Two provocative essays from Schemingreader: Something Good About Fandom and Women Writing Slash: An Idiosyncratically Feminist Meditation. Here is an excerpt from the first piece:
…. “Take for example, the massive Harry Potter fandom in which I am a participant, since it’s the largest and most obvious manifestation of this phenomenon. When Jo Rowling wrote her first Harry Potter book, we were all thinking like Muggles. That is, we thought: “Here’s a nice book for children that adults can enjoy, too.” We didn’t think: “Oh, look, another franchise opportunity for Harry Potter movies, t-shirts, calendars, video games, figurines…”
“I’m sure Jo isn’t sorry that her lovely little book became an international media phenomenon, but it does do something negative to our experience as readers. Between the movies and the media images, we are left with an ultra-canonical reading, a single way to interpret a book. Indeed, to some extent, a single way to interpret the experience of reading. When you write stories that recast the Harry Potter characters and plot, you enter into the process of interpretation and take the reins of the story into your own hands.
“Just think what you are messing with when you write stories about television programs. The whole medium is designed to keep you salivating for hamburgers and weight-loss programs. You aren’t buying the messages of enforced passive consumption of entertainment when you decide that you can use a shared audience experience as a stage on which to create. I don’t participate in any TV fandoms, but I think they are in some respects the most revolutionary thing going.
“You might think: “Oh, we are ripping off someone else’s characters, taking their intellectual property.” Take a long view, though. Look at the King Arthur stories and the spin-offs they spawned in the eleventh century. People all over Europe were retelling the stories of the Knights of the Round Table. The whole problem with mass media is that it makes artists’ livelihoods contingent on killing their art. It used to be that songwriters sold their sheet music, not their recorded performances. We have commodified the entire experience of making art. In some respect, fan fiction and fan art stand against all of that.” ….
