Calling vidders and academics

[rivkat]

So, rather than finishing up my edits or preparing materials for Vividcon (by the way – any intellectual property-type questions vidders want answered? Let me know here and I’ll be sure to work your questions into my presentation) – I’ve been doing more reading, specifically at Henry Jenkins’ website. He has a bunch of interesting stuff up, from Lassie to Mortal Kombat. There’s a long dialogue between him and Matt Hills, who wrote Fan Cultures, that is just wonderful, with too much thoughtful stuff to summarize, though my favorite bits are about the change in cultural production over the past few decades to anticipate, incorporate and respond to fans. If you’re at all interested in theorizing fandom, read it.

What this exchange really got me thinking about was Jenkins’ account of the increasing respectability among academics of being a fan as well as of writing about fans. To a certain extent, this is clearly true; if anything, now one has to defend looking down on fans rather than identifying with them. But Jenkins’ and Hills’ experience is not mine, for a specific (perhaps gendered) reason: As far as I know, though both men are explicit in their academic work that they are fans, they do not produce fiction, art or vids. “Coming out” for them is therefore a lot less fraught. For me, the danger is far more related to my students than my colleagues, most of whom are likely to see my fannish endeavors as bizarre but not academically disqualifying. With students, though, wearing Spock ears really has nothing on the way I’m exposed. Sure, if you actually read Jenkins’ work, you’ll know he’s read a bunch of slash, but, flippantly, it seems to me that the only thing surprising about finding a man reading “porn” is that he’s reading it. My students can easily access what they might well assume are my sexual fantasies – or, at a minimum, what I think might be arousing to readers. Yes, I do feel vulnerable, and it isn’t something I’d ever bring up with students, though I haven’t taken heroic measures to separate my identities and I understand I’ve been outed to some of them.

Anyway, I’d be interested to hear what other fan writers/artists/vidders who are also academics have to say about what your academic colleagues know about your fannish commitments.

Comments

[chase820.livejournal.com]

Except for a few very close friends, I am as far in the closet with my fannish work as it's possible to get. In fact, I had a bad turn last year when I received a fan letter from a graduate student in my own department for one of my stories. For a moment, I worried that she had somehow figured out who I was, but after I calmed down I realized this was unlikely, even if she had managed to find my livejournal.

Why I was so upset at the thought of being "outed" as a fanfic writer I'm not sure. If I were to make a quick guess, I'd say it's because academic writing in English encourages you take an unemotional, critical, almost cynical stance in response to texts. Reading and especially writing fanfiction about a text seems much more personal and emotional. I was taught that getting personal or emotional with a story, treating the characters as people rather than constructions created within a particular cultural context, was the amateur's response. It was never said but strongly implied that reacting to a story without critical distance puts you on a par with trailer park Tanyas weeping over the daytime soaps in their housecoats and curlers.

Of course, there is very good fanfiction out there that plays with the text in a perfectly respectable postmodern sort of way, or just tells a ripping good yarn that is at least as good as the professionally written mass-market tie-in paperbacks for series. Unfortunately, the image of fanfic writers as shiny-eyed teenage fangirls typing badly-spelled porn seems to prevail. Even many non-academics see writing fan-ficion as weird. The few academic friends I've told about my hobby respond with indulgent amusement at best, apathy and puzzlement at worst. I can only imagine the derision with which others who didn't know me as well would react.

Or perhaps I'm over-reacting. To be honest, I've never had the courage to bring up a discussion of fanfiction with anybody other than my closest friends, even though many of my acquaintances are pop culture critics who might have interesting viewpoints. But the horror of possibly being seen as a subject to be studied rather than a fellow expert to be listened to has kept my mouth firmly closed on the subject.

[harriet-spy.livejournal.com]

I was taught that getting personal or emotional with a story, treating the characters as people rather than constructions created within a particular cultural context, was the amateur's response.

Would you mind horribly if I shot every one of your teachers in the head? Talk about a way to churn out soulless monsters who will be incapable of transmitting a love of literature to the next generation.

[chase820.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, pretentious academics are like the mythical hydra--dispose of one head and another grows in its place. It's just the system in some schools.

The system has resulted in a great many graduate students/young profs who are so bound up in critical theory that they can barely communicate with their students, much less transmit a love of good stories. I've never found this to be a problem, but then I spend as much time ignoring my training as relying on it.

[harriet-spy.livejournal.com]

I have no quarrels with even the most complex of critical theories per se. I simply feel you have to have the love underneath. The problem isn't pretension, it's snobbery.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

The Jenkins/Hills discussion I linked to has an interesting section on the relevance of emotion to academia. I get the sense that in cultural studies affective response is a lot easier to admit than in your field. In law, that sort of thing is generally confined to critical race studies and maybe other critical fields.

Your last sentence about being a subject to be studied really rings true with me. I respond to a fair number of the slash research requests that come around, but as the questions get more detailed I find myself more defensive, as if I'm being asked to provide evidence that will show that the researcher knows better than I do about myself. As Jenkins points out, there's some irony in such positions given the relatively highly educated and theoretically sophisticated people one finds in fandom.