Awesome letter on fan fiction

[rivkat]

I don't know who you are, thesmallmachine, but you wrote an amazing response to Laura Miller's article on the Russian LotR reworking.

Here's a big chunk:

It was also nice to hear Ms. Miller's acknowledgment that she isn't in the best position to judge what fanfic is and what it's worth. This doesn't change the derision of her tone -- particularly in the bet-hedging use of the word "stereotype," which allows the review to essentially blame an amorphous community of stereotype-mongering Others for the ensuing, memorable, never-really-questioned definition of fic as the domain of teenage girls who earnestly write their romantic stories about a patronizingly quote-marked "canon."

Those quote marks really get me. They block off the term's irony, reserving it for the reviewing voice. In fact, I think most people in fandom are aware that they are not speaking of the canon of Harry Potter in the same sense, and with the same seriousness, that one might speak of the Western Canon (though the Western Canon's seriousness is increasingly dented now, and will probably dent deeper as the years go by).

One more word on that "stereotype" of fanfic as the domain of female teenagers -- of course it's an insult to adults who find fanfic to be a unique mode of criticism or a zero-g literary playspace or, sure, a sexual outlet; it's also an insult to female teenagers, a group who've seen enough insults, I think. The teen fic writer is finding her literary voice, learning to comment on mainstream fictions, finding a way to express her sexuality that's not entirely about recreating herself as a visual object for others' consumption. She is rarely a very good writer, because she's usually a very new one, but it's harsh to make her up into a symbol of writing as "fantasies" of "unlikely romantic pairings" and nothing more. She has an intellectual life, even if it's sometimes more potential than realized.

Comments

[happydork]

That is a brilliant letter! Thank you for linking.

[kass]

Thank you for that link -- that is awesome.

[reading-is-in.livejournal.com]

it's also an insult to female teenagers, a group who've seen enough insults, I think

This.

In my current project, I'm doing a section on fan fiction by young people (amid the sections by, you know, highly literate professional adults). I think we've had enough of adult journalists and academics from outside the fic community talking (down) about what teenagers are doing without much evidence of talking to said teenagers and what their work means to them. The new thing is 'fan fiction is educational'. Sure, it can be. But by whose definition of education?
Also: 'Some Tolkien fans have dismissed "The Last Ringbearer" as nothing more than fan fiction'. Does she know any Tolkien fans? Quite a lot love fanfiction and write it marvellously!
Thanks for the link, it's a good un.