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

[rachelcaine.livejournal.com]

I'm not academic, but I am a pro writer (under several different names, actually) and I run into the very same problems. Fanfic is declasse and largely unmentionable in professional circles.

However, I regularly participate on fanfic panels, and I'm not overly concerned about being "outed" to the rest of the pro community. There are a number of reasons for this, but simply put, I'm proud to be part of the fanfic community. There are fabulously gifted writers out there who are doing amazing work. (Okay, there are also horribly BAD writers as well. But statistically, about the same number as suck in original fiction.)

I'm also of the opinion that being able to write fanfic allows you to explore style and theme and mood in a way that writing your own original fiction doesn't -- it allows you a safety net to experiment and play by locking down som variables. I regularly find myself testing out scenes in fanfic -- in thematic content rather than actual line-for-line echoes -- and working out the rhythm before I write them in my professional work.

It also allows you to be a chameleon, which is something that they strongly teach out of you in more traditional venues -- it's not appropriate to have the chatty style of Buffy in a Harry Potter fanfic (okay, now someone will drag one out and it'll be brilliant and yes, there's always an exception!) so writers who shift between fandoms perforce learn how to shift style to match. And that means having an intuitive grasp of shading and language and rhythm -- very important.

My fanfic has immensely helped the quality of my professional work.

As for the objection to explicit material in fanfic, well, take a look at modern fantasy. Laurell K. Hamilton, George R.R. Martin, Guy Gavriel Kay, Ann Bishop, the Kushiel books by Jacqueline Carey -- all have explicit sexual content. Even more surprising to me, Martin, Kay, Bishop and Carey are writing it within the context of high fantasy. Frankly, I think it's fascinating how thoroughly shattered those barriers have been in such a short period of time. Ten years ago, it was very much The Romantic Idyll in high fantasy; today, it's blow jobs in the throne room. I think that's extremely interesting, that this shift happened and no one seems to have raised an eyebrow.

And that's enough rambling from me, or from fanfic writer juliefortune, to quote my other identity.

Interesting topic!

-- R/J

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

I think the pro/fan writer divide has a lot of similarities to the academic/fan divide, though I'm only intimately familiar with the latter. Mixing sex and fandom gives you the dangers to credibility of both. I absolutely agree with your point about explicitness -- it's very interesting to me to compare the level of sexual frankness in, say, Dragonrider, with that in current fantasy/sf. Even intra-author, things are changing: Laurell Hamilton and Robert Sawyer are two very different authors whose explicitness has changed markedly over the course of a decade or so.

Do you have any suggestions of good "blow jobs in the throne room" stories? Because I can always make time to read about a good blow job in a throne room.

By the way, I'm glad you stopped by. I'm a longtime fan, as in back to XF and Pretender days. God, Pretender was such a bad show, with just the right kind of potential for fandom. I'm sad it hasn't had a greater prominence in fandom.

[juliefortune.livejournal.com]

Hmm, blow jobs in throne rooms ... how about Guy Gavriel Kay's "Tigana" (I think that's the right one)? And of course, his "Lions of Al-Rassan," which while nary a blow job, has content of considerable interest along similar lines, as well as fearfully impressive writing.

And then George R.R. Martin's "Game of Thrones" trilogy (which, to my shock, is NOT a trilogy and now I'm left hanging for Book 4) ... incest, fellatio, explicit sex of virtually every description.

And a damn good read.

Heh.

I know my porn.

And THANK YOU for remembering me! :blushes: That's so very cool. I still love tP. Miss Parker is amazingly fun to write, even now. ;)

-- J.