Help me, Obi-Fan!

[rivkat]

Okay, so I am going to this conference, and Madhavi Sunder and Anupam Chander have a paper, The Right to Mary Sue (28 pages long, pdf), which will be published in a major law review.  They use Mary Sue as a shorthand for much fan fiction, and also they argue that self-insertion into copyrighted works is a good thing.  I am very sympathetic to their argument towards the rehabilitation of Mary Sue, though I have serious doubts about using her as the representative creation of fan fiction.  Part of this may well be the usual fear that fandom will be misrepresented or misunderstood by outsiders.  Chander & Sunder are very sympathetic – in fact, I think they overstate the liberatory potential of fan fiction – but there’s always that worry.

Anyway, I have an opportunity to offer comments, and I have plenty about Mary Sue as feminist heroine and slash as feminist liberation of the original text.  What I lack, shamefully, is a comparable ability to discuss race in fan fiction/media fandom.  Chander & Sunder argue that fan fiction allows marginalized groups to insert themselves in the text or reorganize the narrative around themselves, and couple that with discussion of the underrepresentation/misrepresentation of characters of color in TV/movies, but how often does that happen with race?  We have plenty of gender-swaps; does anyone know of a race-swap story?  Any good discussion of Teyla and Ronon as characters of color in SGA fanfic? 

Things I already know I want to show them: Mimisere’s Jesus Walks (found a copy on YouTube, by the way; that result came up before any LJ result).  Remember Us, the archive.  (No SGA section, interestingly.)  Coffeeandink from 2002.  Them Mean Ol’, Low-Down, Lando Calrissian Blues.  Blaise Zabini is black (oh darn, am I going to have to explain FandomWank to them?).

I have been reading cultural appropriation posts with interest, but I didn’t realize I’d need to try to do some outreach.  So if anyone has links to good discussions of race in fandom that could help explain us – the good and the bad – to some smart, capable people, I’d really appreciate it. 

Comments

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

I myself think there should be more Johnny/Bruce Dead Zone slash, but it's not a popular pairing in an already small fandom, so there you go. I do think white fanwriters are often hesitant to give characters of color larger roles in fan fiction than they have on the shows. SGA is a big exception, and that may well be because everybody's got as good a shot at defining Ronon and Teyla's cultures as anyone else. (Though SG1 seems to have much less Teal'c fic, proportionately. Who knows, with SGA?)

Race isn't an issue for white folks because we/they're white. I have the privilege of not thinking about it, but it's there.

[margueritem.livejournal.com]

I do think white fanwriters are often hesitant to give characters of color larger roles in fan fiction than they have on the shows.

I wonder if it's about being hesitant or about it not even ocurring to us? Which would link back to the whole "White is the default race, and they have the privilege of not thinking about it".

I now seem to remember a discussion somewhere about writing or not writing people that were not white/northamerican/westerners : there was some issue about whether white people could write black people... or something. Argh, I can't remember where I saw this.

Considering how much subtext I see between Teal'c and Jack, I've often bemoaned the lack of good fic for those two.

[juxtoppozed.livejournal.com]

I'm having difficulty deciding whether it's what you point out, margueritem, about not conceiving of a wealth of fanfic ideas for characters of color (quite unwittingly, not out of preference/racism but out of some default tendency) or if as rivkat says it's simply because a lot of characters of color don't have major roles in the first place so even if it occurs to people, they want to retain authenticity (make it as close to the established canon as possible so that as creative and great as the story is-- it still could happen within the show's universe.) I have no idea if this is the general preference, but I know that I prefer fanfiction that is not only imaginative and tightly written-- but the events within the story are still possible within the show's canon or the show's future progression. It's a chicken/egg kind of question...would people come up with more and better story ideas for characters of color if they had larger roles on the show? I'm inclined to think so, though I'm not sure I'd bet on it-- because there's still always the "Alternate Universe" realm of fanfic where people aren't beholden to the show's current progression or allocation of screentime/meaty story lines, where *anything* is possible, where minor characters or unexplored pairings can be given full reign, and yet background characters of color tend to still be...in the background. The AU lot shouldn't have the same "canon/authenticity" problems that wold hold back an author from exploring a token character imo). So...I think it's an interesting question.

I think the paper attributes a bit too much willful trail-blazing in the way of exploring and challenging the stereotypes of minority characters (As exemplified by Lieutenant Mary Sue, she serves to contest popular media stereotypes of certain groups such as women, gays, and racial minorities. Where the popular media might show such groups as lacking agency or exhibiting other negative characteristics, Mary Sues are powerful, beautiful, and intrepid.14), but it's right on the mark about it being (whether consciously or not) a tool or potential tool of "empowerment" challenging what's ordinarily given wrt gender or sexual orientation (no matter what the fandom there seems to be brilliant and layered slash to read). I know this doesn't offer much, but essentially I think the problem is not that rivkat doesn't have enough material or to say on it so much as Chander and Sunder have overestimated and hyperbolized fanfic when it comes to conceiving of more creative/genuine ideas and roles (or challenging their current token roles) for marginalized groups. I suppose that may not be what they want to hear though...I agree with the jist of what they're saying and why preserving this medium is crucial, I just think they romanticize the motivations behind fanfic a bit too much in proportion to the actual material (example fanfic) there is to substantiate what they're saying re: race.

[harriet-spy.livejournal.com]

even if it occurs to people, they want to retain authenticity (make it as close to the established canon as possible so that as creative and great as the story is-- it still could happen within the show's universe.)

The *scads* of stories around minor characters (say, Blaise Zabini, whose *gender* and *race* weren't even known until later in the series, or the Lorne/Parrish pairing in SGA, where one of the characters appears in only about five minutes of the entire show) would argue otherwise.

[juxtoppozed.livejournal.com]

Well, like I've said...I don't know if it's true across all fandoms, I'm just throwing out possible causes/reasons behind scant explorations in the one's I've notices (admittedly, shows on the WB).

[delux-vivens.livejournal.com]

*THANK* you...

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

I don't think authenticity helps, since fandom generally is willing to do just about anything to the characters, from making men pregnant to giving them wings. Epics are written about minor characters -- just not often characters of color. I don't know much about DS9 fandom, but from the outside it seems like there was relatively less fanfic about Sisko than about other main characters (and than about other Star Trek captains, for that matter).

Your second paragraph is a good statement of the problem. I'm not sure they think that fandom's actual production is as important as its potential, but I think it's important to point out that "made by nonprofessionals" does not necessarily mean "liberating."

[margueritem.livejournal.com]

On the other hand (for DS9), we did get lots of Garak/Bashir stories. I'm not sure what origins Bashir is supposed to have, though.

I wish there'd been more Sisko/Dukat, myself.

[diluvian.livejournal.com]

Speaking as an Exceedingly Pale Person, my only hesitations when writing characters who are people of color are when their culture is different than mine and I *know* I'm bound to get something wrong in a way that'll mash toes.

Ronon, Teyla, and Teal'c are from barely-fleshed-out SciFi cultures and I can work with that. Pete Ross from small town Kansas? No problem.

Charles Gunn? Yeeeeeee.

I comprehend nothing of gang culture. I comprehend almost nothing about the -- jeez, I've spent half an hour typing and deleting, trying to articulate and *still* feel like I'm going to offend someone.

Anyway, I don't dare. I've been privy to gay & lesbian culture (multi-ethnic, come to think of it) in ways I've never had access to, for instance, a family in Oakland. Even the family of the guy I dated for a *year* in college.

I'll probably never write about a character who's (very actively) Jewish, or someone Amish, or Mormon, for the same reasons. Don't get the culture. Don't want to offend.

Gah, there went another howeverlong of typing and deleting. Um, seconding the recommendation of conversing with ladyjax who is way keen in any case, and there are a couple of other people I will nudge your way.

::flees::