blue-the-warmest-color:
Bothered to read some of the fans posts and comments about Hannibal where they honestly talked about what they don´t like about the show and now I´m a bit sad, confused and frustrated and not because these posts and
comments are hate posts because they really aren´t, but because they made me think, think about some of the things
that I already thought before but not as much and now I´m so..I just felt like writing a whole essay about it. One thing is for certain though, Hannibal would be a much
more successful show it wasn´t so Hannigram oriented and this is coming from a
Hannigram shipper. I love these two so much together but I´m confused right now. I really don´t know how many people there ship
Hannigram and how many of them don´t. Tbh though, think that there are more fans of the character than there are Hannigram shippers out there. People that became fans because of the books and movies long before the show started airing. Some non shippers
think that Hannigram shippers are a minority and that Bryan shouldn´t have continued the show in a direction where it´s only about THEM. The numbers don´t lie and nor they lie in this case.
It´s a fact that the show had most of viewers when it wasn´t so much Hannigram
orianted. Well, as much as it was in S3 and part of S2 for an example. In my
opinion S2 also did great when it comes to viewers and I enjoyed it probably
the most because it was so intense and while it was still about Hannigram in my
opinion it still had dare I say, others things. I guess this show has more
issues than I´ve thought and im not one of those tumblr social justice who see
problematicity in-every-damn-thing (yeah i get really annoyed by them
sometimes) but like I said reading some of the posts made me really think. For
an example, I always was annoyed how they didn´t show enough Hannibal but I
figured that perhaps they wanted to make something different and show other
characters more like Will and while they did that they didn´t showed nearly
enough Hannibal and that does bother me. They definitely showed more Will than
they did Hannibal and after season 1 when they showed Hannibal they mostly
showed him when it had something to do with Will, either he talked about him or
something else and while I understand that Bryan said that the show was always
about them I´m still annoyed at how less they showed Hannibal, Hannibal alone. I
remember when I watched the show for the first time and I literally could not
wait to see Hannibal. To see a scene with him. To be that excited and in
antipaction to see a main character of a show because they didnt show him as
much ??? Really ????? Now I realize how absurd that really is. At the same time
I love Will. I love how he was potrayed in the show, I love Hugh´s brilliant
performance as Will but I love Hannibal more and Hannibal definitely deserved
more spotlight. Again, I find wishing this very absurd because he IS the main
character after all and this shouldnt have been an issue but unfortunately it
is. I believe that this made a lot of people lose interest in the show. I bet they wanted to see more Hannibal and his relationships with other people, his past just anything about him really. Its just confusing really. The show would have been a lot better if Bryan
and the production sorted out their priorities from the start in my opinion. I´m
just very confused right now..I once thought that only S3 was flawed because it
lacked intensity and yeah it was also too Hannigram but now I see the bigger
picture and im just so very confused. Another thing that I find confusing is Hannigram related. While some people think that Hannibal was just manipulating Will all the time and that Will is idk ˝perfectly innocent˝ I saw a
post about how Will never returned any queer feelings to Hannibal and that in
the end Will used Hannibal´s sexuality against him ??????????????? There are so
many theories going around its crazy. This show, Hannibal´s and Will´s
relationship was never supposed to be easy. Here we are taking about two
extraordinary men but damn I guess I just wish that it was either black or
white sometimes. If they were in love I wish they kissed and if they were not
then they are not. They share something platonic, Bryan said that it wouldn´t be
believeable of the characters if they did kiss or what not, it´s nothing but
queerbaiting some say while the others say that it´s not queerbaiting because
there was lesbian sex in the show, gay sex isn´t showed as much as lesbian sex
and that´s problematic ANOTHER group of people says, then Bryan I think said that he didn´t initially planned Hannibal´s and Will´s relationship but that it just evolved naturally by itself because of the chemistry Mads and Hugh have with each other and that I find understandable…anyway my head hurts how
confusing all of this actually is. Ya´ll..*sigh* I still love this show so much and the characters and I´ll
aways ship Hannigram but in my opinion Bryan really needs to think everything
through before presenting us with season 4 and I mean EVERYTHING!!! Not have a
part of season 4 go in this direction and another part in a completely different.
This is serious ya´ll. If someone actually bothers reading this I´d love to hear your thoughts on all of it. Thanks and peace!
It looks like you’ve kind of tied yourself in knots over a lot of things, some of which take some stuff for granted that I’m not really sure should be taken for granted, so I’ll chime in and walk through what seem to be your main points and hopefully untie some of those knots, though, to forewarn you, to do so I’m mostly going to have to disagree with what you’ve said here. But I hope the different perspective will be more useful than otherwise.
One thing is for certain though, Hannibal would be a much more successful show it wasn´t so Hannigram oriented….
Tbh though, think that there are more fans of the character than there are Hannigram shippers out there….
The numbers don´t lie and nor they lie in this case. It´s a fact that the show had most of viewers when it wasn´t so much Hannigram orianted. Well, as much as it was in S3 and part of S2 for an example.
It’s fact that the first season had more viewers than the second, and the second had more viewers than the third. It is opinion that this was caused by the emphasis on the relationship between Hannibal and Will.
The logical basis of this opinion is also flawed, either as a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy or a fallacy of the single cause.
You can say that viewership declined over the course of the show, but there’s no way to measure whether the show’s slowly more evident focus on Hannigram over that time is actually what caused that decline, or even if it factored in, at all or partially.
In fact, there are a number of reasons Hannibal didn’t garner a wider audience, most of which are more measurable than whether any given individual is invested in Hannigram as a ship, including:
some viewership being put off by the fact that show was aired on a major network (NBC), which was not known either for quality television or for being free to show much in the way of violence or gore
franchise fatigue, or people just not being interested in yet ANOTHER chance to “milk the cash cow” that was Hannibal Lecter, especially after Hannibal Rising failed so abysmally and Red Dragon was so utterly unmemorable
existing fans who refused to watch the show because they were convinced that the show and Mads Mikkelsen would not and could never compare to The Silence of the Lambs and Anthony Hopkins
NBC’s avoidance of advertising, including but not limited to: putting S1 on the air early and with only 3 weeks initial advertising, not airing any Hannibal commercials during the Olympics just weeks before S2 aired, putting undue pressure on the social media team to generate interest instead of conventional advertising
NBC’s mismanagement of Hannibal’s schedule, including: refusing to air it at an earlier timeslot than 10pm; airing S1 and S2 on spring schedules instead of in the fall lineups, when they were frequently preempted by sporting events in several markets, causing a direct drop in ratings; airing S3 during summer; airing S1 on a night when the lead-in show was a comedy; airing S2 in the Friday night death slot; and changing the night of the week the show aired during S3
the loss of the Salt Lake City market, which stopped airing the show due to viewer concerns that it was too violent and gory, which directly affected ratings
the sentiment that the show is simply just too violent and gory (this is often voiced by people who refuse to give the show a chance, though it’s regularly pointed out that there are plenty )
the long delay between seasons 2 and 3
NBC’s limited financial risk and reward system, given that the show was not produced and owned vertically (by NBC studios)–in other words, NBC never could have made money off of syndication, which always meant that their commitment to the show would be weaker than one they owned through and through
NBC’s desire to produce a show on a cable model for network consumption, resulting in a show that had elements of both serial and episodic format, which was difficult for critics to quite wrap their minds around initially; this meant that the show was also difficult for casual viewers to attach to, since they would lose their place if they missed an episode, and the average network viewer only catches one episode out of four
Amazon’s contract with NBC to re-air episodes on a fee basis for one year after the seasons aired, making it expensive for viewers to try to catch up when they wanted to
NBC’s dependence on the outdated Nielsen ratings system due to the fact that its revenue comes from advertising rather than subscription
Hannibal’s state of being one of the most highly pirated TV shows
magical realism/horror genre instead of crime procedural (which is safe and comfortable to audiences and they know how to watch it)
Mads MIkkelsen’s foreign accent (look, I think this is a stupid reason not to watch a show, but I saw dumb Americans cite this a lot as a reason not to be interested over the years)
the show being “pretentious”
genre bias, meaning the show was less likely to be honored by awards shows even where critics said nominations should be no-brainers, thus denying the show any tangential publicity from such things
NBC being unwilling to produce award-nomination campaigns
the show itself being hard and not going to spell out every last thing for the audience
the density and poetry of the dialogue, which some people found off-putting
and yes, quite possibly, some fans didn’t like Will, or Hannigram, or that Hannibal didn’t get more air time, or that Clarice wasn’t present, or that side characters didn’t get more action
and probably other things that haven’t occurred to me
You know, that’s a lot of things. To say that Hannigram is the problem–or even a problem–is hard to justify.
People who dislike it for one reason or another will tend to flock together and will tend to seek out others’ opinions that reaffirm their own. This is called confirmation bias, but just because a bunch of people you know think like you, that doesn’t mean that a majority of people do.
I suspect Hannigram probably is a problem in some ways, but the biggest is probably that it alienates the dudebro audience, both out of homophobia and out of how it hoists certain vulnerabilities onto both the hero and (semi-) villain, making them too “stupid” for the average dudebro to get his rocks off while watching their shenanigans.
But I kind of think this particular problem is exactly the kind of problem we need more of.
Nevertheless, writing a story that alienates one of the most powerful audience demographics is surely going to cost views in the long run, even if most people are not dudebros themselves but just dudebro-adjacent, like they have too many friends who are dudebros, or their brother is a dudebro, or their dad is. You know, that story just isn’t going to end up on their television for very long. Especially if the women audience are already not watching because it’s “too gory.”
Within the Tumblr community, I think we would all be grossly naive if we didn’t acknowledge that some dislike of Will and of Hannigram comes from ship wars (Clannibal and Bedannibal, mostly, but not exclusively), and from jealous sentiments concerning the fact that Mads Mikkelsen had to share the screen and credit with Hugh Dancy.
But hey, did those things cause some viewers to fall off? Possibly, maybe even probably.
Regardless, one can’t accurately state that this was the cause of the show’s demise, not when laid out against all the other items listed above. When taken together, it’s amazing the show stayed on the air as long as it did. Or at least, that it stayed on NBC as long as it did.
In my opinion S2 also did great when it comes to viewers and I enjoyed it probably the most because it was so intense and while it was still about Hannigram in my opinion it still had dare I say, others things….
S2 had poorer ratings than S1, though, and probably fewer “other things,” since S1 had Abigail and a new murder every single week to solve, as well as establishment for all the cast, and so forth. S2 probably had the greatest focus and the most intensity, as you say, so that’s I think why it’s the season with the greatest critical acclaim. Not that it didn’t have “other things” too. By way of comparison, S3 had Bedelia’s story, Dolarhyde and Reba, Margot and Alana and Mason, and Chiyoh. If anything, it was spread a little thin there in the first half, and the disconnect between Francis and Reba’s story versus the rest of the cast was detrimental to people remembering it as an important, integral part of show. It was an “other thing” that didn’t gain a lot of traction, at least around here. But it was still a different thing.
It seems like people get this weird tunnel vision about Hannibal being all about Hanngram during S3 when it really spent a considerable amount of time doing a considerable amount else. In all three seasons, all the characters talked heavily about Hannibal or Will or both of them, but I daresay I’ve yet to see an analysis that actually counts the number of minutes each man was given and the percentage of those minutes that were dedicated to their relationship with each other, and the relative comparison between each season to these things, not to mention how much time other characters spent talking about them, etc. etc.
The point is, I’m not sure your impressions reflect the actual time spent on the show on these things, rather than a Tumblr-community confirmation bias that highlights the ship as the main point of the third season just because it was out of the closet, so to speak, and because that’s what keeps the fannibal community on Tumblr going. I’m far from sure, but I suspect S2 actually spent more time with Will, with Hannigram, and with Hannibal having conversations with other characters about Will and his relationship with Will, than S3 did.
They definitely showed more Will than they did Hannibal and after season 1 when they showed Hannibal they mostly showed him when it had something to do with Will, either he talked about him or something else and while I understand that Bryan said that the show was always about them I’m still annoyed at how less they showed Hannibal, Hannibal alone.
At the same time I love Will. I love how he was potrayed in the show, I love Hugh´s brilliant performance as Will but I love Hannibal more and Hannibal definitely deserved more spotlight.
Again, I find wishing this very absurd because he IS the main character after all and this shouldn’t have been an issue but unfortunately it is.
You’ve got an assumption going that, because you like Hannibal better than Will, therefore most everyone does, and further, that this means Hannibal is the main character, and, finally, that catering to this desire to see more Hannibal instead of Will should produce a superior product.
I suspect that more people actually do like Hannibal better than Will, because he is, after all, the flashier and more famous character. Certainly he appeals more to male audiences. I’d say just as certainly that he appeals more to younger audiences.
But this is where confirmation bias trips us all up, because when I–as an older woman–look around, guess what I see? Nearly all the older women I know prefer Will. While I wouldn’t go so far as to say that this might mean Hannibal and Will are on equal footing, I would go so far as to say that your own social groups (including Tumblr) are probably not representative of the audience as a whole. In my observation, Hannibal Lecter is a character that appeals to a certain wish fulfillment that is more prevalent in the young. This isn’t to say he doesn’t have appeal to older folks such as myself–I’m into him, obviously–but just that there’s something different going on, and it doesn’t translate. So I wouldn’t expect anyone’s statement that they like one character better than another to be indicative of much more.
Even if Hannibal is the main draw, though, it doesn’t mean that Hannibal is the main character. Will was the main character of Red Dragon and the two films that went with it, Clarice was the main character for The Silence of the Lambs (film and book) and Hannibal (film and book, though she shared that spotlight some with Pazzi and some with Hannibal). Only the (abysmal) Hannibal Rising can unequivocally claim that dubious distinction, and it wasn’t better off for it.
Thus–
I bet they wanted to see more Hannibal and his relationships with other people, his past just anything about him really. Its just confusing really. The show would have been a lot better if Bryan and the production sorted out their priorities from the start in my opinion.
–the show did have its priorities sorted. They just weren’t the same as your priorities.
I’m not sure that even people who like Hannibal the best want to see Hannibal the most, that they don’t want him to retain some of his mystery, that he’s more interesting to them half-hidden in shadow. More is not always better.
Will and Clarice (and, to a lesser extent, Pazzi and Murasaki) were important lenses in the books to view Hannibal through, because Hannibal is most powerful not in his violence but in his influence. In order for him to have that power, then he has to have someone he is influencing. He is also a semi-villian, and he’s not really constructed in a way that makes a good protagonist, if for no better reason than that the protagonist has to seem less powerful than the thing they’re fighting against, otherwise the stakes just don’t get high enough. That’s just, at a very simple and basic level, how stories work. Hannibal is either too powerful to be in the position of the main protagonist–which would make anything he fights against seem too weak to care about–or, by becoming the main protagonist, he has to become too weak to still be Hannibal Lecter.
I saw a post about how Will never returned any queer feelings to Hannibal and that in the end Will used Hannibal´s sexuality against him ??????????????? There are so many theories going around its crazy. This show, Hannibal´s and Will´s relationship was never supposed to be easy. Here we are taking about two extraordinary men but damn I guess I just wish that it was either black or white sometimes. If they were in love I wish they kissed and if they were not then they are not.
I sort of feel like this is the last cry of lost, disillusioned youth–if only it things could be simpler!
I feel I can say with absolute certainty that I’m glad they’re not, that complexity is what separates literature from pulp, and that Hannibal is definitely literature.
I haven’t seen that particular theory, that Will used Hannibal’s sexuality against him–at least not in a way that implies what you’ve said here–but I think, overall, that there’s a theory for just about everything on the internet. People will see what they want to see.
I believe that frustration of the relationship being unrealized in some way was part of the main draw to Bryan Fuller, up to this point at least. Stories are about tension, after all.
Ya´ll..*sigh* I still love this show so much and the characters and I´ll aways ship Hannigram but in my opinion Bryan really needs to think everything through before presenting us with season 4 and I mean EVERYTHING!!! Not have a part of season 4 go in this direction and another part in a completely different.
I’m not sure quite what to say to this because I frankly don’t understand it.
I can’t think of any show I’ve ever seen that has held such a singular vision of its main characters’ development and seen that vision through with such a purposeful and deliberate pace. I don’t think the fact that people have dissenting opinions on what the show was about or how it was about it means that the show itself failed in its vision. Hannibal is hard. It’s meant to be hard. But that doesn’t mean all the pieces aren’t there, or that they don’t fit together. And it especially doesn’t mean that, because he didn’t prioritize according to the same sets of values and interests of a specific group of people on the internet, he didn’t think through what he wanted to do or had the story that he wanted to tell go in various directions instead of where he wanted it to go.
I hope you don’t take this response as argumentative–I’m trying to tread the line between being utterly committed to my perspective on these things and being of actual use to you. Your post seemed sort of all over the place, I guess–arguing both for and against Hannigram and Will, troubled by things you’ve thought and seen that you’re not sure you liked thinking and seeing–and I’m not sure all of those things are as clear or as certain as you thought they were. I know to some extent there’s no logic that’s going to suffice to make you feel better–if you want more Hannibal, then you want more Hannibal! and that’s the end of the matter no matter what someone like me may say about storytelling–but wherever there might be some logic or thought in here that could make you feel better, I hope you find it.