It has been close to five years since Veronica Mars went off the air, and this show was set to remain dead until a few days ago, where a Kickstarter Project raised over two million for a movie. Currently, over 50,000 people have raised over three million for this movie.
All right. At first, I was apathetic about the whole thing. Never watched the show and the fans hadn’t reached the Joss Whedon-levels of obnoxiousness so it didn’t really bother me that some five-year dead property had been resurrected for the sake of a movie.
Until, I thought about how much three million dollars could buy. Questions about responsibility started to pop up – if a group of people the size of the population of Pensacola, Florida can raise three million dollars for something superflous a movie for a dead CW/WB property, couldn’t they do something similar for a worthwhile cause, like clean water or disease vaccinations?
I don’t really care about Veronica Mars or its fans. Congrats – about a fifth of what an episode pulled in, rating wise, came together to fund a movie.
So here’s a proposition for me and I hope that everyone of the 50k+ (and growing) donors follow.
I’m going to total up the money I’ve spent on music from the start of 2013 until the end of the year. Barring any kind of financial emergency that strikes my shoestring budget (and skin-of-my-teeth living) I’ll match as much as I spend on music to a charity dedicated to improving the living conditions of someone in another country. I don’t know what it’ll be (suggestions can be left in the comments or @StrangeJason on twitter). I’ll add the 25 dollars I donated to DieMonsterDie’s campaign last year, as well as the BottleNose Koffins kickstarter. By the end of the year, if I don’t match what I’ve spent on myself, then fuck me. I’m a piece of shit.
Because that’s how I sort of feel about this endeavour and any future endeavour that funds ressurection art. This is the art that tries to bring dead properties back to life. This isn’t reincarnation, which somehow changes the form of the art. Ressurrection Business is the type of people who haven’t gotten over the truth that sometimes the things you love end and that’s how it goes. Things end. You accept it and get over it. If you don’t, you’re not a grown up.
I don’t really apply this to the scoundrels at major motion film studios because those pigfuckers are in the business of making money by selling movies with brand logos of comic book superhero and cartoon characters to the general public. Anyone going to see a G.I. Joe movie expecting art is a person panning for gold up a creek of shit. They have themselves to blame.
But this funding was a clear labor of love, albeit somewhat misguided in my opinion. These people clearly love this Veronica Mars show and its characters, its writing and its actors. I can’t fault that. But if you’re going to donate to bring a dead thing back to life, you could do the same to keep a living person from dying (or, at least, making their lives not as fucked.)
So I’m going to put my money where my mouth is. First update will be in June.
