Fic: Why Fanfiction Is Taking Over the World

by Jamison, Anne

  My own introduction to fandom had come about only in 2002, about a year before we met, thanks to my attempts to make sense of the anime Weiss Kreuz. I accidentally ended up on a LiveJournal (LJ) community that, at the time, I believed to be discussing the actual events of the series. It wasn’t until a few weeks into watching the show itself that I came to understand the basics of fanworks and what that sort of engagement with canon might mean in terms of manipulating and/or producing a narrative. In this early phase, I didn’t really know anyone online and didn’t have an LJ account myself. It made sense then to discuss it with friends I already knew, in an effort to come to terms with the slash community I’d accidentally stumbled into and grown compelled by.

  As a result, when I met you, Rukmini, and realized we had similar interests, I bombarded you with information about Weiss Kreuz and the slash pairings, and we sort of began our own independent community, each of us trying to figure out how to reconcile the content and media styling with our own experience of what writing and culture entailed. At this time, I associated my identity with a gender- and race-neutral online persona that I inhabited as a fandom lurker.138 It wasn’t until you and I parted ways in 2006—I stayed in Mumbai and you moved to Delhi—that I realized race, gender, and culture were very much coded into the fandom experience. This was largely because you met other people, both online and in person, who also produced or consumed fanworks, integrating into a larger preexisting Indian fandom community, while I continued to visit online forums. As a result, your experience of fandom in terms of ethnicity is quite different from my own: you met people in person in Delhi who had been, and continue to be, involved in fandom for just as long, if not longer, than us, whereas I mostly ended up trying to locate myself within multiracial and ethnically diverse fandom communities online. And, as you have always said, Delhi really changed your experience of fandom . . .

  RUKMINI: I think we just didn’t know there could be a local fandom community, really, outside of the two of us. First, of course, our identity as lurkers was a factor, and I think that element of subterfuge carried into IRL interactions with potential fandom people. Additionally, we were both slashers and that carried (and to an extent still carries) its own taboo.139 I met other fan people in Delhi very gradually, and while I joke now about the strange verbal maneuvering each encounter involved before we recognized each other as “those kinds of people,” that hesitant caution was motivated by a very real fear of discovery. I continued to lurk for a long time, and only got an online journal when badgered into it by a local (Indian) fandom friend in 2010. Gathering confidence from her experiences, I reached out to other fans in online spaces after that, but I continued to view fandom communities as something that was “out there,” mostly in America or the UK.

  However, as I realized that fan culture was what I was going to work on professionally, I also began to realize that I had collected quite a few “people like me” at home in Delhi, and the idea that an Indian fan community might already exist slowly filtered in. The first time approximately five of us met and talked about fandom was fairly recently, in early 2012. And it was quite an experience! Coincidentally, 2012 was also the first time Delhi had its own Comic-Con! I think the idea that fandom was, and is, here too continues to be pretty slow to sink in, but it has certainly been a turning point in the way I think of my fannish identity.

  SAMIRA: You’re so right that the subtle taboo of slash fandom, coupled with the cultural taboo of homosexuality in India, made it really hard to locate others who might be willing to discuss their interest in slash fandom without running the risk of being considered “deviant.” When in India, I still find it easier to discuss heterosexual pairings when discussing my interest in fandom with anyone who identifies as being outside of a fan community. And this is mostly because people are more willing to discuss the subject openly and in fair terms when dealing with what is seen to be the sexual norm. In contrast, my experience was that slash fanworks necessitated a stealthier approach and so largely occurred online or in places where we felt we wouldn’t be overheard as easily. We’re not alone in this: I’ve had conversations with fangirls from Iran, Romania, and Sri Lanka who have indicated similar experiences.

  Cultural Diversity (or Not) and How Slash Fandoms Address It (or Don’t)

  SAMIRA: The issue of slash aside, I never really encountered fanworks with a great deal of racial or cultural diversity. I certainly haven’t read any good ones set in India that don’t somehow “exoticize” the region or the culture, or devolve into the ridiculous with chases in jungles riding elephants. Personally, I find that fanworks of this nature annoy me, and I tend to steer clear of any that even hint at this sort of appropriation of an Asian culture or subculture.

  RUKMINI: Yes, I know. I think it was RaceFail ’09140 that really got me to start thinking about race in fandom and how my identity, which I was always discussing critically in terms of my academic life, was interacting with my fannish behavior.

  I think to an extent I had compartmentalized my media-fandom identity (that was based on the consumption of primarily American shows and movies) as separate from my cultural and racial identity, as I had never lacked for a media representation of my culture; Bollywood (and other Indian cinema) and literature being produced in India saw to that. Media fandom was a very different part of my popular-culture consumption habits.141 Not that I hadn’t noticed that there was a severe lack of diversity in the fanworks I consumed, but I hadn’t critically engaged with that lack yet. I think that the conversations RaceFail started (or rather brought to the forefront, since it was far from the first time these issues had been talked about) were critical, not only in terms of what was being discussed but the fact that they became a way for fans of color to find each other and build communities as well.

  SAMIRA: It’s true that a lot of the shows that spark fandom trends—for example, current booming slash fandoms include Teen Wolf, Skyfall, Supernatural, and so forth—don’t really tend to have more than a character or two who are racially or culturally othered, and when they do, these characters are largely sidelined, in the show and in fanworks, in favor of a dominant white-only pairing. For example, I have huge issues with Supernatural, particularly in its fourth and fifth seasons. The show’s two major angels of color, Uriel and Raphael, send a clear but really problematic message: the former’s language and interactions—referring to humans as mud-monkeys, and so on—depicts a sort of racism142 that appropriates and reverses racist terminology used toward POCs, and he eventually reveals himself as a double agent acting on behalf of Lucifer in “On the Head of a Pin” (4-16); the latter acts as a major angelic antagonist (also shown to be clearly in the wrong) of the good guys (the Winchester brothers and Castiel). While it’s possible to argue that Uriel’s racism indicates that POCs might have their own inherent racial biases, gesturing toward this by placing him beyond his depiction as an African American male to his role as an angel of the Lord, this argument is hard to sustain in the face of both angels of color being depicted as antagonists. Given the viewers’ carefully nurtured sympathy for the Winchester brothers and Castiel—all white men (or depicted as such)—Uriel and Raphael’s casting as “the bad guys” clearly displays a deeper agenda that, at least partially, points toward race.

  In addition to this, the episode “Hammer of the Gods” (5-19) appropriates a number of mythologies from across the globe—Indian mythology being clearly represented in the use of Ganesh and Kali—and, despite their depiction as not subordinate to Christianity, a white Christian icon, Lucifer, kills them all . . . except Kali, who flees in fear with the Winchesters. The suggestion that Kali, arguably one of the strongest Gods in the Hindu pantheon, would flee in fear from a confrontation is both ludicrous and offensive. It devalues not only the strength associated with a female symbol of power (notably the only female God in that episode) but also the cultural power associated with her mythos. This just underlines the absolute devaluation associated with races and cultures that d
on’t fall within the dominant Western, white, Anglo-centric (and distinctly American) hegemony. It’s something that is repeated almost every time the show appropriates a mythological figure, vilifies it, and then sends in two Western white men to kill it and save the person/city/world while refusing to link these events to any historical or cultural context that might disrupt an easy interpretation of the plot.143 Fandom that then takes up this storyline, in which existing racism and cultural prejudice are not-so-subtly promoted, and continues with it fails to really challenge it or engage with it on different terms. And that’s just very, very wrong.

  RUKMINI: Oh yes, absolutely! Teen Wolf is currently pressing all kinds of buttons for me in terms of race and cultural appropriation. There are many, many ways in which the show has sidelined its characters of color.144 But even more than the failings of its creator, Jeff Davis, it’s been fandom’s reaction that is of concern to me. As you pointed out, slash fandoms have often been accused of sidelining characters of color to concentrate on white pairings. However, Teen Wolf fandom’s dismissal of that unicorn, an actual queer character of color (Danny Mahealani), while aggressively campaigning to make the main slash ship of the show (Derek Hale and Stiles Stilinski, both white) canon, ostensibly to further the cause of queer representation on television, has been especially jarring.

  I also have to comment on the ongoing use of the character of Kali in various media as something that has really hit close to home! Eric Kripke’s Supernatural wasn’t the first to butcher her representation by any means, and I’m afraid the same thing is happening with Teen Wolf—only Teen Wolf’srepresentation might be worse because their Kali will be a recurring character. (As of this conversation, the episodes featuring her haven’t aired yet.) I know why Kali is such an attractive figure to Western writers; her link to the forces of chaos in Hindu mythology, the violent iconography that surrounds her, and the sexual elements of the Tantric philosophy that she is associated with are almost irresistible. As I’ve said before, what hurts me is not really the failure of the writing itself, as my cynicism toward Western writers appropriating my culture is almost an automatic lens. What hurts is the insistence of the Teen Wolf fandom that Kali is “just a name”—that the character is a werewolf, and not supposed to be the goddess herself—in the face of Indian fans writing many, many well-argued pieces of meta about why that is just not true.145 The fact that the actress cast for the part is not Indian (Felisha Terrel is half black) just adds salt to the wound!

  SAMIRA: In many ways, we’ve both come to feel really strongly about this issue of cultural appropriation that verges on a negation of culture itself146 because it is constantly sidelined even as it’s being discussed, and it is annoying that there doesn’t seem to be a distinction being made between engaging with a culture and its people and appropriating these. And that’s what we’re hoping to draw attention to here: both Davis and Kripke chose to appropriate rather than engage, and it’s upsetting when parts of fandom follow suit. It’s far too simple to consider the problem of racial and cultural othering as simply ingrained, or inescapable within the media, because at some point, when we’re consuming, reproducing, or repurposing this content for fanworks, we’re also buying into it simply by supporting it financially or systematically. And we need to think about that, about our complicity in these systems.

  Fanworks can be an amazing space within which to negotiate these boundaries because the limits become permeable. Gender-bending, race-bending, age-bending, alternate universes—all of these provide the opportunity to engage with, challenge, reposition, or remove these ideologies as depicted in the original media.

  Cultural Diversity: Fanworks Can Do Better and Sometimes Do

  RUKMINI: The debate over the difference between appropriation of and engagement with other cultures is a heated one, both in media fandom and larger society. But it is one that is vital if media fandom is going to uphold its claim to resisting dominant societal narratives. Fans of color often find their fannish communities silent on the topic of race, and that definitely hurts the idea of inclusiveness many of us hold dear. I think the basic idea that keeps coming up in discussions, prompted by events like RaceFail, is the need to explore the idea of white privilege and not shut down discourses around it through defensiveness. Disengagement is certainly not the answer, and there are plenty of resources available to help people out if they truly do want to learn.

  One fandom that has been extremely engaged in discussions of race has been the one formed around Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005–2008) and its sequel, The Legend of Korra (2012–). The original animated series was hailed for its depiction of various different racial and ethnic groups in Asia (the airbenders, for example, have been seen as representative of Tibetan Buddhism, with their decimation at the hands of the Fire Nation paralleling the actual history of Tibet). While not perfect, ATLA was a genuine attempt at working with “foreign” cultures without exoticizing them; for example, each nation’s “bending,” or special power over the elements, was carefully individuated to correspond to specific martial arts styles, avoiding the one-size-fits-all approach of most Western depictions of martial arts.

  The fandom that built up around ATLA was also extremely attuned to the nuances of that representation and, notably and rather gratifyingly, took action when that core principle was forgotten by the show’s Powers That Be. When the live-action film of the series was announced in 2007, the fandom reacted with outrage at the news that white actors had been cast to play all the positive leads. They made their displeasure clear through the very tools they had used to celebrate the series: transformative fanworks. Combining wit and social critique, some fans used internet memes to show how ludicrous the whitewashed casting was, while others used the casting failure as a springboard to extend the critique to other fandoms. For example, in 2010, the Dreamwidth community Dark Agenda launched “The Racebending Revenge Ficathon,” which challenged fans to write a fanfic in a fandom of their choice, in which they changed the race of a central white character to show how that would affect the show’s universe. The film’s controversy also lead to the establishment of Racebending.com, a grassroots organization that continues to point out problematic racial elements in popular cultural texts. So it’s clear that fandom can contribute significantly to exposing racially flawed texts and building a resistance to them; there just needs to be a continual will to make that a priority.

  SAMIRA: It’s clear that media and the society that produces it are in a symbiotic relationship, and that given the current rapid growth and awareness of fandom, and fanfiction in particular, as a recognized subset of media, producers of fanworks are in an enviable position to engage with these concerns, and not simply reproduce the systems of thought that function as the canon (either in terms of the media itself or the society that produces it). They can interact with these, if not as equals, then as new contenders, and actually produce a space where race and culture are thoughtfully and respectfully engaged.

  The Look of Fic: 2013

  Wattpad’s fanfiction homepage, August 2013K

  Mrs.TheKing’s Twilight fanfiction “Gynazole” on FanFiction.Net. Although “Gynazole” was originally posted in 2010, this screenshot depicts the archive as seen in 2013. Most of the story has been removed by the author.L

  The most popular fanfiction tags on Archive of Our Own, August 2013. Tags enable searching for specific kinds of fic within or across fandoms.M

  A fanfic post reblogged to the SuperWhoLock Tumblr. The image-intensive blogging platform Tumblr has transformed the fanfic interface to include more direct interplay between fan art or GIFs and text. It has also made it easier for fandoms to merge and overlap. Most fanfiction posts on Tumblr are short forms (often called “drabbles”), often responses to image prompts, or teasers that link to longer works on other platforms or archives.N

  part five

  FANFICTION AND WRITERS WHO DON’T WRITE FANFICTION

  But Who Do Something Related. I Think.

/>   The post-modernist always rings twice.

  —@EricIdle

  POSTMODERNISM: Parody and pastiche. Disrupting grand narratives. Rejecting Enlightenment and Romantic genius. William S. Burroughs cutting up novels. Kathy Acker plagiarizing Dickens. And Sade. And everyone else.

  Appropriation. It’s been avant-garde . . . for a long time now.

  E. L. James wrote a kind of pastiche of Stephenie Meyer and popular Twilight fanfictions. She took phrases, character traits, plot points, structures—even scenes. It is not even a little bit avant-garde. It’s the enemy the avant-garde scares its children with at night.

  Fanfiction isn’t the first appropriation- and pastiche-based writing culture to go mainstream. Think Don DeLillo: literary, but published by mainstream commercial houses, widely taught and consumed, his work adapted as a movie starring Robert Pattinson. E. L. James started out in a writing subculture and wrote her fic based on a movie franchise starring Robert Pattinson. Coincidence? Yeah, totally. But wouldn’t you love to be a guest at a dinner party with those two authors?

  A tête-à-tête between DeLillo and James probably isn’t happening any time soon except in the pastiche fanfiction I’m writing in my head, “Blood and Guts in Twi-School.” Still, you might think fanfic and postmodernism, as appropriation-based writing cultures with somewhat fraught relationships to the mainstream, would have plenty to talk about—besides young British actors. Something I’ve learned since turning my attention to contemporary writing cultures: they don’t talk to each other, and when they do, they don’t speak quite the same language.

  A case in point: I live with a pioneer in the field of “conceptual writing”—an avant-garde practice that Darren Wershler describes in his essay here. When I first heard about it, I thought: Oh! Conceptual—based on ideas, or maybe something Kantian. I get it.