Fan Culture @ Swarthmore

So, I have a few thoughts after tonight’s (most excellent) slash video screening that are largely related to the brief discussion we had a couple of weeks ago about the insularity of the slash community, i.e., should/do non-slashers have the right to view slash vids without a proper context/introduction and make what they will of them? (Apologies if I repeat some of the points I already made in my comment on Ariel’s post from awhile ago, but I feel like this topic was incompletely discussed.)

While I appreciate Lauren and Nicole’s close reading of the slash videos, I am not convinced that you need to have a specific, slash-oriented introduction to understand the videos. Eye contact to imply a relationship, the paralleling of violence and sexuality, the conjunction of specific song lyrics with characters and actions–all of these are things that a reasonable critical person could read out of a slash video knowing nothing about slash. Taking intro to film might help, but I don’t think even a “normal” (uncritical) viewer could mistake the meaning of a video like Closer, even if they knew nothing about slash.

To follow up on that, I think that “normal” people can produce slash, even if they are not working within the slash community, per se. I’m a big fan of the nonexclusivity of categories, so I (respectfully) disagree with Lauren’s categorization of “Brokeback to the Future” as being resolutely not a vid. Although I think the point about the different social/artistic traditions vids and parody-trailers come out of was a good one, “Brokeback to the Future” used many of the elements we discussed as being integral to slash-vids–they eye-contact between the characters establishing a relationship, their physical touching, the clever use of material outside of the source (in the other vids, the song lyrics; in this vid, the relationship to the “Brokeback Mountain” trailer)–all of these things scream “VID!” to me. There’s also nothing that indicates that the comedy troupe who produced this video did not have a slasher among them. If that were the case, would that make this a vid? Why can’t it be both a vid and a parody movie trailer, authorship aside (the same way Shakespeare, for example, is both a great classic and pop culture, depending on the tradition from which you read it)?

Finally, my impression about the controversy surrounding non-slashers viewing slash was that the problem wasn’t that non-slashers couldn’t understand the basic content of slash videos (who has a relationship with whom, is that relationship happy/sad/repressed/violent, etc.), but that they understood the videos perfectly well and didn’t like the way the characters were used and/or the way sexuality was expressed (violently, homosexually, for example). I’ve already elaborated my thoughts on this issue below, but to bring up a few that seem especially relevant now: At what point are you a slasher–when do you gain the authority to create a vid, view a vid, show other people how to view a vid? Is it even possible to define this category? Can we really categorically say that the Brokeback to the Future folks can’t interpret vids properly, when they used so many techniques of veteran vidders? Is every vid sacred? Why can’t we (“normal people”)  look at vids that show violence against women and say, That’s not okay? Can only vidders themselves do this (like “Women’s Work”)? What about vids that show pedophilic relationships? Are we assuming that once you’re a “vidder” or part of that community (if we can decide what that means), you interpret these vids in the same way? Or is your opinion okay no matter what it is, just as long as you’re a vidder, and that’s what counts?

hey…. so i’m certain (and hope) people will feel free to talk about whatever they please here – including questions raised at the end about the commercial aspect of porn, and the fine line between accepted forms of pornography and slash… etc. etc.

but i have  a few questions that were sparked by today’s conversation that i guess have been simmering under the surface for some time that i’d like to spew here – and i’d love to hear your thoghts.

first, to build on the point of anthropological representation that bizzy brought up… I know that more frequently today throughout the field of anthropology, scholars are struggling with the “right”/”best” process of representing the Other to minimalize objectification/exotification/etc. – to the point that few scholars have taken the extreme stance that they cannot/should not be allowed to produce works about anyone outside of the group that the anthropologist identifies with… (I can’t remember for the life of me which theorists argue which points but both Jay Ruby (ch 8!) and Terence Turner add compelling insight to the discourse surrounding representation.) ANYWAY – applying this crucial debate to fan productions and slash has raised a series of interesting questions for me:

- do slashers (specifically heterosexual women) even have the right to create this politically charged, self-serving portrayal of homosexuality/homoeroticism (even when readers understand that it is taking place in a fictional realm) when they themselves do not identify with the identities being objectified?

- if so, then do slashers need to be actively engaging in the  political discourse surrounding their practices instead of maybe shying away from them by keeping the mass media and public away?

- do slashers have a political/social responsibility to their queer subject matter? (this reminds me of some of the discussion we had when considering the subversive nature of subcultures… and if fan production isn’t actually a political statement but just pure enjoyment and so on…)

i also worry that by even asking these questions i’m perpetuating something similar to what ariel mentioned when comparing how lesbian porn and men’s consumption of it is not analyzed with critical vigor as slash… but is instead socially acceptable (to a degree) and financially lucrative to boot.

but alas, i am left with this unnerving sense of the denial/ignorance of the potential power of slash if we just leave this paradoxical debate with: “it’s just hott.”

by Nicole Boyle and Lauren Smith

Our fan artifact is more of a whole fan infrastructure. The Organization of Transformative Works is an ongoing fan movement that began in 2007 as a response to a corporation’s attempt to set up a profitable online archive– called FanLib– for writers to post their fanfiction. Many fans reacted with outrage: Why should an organization of outsiders try to make a profit out of them? As we’ve discussed in class, fandom has historically resisted the idea of fans making a profit from their fannish writing; partially because of fear of legal prosecution, the tradition of fandom as a gift economy works as a self-policing moral imperative. Fans who attempt to charge for their fanfiction are almost universally condemned by their peers. FanLib’s attempt to profit from its “user-generated content”, therefore, was seen as an ultimate violation: a corporate organization in the realm of passionate amateurs, a board comprised of men in a traditionally female space, disregarding fandom’s pre-existing mores in– for the cherry on the cake– a condescending manner. (A BusinessWeek article notes: “The genius of FanLib is realizing that fans can be happy just being recognized“).

In reaction, a collection of fanfiction writers on LiveJournal (an enormous hub for media fandom on the internet) began to envision an “Archive of One’s Own“. This multifandom repository for fanfic was envisioned as a non-profit endeavor, run for fans by fans. As the fans’ plans coalesced, and a board for the nonprofit organization formed, their ambitions expanded. Under the new name The Organization of Transformative Works (OTW), they also started to plan for a wiki of fannish history and an academic journal about transformative works. Finally, the OTW took the unprecedented step of planning for a system of legal help for fans whose works come under attack for copyright violations. This is significant, because a large contribution to keeping fans and media fandom underground has been the fannish fear of legal action by the holders of copyrighted material.

To show that they were serious about this new organization, the board members attached their real names to the organization. (Note that Rebecca Tushnet, who we will be reading later on in the semester, is on the board). Also, to ensure that OTW never profited or became too controlled by a single fan, the board decided to apply for non-profit organizational status.

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The OTW’s incorporation has inspired many ripples of reaction around media fandom. Some fans’ reasons for joining/supporting the OTW (gathered from the OTW’s online newsletter) include:

Naomi Novik describes her reason for dedicating herself: I also care about this community that has welcomed me and given me a place to play and grow. I care about and value the creative work I have done here myself and that’s been made by others that I’ve enjoyed. So I am willing to be serious once in a while too, and to buckle down and do some real and not immediately fun work.

Kristina Busse argues from an acafan’s perspective: Context always matters, but rarely as much as it does in fan fiction, created within and meant for a specific community. If we can create an infrastructure that allows such contextualization of individual stories, we might be a long step toward not everyone trying to find the most ridiculous out there example for a story in order to mock both it and fandom through it.

Dafna Greer cares about the public record:I’m tired of journalists getting everything about fandom wrong. I don’t just mean the simple stuff, like what slash is, or that we’re not all 12 (or 45, or whatever the narrative is that week), I mean the whole context of fandom. You have journalists writing about mash-ups as if vidding never existed and about user-generated content as if it was something invented 2 years ago. It’s just embarrassing. Not as a fan, mind you. It’s embarrassing as a journalist.

Speranza wants autonomy for fans, not free content for outsider corporations: The OTW is created on the model of public television or public radio–Channel 13, as we have it in New York. It’s free. There are no ads. Anyone can watch it or listen to it. And a few people who care about public television and who can afford it become ‘members’–you remember the slogan: ‘this is member-supported NPR, this is member-supported Channel 13.’ And so I’m happy to contribute my time, money, and energy to help fans buy servers and write software and keep our ’social network’ a real community. And I hope you will, too.

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Of course, not all fans champion the OTW. The long history of fandom being an underground subculture made some fans wary of change: for example, ethrosdemon relishes the subcultural aspect of media fandom, along a model like Dick Hebdige’s: “Anyway, I didn’t make the choice to bring fandom to the blinding light of day, but in the same breath, I’m not ashamed of it. Yes, we are a subculture obsessed with buttsex, incest, noncon, bestiality, and inside jokes. That’s the appeal, frankly. The SUBcultural aspect is what unites us,” she writes.

Some fans criticized the narrow focus of the OTW:

Purplepopple complains that the OTW will pay too much attention to certain parts of fandom: “Fannish works predate the 1970s. They did not all grow out from the same cultural shared heritage. They were not all tied in to English speaking, Anglo-centric fandom. The concept of fandom predates Star Trek and Harry Potter was not the second biggest most influential fandom after Star Trek.”

Boogieshoes takes issue with OTW’s focus on feminism: “1) i really *don’t* value fandom as a female dominated space – i’d be doing this if there were no girls here tomorrow, and i’d be happy and 2) frankly, *i’d* rather be valued for *what i contribute* than for a genetic quirk i can’t actually control.”

spare_change and Rat Creature points out the problems they have with being represented by acafans: “I don’t think that acafen are the only ones dragging fandom into the public eye. I think that the way they are doing so, however, is just as lame, unrepresentative, and self-serving as FanLib or any ‘look at those wackos’ article on a mainstream news site, though, so I don’t see why I should support them any more than any of the other ways fandom gets publicized.”

For some fans, the OTW’s visibility actives the real fear that fannish activities could hold repercussions for one’s personal life. (In Ethan Zuckerman’s post introducing the OTW, he mentions The Church of Subgenius Custody Case, a similar circumstance in which a woman’s online activities impacted her child custody case).

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Finally, sympathetic outsiders to media fandom also reacted to the formation of the new organization:

Ethan Zuckerman, mentioned above, thought it was a good idea: “It’s a fascinating new proto-nonprofit determined to defend media fandom from the excesses of copyright and to help fanfic writers and vidders maintain control of their remixed works.”

BoingBoing’s Cory Doctorow also came out in favor of the organization: “This is such a good idea. When Naomi [Novik] described it at the WorldCon at a panel that we were on together, I wrote her a check on the spot for $500 to fund the org. I hope she cashes it now that they’ve formally announced.”

The Institute for the Future of the Book agreed: “All looks very promising.”

Bob Rehak himself is on the board of the academic journal: “The editors, Kristina Busse and Karen Hellekson, have kindly invited me to participate on the editorial review board; I accepted with pleasure.”

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We consider the OTW’s incorporation significant because it represents an unprecedented move in media fandom. We’ve talked in class about capitalistic mainstream forces absorbing fan culture– in the manner Dick Hebdige mentioned mainstream fashion absorbing, and taming, punk style– but the OTW came about because a team of fans refused to let themselves become fodder for a FanLib, capitalist organization. Instead, they organized for their own purposes. The OTW is part of the rising visibility of media fandom, just as is the fact that Swarthmore College is offering this class. Sounds cool? Maybe you should write a paper about it and submit it to the journal!

The sports fan seems to be relatively overlooked in most of the literature we have read for the class due to the “mainstream-ness” of it… I, however, feel that this is not the case.  Yes, there are some inactive fans that get season tickets or go to championship games; however, is this so different from average consumers who watch episodes of shows without any real connection to the fandom?  There are a variety of subcultures surrounding sports; take fantasy sports like football and baseball.  Fantasy sports allow for mock drafts, player rankings, and fantasy games that seem quite similiar to fan fiction (in that the fans are taking the characters and putting them on different teams and created situations to see how they will fare.)  It also seemed to fit into several of the “Ten ways to rewrite a television show” that Jenkins discusses on pg. 163.  There can be a refocalization on players that a fan might feel has been overlooked by the media, as well as cross overs and dislocation in the form of different team members playing together. 

Fan artifacts such as jerseys, signed baseballs…etc often illict as much money (if not more) than some of the klingon forehead pieces that we saw on the Trekkies documentary.  The culture of the fans creates the worth of the artifact.  Even though some athletes are more widely recognized, the true fans are a distinct group.  Just as Harry Potter is incredibly mainstream– the fandoms, fan fic, slash and conventions are set apart from the average reader.   I feel that sports fandom is quite similar and worth investigation. 

Slate has a great article on the popular “democratic” websites, like Wikipedia, Digg, and Slashdot. The article looks into the myth that these sites are democratic, equal-opportunity, and created by a large number of people. It shows research that indicates that sites like Wikipedia and Digg are actually run by a very small number of people: 1% of Wikipedia users and about 100 Digg users. These people not only write most of the content, but hold controlling administrative positions with the power to control who submits, edits, and can post to the front page.  

Additionally, the article mentions that these sites have a very hierarchical structure, especially wikipedia, with its many levels of administrators. This isn’t necessarily a harsh criticism, but its something we must take into account.We must be wary of describing any “democratic” culture, including fan cultures and movements. We have to question how many people were actually at the core of the culture. When we talk about trekkies and reference the documentary we saw, are we really talking about “trekkies”, or are we talking about a small subset that’s holding all the sway in how this culture is ideologically interpreted? We have to question how we’re defining fans based on the fan groups we examine, and whether or not we’re excluding a more silent majority. 

Hey, guys, I thought it’d be useful to have a post where we could comment with notices for the rest of the class.  (Hopefully useful, anyway?)

So, for example: I just put all of Twin Peaks on DC++ and it’ll stay there until class time tomorrow.   ^_^

To get the ball rolling for our discussion tomorrow, I’ve created this post for you to talk about the TV series and episodes you watched this week. What show did you choose? What drew you to it? Which episodes did you watch, and how did you like them? What connections can you draw between the activities of “fan critics” described in Jenkins and your own take on the texts?

I found something interesting the other day.  I was flipping through my roommate’s issue of GQ when I found a small article describing popular slash texts.  It was entitled “Lord of the Cock Rings” and gave the title, author, a brief synopsis, and a quote from each of the four texts (my favorite is “You’re a nice kid, but if it gets around that Tony Soprano swings both ways…you’re dead.  Capeesh?”).  This article interests me because it serves as an example of Dick Hebdige’s concept of the incorporation of subculture.  Historically, slash has been very much an underground fan community.  Due to its (homo)sexually graphic and fantasy-based content, it’s usually met with shock and disapproval when encountered in the mainstream.  But here we see it as the subject of an article in a mainstream magazine.  Like the television station that ran a story about “punk families”, this magazine makes money by covering innovative cultural phenomena.  But by running an article about slash, GQ brings this type of fan production into the mainstream, and perhaps robs it of the exclusivity that has historically characterized it.

  Going off of what Bob was saying today, and also what Jenkins talks about, it got me thinking a little more about fandom in relation to series.  On the bottom of page 98 and top of 99, Jenkins talks about how Star Trek  “remains self-contained.”  In each episode a particular problem is usually resolved by the end of that episode.  The next episode will be a new adventure.  Of course there may be allusions to early episodes, or permanent story changes among episodes, but for the most part they seem to be their own unit.  For example, “Amok Time” was my first Trek episode, and I did not have much trouble following everything.  I did keep bugging Diana with questions, but mostly out of curiosity.

When reading this part of Jenkins, I immediately compared it to another fandom potent genre, anime.  This “self-contained” aspect does not characterize anime at all.  For all the Dragon Ball Z fans out there, I have felt the pain all too often of watching a character just charge up and talk the whole episode without throwing a punch.  Bob was saying today how TV encourages watching more TV, and anime is completely guilty of that.  How can you justify watching two hours of characters talking about how great the fight is going to be and not watch the actual fight?  So I guess my first point is that this difference in genres is really interesting.  They each use their own type of hook or cliff-hanger.

My second idea is about actual fandom for these genres.  On the surface to me, it seems anime would have a lot more room for extended fandom because of the continuity between episodes.  It is one long narrative, and rich with information.  But Jenkins convinced me otherwise.  Because of the seemingly long gaps in between Trek episodes, it invites speculation among fans.  The fans have more power because less information is given.  There is now more interpretation.  What happened between episodes?  What happened to those aliens saved a few episodes back?  And so on and so forth.  I think that is part of the fun of fandom and why it has become so big.  This power given to fans is quickly grabbed and put to use.

For our fan artifact, we found two pieces of media that we felt exemplified this week’s reading, both related to Beauty and the Beast.

The first is a video from an online fan documentary entitled Beauty and the Beast: 20 Years of Remembering, which explores Beauty and the Beast fandom as it exists presently. Specifically, we were struck by the second chapter: the second chapter (link is to a 63 Mb .mp4, just to warn you), Blame it on the Beast, described thusly:

“He was looking for his Catherine. She was looking for her Vincent. Despite the three thousand miles that first separated them, Nicholas and Jennifer Thalasinos of Colton, California managed to find the loves of their lives thanks to Beauty and the beast and an Internet bulletin board.”

We noticed the connections that these two fans chose to draw between a television show and their real lives. Jenkins on page 107 explores the concept of “emotional realism” and the need for fan texts to be emotionally applicable to the lives of fans. Especially interesting was the inclusion of imagery from September 11th as an analogous danger to that which Catherine faces in the pilot episode and from which she is rescued and comforted by Vincent. Jennifer describes Nicholas as a comforting presence, who “really took care of her”, during this time of “emotional trauma”. The two were in L.A. at the time — Nicholas did not in fact rescue Jennifer from the WTC, but the two apply the narrative to their relationship regardless, fitting with Jenkins’ theory. Furthermore, Nicholas proposed to Jennifer at tunnel entrance similar to the Tunnel World where Vincent and his ilk dwell.

Secondly, we found a piece of fanfiction called Of Love and Magic, a crossover between Beauty and the Beast, Labyrinth (the David Bowie one), Gargoyles (the mid-90s animated series that has a bizarre number of parallels with BatB), The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Les Misérables, and Phantom of the Opera. This fic elevates three cult fan texts that the academy might situate as being lower on the hierarchy of taste by juxtaposing them with three classical works of literature. Furthermore, its premise of a happily-ever-after ending changes and indeed challenges the meanings found in both the text itself and the explicit wishes of the producers (especially of BatB). In five of these six texts, the romances are tragically unfulfilled: the romantic heroines (Catherine, Sarah, Elisa, Esmeralda, and Christine) are separated forever from their outcast romantic heroes (respectively Vincent, Jareth, Goliath, Quasimodo, and the Phantom). Les Mis is the only exception to the rule. In Chapter 4 of Textual Poachers, Jenkins discusses the idea of reading generically and the expectations on the part of fan readers that that entails. In this example, Lady Rosesong and her readers have interpreted these texts as part of the fairy tale tradition and therefore expect the conventions thereof to be represented. They choose to fix producers’ “errors” by constructing alternate narratives of the texts; in some cases these “correct” fan readings replace the producers’ intended meanings. This model of generic reading and “correction” can be seen in both fanfiction and the application of fan narratives to the fans’ own lives.