these interviews is distinct from the countless others I’ve seen. On your question, (a) I don’t take her references to “the fans” in the literal sense of all fans; I see it as a euphemism for “a lot of fans out there,” and I simply see no harm in that; (b) as a fan myself, I *know* she’s not speaking for me, and I’m still not bothered; as I said above, I don’t care enough about her to be offended. I’m there to watch RA, not MB. (c) I know RA doesn’t think she speaks for all fans.
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You are NOT alone. At all. She gives me the willies and she does not speak for me. I feel she assumes she does.
I could say a lot of other stuff, but I won’t. It’s late and I’m still absorbing the movie. Besides, despite my reputation of being a blunt bitch, there are times when silence is golden. Thorin would be so proud.
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I have already vented my,views on Ms Boland over at Servs but would add she used the fandom to get access to Richard in the first instance so we were complicit. How will she get him winning again this year now we are wise to her? Now she has the access she is positioning herself as the fans champion whilst belittling fandom to serve her own agenda. That is she is a fan but by purporting to be a journalist to validate her agenda in access to her crush. If she sets herself up as a journalist she has to expect criticism as such. My idea of a journalist is one who can ask enlightened questions and illicit good responses without the viewer being more aware of the interviewer than the interviewee. With her hair tossing bangle jangling touchy feely inappropriateness she falls well short. Don’t even get me started on her trip to the Crucible this summer.
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I think she came upon the fandom as a result of the push it made to win him his award and then she harnessed its power, numbers and voice to increase her sites’ stats.
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Reblogged this on jeannem441.
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Honestly? I am so focused on Richard in conversational mode that her cringe-worthy habits of hair tossing, touchy/feeliness and asking questions about her makeup, and the amateurish production values of the video are things that I can generally ignore.*shrugs* Maybe I’m easily pleased.
I actually found this “interview” to be a bright spot in a press junket I was becoming bored with (vision and sound of RA aside) Marlise Boland may not ask anything new but her style marks a difference in how RA reacts and I love the insights I got from this second part particularly, especially how he talks of the theatre.
Having said that, questions/discussion on the fandom do make me a little uncomfortable too, regardless of who instigates them. I make gifs, but much of the behaviour of the fandom has nothing to do with how I fangirl. Marlise does not represent me.
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Her style may produce unusual reactions from him ( I’m not sure I agree on all counts – but some, I do), but I feel she pushes him into these reactions by her behavior because he has to go along for the sake of the interview and how he’s perceived. He shut her down for a minute after she asked him boxers or briefs, and it was awfully uncomfortable, until he rallied with an answer. But anyway, the post was about just what you commented on – that is her attempt to represent the fandom with some of her comments and questions.
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Given his statements last year that the thing he enjoys about the repetitive interviews is seeing the differences in the interviewers and what they seem to expect, I wonder why we are even attributing some particular kind of success to her especially in getting something unique from him. Whether pushed or hoping to please, what emerges from these interviews is certainly something that he plays an important role in creating.
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Yes, I commented on that above, as he more or less admitted in the spring interview that he was reacting to her outgoing personality. It’s not about her, it’s about the dynamic, regardless of what’s behind the dynamic. And for better or worse the unique thing about it (to me) is the presence of those two specific people.
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I haven’t watched the video. Don’t think I want to – and I usually watch everything. If she’s actually asked him what underwear Thorin would prefer and thinks I would ringtone that response, then that is the reason I didn’t want to call myself a “fan.” How belittling! Not that I am above some of the fandom humor and jokes that have gone on – but that is between the fans on blogs and such. Bringing him into it and acting as if we’d want to know the answer to that?? That is just more than I’m willing to sign on to! I’m not a giddy girl in middle school and if she ever did her “homework” on the fandom, she’d see we have more important things to discuss than Thorin’s choice of skivvies. “Outgoing” or not, I wish for her sake that she’d represented herself better (if it’s truly journalism she’s after), if only to look less ridiculous – I don’t like the implication that she is our mouthpiece or understands our minds. Well, that’s all I have to say about that….
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Even that question, Boxers or Briefs, was snagged from an #AskThorin question that was never answered by him. She also asked him where he kept his souvenir sword, though it’d been asked before, and then made an aside – to fans, I guess, get your head out of the gutter” or something to that effect. Yeah, so basically two penis references and some vomiting for good measure, all in part 2.
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Ok, so I HAD to watch. Yeah, cringed at the sword – head in the gutter comment. WAY WORSE than the brief/boxer rant. But, there was a moment there, at the beginning where he mentioned his “slow burn” career and choices that I liked. He was reflective and I think the interview could’ve taken a different turn. If only she’d stayed a bit more polished and professional. Well, here’s hoping for the opportunity for the fandom to show their OWN voice and poise at some juncture. … I really do feel that this kind of exposure can’t last too long. His future projects don’t seem to allow for this type of promotional machine.
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OMG … I thought I was one of the only ones in the RA fandom who found this interviewer cringeworthy. (Have been on a self imposed news embargo until BOTFA was released). I’m disappointed that she appears to have become an emissary between RA and this fanbase. The use of “them” and “they” when referring to the fans really grated on me. (Would write more, but have to dash off to pick up my son who is sick and wants a ride home).
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But But But – when is BOTFA for you!
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Boxing Day in Australia 😦
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Yes …. those of us in Oz are still waiting 😦 (Although I cheated and went to Wellington where I could see it on the 11th. Not saying anything about it until my Aussie mates have seen it too ….).
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