Du 19 au 22 juin avait lieu le BotCon, la convention annuelle des fans et des collectionneurs des Transformers, soulignant cette année le 30e anniversaire de la création de cette franchise. Plus tard cette semaine, le film Transformers : Age of Extinction sortira en salles, prouvant ainsi la longévité et, avouons-le, la rentabilité financière de la franchise. À titre d’exemple, à partir d’un budget de 195 M$, Transformers : Dark of the Moon a accumulé plus d’un milliard de dollars au box-office mondial. (Source)
Comment expliquer un tel succès ? En 2012, une thèse de doctorat fut déposée sous le nom de More than Meets the Eye. Transmedial Entertainment as a Site of Pleasure, Resistance and Exploitation. Son auteur, Karin Fast, souhaitait développer une meilleure compréhension de la relation complexe entre les producteurs et les consommateurs en prenant exemple du film Transformers, sorti en 2007.
As shown, in the context of the new Transformers film many opportunities for consumers to go creative on the brand – and to even provide ideas during the filmaking process – were rolled out along with the progressing film marketing campaign. Consumers were invited to produce their own branded content, and to share this with fellow consumers. As also shown, there is evidence in my material of sympathetic relations between producers and consumers. There are instances of agreement between the two groups of agents – expressed mainly through fan statements signifying loyalty, sympathy and tolerance with company decisions, but also through industry discourse constructing the fans as providers or even professionals. (Fast, 2012, p. 315)
Bien entendu, le succès varie selon les pays. Partant d’un exemple personnel, Renato Rivera relate, dans l’article « The Popularisation of Geek Culture, and the Marginalisation of Otaku Culture », les différences démographiques entre le public britannique et le public japonais.
This writer was in London during the release of the Transformers movie in the UK, and looking around at the audience on the opening night on July 27th, one saw boys, girls, young men, young women, fathers and mothers. Personally, I went with my mother and uncle (both in their forties), my grandmother (in her seventies) and my seven-year-old brother, all of which were aware that Transformers was a 1980s franchise (It should be noted also that my brother, though he was not around during the original 1980s boom, is as big a Transformer fan as any during that time). Attending a showing in Japan the following month, in comparison, I noticed there were mostly older men in their 30s and 40s, and a few young couples. Some of the couples remained in their seats even after the movie ended as the men tried to explain to the women what they had just seen. The universality of the themes in the film (identical in both releases), effective on the Western audience and yet by no means complex like human dramas, seemed lost on the Japanese audience. (Rivera, 2008, p. 134-135)
Néanmoins, le succès des Transformers peut parvenir à briser les différences culturelles. Par exemple, cet article datant du 27 mars 2014 raconte comment des agriculteurs chinois ont fabriqué des Transformers à partir de voitures usagées. (Source) La preuve que la « machine » exerce une fascination continuelle chez l’être humain.
En conclusion, l’implication des fans, qu’il s’agisse d’une participation active sur les médias sociaux ou d’une reconstitution, parvient à créer un sentiment d’attachement envers une franchise. Bien sûr, pour que cet attachement puisse exister, il doit avant tout être bien implanté dans sa culture. Cette observation pourrait être vérifiée auprès des franchises liées aux jouets d’enfants, qui carburent en nostalgie.
