me + Richard Armitage fan selfies: musings on self, presence, and the proximity question, a beginning

This is what’s on my mind today — because it ties together some things that have been pestering me for a while. It’s a difficult post to write on many levels, but please keep the following in mind.

Preface / caveats / qualifications

1. I am writing about pictures of Richard Armitage with fans, and my reactions to them. While I have to touch on other themes I make no assertions as to them. The claims I am making here concern only what I read in pictures and how I react to my reading of them, pondering the reasons why.

2. I don’t expect a ton of nods on this because the pieces of it that I have chatted about privately with people have produced a fair amount of incomprehension, except in one or two notable cases. One of them is my friend FilmProf, whom I reference below.

3. Nothing in this post should be construed to imply that I believe Richard Armitage to have been actively coerced in any way against his to appear in selfies with fans either previously or up until now. (I know there are some fans who insist he doesn’t want to do this but [beyond the possibility that he might be asked at an inconvenient time] I’ve found no credible evidence of any general philosophical or personal objection to it, nor of a possibility that Armitage believes himself to be abused beyond normal wear-and-tear by this practice. (Yes, there are elements of every career that its practitioners like more or less, and this is standard.)

4. Nothing in this post should be construed to imply any criticism of fellow fans who pursue opportunities to meet Armitage personally in venues like this (the lobby of 92Y), legally and consensually obtain photographs of themselves with Armitage, have conversations with him, or publish reports of those encounters. I support their activities and rejoice with them.

5. For the purpose of a discussion, I’m going to call a picture of a fan with Richard Armitage requested by the fan in which both fan and Armitage are the subject of the photograph a “fan selfie” (whether Armitage, the fan, or a third party takes it), mostly because that’s briefer than “a candid photo of Armitage with fans requested by a fan,” but also because I think the term “selfie” encapsulates important qualities of the motivation for the image.

6. A final difficulty is created by the fact that these are pictures are mostly of Richard Armitage with people I don’t know. I’ve chosen not to repost those photos here for various reasons. Please follow the links as provided in order to see the photos.

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I. Historical narrative: Obtaining selfies in the context of fan encounters with Armitage

Richard Armitage’s fans, like those of many other artists, have regularly cultivated the ambition not only to enjoy his performances, but also to observe him at work, or to meet him personally, however briefly. In the first years of the organized fandom after late 2004, fans documented such experience by requesting pictures of themselves with Armitage when they found him, photos in which Armitage’s expression always seemed agreeable. When such photos emerged, they usually did so on fan forums, often in company with a report of the encounter. These reports painted a consistent general picture of Armitage as friendly, kind, unassuming, polite, interested in talking to the fan, however briefly, and willing to be photographed. On the forums, photos could be viewed only by members of the group and were frequently labeled with requests not to share the photo or the report beyond the confines of the group itself. These rules were not always obeyed but the general size of the fandom and the fact that people knew each other worked to enforce them.

Before July 2012, many fewer candid photos of Richard Armitage with fans circulated for general consumption on the web than afterwards because determining when and where he could be met wasn’t easy. The location of the Robin Hood set was known, and a few images of Armitage with fans visiting the set surfaced during that period, although I’ve been told that fans at the time debated vociferously whether it was acceptable to plan to try to meet him in this way. Fan meetings and pictures with Armitage continued to remain an isolated pleasure in proportion to the number of people who might have liked to have them. If I understand correctly, one of the first mass opportunities to see Armitage at work or meet him was the taping of the studio portions of Vicar of Dibley late in 2006, but with the exception those with tickets, most fans who came did not succeed in doing so. A bevy of staffers collected items brought with hopes of obtaining his signature in garbage bags to pass on to him. After that, fans in London sometimes found out where Spooks was filming, or stumbled across it accidentally, and obtained photos; a fan or two who had a friend who worked on set smuggled her in. Armitage indicated at least once (while filming at Wandsworth for Spooks 9) that if he knew fans had been waiting a long time in hope, he would go out to meet them. The most likely opportunities to meet Armitage and get the treasured photo were probably the BAFTA red carpets at which Armitage appeared in 2007, 2009, and 2010, where he chatted with fans in the waiting areas and signed books, drawings, pictures and other items and leaned into pictures. Other possibilities were offered by scheduled media interviews, with fans awaiting at arrival and departure points outside of studios to catch a glimpse and hopefully an autograph or photo. A few other chances followed — such as the Old Vic 24 Hour Plays in 2010, where one could purchase a ticket to an after party for cast and patrons of the event — and the Captain America premieres in Los Angeles and New York in July, 2011, where he showed himself as very friendly to fans whether encountered on the red carpet or off it. Though Armitage never showed any sign of reluctance or anger in regard to these meetings or other more spontaneous ones that made it into Armitageworld, some fans insisted as late as the summer of 2012 that Armitage wanted to avoid such encounters, a trope that I called “I want to be left alone Armitage.”

This position in the form it had been articulated up until then became untenable when the true caesura came in this regard came in July 2012, not because it was impossible to obtain a fan selfie before then, but because suddenly, the possibility to do so became so much greater. First, it was possible for quite a number of fans to encounter Armitage on location for (then) Black Sky (now) Into the Storm, either by appearing in the right place at the time, or through the auspices of contacts working on the film. Armitage was so apparently friendly and prepared to meet fans that it made me wonder if he was responding demonstratively to the insistence of some fans that he emphatically did not want to be met. (Again, however, fans debated whether it was legitimate [or should even be possible] to visit a working set.) More importantly, after that summer, not only could fans plan to visit officially scheduled and announced venues for actor/fan encounters (like ComicCon, or Hobbit film premiere events), the highly increased number of publicity events such as press conferences, bookstore appearances, signings, and radio and television interviews drastically multiplied even the number of less predictable events where he could be viewed going and coming. We were even able to speculate about whether Armitage would participate in the common practice at fan conventions of selling a photo opportunity, again with opinions divided.

In roughly the last year, then, the potential for a meeting with Armitage and thus the desired fan selfie has exploded; and with it my opportunity for thinking about this issue.

Like all of us, I have seen a lot more fan selfies since the summer of 2012 because there were so many more to be shared. Moreover, after The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the fandom that I perceive became noticeably younger and populated by a segment of comrades who have very different attitudes toward picture sharing than my generation has. As photo-friendly social media like facebook emerged, and cell phones came to comprise internal cameras, the practice of taking relatively casual candid photos like the selfie spread, and attitudes toward the appropriateness of sharing them started to shift. I’ve always enjoyed seeing them. In particular, it was neat when someone I actually knew did it — that made it even more special, somehow. (It didn’t hurt that she managed a phone closeup of the shoes he was wearing for me, either.) Much later, a fellow fan of ours, since deceased, would argue that when Armitage met one of us it was the same as if he met all of us, and I’ve always felt the emotional weight of that sentiment when I see pictures from these encounters. A certain amount of jealousy over these encounters, especially when they occur in countries where Armitage is not likely to travel again soon, has been apparent to insiders; sometimes I hear about these discussions and other times I don’t, but I think I’ve been protected from that particular emotional fallout because of my ongoing reluctance to meet Armitage in person (something I wrote about here but need to readdress because I think it’s deepened in the context of the last week or so).

II. My source context for thinking about fan selfies

If I thought about these photos at all, up until then, it was usually to look for Armitage’s mood in them. Did he show signs of unhappiness or displeasure? (That’s my biggest identity issue around Armitage). I only ever found one where I thought his jaw was clenched in something that could be annoyance, a candid of him taken by a fan that had found its way out of the Spooks 7 set and which I was shown under condition that I not share it with anyone, although I’ve seen the same image elsewhere since. The second thing then was usually to look at his appearance. I remember thinking at some point that it was unusual that these pictures of him were so uniformly good. Most people don’t take exclusively effective looking selfies; occasionally they look distracted, or they blink or something. I assumed it was because people took several pictures and sorted out the poor ones.

But I can pinpoint the point at which I started thinking about the problem of the fan selfie as a performance for Armitage — it occurred after July 13, 2013, when he appeared at the Wellington premiere for The World’s End. I can’t give an exact date because I chose to archive the moment on tumblr. But these were the images I saw.

Richard Armitage poses with unidentified fan for “fan selfie,” July 13, 2013. Source: thorinium

I looked at these for a long time — the tendency they provoke to prolonged, indeed minute-long examination is one of my issues with animated GIFs, I think they sometimes overfocus viewer attention in odd ways, and I’ve been wanting to write a post about watching Richard Armitage via this particular medium for quite a while — and then I thought to look at the original source, which was a New Zealand 3news report about the premiere, here (this very brief part appears about 1:12f). You’ll have to look at both the GIF above and the vid, I think, to get the context. Armitage is being drawn over under the arm of a fan to pose. It looks to me like he’s being asked if he’ll take a picture with the fan, that he agrees willingly, as a matter of course, that he lowers his head just slightly, briefly, adjusting his body in relationship to the fan who’s moving his arm, then raises his again in preparation to pose for the photo. It’s interesting to query what exactly the vibe is, here, for Armitage. Practiced in the genre? Putting up with something he has had to do repeatedly? Genuinely pleased to be making the fan happy? There are moments that point to all of these things.

What did the GIFs suggest to me? For one thing, they called to mind something I’d thought occasionally before about Armitage on red carpets — he plants one foot forward (he does this in some roles, as well) and protrudes his chin, as here (there’s a better example from this same evening, a Getty images video made at the BAFTA Strike Back premiere in April 2010, I am pretty sure, but I can’t find it at the moment):

That is to say, the “fan selfie” is a variation on a kind of pose he’s been making for years.

Second, it made me wonder about the extent to which the “fan selfie” creates the impression of temporariness, of spontaneity, of immediacy, through the image of the fan, even as it is the product of a particular kind of practiced, very smooth employment of the body, the features and the controlled emotions of the actor. Obviously our perception of this duality will differ based on the context and features we identify any in any image but the problem intrigues me and it does something to explain my reaction to the photos that I saw this last week.

Continues here.

~ by Servetus on January 21, 2014.