Tangential thoughts
May. 8th, 2005 04:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
branchandrootWell, now, there's a thought. Is it possible to be a fan of Story X without being absorbed by/invested in the source text? Can one be a fan of Story X when one only knows it via fanworks?
My knee-jerk reaction is "yes, of course." Which I find odd, because The Story is the center and heart of my concept of fandom. Yet, rummaging around in my own motivation a little more, perhaps it isn't so strange. Because I, too, consider my fannish value system a populist one, and, out of a populist value system, should not all textual producers be equal? Why should the official/original version be privileged over the fannish reworkings?
And now I've got myself in a real fix, because I do feel the originary text has to have some priviledge; it's the primary source, it's the one the fanworks derive from.
Yet, sometimes it isn't.
Sometimes fanon overcomes canon, and the text that is central to a given fandom becomes a body of fanworks which are, sometimes quite noticeably, not much based on the originary text. For example, let me return to Gundam Wing.
Well, actually, let me not return to Gundam Wing, but let me try to draw examples from it anyway.
The canon text was, in most quarters, thoroughly drowned out by a majority-accepted fanon text which used the same names but differed significantly in descriptions, characters and plot points (keywords: cobalt, bouncy, hn, safe house). The canon text became co-equal, as a source text, with this fannish production. Details upon which to base further fanworks were taken indescriminately from either source or both.
GW was certainly fandom. It had all the standard earmarks: passionate investment in the central texts, appropriation of the text, possessiveness of the characters. Was it a fandom consisting of fans of Gundam Wing?
I have to say, yes.
I suppose my reason goes back to my conviction that a text is nothing without its readers, and that the readers are a vital part of how the meaning of any given text is produced. And that one of the most basic moves of fandom is to become author as well as reader to the source text. So, if the meaning that a bunch of fans find in a given story is better expressed by the fan telling of that story than the initial telling... that does not divorce them from the initial telling. It just complicates the relationship. A relationship still exists, even if a given fan never lays eyes on the canon text. If it is a relationship that fans who cleave to the initial telling find frivilous, well, upright, everyday, mainstream culture thinks we're all frivilous, now, doesn't it?
Addendum, which may or may not get incorporated into this particular essay:I do think there's a difference between saying "that activity/approach/value puts you outside of good/acceptable fandom" or even "outside of fandom period", and saying "that activity/approach/value makes you a weird fan who's not like me".
The latter is just discourse communities working themselves out. It's the initial gut response to something strange or uncomfortable. What I find unfortunate is when that gut response becomes the basis of one of the former statements--the universalization of one's own value set, as Cathexys says. Judging a member of one's own discourse community by the values of that community may get ugly, especially if it's part of a renegotiation of what that community's values are. But it is, I would say, part of the basic process of thinking and communicating, and we just have to hack it as best we can. To judge a member of another community by the values of one's own is pointless; fandom has plenty enough room for incompatible communities to ignore each other.
Of course this gets hugely messy, because we all have more than one community, and there are the questions of redefinition, and recruitment, and influence within larger communities. But I still think the basic principle is a useful one to keep in mind while processing the "Weirdo!" reaction.
My knee-jerk reaction is "yes, of course." Which I find odd, because The Story is the center and heart of my concept of fandom. Yet, rummaging around in my own motivation a little more, perhaps it isn't so strange. Because I, too, consider my fannish value system a populist one, and, out of a populist value system, should not all textual producers be equal? Why should the official/original version be privileged over the fannish reworkings?
And now I've got myself in a real fix, because I do feel the originary text has to have some priviledge; it's the primary source, it's the one the fanworks derive from.
Yet, sometimes it isn't.
Sometimes fanon overcomes canon, and the text that is central to a given fandom becomes a body of fanworks which are, sometimes quite noticeably, not much based on the originary text. For example, let me return to Gundam Wing.
Well, actually, let me not return to Gundam Wing, but let me try to draw examples from it anyway.
The canon text was, in most quarters, thoroughly drowned out by a majority-accepted fanon text which used the same names but differed significantly in descriptions, characters and plot points (keywords: cobalt, bouncy, hn, safe house). The canon text became co-equal, as a source text, with this fannish production. Details upon which to base further fanworks were taken indescriminately from either source or both.
GW was certainly fandom. It had all the standard earmarks: passionate investment in the central texts, appropriation of the text, possessiveness of the characters. Was it a fandom consisting of fans of Gundam Wing?
I have to say, yes.
I suppose my reason goes back to my conviction that a text is nothing without its readers, and that the readers are a vital part of how the meaning of any given text is produced. And that one of the most basic moves of fandom is to become author as well as reader to the source text. So, if the meaning that a bunch of fans find in a given story is better expressed by the fan telling of that story than the initial telling... that does not divorce them from the initial telling. It just complicates the relationship. A relationship still exists, even if a given fan never lays eyes on the canon text. If it is a relationship that fans who cleave to the initial telling find frivilous, well, upright, everyday, mainstream culture thinks we're all frivilous, now, doesn't it?
Addendum, which may or may not get incorporated into this particular essay:I do think there's a difference between saying "that activity/approach/value puts you outside of good/acceptable fandom" or even "outside of fandom period", and saying "that activity/approach/value makes you a weird fan who's not like me".
The latter is just discourse communities working themselves out. It's the initial gut response to something strange or uncomfortable. What I find unfortunate is when that gut response becomes the basis of one of the former statements--the universalization of one's own value set, as Cathexys says. Judging a member of one's own discourse community by the values of that community may get ugly, especially if it's part of a renegotiation of what that community's values are. But it is, I would say, part of the basic process of thinking and communicating, and we just have to hack it as best we can. To judge a member of another community by the values of one's own is pointless; fandom has plenty enough room for incompatible communities to ignore each other.
Of course this gets hugely messy, because we all have more than one community, and there are the questions of redefinition, and recruitment, and influence within larger communities. But I still think the basic principle is a useful one to keep in mind while processing the "Weirdo!" reaction.
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no subject
Date: 2005-05-08 03:48 pm (UTC)I tend to think of fandoms as a series of bubbles. At the core is the canon series or story. Around that is a group of writers/fans who cleave close (or try to hold close) to the original. They use it as reference, know it inside and out, and some can quote chapter and verse, given the opportunity. Outside them is another ring, of people who've seen some of the canon, and fill in the blanks based on those in the inner ring of canon-centered fans. And outside that is yet another ring, of those who've seen little to nothing of the canon but take their styles and characterization from the fans around them and above them.
You can see that really well in GW, where the original series is off the air for six years, and getting the DVDs is the only way to check out the source material. Fans, in that dearth, turn to other fans for filling in the blanks on what they've not seen/heard. While I don't mean to imply that there's an "inner circle" in terms of authority, I do mean that fans situate themselves along a range in terms of their influence: canon at one end, fanon at the other. And even one fan can move along that range, as they choose. Most authors, though, seem to find a spot and stay pretty close to it, but a few do move along the spectrum.
Ah, it's yet another aspect of being a Big Name Fan, eh? Those who are prolific, slicing the way at the beginning of a fandom, are definitely more likely to influence those who come behind, inadvertantly (or even purposefully) setting themselves as a filter between the canon and developing, newcoming fen...
no subject
Date: 2005-05-09 05:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-08 04:46 pm (UTC)Let's take Weiss Kreuz, as it's one of the best examples for what I'm talking about. At best, the various canon source materials (the anime, the manga, the drama CDs, whatever else you want to count) is somewhat confusing and conflicting. At worse, it's a giant, incoherent mess that was clearly an excuse for anyone involved to slack off and do a half-assed job and only made money because Koyasu is hot.
If it weren't for the fanon, the fandom would probably be just as much of an incoherent mess, so I think it's possible to like the derivative texts without liking the source material so much. Most people still do like it anyway, but I think it's possible to not like any of the series and still like what the fans have done with it, because there was a certain spark to the characters that they started to play with.
Yet, I still feel sort of torn because there are certain aspects of the fanon that drive me nuts because they conflict with canon. (Ken being a klutz, for example. Youngest goalie in the J-league, ie professional athlete, and assasin who has yet to, you know, die. NOT A KLUTZ.) Yet, how can I get uppity about contradicting a canon that's so poorly plotted out and often contradicts itself? But this is sort of a tangent to what I was getting at.
I'm not entirely sure how this effects the relationship between the fans and the canon, because... how do you figure that relationship out when fans are quite happily deliberately divorcing themselves from aspects of canon they don't like? (Ie, Gluhen. So many WK fans absolutely hate Gluhen and refuse to acknowledge its existence.) Or just cheerfully not bothering to look into the details because they simply Don't Care?
At what point are you still a fan of the character from the original series and when do you cross over into being a fan of a character that's not the original creation? Do we have to draw the distinction between Original Text Character from Fanon Made Character? Meaning, can someone be a fan of, say, Fanon Made Aya but find the Original Text Aya to be terribly boring and/or unlikable? At what point do you go from liking the fandom's spin on a series better than the original to being a fan of the fandom but not of the series?
Because I suspect Weiss Kreuz is sliding into the latter for a lot of people, after the DVDs came out in North American and people started seeing just what they were writing all these fics about. Also, Gluhen again.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-09 06:01 pm (UTC)Not, as you point out, that this was difficult.
Kind of like the Star Trek novels. Except, in WK, the polarity really is completely reversed, and the fanon acts as the centripetal force while the canon is the centrifugal.
*shifty look* I did kind of like Aya with the braid...
no subject
Date: 2005-05-09 06:21 pm (UTC)Though, my second favorite character is Crawford, so it's not like I was completely enthusiastic about Gluhen. (That I feel zero guilt about cheerfully not accepting. No WAY is Crawford wearing that hideous get-up. I did kinda like Schuldich's hair, though. >__>a)
no subject
Date: 2005-05-08 05:45 pm (UTC)Back in the day (*snaps suspenders*), I felt that canon was a possibly engrossing, but mostly poorly written fanfic I didn't actually want to READ. (At the time, I think my favorite was that doujinshi by Mato with the little shinigami fairy following Duo around). Dealing with it was like an intellectual duty, and I appreciated it when fanfic writers carried it out, but I didn't really require it when reading fanfic. I would have still called myself a Gundam Wing fan. (A big one. A DUO fan.)
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Date: 2005-05-09 06:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-08 08:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-08 08:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-09 06:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-09 10:55 am (UTC)Interestingly, I used to think 'not' but I've since changed my mind. I write generally to explore aspects of charaters not explored in the show, so for my view of writing, the original source is vital to have the fullest rich experience of characters and exploration. But when reading other stories, I've found myself sucked into fandoms because "hey, there's an interesting set of characters!" and then go out to find the original material... and find that it really didn't have that depth originally, so stick with the fandom fics to enjoy.
GW is definitely the best example for me on that. FF7 is another one.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-09 06:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-09 09:57 pm (UTC)On your discussion, for me the situation depends, really. In some cases I can get sucked into a fandom through fanworks, and then might go hunt down the original source. Usually later. On the other hand, I tend to be more drawn towards the fandom than the canon. The fandom changes, after all. so it's more of a use canon as a stopping base, go figure out what people are jabbering about, then join in. But it can be done without the reference to base source section. *I've never seen FF7 for one, or FF8. YYH didn't drop in my hands for a long while.... , okay RK I liked the base source first... hm. Naruto I haven't referred to base for quite a while..... Ditto with SG:1 and Godzilla and GW and a whole lot of others....*
no subject
Date: 2005-05-10 12:30 pm (UTC)That's true, the action is in the fan-side, isn't it? Hm.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-11 01:48 am (UTC)It tends to be the action in the fan-side that draws me in. The call of like to like, one might say. And also, it's a lot easier to 'socialise', that way.