Transformative Works and Cultures,

No. 3 (September 15, 2009)

Editorial

TWC Editor, Extending transformation

Theory

Debora J Halbert, The labor of creativity: Women's work, quilting, and the uncommodified life

Julie Levin Russo, Sex detectives: "Law & Order: SVU"'s fans, critics, and characters investigate lesbian

desire

Hanna Wirman, On productivity and game fandom

Praxis

Jason Mittel , Sites of participation: Wiki fandom and the case of Lostpedia

Melissa L. Tatum, Identity and authenticity in the filk community

Leora Hadas, The Web planet: How the changing Internet divided "Doctor Who" fan fiction

writers

Symposium

Lynne Joyrich, The magic of television: Thinking through magical realism in recent TV

Avi Santo, The future of academic writing?

Suzanne Scott, Repackaging fan culture: The regifting economy of ancil ary content models

Dana Shil ing, Snogs of innocence, snogs of experience

Anne Col ins Smith, Playing [with] multiple roles: Readers, authors, and characters in "Who Is Blaise

Zabini?"

Jen Gunnels, "A Jedi like my father before me": Social identity and the New York Comic Con

Robin Anne Reid, “The Hunt for Gol um”: Tracking issues of fandom cultures

TWC Editor, Pattern recognition: A dialogue on racism in fan communities

Interview

K. Tempest Bradford, Interview with Verb Noire

zvi LikesTV, Interview with Mark Smith and Denise Paolucci

Emma Dol ard, Interview with Chris Bouchard

Review

Adriano Barone, "Camgirls: Celebrity and community in the age of social networks," by Theresa M.

Senft

Alessia Alfieroni, "Introduction to Japanese horror film," by Colette Balmain

Craig B. Jacobsen, "Pride and prejudice and zombies: The classic Regency romance—Now with

ultraviolent zombie mayhem!," by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC), ISSN 1941-2258, is an online-only Gold Open Access publication of the nonprofit

Organization for Transformative Works. TWC is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0

Unported License. Download date: March 15, 2017. For citation, please refer to the most recent version of articles at TWC.

Transformative Works and Cultures, Vol 3 (2009)

Editorial

Extending transformation

TWC Editor

[0.1] Abstract— Editorial for Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 3 (September 15, 2009).

[0.2] Keywords— Fan studies; Open access; TWC

TWC Editor. 2009. Extending transformation [editorial]. Transformative Works and

Cultures, no. 3. http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2009.0183.

1. Introduction

[1.1] Although academic research is notorious for discussing issues that only a handful of

other scholars might understand, let alone consider important, TWC's mission has always

been to bridge academic and fan communities. In addition, the journal is interdisciplinary, so scholars and fans from a wide range of backgrounds and fields can be exposed to each

other's ideas. We hope that this makes the potential reader base quite large, and we are

continually striving to ensure that the topics TWC works with appeal to more than specialists.

We want information should go viral; knowledge should spread, not remain constrained by

limited access. Now that TWC is publishing its third issue, we have grown even more

convinced that open access, permissive Creative Commons copyright, and online distribution

are the keys that will allow us to reach as many people as possible. That access has allowed the academic essays to be read alongside online meta conversations. The commenting

feature used by TWC's software, OJS (http://pkp.sfu.ca/?q=ojs), lets readers talk directly to the authors—although we'd like to see more use of this, and so we encourage readers to

start a conversation. And finally, the online nature of TWC means that the essays provide

easytoclick hotlinks and embedded media to illustrate and support arguments. We want

information to be at people's fingertips, not a library visit away.

[1.2] We extend thanks to everyone who helped spread the word about TWC, from word of

mouth, to flyers passed out at scholarly and fan conventions, to academics revising a

conference paper for publication, to teachers suggesting that their advisees consider TWC as an outlet for their work, to fans who felt compelled to say something important about a fanrelated issue. In our third issue, which begins our second year of existence, the essays again interrogate and extend the concept of transformative works. Our subjects range from wikis

and fan films to quilting and filking, and the authors use legal and film theory, literary

studies, and cultural studies to focus on large cultural concerns such as race and gender and to analyze how fan spaces reflect and magnify these issues.

[1.3] Acafans are finding themselves riding a crest of acceptability: fan events such as ComicCon have drawn huge audiences—an estimated 126,000 attendees attended the 2009

San Diego ComicCon (http://www.sdnn.com/sandiego/20090709/attractionshotels

resorts/comiccon2009). TV shows and films are wooing active fans thanks to viral

marketing and online interaction. Accordingly, more academics are doing part or fulltime

fan studies from a stunning range of disciplines that in fact intersect and overlap: political remixing, fan film, and fan vidding; hip hop, wizard rock, and filking; copyright concerns in dance, remixing, and crafts; literary pastiche, tiein novels, and fan fiction. Both in practice and in academic discussion, acafans struggle with preserving distinct heritages while

acknowledging the mutual influences and indebtedness between these diverse yet

complementary fields.

2. Theory and Praxis

[2.1] This issue's first essay is representative of the breadth we're hoping to continue:

Debora J Halbert's "The Labor of Creativity: Women's Work, Quilting, and the

Uncommodified Life" looks at the way traditional crafts—in this case, quilting—have been negatively affected by copyright concerns. The gendered aspect and the fannish investment

of its creators connects Halbert's subject matter closely to many of the other essays in this issue. Identity, authenticity, and community are central to the quilting community as they

are to the communities Melissa L. Tatum describes in "Identity and Authenticity in the Filking Community." In an essay that is both an introduction to the fannish practices of filking and an argument about the complications filkers encounter in terms of copyright concerns,

Tatum connects filking with other musical fan engagements, notably wizard rock, and she

provides sound clips to demonstrate the range of creativity in fanbased musical expression.

[2.2] If community is important to both these essays, it is at the center of the arguments

of Jason Mittell's and Leora Hadas's essays. Both focus on one fandom ( Lost and Doctor Who, respectively) and one online network (the fan wiki and a fan fiction archive) to look at the way conversations surrounding these sites give us insight into the interpretive debates

within the fandoms. They also explicate how fans define themselves and collectively

negotiate their fannish selfunderstanding. Mittell's participant observation of a Lost wiki,

"Sites of Participation: Wiki Fandom and the Case of Lostpedia," foregrounds the way discussions on wiki content articulate show canon and user selfunderstanding. Competing

fandom interpretations and its associated community infighting are the topic of Hadas's "The Web Planet: How the Changing Internet Divided Doctor Who Fan Fiction Writers," where she discusses how seemingly innocuous administrative decisions related to an online fan fiction

archive affect and reflect internal fandom discontent.

[2.32] Viewer responses and interpretations are also the focus of Julie Levin Russo's "Sex Detectives: Law & Order: SVU's Fans, Critics, and Characters Investigate Lesbian Desire."

The essay, which centers around the contested queerness of one of SVU's main characters,

Olivia Benson (played by Mariska Hargitay), connects the show, the fan responses, and the

paratextual structures (co)created by both to interrogate concepts of deviant sexualities and

its myriad vicissitudes. Finally, where Russo's fans are purposefully and consciously manipulating media representations, in "On Productivity and Game Fandom," Hanna

Wirman's game players do so to the computer games they enjoy. Wirman looks at various

forms of player productivity in an effort to stretch our understanding of what exactly

constitutes productivity and what exactly constitutes fannish behavior.

3. Symposium, Interview, and Review

[3.1] Symposium and Interview work to bridge academic and fannish spaces. This issue

features several essays that meditate on their own spaces and procedures as well as modes

of engagements and infrastructures. Avi Santo looks at "The Future of Academic Writing?"

and the role of online publishing for academic scholars, and K. Tempest Bradford interviews

Verb Noire founder Karnythia and discusses the need for a press that focuses on protagonists of color. A group of fans discusses the role of race within online and offline fannish spaces in

"Pattern Recognition: A Dialogue on Racism in Fan Communities," while Suzanne Scott looks at the role of gifting and commercial models with fan spheres in her "Repackaging Fan

Culture: The Regifting Economy of Ancillary Content Models." Jen Gunnels describes the

fannish community of cosplayers (costume players) in "'A Jedi like my father before me': Social Identity and the New York Comic Con," Lynne Joyrich discusses the role of magical realism in contemporary TV programming, and zvi LikesTV interviews the founders of

blogging and networking site Dreamwidth, Mark Smith and Denise Paolucci.

[3.2] Meanwhile, close readings of fan and source texts continue to be an important aspect

of the essays in TWC. Dana Shilling looks at representations of rape in respect to Joss

Whedon's Dollhouse with her "Snogs of Innocence, Snogs of Experience," and Anne Collins Smith provides a close look at Harry Potter's Blaise Zabini in her analysis of a particular

wizard rock song in "Playing [with] Multiple Roles: Readers, Authors, and Characters in 'Who Is Blaise Zabini?'" Robin Anne Reid reviews and discusses a recently released The Lord of the Rings fan film in " The Hunt for Gollum: Tracking Issues of Fandom Cultures," which complements Emma Dollard's interview with the fan film's producer, Chris Bouchard.

[3.3] Reviews in this issue include Theresa M. Senft's Camgirls: Celebrity and Community in the Age of Social Networks (Adriano Barone), which analyzes power, gender, and the gaze as articulated through Webcamming and addresses the ethics of rules building in online

communities; Colette Balmain's Introduction to Japanese Horror Film (Alessia Alfieroni), which analyzes Japanese films as well as their Western remakes in terms of various

subgenres, including raperevenge, zombies, serial killers, and urban alienation, concluding that the horror genre articulates concerns related to the modernist breakdown of a collective social structure; and Craig Jacobsen's review of derivative novel Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a rewrite by Seth GrahameSmith of Jane Austen's classic 1813 novel that includes both zombies and ninjas—and a book that Jacobsen ultimately finds disappointing.

4. Conclusion

[4.1] The next issue of TWC, No. 4, which will appear on March 15, 2010, will be a guestedited special issue on the popular show Supernatural, which has a huge fan following—as well as more than a few interested academics. Guest editor Catherine Tosenberger published

an essay on Supernatural in TWC No. 1 that, at more than 16,000 views, is far and away the most accessed TWC essay, demonstrating not only engagement with the topic, but also

wideranging academic and fan interest. We are looking forward to offering more and more

diverse intellectual and fannish engagements with the show in No. 4.

[4.2] TWC No. 5 will be an open, unthemed issue, and we welcome general submissions.

We particularly encourage fans to submit Symposium essays. We encourage all potential

authors to read the submission guidelines

(http://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/about/submissions#onlineSubmissions).

The close date for receipt of copy for No. 5 is March 15, 2010.

5. Acknowledgments

[5.1] It is not possible to properly acknowledge the depth of appreciation we feel toward

everyone who has helped make this issue of TWC possible. They have suffered hard

deadlines, late nights, and short due dates. As always, we thank the authors in this issue,

whose original work makes TWC possible; the peer reviewers, who freely provide their time

and expertise; the editorial team members, whose engagement with and solicitation of

material is so valuable; and the production team members, who transform rough

manuscripts into publishable documents.

[5.2] The following people worked on TWC No. 3 in an editorial capacity: Kristina Busse and Karen Hellekson (editors); Rebecca Lucy Busker, Lorraine Dubuisson, and Alexis Lothian

(Symposium); Veruska Sabucco, Mafalda Stasi, and Cynthia W. Walker (Interview); and

Veruska Sabucco and Mafalda Stasi (Review).

[5.3] The following people worked on TWC No. 3 in a production capacity: Karen Hellekson

(production editor); Shoshanna Green, Ed Greengrass, and Mara Greengrass (copyeditors);

Rrain Prior (layout); and Sarah Hazelton, Vickie West, and Liza Q. Wirtz (proofreaders).

[5.4] TWC thanks the journal project's Organization for Transformative Works board

liaison, Francesca Coppa. OTW provides financial support and server space to TWC but is not

involved in any way in the content of the journal, which is editorially independent.

[5.5] TWC thanks all its board members, whose names appear on TWC's masthead, as well

as the additional peer reviewers who provided service for TWC No. 3: AnnaKatherine

Amacker, Evelyn Browne, Cathy Cupitt, Monica Flegel, Ina Hark, Kurt Luther, Sara Magee,

Suzanne Scott, Braxton Soderman, and Rebecca Tushnet.

Transformative Works and Cultures, Vol 3 (2009)

Theory

The labor of creativity: Women's work, quilting, and the

uncommodified life

Debora J Halbert

University of Hawai‘i, Manoa, Hawai‘i, United States

[0.1] Abstract— Quilting is an area of creative work rich in tradition that

demonstrates how ideas and inspiration flow between quilters as they share with

each other, move to new parts of the country, and develop their own designs. While

commercial patterns have been copyrighted, quilting has generally existed under the

radar of copyright law, primarily because quilts are most often exchanged within a

gift economy. However, as quilting becomes big business and patterns and pattern

books are more centrally located in quilting culture, issues associated with copyright

protection emerge. This article investigates the relationship between copyright law,

innovation, and sharing as it is understood by quilters who responded to an online

questionnaire. Survey participants feel that quilting is a creative activity in which

copyright plays a very small role, except when it restricts the actions of quilters. The

survey suggests that respondents see quilting as creating a connection between

themselves, their families, and their communities. Their creative work, in other

words, is a gift they want to share, not a product they want to sell.

[0.2] Keywords— Art; Authorship; Copyright; Quilting

Halbert, Debora J. The labor of creativity: Women's work, quilting, and the

uncommodified life. Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 3.

http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2009.0041.

doi:10.3983/twc.2009.0041

1. Introduction

[1.1] Kathleen Bissett's 2004 lawsuit against the Central Canada Exhibition quilt

show highlights the controversies emerging around copyright and quilting. Bissett sued

the Central Canada Exhibition for including a quilt using her pattern in the exhibition.

The quilt won first prize, but the quilter had not sought permission to show it, nor did

she attribute the winning design to Bissett. "Buying the pattern design does not entitle a quilter to 'copy' it without permission, [Bissett] explained. That includes showing it

off in public competition. 'Display is a form of copying' and goes beyond the definition

of personal use, she said" (Quilt kerfuffle 2006).

[1.2] Bissett's interpretation of copyright gives her, as sole author of the design, the ability to control the quilt as a derivative and unauthorized work (Bissett n.d.). Once

the quilt is understood as a derivative of the pattern instead of the creation of the

quilter, the pattern's designer can exert control over anything produced from it. The

Central Canada Exhibition now refuses to display quilts without the permission of the

pattern designers, as a result of Bissett's complaint (Quilt kerfuffle 2006).

[1.3] Bissett's maximalist views on copyright run counter to a long history of sharing,

inspiration, and transformation in quilting design and creation. In fact, for generations

the display of quilts at state fairs has spurred copying and provided inspiration for

other quilters. According to Virginia Gunn,

[1.4] Nineteenthcentury women regularly exhibited their quilts at

community fairs where thousands of visitors admired them. Women

themselves carefully examined the quilts and needlework on display, noting

and commenting on the results of judging, as people normally do. Since fair

organizers encouraged people to study the prizewinning items and return

home and emulate them, it would have been unusual if quiltmakers were not

consciously or unconsciously influenced by what they saw on display at

county and state fairs. It is highly likely that these quilt exhibits helped

shape regional taste and style preferences in quiltmaking. (Gunn 1989:105–

106)

[1.5] According to Gunn, the entire point of the state fair competition was to display

the best work, on the theory that "competition stimulated invention, and prizes helped

people recognize superior quality and design which they could later copy" (107).

Sharing is preferred over strict enforcement of ownership. Bissett's interpretation

suggests a sea change in attitudes toward quilting. Her argument also ignores the fact

that a quilt is a collaborative work, of which the pattern design is only one element.

[1.6] Copying, sharing, learning from others, and quilting collectively are hallmarks

of American quiltmaking history. Authorship in quilts and the stories told about them

are diffuse and multiple (Elsley 1996:58–59). Copyright law, in contrast, is designed to

protect creative works that are fixed in a tangible form. The paradigm it imposes on

quilting is different from the one that evolved within quilting circles. The copyright

paradigm makes the public display of a quilt, the donation of a quilt to a charity

fundraiser, or indeed any nonpersonal use of a quilt a complicated, and perhaps even

illegal, endeavor.

[1.7] However, underneath the concern with property rights imposed by copyright

law, there exists a culture of transformation—a culture finding inspiration in color

choices, material choices, pattern designs, and nature itself. These inspirations,

generated through interaction with the world, are then used to create new and

different quilts. Quilting is heavily reliant upon a shared culture of designs using

traditional motifs, often transforming them into new and innovative art. The modern

commercial world in which quilt patterns and designs are subjected to copyright rests

on top of the rich and textured historical tradition of a quilting culture where

innovation and originality are closely linked to sharing and exchange without

prioritizing ownership. It is a "hybrid" economy, to use Lawrence Lessig's term (2008), where commercial uses build upon noncommercial culture.

[1.8] Although commercial pattern makers and quilt designers have made inroads

into quilting culture, copyright law has not fully penetrated it. Thus the culture that

creates the conditions under which quilts are made and shared can serve as an

interesting counterpoint to the more commercialized culture of other fields of

intellectual property. Quilting culture highlights the transformative nature of creative

work and the ways in which ideas flow freely when concerns about property rights are

not predominant.

[1.9] This essay examines quilters' attitudes toward copyright as they were revealed

in an online survey administered in 2006. The project began with the hypothesis that

because quilters operate under a paradigm of creativity informed by a culture of

sharing and gifting, they would find the application of copyright to quilting

problematic. The intent of the survey was to use the answers of the women who

responded to better understand the relationship between creativity and copyright. The

stories told by the women in the survey suggest a varied response to the problems

associated with copyright, creativity, transformation, and appropriation, and they tell a

complex narrative of the relationship between copyright and quilting. To set the

context for the survey, I'll first discuss the history of quilting, and then the relationship of quilting to copyright law.

2. A brief history of quilting as women's artistic work

[2.1] Contemporary quilts, like the ones produced by survey participants, must be

seen within the larger history of quilting. While quilts are produced around the world,

this paper focuses on the American tradition. The quilters who took the survey are not

isolated from the tradition of American quilting, but instead are a contemporary

extension of it. However, as this section suggests, copyright did not play a significant

role in earlier quilting. Instead, the convergence of copyright and quilting is a relatively recent phenomenon that has emerged as proprietary forms of ownership begin to

trump cultural norms of sharing. The growing importance of copyright today does not

mean claims of authorship and ownership were absent in the past. However, copyright

has not been a useful way to understand innovation in quilting, nor has copyright been

historically helpful in understanding how quilting was integrated into the lives of the women who did it. This section seeks to provide a history that highlights the creative

and transformative nature of quilting and gleans, from existing historical narratives,

insight into how women understood their creative work.

[2.2] The concept of the author, as it is connected to written work, has a history of

its own (Rose 1993). For the legal doctrine of copyright to become relevant to quilting,

the quilt had to be seen as more than a utilitarian device. It had to be understood as

an original work created by a single author. The requirement of originality helps to

separate the utilitarian function of the quilt from the creative aspects and helps to

transform a blanket into a work of art.

[2.3] Quilts only gradually became accepted as artistic works. Although quilt scholars

called them art as early as 1935 (Hall and Kretsinger 1935:28), the mainstream art

world was slow to recognize their artistic value. Scholars widely agree that it was only

in 1971, when the Whitney Museum of American Art produced an exhibition of quilts

entitled "Abstract Design in American Quilts," that quilts became "officially" recognized as art in the United States (Pritchard 2006:4; Berlo and Crews 2003:5).

[2.4] Quilting had remained on the margins of artistic work for a variety of reasons.

First, the functional nature of many quilts meant they were understood as utilitarian in

purpose (Hall and Kretsinger 1935:13). Second, quilts are made almost exclusively by

women and were thus often relegated to the category of domestic crafts rather than

artworks (Hedges, Silber, and Ferrero 1987:47; Parker and Pollock 1981:75; Parker

1984:5). As Parker notes in her feminist analysis of the distinction between arts and

crafts, artworks were created for purchase, and thus were things of value, while crafts

were created in the domestic sphere for love, making the distinction gendered as well

as economic (Parker 1984:5–6). Such a dichotomy is important from a copyright

perspective, since only when art becomes a commodity does it generate the value

copyright is designed to protect.

[2.5] The Whitney exhibit was a breakthrough because it positioned quilts as

embodiments of artistic design traditionally made by women. This show, combined

with the feminist movement of the 1970s and the already existing culture of quilting,

catapulted quilts into prominence as much more than utilitarian devices (Berlo and

Crews 2003:14). Despite its importance, however, some quilters criticized the Whitney

exhibit because, while it situated the quilt as art, it also "depersonalized the quilts,"

taking the "heart out of what the quilts mean" (Elsley 1996:25). The shift from craft to art and the commodification of the quilt will be returned to later. However, the quilts

must first be understood within their own historical context, which is deeply linked to

women's history.

[2.6] Since women's stories are often excluded from historical narratives,

contemporary scholars have turned to material culture to understand the lives of

women, including the rich history of quilting and clothing more generally (Barber

1994:286–300; Hornback 1993:68; Berlo and Crews 2003). Quilts can be read as

women's history because their designs tell stories of the women who made them and

they are symbolic of the larger American picture of which they are a part (Berlo and

Crews 2003:12). Each quilt bears the story of its making, and its subsequent history

often links together generations of a family.

[2.7] There is a fine line between accurately depicting women's work and

romanticizing it. For example, Berlo and Crews note that much of what has been

written about quilting was intended to "ennoble and reclaim the artistic work of

women" (Berlo and Crews 2003:12). However, it is clear that femininity and

needlework have been closely linked, and remain so to this day. Women quilting today

do so because of a history that makes it a legitimate form of artistic expression for

women. However, overcoming the historical disregard for women's creative

expressions demonstrates that these histories are political. It also problematizes the

way we understand the distinctions between art and craft, and thus the distinctions

between what can be protected by copyright and what is considered unworthy of

protection. Quilting, then, is a story that can be told as women's history: a history that

links quilts made in the past to the work done by the women who responded to the

survey.

[2.8] It is likely that quilts arrived in America with the earliest colonists, but the first documented quilt is found in the 1685 inventory of the property of Captain George

Corwin (Orlofsky and Orlofsky 1974:10). Even quilt scholars like Orlofsky and Orlofsky

call these earliest American quilts "considerably more utilitarian than decorative" (10).

They were most likely made to help the colonists survive the harsh North American

winters. The fact that quilts become increasingly referenced as household goods during

the 18th century suggests that they gradually become more valuable over time (19).

[2.9] It is important to avoid situating the quilt as an "emblem of classlessness" that would mythologize an American past, picturing it as without class conflict (Miller

2006:94). That being said, quilting and needlework crossed socioeconomic boundaries

and were done in both rural and urban locations, with elite women and poor women,

black and white, making quilts (Benberry 1992; Hall and Kretsinger 1935:27).

Needlework was an essential skill learned at an early age by both girls and boys

(Hedges, Silber, and Ferrero 1987:16–29; Orlofsky and Orlofsky 1974:27), and early

American quilts were often produced using the labor of the entire family (Orlofsky and

Orlofsky 1974:45). But despite the collective nature of these efforts, quilting is most

closely linked to women's work. Especially important for women's spaces is the history

of the quilting bee as a way of solidifying community (Elsley 1996:54; Hall and Kretsinger 1935:21–26).

[2.10] The feminization of needlework and quilting is a crucial part of the history of

material culture. According to Bilger, needlework became fully feminized in the 18th

century (1994:18). During the 18th century, it was essential for women to engage in

needlework as a way of "labor[ing] for male attention" (22), a goal that was further solidified by 19thcentury Victorian attitudes that linked needlework with feminine

"purity and submissiveness" (Parker 1984:37, 82–109). Writing in 1929 about the

history of the American quilt, Finley argued that male domination meant women had

no control over purchases, and that "in needlework only did women hold full sway"

(1929:20). Needlework was "a covert means of negotiating the constraints of

femininity," providing women with the opportunity to "make meanings of their own

while overtly living up to the oppressive stereotype of the passive, silent, vain, and

frivolous, even seductive needlewoman" (Beaudry 2006:5). As Finley notes, "trained from babyhood that she might make good in the marriage partnership, a girl was first

taught sewing; and the first thing she sewed was patchwork" (1929:33).

[2.11] Integral to the place of women in the home was the understanding that

sewing was the essence of the feminine. Women who sewed were developing

appropriate feminine skills and learning their place (Hedges, Silber, and Ferrero

1987:26). Thus, women were strongly discouraged from participating in "masculine"

creative processes, such as writing. Feminine pursuits, like needlework, were

considered excellent alternatives (Bilger 1994:23).

[2.12] The 19th century changed the position of quilting within the American

household. In the later part of the 19th century, the industrializing economy meant

most productive work moved outside the household and the ensuing "cult of

domesticity" for elite women prescribed sewing as an essential element of women's

work (Hedges, Silber, and Ferrero 1987:24). Industrialization introduced cheap cotton

and new technologies, both of which changed the nature of quilting. First, as quilters

gained access to more fabrics and colors, they were able to express more complex

artistic visions (Orlofsky and Orlofsky 1974:33). Second, by 1850, textiles were easily

available and quilting became more popular, even as other domestic crafts were

supplanted by factory production (Orlofsky and Orlofsky 1974:58; Hornback 1993:68).

Third, the introduction of the sewing machine radically transformed quilting by

eliminating tedious hand stitching, allowing women to focus on the most expressive

parts of quilting, though it would be almost a century before machinesewn quilts were

considered as "authentic" as handstitched ones by many traditional quilters

(Brackman 1997:24). As Berlo and Crews note, the contribution of women to 19th

century visual culture "was one of constant innovation and experimentation, constant openness to new materials and ideas" (2003:14).

[2.13] The 19thcentury commercialization of quilting aligned it more closely with the

commercial culture associated with copyright. While histories of quilting generally do

not consider the influence of copyright, a focus on quilt patterns and the methods

through which they were developed, exchanged, and transformed can provide insight

into how quilting culture continued to evolve in the commercial world of the 19th and

20th centuries. The remainder of this section will focus more specifically on the role of

the pattern and commercial quilt culture.

[2.14] As social changes left elite women with more leisure time, they turned to

quilting to demonstrate their domestic skills. National magazines helped situate the

quilt as a creative work associated with civilized life instead of a mere utilitarian piece.

According to Hedges, Silber, and Ferraro,

[2.15] Many of these women, no longer involved in essential work in the

home, were much affected by popular magazines such as Peterson's

Magazine and Godey's Lady's Book, which urged them to make highly

embellished, nonutilitarian display pieces…These quilts were decorative,

reflecting Victorian taste and the status of the quiltmakers' husbands.

Women had become symbols of leisure; to have a wife who was leisured

reflected very favorably on a man. During this time, quilts were no longer

found exclusively in the bedroom; typically we see them in the parlor, where

art and music and women's "civilizing" influences could be practiced and

displayed. (1987:25)

[2.16] Thus, while early quilters considered their labor simply a form of women's

work, and gave little thought to the artistic value of their quilts, industrialization, the

cult of domesticity, and the increase in leisure time created an opportunity for quilts to

be understood as more than utilitarian devices. Quilt pattern designers, who were

often associated with fabric manufacturers, saw patterns as a way of selling more

fabric and the result was a greater variety of artistic quilts.

[2.17] Quilt innovation and design spread across the United States as specific

techniques became popularized, shared, and commercialized (Hornback 1993;

Waldvogel 1990; Hall and Kretsinger 1935). Historically, ideas were generated from

family traditions and by looking at traditional designs, because patterns were not to be

found (Waldvogel 1995:52). As women traveled, they shared designs with those they

met (Hornback 1993:87). Quilt researchers note that design elements were passed

from quilter to quilter across the country, even before popular patterns were nationally

available (Nordstrom 2002:44–45; Hall and Kretsinger 1935:14). Patterns were

influenced by contact with African, Asian, and Native American traditions. The beauty and unusual style of Hawaiìan quilts, for example, demonstrate the manner in which

cultural flows and transformation forge new patterns and art forms as cultures interact

and exposure to new ideas inspires art (Murray 2003; Jones 1930; Orlofsky and

Orlofsky 1974:246; Hanson and Smucker 2003). Patterns were exchanged among

friends, and often women would make sample blocks for future reference and build

upon those innovations (Orlofsky and Orlofsky 1974:248). Even though women were

now more likely to get patterns from magazines or purchase them from quilting

companies, they were normally shared with other quilters.

[2.18] Multiple permutations of a single pattern, with different names but the same

design, began to appear as patterns migrated across the country (Finley 1929:97–

103). Many patterns exist in multiple versions, and collections of patterns may include

thousands of designs (Orlofsky and Orlofsky 1974:245; Brackman 1993b; Walker

1983). These traditional patterns are part of a history that can be drawn upon; as

Ruby McKim writes in the introduction to her pattern book, "We have found bits of

interesting history about these [quilts] and drafted patterns from which you can copy

them" (McKim 1967:3). However, the taxonomy of quilting patterns is in disarray and

researchers Forrest and Blincoe find that many active quilters do not remember, or

perhaps never even knew, the names of their patterns (1995:1–4). Quilt patterns had

traditionally been passed down locally by families and friends, and their origins were

often forgotten (Orlofsky and Orlofsky 1974:245). Copyright was not a relevant

concept for ownership because patterns were freely exchanged and transformed, and

they quickly lost their link with their author. One study of 19thcentury Ohio quilting

notes that it is doubtful the most talented quilters were anonymous at the time they

were quilting (Gunn 1989:122); however, while some famous quilters are still

remembered, many more are lost to history.

[2.19] Industrialization changed how many women found and used quilt patterns. By

the end of the 19th century, patterns began appearing in newspapers and magazines

(Breneman 2007a). Mailorder patterns became available nationwide and strongly

influenced quilting trends in the 19th and 20th centuries. For example, in the mid20th

century the Double Wedding Ring pattern became so popular that middleclass women

across the entire country were sewing it (Horton 1989:140; Brackman 1993a:107).

While readymade kits were available, women often personalized and adapted a

pattern by using their own colors and fabrics, as well as altering the design (Brackman

1993a:107).

[2.20] Quilting became increasingly commercialized in the early 20th century. For

example, in 1914 Iona and Rosalie Wilkinson opened the Wilkinson Quilt Company and

began producing quilts (under copyright) for American households; they advertised

their products as "art quilts" (Goldman 2002). Commercialization allowed designs to be exchanged more easily. Waldvogel notes that

[2.21] well before the Depression, the wide dissemination of quilt patterns

in print—through magazines like Farm and Fireside, syndicated newspaper

columns, and pattern books—was altering the dynamics of traditional

quilting, just as records and radio were dramatically accelerating the

circulation of folk music styles and repertoires. Folk quilters, once limited to

traditionally inherited patterns, were increasingly exposed to unfamiliar

designs from impersonal outside sources, some traditional patterns from

elsewhere, and others entirely new. (Waldvogel 1990:xiii)

[2.22] Mass marketing was considered a mixed blessing. In part, the revival of the

'20s and '30s, spurred by cotton manufacturers and quilt kits, continued an American

tradition (Hall and Kretsinger 1935:17; Cord 1995). However, for some traditionalists,

purchasing precut pieces took some of the "joy" out of quilting (Hall and Kretsinger 1935:17).

[2.23] Patterns were used to encourage women to buy specific brandrelated

materials (Waldvogel 1990:14). Mountain Mist, for example, printed patterns on the

inside of the paper wrappers of Mountain Mist batts so women would buy textiles from

the company, as well as purchase additional patterns for a small extra charge

(Waldvogel 1995:105–6). During the Depression, most women living in rural areas

copied their patterns out of newspapers and shared them with friends (Waldvogel

1990:14). There is no way to determine if the pattern designers were fully

compensated by the newspapers (21–23), but several of the patterns distributed in

this way became symbolic of the era: the Grandmother's Flower Garden, Dresden

Plate, Double Wedding Ring, and Sunbonnet Sue (23). Although the designs may have

been protected by copyright, in most cases we cannot know if copyright was

established or not. Whatever the official copyright status of these patterns, it was their

uncontrolled copying that allowed them to become classics.

[2.24] Two parallel cultural approaches emerged in the mid20th century. The

"traditional" approach allowed quilters to create "variations into inherited designs, the better ones contributing something of themselves to the common stream of tradition"

(Waldvogel 1990: xiv). However, commercialization fashioned a "synthetic equivalent

in its place" (xiv). Thus, ownership claims emerge out of nationalization and

commodification, which take individual quilters out of communitybased folk traditions.

Furthermore, as quilting became associated with "art" instead of traditional "craft,"

serious artists became interested in protecting the boundaries of their work from

appropriation by others, a concern that is clearly evident in contemporary quilting.

Copyright becomes more important as quilting becomes "artistic" and quilters begin to

see themselves as individual artists instead of members of a community of women sharing a craft.

[2.25] The renewal of interest in quilting in the 1970s led to a proliferation of new

organizations, publications, and groups (Davis 1993:177). Quilting shops multiplied

and pattern books appeared that included both new and traditional patterns (Pritchard

2006:43). Their publishers sought to copyright both types of designs.

[2.26] Modern quilting exists in a world where copyright matters to the creators and

publishers of quilting books, patterns, designs, and fabrics. These are all items a

quilter needs and thus may have to purchase, placing quilting more firmly within a

commercial paradigm. When ownership and authorship of patterns matters, the

traditional culture in which they were shared is replaced with a legal mandate that

each quilter must purchase her own copy of a pattern. Copyright helps condition

women to understand the pattern as something that must be bought from an original

author, not as something that can be shared. Pattern designers see photocopying as a

problem, because it allows quilters to buy only a single copy of a given pattern and

share it, as they have been doing for hundreds of years. The relationship between

authorial control, the use of patterns, and the creation of quilts has shifted.

[2.27] Copyright protects a creative work "fixed in a tangible form" for the life of the author plus seventy years. It also gives the copyright owner control over all direct

copies, public displays, and derivatives of the work, as well as control over its general

"look and feel." In other words, the copyright owner has been granted broad control over a creative work and the uses it is put to. The brief examination of the history of

quilting outlined above suggests that copyright has not played a substantive role.

Sharing, finding inspiration in the creativity of others, and transforming one design

into another have been valued by the tradition of quilting, though not by copyright

law. As copyright expands, these values are targeted as violating the rights of the

copyright owner, and the culture of transformation is undermined. In the next section

I'd like to examine the uneasy fit between copyright and quilting.

3. Copyright and quilting

[3.1] The pattern is an important and underlying framework that helps the quilter

create a quilt. For example, Brackman found that most of the 13,000 quilts she

surveyed were made from existing patterns instead of original designs (Brackman

1993b:109). There is evidence to suggest that while quilting was often a cooperative

effort, when quilting involved competition, some women carefully guarded their

quilting designs to keep others from copying them to enter in future competitions

(Brackman 1993b:124). However, while more research is needed here, they do not seem to have used copyright to do so.

[3.2] Copyright can disrupt the traditional flow of ideas and expression associated

with quilting and other needlework. Compare, for example, the story of Kathleen

Bissett's assertion of ownership over her design to Mountain Mist's marketing strategy

of using patterns to encourage women to buy their products. At the 1933 Sears Quilt

Contest held at the Chicago World's Fair, three of the top quilts used Mountain Mist

patterns. Mountain Mist owner Frederick J. Hooker wrote to the finalists to find out if

they had used his batting and then proceeded to put their testimonials in his

advertising (Waldvogel 1995:128). By not rigorously policing the boundaries of their

work, early pattern designers were able to facilitate innovation and transformation

instead of halting it, while making money on associated products. It is unlikely that the

transformations in quilting could have happened if strict copyright protection had

inhibited the transfer of designs then, as it does today.

[3.3] A second example of how copyright disrupts more traditional cultural flows

comes from the blog of a woman who had sewn several wallets to donate to a charity

auction. In an effort to do the right thing and attribute the wallets' pattern to its

designer, she added a link to the pattern owner's website from her own. The pattern

owner then notified her that the donation of the wallets to the charity auction was a

violation of her copyright (Lilian 2007). Controlling a final product donated to a charity

auction based upon a pattern design is a long way from the culture of Civil War

quilters' societies, in which quilts were made to raise funds for the war effort on both

sides (Breneman 2007b).

[3.4] The Internet has made it difficult to enforce copyright protection of pattern

designs while making patterns more easily available. One Web site offers instructions

to quilters regarding what can be copyrighted (Elkins 2007). It and similar sites take

strict copyright control by pattern designers as a given. Consider, for example, the

information a Bluffton, Ohio, quilt shop has put on its Web site regarding the use of

quilt patterns under copyright.

[3.5] When you buy a pattern from a shop, then you have the right to use the

copyright.

When you buy a pattern from a shop, then you have NOT purchased THE

copyright.

You alone have the right to make quilts from it.

Your friends do not have the right to make quilts from it.

Your club or guild does not have the right to make quilts from it.

Your class does not have the right to make quilts from it.

You may have the right to sell the pattern, but those who buy that pattern from

you do not have the right to make quilts from it, even if you give it to them.

You do not have the right to swap your patterns or trade them in any way.

You can not photograph a quilt and make a copy of that quilt.

You can not download illustrations, patterns, or pictures of a quilt and make

copies of those quilts, unless specifically authorized in writing [which can be on

the web] by the copyright owner.

When you receive a quilt pattern free of charge, it does not give you the right to

distribute it to others. It is the copyright owner's choice as to how it is

distributed, not yours. Free patterns have their economic payment in that you

have been rewarded for visited their website, store, meeting, class, or any

number of things.

You must read the copyright wording. Some copyrights:

Limit how many quilts can be made from it.

Require labels to be put on the quilt.

Require that the quilt is only for your use and can not be sold. ("Copyrights,

licenses & quilting" 2007)

[3.6] I am not primarily concerned with the legal inaccuracies of these claims, but it

should be pointed out that these rules prohibit almost all uses of the pattern and thus

eliminate the reasons for buying one in the first place. In this analysis, the pattern

designer is the original author and the quilt itself is a derivative work, which can be

controlled by the copyright owner. Virtually all methods of gaining ideas and

inspiration from already existing images and patterns, as well as all forms of sharing,

have been prohibited.

[3.7] Although this Web site and others offer some information, there is little reliable

legal guidance regarding how copyright should be applied to quilting, and many gray

areas exist regarding authorship, originality, and sharing. These lines are especially

blurry when the pattern designer asserts broad control over the uses of the quilt. In

the remainder of this section I'd like to investigate the problems associated with the

use of copyright as it applies to quilts.

[3.8] Quilting, as practiced by the vast majority of women, is an art that flies under

the radar of the copyright regime because it is not a "good fit" (Bartow 2006:573).

First, as the examples demonstrate, authorship of a quilt is not the sort of unitary

authorship envisioned by copyright law. Quilting can involve multiple "authors,"

including the pattern designer, the quilter, quilting friends, and professionals who are

paid to add the finishing touches. Historically, quilting bees have been sites of

collective practice, where women work together on a single quilt, or work on their

individual quilts within a more social environment (Finley 1929:36). As Phillips notes,

often the top of the quilt is worked by one woman, but the quilting itself would be

done collectively (Phillips 2007:361–62). The collaborative nature of quilting defies the

presumption of an isolated and original author; the final product can be the result of

the work of many. The multiple techniques for creating a quilt make it difficult to

ascertain sole or joint authorship. Who is the author, or who are the authors? How

many authors are there? Is the pattern designer the author, as designers like to

assert? Or is the author the person who chooses the fabrics and creates the top? Or are the quilters who help fashion the stitchwork authors?

[3.9] Second, from the perspective of copyright, the relationship of the pattern to the

quilt is unclear. Are all quilts simply derivative works based on a pattern design? Some

quilters work with basic blocks; others rely upon patterns that may be copyrighted and

are often shared; others design their own patterns, or alter an existing pattern for

their own uses. Some exchange fabrics with each other, widening their options for

colors and textures. This complexity makes it difficult to determine how copyright can

(and whether it should) play a role in the general creative process of quilting as

practiced by most women. Furthermore, many traditional patterns carry multiple

names and are not copyrighted, and no information regarding their original authors is

known (Finley 1929).

[3.10] Some quilt scholars suggest the pattern is only one element of the creative

work that goes into a quilt. As Forrest and Blincoe note in their extensive study of the

quilt, "specific choice of materials for the various parts of the quilt is profoundly

important" (1995:75). They claim that the underlying pattern is the "generic

foundation," but the methods for bringing the quilt into being offer "endless variation"

and a single cell "can be transformed myriad ways in the construction process" (126–

27).

[3.11] For many quilters, a pattern is only a starting point, and new design elements

are often added. These designs, while perhaps "derivative" according to the standards of copyright, reflect the creativity of the quilter. For example, quilting requires the

sophisticated use of color. One quilting scholar describes the relationship of adaptation

and invention in the work of two respected Kansas quilters this way:

[3.12] The most distinctive of the Kretsinger and Whitehill quilts are the

original designs—Whitehill's Kansas Pattern and Rose Kretsinger's Orchid

Wreath—that cannot be traced to pattern companies of the day. Such

original designs are a minority; most are creative interpretations of

traditional designs, nineteenthcentury appliqué patterns redrawn for a more

formal, sophisticated balance. But even the patterns obtained from

commercial sources show creativity in the way design elements are

rearranged and borders redrafted to provide strong, symmetrical frames for

quilts that looked as good on a wall as a bed. (Brackman 1993a:107)

[3.13] Such analysis suggests that quilting is a blend of adaptation, sharing, and the

commercial pattern, all to create a new original. Ultimately, patterns and the resulting

quilts are a combination of inspiration, copying, and the use of alreadyexisting

designs, which until recently were simply part of the flow of quilting (Forrest and Blincoe 1995:98). However, the role copyright should play is less clear.

[3.14] Relatively few cases of copyright infringement associated with quilting have

reached United States courts, so there is little case law to help sort out the confusion.

Most such cases have dealt with the unauthorized commercial exploitation of a quilt

design by an already commercially oriented designer. For example, artist and pattern

designer Paula Nadelstern sued the Hilton for taking one of her quilt designs and using

it as inspiration for a carpet placed in their Huston hotel. The case was settled out of

court in 2006 in favor of Nadelstern (Sophie 2007). Another commercial designer, Judi

Boisson, successfully sued six U.S. retail stores for using unauthorized copies of

designs that she had produced under a contract with a Chinese manufacturer

(Woodward 2000).

[3.15] One of the more prominent cases actually focused on a poster of a quilt

displayed for less than 30 seconds during a television program. In Ringgold v. Black

Entertainment Television, the court found that the public display of the quilt poster on the set of a television show was a violation of the copyright holder's rights (Marques

2007:337). The decision didn't provide much in the way of insight into how the quilt

itself should be treated; instead it focused upon the commercial use of the poster as

part of the set design.

[3.16] The decision in the Ringgold case is consistent with Canadian quilt designer

Kathleen Bissett's interpretation of copyright as it applies to her quilt patterns. She

claims that "anything in any artistic print or media that uses the artist's design is a copy. This includes: quilts based on the original design (even with significant changes

they are derivatives), copies of the pattern, photographs, slides, drawings, etc."

(Bissett n.d., emphasis in original). She strives to track down unauthorized uses of her

designs, including online pictures of quilts made with them, and keep them from being

made public.

[3.17] Bissett claims that the only "fair use" is the use licensed by the copyright owner. Any transformative use is a derivative work and violates her copyright.

Bissett's attitude is reflected in the copyright warnings of other online resources as

well. As one quilt blog notes, quilting patterns are "unusual" because they are printed designs that guide the creation of a stitched work, but, it maintains, that does not

change the fact that even in the new medium, the work may be legally used only in

specific ways (Copyrights 2000).

[3.18] Issues related to appropriation, fair use, and the look and feel of a quilt are

central to the legal questions raised in Boisson v. Banian (2001). This ruling by the second circuit court found in favor of Judi Boisson, who sued Vijay Rao for illegally

copying two of her quilt designs and producing them for sale in the United States.

Boisson began her quilting business selling antique Amish quilts, but as those became

more difficult to find, she started designing her own. Two of these quilts used

variations on an alphabet quilt pattern: Boisson used hand lettering and arranged the

alphabet into horizontal and vertical rows. Boisson accused Vijay Rao of copying her

quilt design for his own ABC quilt ( Boisson v. Banian 2001:4).

[3.19] One central question in the case was to what extent Boisson's quilt design

could be owned, given that the elements of the design—the alphabet and a standard

quilt layout—are fairly common within quilting traditions. The trial court found that

neither the alphabet nor the layout were protected under copyright, in part because

that particular design can be found in patterns at least 100 years old. However, the

second circuit court rejected this argument, noting that the standard for

copyrightability (besides applying for copyright protection) is simply a "minimum

degree of creativity," even when that creativity relies upon something existing in the

public domain. It extended protection to the layout of the letters, while recognizing

that the letters themselves were not protectable ( Boisson v. Banian 2001:13).

[3.20] Although it was acknowledged that Boisson had seen quilts using an alphabet

design prior to designing her own, the court required the defendant to demonstrate

that Boisson had actually owned an alphabet quilt in order to claim that she had copied

the design from an already existing pattern ( Boisson v. Banian 2001:15). While

acknowledging that quilts with the letters of the alphabet on them are fairly common,

the court claimed there was no evidence Boisson had copied her alphabet quilt from

the public domain, and thus she could copyright her design "despite its identical nature to a prior work, because it is independent creation, and not novelty that is required"

(17). The court also found that the color selection could be copyrighted, even though

colors themselves cannot (19).

[3.21] The court thus upheld Boisson's claim of copyright ownership. In its opinion, it

was acceptable for her to appropriate and copyright an expression from the public

domain, but the defendant's copying of what was now her "original" idea was a

different matter. Boisson had sufficient ownership of the design that a work

"substantially similar" to it would violate her copyright (20–21).

[3.22] The court used a "more discerning" test instead of the "ordinary observer"

test to compare Rao's quilts to Boisson's, focusing on the "total concept and feel" of the work (23). The "ordinary observer," according to the court, might not understand fully the distinction between the copyrightable and uncopyrightable elements of a

particular design. Thus, the court sought to employ a "more discerning test" that is required when the work incorporates elements in the public domain (21–23). Using the

more discerning test, the court found that despite the fact Rao's quilts used different

pictures and colors from Boisson's, and had differences in pattern design, his quilt titled "ABC Green" was similar enough to constitute an illegal copy (27–28). The other,

"ABC Navy," did not infringe on Boisson's copyright because the icons were scattered throughout the quilt in a different pattern and the colors were sufficiently different.

The court remanded the case for appropriate remedies.

[3.23] Like the two other cases discussed here, Boisson involved two commercial

entities, each trying to sell a commercial product. The court acknowledged that there

was little original about Boisson's design, given its heavy reliance upon traditional

quilting patterns. Its focus on overall look and feel, however, led it to grant Boisson a

level of control over her designs that limits future transformations. The defendant's

quilts used different colors and different, "cute" icons, and the court did not grant a copyright to the lettering itself. However, the offending quilt's substantial similarity to

the plaintiff's quilts was sufficient for the use of these alternate designs to be barred.

The legal analysis leaves no room for inspiration and transformation. Instead, despite

the limited creativity of Boisson's design, she was given extensive protection against a

broad swath of possible permutations.

[3.24] Boisson has sued numerous major retailers for copying her designs.

Schoenberger writes that "she argues that as long as you alter a color or add a

distinctive border,…public domain designs can be copyrighted" (2000). Boisson freely

appropriates from the public domain and thus privatizes what would otherwise be a

public good, but, notwithstanding her own appropriation, is quite willing to limit the

appropriations and transformations of others. While Boisson has only sued commercial

manufacturers to date and has not pursued litigation against individual,

noncommercial quilters, she has set the stage for other copyright infringement cases

based upon the standard of "substantial similarity."

[3.25] One last example further demonstrates the ways in which the legal system

can interfere with the transformation and innovation historically part of quilting

culture. Attorney Paul C. Rapp wrote about a copyright dispute between two quilters,

both of whom had created new designs based upon the same traditional quilt pattern.

Because they had used the same pattern as their inspiration, their final quilts were

similar, and the case was made more complex by the fact that the quilter Rapp

represented, whom he refers to as "Jane," noted that she had been "inspired" by a picture of the other quilter's work, which she had seen online. While she could

document that her own quilt had been created independently, and she had only meant

that seeing a completed version of a similar quilt had given her confidence that she

could finish her own, the other quilter hired an attorney who proceeded to accuse her

of copyright infringement (Rapp 2003).

[3.26] While this dispute ended without litigation, Rapp's analysis of quilting as an act of transformation is significant. He notes,

[3.27] If he [the opposing counsel] had sued, we would have had an

interesting little case on our hands. Say the facts turned out that Jane had

liberally borrowed from the Iowan's quilt, and that the quilt block was indeed

"original." Jane may well have been found liable of copyright infringement.

She saw an original creative work and copied it. That is infringement. End of

story. And if every quilter (or even a lot of them) had a similar Machiavellian

streak and a bullheaded lawyer, quilting as we know it would come to a

grinding halt. Because the essence of quilting is copying, but there's no folk

art exception in the copyright law. (Rapp 2003)

[3.28] Thus, while there is little case law, there is some reason to be concerned that

the strict enforcement of copyright will have a damaging effect on quilting as it has

traditionally been practiced.

[3.29] These conflicts are substantively at odds with the practice of sharing and

transformation that has generated the richness of the quilting world for hundreds of

years. If copyright is to become the prevailing mechanism governing creativity, it will

become extremely difficult to produce quilts outside the commercial sphere. If such

prohibitions on sharing had existed historically, it is likely that few patterns would exist instead of the thousands that survive today.

[3.30] The controversies and complexities of imposing a copyright system on the

practice of quilting spurred me to conduct a survey of quilters. I wanted to assess

attitudes toward copyrights, creativity, and quilting. The next section describes the

results of that survey. In the remainder of this paper I will highlight the key issues

emerging from the stories told by women in the online survey, in an attempt to

capture quilters' attitudes toward their work and the subject of copyright.

4. The labor of creativity

[4.1] The initial call for participants was sent to several different online quilting

groups, including the American Quilt Study Group, the American Quilters Society, the

Quilters Bee List, the Quilters Online Resource Connection, and Northwest Quilters.

Additionally, the survey was sent to quilters known to me personally. Those contacted

were encouraged to forward the survey to their friends, thus creating a snowball

sample from which the results are drawn. Sixtyfive people responded to the survey

and all the respondents were women. Given that there are an estimated 20 million

quilters in the U.S. alone (Pritchard 2006:88), this survey cannot claim to be

representative. However, it does provide insights into the attitudes of women who see

themselves as quilters. Future surveys could be designed to more systematically assess these attitudes.

[4.2] The survey was designed with several hypotheses in mind. First, I posited that

women who quilt would primarily see their creative work as a labor of love, and that

the quilts themselves would be intrinsically linked to the social structure within which

these women live. Second, I expected that the concept of copyright would be foreign

to most women, and their perspectives on copyright would help clarify how everyday

creators interact with the law. Third, I hypothesized that the culture of quilting would

undermine the assumption (by advocates of copyright law) that creative work exists

only within an economic incentive structure and offer evidence that there is a divide

between the regime of copyright and the motives for creativity associated with

quilting. Fourth, I was interested in stories related to the process of creativity: how

people learned and engaged with their craft. In this section, I will report on those

questions whose answers specifically provide insight into how these women saw their

work as creative and transformative.

[4.3] Several broad categories of questions were asked. The initial questions

established the women's experience with quilting and the number of quilts they had

produced. The second set of questions delved into the relationship they had to quilting

and the meanings associated with their quilts. The third set focused specifically on

copyright and the ways quilters saw copyright helping or hindering their creative work.

Many of the questions were openended because I was most interested in capturing

the stories told by quilters to enrich the picture of why they quilt.

[4.4] The respondents generally had substantial quilting experience; the majority

had made more than 25 quilts, or had been quilting for more than five years. All

survey participants quilted most of their quilts alone, but most had also quilted with

help or suggestions from friends. Fiftyfive percent had worked collaboratively on at

least one quilt. The type of collaboration differed, with most explaining that the

quilting (as opposed to the blocking of the pattern) was done collectively or sent out to

be machinedone. This response supports other empirical research on how quilts are

made, but disrupts the larger narrative of quilting as a traditionally communal activity

(Forrest and Blincoe 1995:150).

[4.5] Only a few of the women in this survey were interested in quilting as a

commercial activity. A future survey should seek to identify quilters who understand

their work as commercial, in contrast to the sample here. Respondents could select

more than one answer to the question of why they quilted, and many did. Most quilted

because it was relaxing and artistic, and allowed them to be creative. Quilts were most

often made as gifts, typically for a special occasion or person, or for personal use, and

77 percent of respondents signed their quilts in some fashion.

[4.6] Participants were asked to tell the story of their first quilt, and the responses suggest several things about those first quilts and the women's reasons for quilting.

First, many quilts were made for relatives, often to celebrate a birth or wedding.

Often, learning to quilt and having a child were intertwined. As one respondent put it,

her first quilt "was a baby quilt for our first son. I made it with little pieces of fabric I had on hand, with all sorts of textures. I still have it and it will be his Christmas

present this ye[a]r." Second, many of these first quilts were loved and, despite their

age, were still valued. Many commented on how their first quilts had become worn

over time. While several respondents had discarded their quilts because of their age

(and still regret the loss), most of these first quilts are still owned either by their

makers or by the people to whom they were given.

[4.7] Third, these quilts symbolize connections between people. One respondent

noted,

[4.8] "My daughter told me she wanted a rainbow quilt. I thought for

years, about how I wanted to do it. I bought several fabrics, cut them out

and she helped me place the pieces the way she wanted it. It's still her pride

and joy even though I've made other quilts for her since. Everyone who sees

it wants one just like it. It will always be one of a kind. My daughter is now a

teacher and an artist. It is the only thing we have done together in quilting.

[4.9] One story evokes the numerous ways a quilt connects generations, embodies

an act of creation, and also gains value through being used:

[4.10] The first quilt I ever made actually partly was made by my mother

when she was young. We were visiting with my grandmother and she was

cleaning out her cedar chest. She had these old quilt squares that my mom

had made when she was young. She asked me if I wanted them. I really

didn't want to mess with them, but my mom suggested I take them so as

not to hurt my grandmother's feelings. She even helped me plan on how to

finish it. So, we went to the fabric store for the backing and batting. I

worked on it and finished it when we got home. It ended up being used a lot!

It became sort of sad because of the use it had and it started to fall apart.

When my sister's dog died we ended up burying the dog in it. I still have

pictures of it and someday would like to make it again. Especially now that

both my grandmother and mother have passed away.

[4.11] Even taking a quilting class to learn how to quilt is rich with the connections

made through learning and sharing skills. One person told the story of her first quilt:

[4.12] My first quilt was a sampler. It was dark green, light green, and

muslin. It was my first class at the Community Center. The teacher told the

class, I can tell you which ones of you will continue to quilt after this class

and which ones will give it up. Then she turned to me—you are hooked on

this. I saw her later almost ten years and told her how much her class had

changed my life. She had just lost her husband and she was working at the

hospital and I made her cry. She said she needed to hear that—that she

changed someone's life. She did change my life.

[4.13] Almost all the stories were dominated by the ways in which the quilt became a

part of the lives of those who received it. These memories were both good and bad.

One woman explained, "My first quilt was a lap quilt for my elderly mother. I had just

bought my embroidery machine and I used my Angel memory card to apply one angel

for each of her 7 children, followed with all of our names. I also used fabric from

clothing pieces that we knew she would recognize. It was just a simple 9 patch [b]ut

she loved it."

[4.14] One final story highlights that, while a quilt might be created to share

memories and develop connections, sometimes it outlived the relationship it was

meant to celebrate:

[4.15] My first quilt was a turning twenty quilt for my son and his new

bride. They are vegans and all natural in their approach to living. I made the

quilt with beiges, 100% cotton, all natural. It was a mess!!! But they loved

it. Since they have parted ways I now have the quilt tucked away. Too many

memories for my son to keep it. Too many sad memories for me to show it.

And giving it away would deny the past.

[4.16] The creative urge behind these quilts is far removed from profit motives, the

desire to protect original designs, or concern for property rights. Instead, for virtually

all the women responding to the survey, quilting was a satisfying act of creation, and

its product was often intended to serve as a gift. Indeed, throughout their history,

quilts have almost always been made as gifts for families and to commemorate special

occasions (Cooper and Allen 1999). The "value" of the quilt as a gift allows for the possibility of unalienated labor that can cement relationships between individuals and

help form bonds of family and community (Roberts 1994:132).

[4.17] Central to the creative process is the question of where patterns and ideas

come from. Two questions, "Where do you get the patterns for your quilts?" and

"When you find a new pattern you like, do you share it with friends?" were included to assess the ways in which quilting patterns are used and shared, an area of concern for

commercial quilt book publishers and pattern makers.

[4.18] The women in this survey did not all get their patterns in the same way.

Consulting quilting books was the most common method of getting a pattern (89

percent; participants could choose more than one answer). The next most popular

method was to make their own patterns. However, when they find a pattern they like,

69 percent share it with friends, suggesting that whatever the origin of the pattern,

the community itself sees the sharing of ideas as part of the process. More information

is needed about this sharing. Specifically, if quilters are sharing photocopies of

patterns, they may be violating copyright law. On the other hand, if a quilter makes a

quilt from a pattern and then gives the pattern to a friend without copying it, then

such an action should be allowed under the first sale doctrine. If quilters are making

and sharing their own designs, then the copyright violation is less clear. Either way,

when the sharing culture of quilters meets the property culture of copyright, there will

inevitably be clashes.

[4.19] To further ascertain how the quilters perceived their practices of innovation

and sharing in relation to copyright law, participants were asked if they had ever come

across the term "copyright" in relation to quilting, to which 87 percent responded affirmatively. Most of them (45 percent) had heard about copyright in quilting books.

Those who were either teachers or had taken some sort of course had been educated

in more detail about copyright issues.

[4.20] Thirtyseven women answered the question asking them to describe their

encounter with copyright. I had thought participants might provide specific stories of

their experiences with copyright. However, they used the openended question to

demonstrate that they had some knowledge of the law and tried to obey it, but were

confused about what was and was not legal. They understood the distinction between

personal and commercial use to be a key factor in copyright issues. These quilters

tried to follow the law by not sharing photocopies of patterns, buying their own books

whenever possible, and opting out of the commercially driven world of copyright by

creating their own patterns or using ones in the public domain. One respondent said

she used quilt books as a source of inspiration for creating her own patterns. Several

women mentioned attending lectures on copyright either in school or at their quilting

guilds, and many others said the topic was discussed on the quilting lists. Thus the

quilters were aware of the issue in general, but largely unfamiliar with its intricacies.

[4.21] Most felt that copyright law did not apply to them because they were not

engaged in commercial quilting; if they were, they tended to use publicdomain

patterns to avoid the charge of copyright infringement. None spoke of their

noncommercial quilts as having or needing copyright protection. One respondent noted

that the only time she shares a pattern, thus infringing a copyright, is when her quilt

group is unable to find it for sale, or when someone is having financial trouble. Most

(75 percent) felt that copyright had no impact on them. Only two respondents of the sixtyfive saw copyright as a barrier to their creativity, one thought it had made it

more difficult to quilt, and four understood copyright to have protected their own

creativity. Generally, while quilters know copyright laws exist, they see the law

applying to commercial quilting, not to their creative work as quilters. They seek to

obey the law as much as possible, but continue to operate primarily in a world where

copyright is not an issue. Despite their overwhelming sense that copyright has no

impact on them, their general confusion regarding the topic and their willingness to

share patterns and thus possibly violate copyright suggest that the law does have

some relevance to quilting practices, although the survey participants might not

recognize it.

[4.22] When asked to explain why copyright had no impact on them, most reiterated

that while they seek to follow the law, their work is not commercially driven, and

because they do not sell their quilts, copyright is irrelevant. Many spoke of being

inspired by quilt patterns: "I know I can't sell a copyright item as my own so I use the ideas, combine techniques and make my own design. That way it is not violating

copyright but still get the inspiration I need for new ideas." Of course, according to

Kathleen Bissett's interpretation of the law discussed above, such use would still

violate copyright if the resulting quilt was substantially similar to the pattern that

inspired it.

[4.23] Several respondents said that they completely avoid work that is copyrighted,

or engage in the quilting equivalent of an "open source" or "creative commons"

approach to innovation and design.

[4.24] It [copyright] has kept me from purchasing licensed products from

the likes of Disney or Mary Engelbreit. I choose to support those who in turn

will support my endeavors. I remember decades past when one would go

into a yarn shop, pick a pattern out of the shops collection of books,

magazines, pamphlets, buy the yarn and the shop owner gave you a copy of

the pattern. I did not know about copyright as a youth.

[4.25] Another noted that she respected copyrights and "others creativity and right

to make a living from the copyright."

[4.26] The overwhelming response was that copyright did not apply to the work done

by quilters, because they engage in their craft for personal reasons. Additionally, 75

percent of the respondents would share a quilt pattern they designed themselves with

friends or give it away freely to everyone via the Internet, indicating that the culture of

sharing remains strong among this sample of quilters.

[4.27] Respondents were asked, in a final question, for any last comments on quilting, copyright, and what the survey had made them think about. While some

respondents said they had not thought about copyright before and now would think

about it, most summarized their feelings toward quilting and tried to place quilting

within the commercial world of copyright. One respondent said,

[4.28] I actually had never thought of the "legal" side of quilting. Why

should something that is such a personal creative gift have to fall into the

category of "who owns it."…We have become so selfish about things…Beauty

is to be shared, and if there is a profit in it, so much the better, but I have

never made it the end product of an act of enjoyment.

[4.29] One respondent told a story she had recently heard about a woman who had

donated one of her quilts to a nonprofit group for a fundraiser, but the group had been

told that raffling off the quilt would violate copyright law. As she noted, "I thought this was very sad."

[4.30] One woman highlighted her own connection to quilting, "Quilting makes me an

artist. It helps to lif[t] my spirits and lets me make things that I think are beautiful. I

use quilting as my creative outlet to relax and to teach others how to create beauty."

Another said, "I have found quilters are more than happy to share their knowledge and

patterns with anyone. It is a way to keep the art of quilting alive and pass it on." One respondent noted that if copyright concerns changed the way her quilting guild shares

information, it would be a detriment to the community. She explained, "[I] feel the

quilting community in our local guilds have been very open and sharing with

information about techniques, etc. I would miss this exchange if copyright issues

would change people's attitudes." Another simply noted that she saw patterns as a

"tool" and not as the most important element of quilting. Finally, one woman noted the complexity of copyright as applied to design. She said, "I think copyright pertaining to the written word is understandable enough for most but design is still a black hole in

space."

[4.31] It is certainly the case that it is difficult to know exactly what aspect of

quilting is protected by copyright. While the survey participants understood how it

applied to books, they were uncertain where designs might fall within the protective

sphere. There was significant confusion over what could be protected if one took a

pattern, modified it, used different fabrics and colors, and thus created something

new. The fact that copyright can also be applicable to fabrics, while not mentioned

specifically by the respondents, may also increase the general confusion about what is

available for use.

5. Analysis

[5.1] Because of the small sample size, the results of this study cannot be

generalized. However, these women's stories and responses to questions provide some

insight into the ways in which copyright and creativity function. First, collaboration

takes many forms. Ideas and patterns are commonly shared with friends and family,

but collaborative quilts are far less common than individual quilts, though individual

quilts are often created within a supportive network of friends and family. Second,

while respondents were generally aware of copyright, these quilters, unless they were

interested in commercial applications, had no interest in applying copyright to the

quilts they made or to the patterns they designed. Only upon commercialization does

copyright emerge as an issue, and, in this sample, only for those writing quilt design

notebooks for their quilting classes or creating patterns for commercial sale.

[5.2] These respondents see copyright as relevant to others, who engage in

commercial activity, but not to themselves and their creative work. These quilters

create original designs or modify existing ones when the things they see inspire them.

They generally operate and create outside the protective sphere of copyright. They do

not seek to protect their work using a narrative of property and copyright. In part, this

lack of concern with copyright can be attributed to the fact that most women

responding to the survey quilt for pleasure and to create gifts. However, it is clear that

these quilters can work within a quilting community, without much recourse to the

commercialized world. As quilting becomes an industry and some people further

professionalize it, issues of copyright become more salient. Quilters do not want to

break the law, but at the same time seem saddened by the way property rights erode

a community of sharing.

[5.3] It is worth mentioning that all of the survey respondents were women, and

men were only rarely mentioned. From these responses, it seems clear that quilting

remains overwhelmingly a women's sphere of creativity. Further attesting to the

femaledominated nature of the topic, all but 11 of the 340 books listed in the

OhioLINK database on quilting were written by women. Women are therefore the

primary actors in the commodification of quilting as well as the ones participating in

the creation of quilts. The divide between those who own and those who share is not

along gender lines, with men understanding and using copyright to protect property in

creative work and women sharing their creative work; rather, it separates

commodified and uncommodified labor.

[5.4] For example, one respondent mentioned that she avoids Mary Engelbreit and

Disney patterns because Engelbreit and Disney approach the sale of patterns too

commercially and are not part of the sharing community this women associates with

quilting. Engelbreit is a businesswoman who makes a variety of creative products, including greeting cards and fabric. On her Web site she describes herself as an "artist and entrepreneur," a woman who has loved drawing since she was a child and who

began her creative work drawing greeting cards. While the biography on her Web site

seeks to ground her in her love for drawing, it also mentions her licensed products six

times and clearly situates her creative work within what has been called her "vast

empire of cuteness" (About Mary n.d.). There is no denying Engelbreit's creative

energy, but she has sought to market her work and create a global brand, not share

her work within the noncommodified culture associated with the gift economy of

quilting described by the survey participants.

[5.5] What is interesting is that survey participants understand that work like

Engelbreit's is protected, and instead of violating copyright and using these products in

ways that are not permitted, they simply avoid using them at all. Thus, as a

commercial aid, copyright can work against itself by scaring people away from the use

of restrictively licensed work. Instead, quilters look for free patterns and fabrics. Since

numerous Web sites offer free patterns, it is quite possible to quilt without ever

violating a copyright. However, it is also true that quilt books, quilt classes, and other

forms of commodification make it more difficult to ignore the commercial aspect of the

quilting "business."

6. Conclusion

[6.1] The creation of quilts as collaborative projects and as gifts suggests a model for

authorship and ownership different from the concept of the original author that

underlies copyright law. Quilts often include stories sewn into their squares, they

require knowledge of textiles and appliqué techniques, and they have served

important political and cultural functions (Berlo and Crews 2003:16–19; Elsley

1996:21–22). Furthermore, the quilt itself has a life history. It cannot be viewed as a

static art, but has a story linked with the narrative of its owner (Forrest and Blincoe

1995:97).

[6.2] The act of authoring a quilt continues to exist at many levels outside the realm

of copyright law. For the women surveyed, quilting is part of a gift economy and is

practiced as a labor of love, not in return for money. Almost all the women surveyed

responded that they would be hurt if they found out a quilt they had given as a gift

had been sold for profit. They consider quilting a creative pastime and sometimes an

art, something that allows them to make beautiful gifts. Thus, not only do they create

absent the protective incentives of copyright law, but they also help us see the kind of

world made possible through a different type of labor, the unalienated labor of quilting

that creates social ties as well as gifts that cannot be assigned a monetary value.

[6.3] Quilting is a culture of transforming the ideas of others into one's own creations and building new quilts upon the traditional models of past quilts. Quilting is also an

art form replete with transformative moments. Women share and exchange their ideas

and patterns; they use fabrics from old items and make them into something new;

they take a traditional design and add their own flourish. It is clear that quilting is a

culture premised upon seeing something interesting or beautiful and then working with

the design to make something new. Old and new patterns are combined, colors and

materials sorted, pieces of older garments sewn into new quilts, and the modern

melded with the traditional. Quilting thus demonstrates the creativity that emerges in

transformations connecting the past to the present and individuals into a community.

7. Acknowledgments

This paper was originally presented at the American University Washington College of

Law conference on Gender and Intellectual Property in 2008. I would like to

acknowledge the help of the conference organizers and commentators for supporting

and commenting on the earlier draft of this work. Furthermore, I would like to

acknowledge the travel support of Otterbein College.

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Transformative Works and Cultures, Vol 3 (2009)

Theory

Sex detectives: Law & Order: SVU's fans, critics, and characters investigate lesbian desire Julie Levin Russo

Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, United States

[0.1] Abstract— I address the contested question of whether sex crimes detective Olivia Benson (a character on TV's Law & Order: Special Victims Unit played by Mariska Hargitay) is a lesbian, and the ways in which both fans and TV scholars approach this mystery. That is, I investigate not what we "know" about lesbians on/and television, but how we frame the very processes of this knowing. In both critical and fan discourse, debates about where to locate the queerness of television oscillate irresolvably between three sites: the text itself, audience interpretations, and the surrounding metatexts and contexts. With a primary theoretical framework drawn from Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's Epistemology of the Closet, I analyze the cultural and televisual traditions that shape SVU's portrayal of deviant sexuality, and I assess how these resonate with fan interpretations in today's context of media convergence.

[0.2] Keywords— Convergence; Femslash; Queer theory; Television studies

Russo, Julie Levin. 2009. Sex detectives: Law & Order: SVU's fans, critics, and characters investigate lesbian desire. Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 3. http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2009.0155.

doi:10.3983/twc.2009.0155

1. Private eyes

[1.1] Let me introduce you to Olivia Benson, a dedicated yet personally tormented detective who investigates sex crimes in New York City and sports a deadly weapon, a leather jacket, and a short haircut. She's hopelessly in love with assistant district attorney Alexandra Cabot, who prosecutes her cases—they're each other's domestic partners, occasional lovers, or secret crushes, depending on who is telling the story. That is, these individuals are fictional characters on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (SVU; 1990–present), and the question of whether Olivia could be Alex's (or anyone's) girlfriend is a particularly contested one across online SVU fandom: some fans are determined to claim her as gay, while others insist that she's straight. Although there is clearly intense investment on both sides in definitively verifying the answer, there is at the same time much confusion about the proper source of the necessary evidence: text, subtext, or metatext. In this essay, I chronicle the inquests of three detectives with parallel mandates to uncover the truths of desire: the TV character, who is hot on the trail of New York City's sex offenders; the SVU fan, who watches the show vigilantly for clues to who is in Olivia's heart and in her bed; and the television scholar, who is fascinated by these epistemological conundrums, driven to investigate how we might know things about television, about audiences, and about sexuality. I maintain that the projects of these three detectives are intertwined in multivalent networks that link knowledge, desire, and spectatorship across diverse registers. Within this intertextual architecture, the question of whether Olivia is

"really" a lesbian is inextricable from broader ambiguities that infuse the conflicted relations between texts and audiences, academics and fans, gender and consumption, hermeneutics and erotics.

[1.2] My own romance with Olivia Benson (figure 1), played by Mariska Hargitay, began with a chance conversation at my local coffee shop that catalyzed an addiction to USA Network's nightly SVU reruns (the show's first run appears on NBC). Because of my preexisting fluency in subtextual viewing protocols, the availability of the Olivia/Alex dyad transformed SVU, for me, into a compelling nexus of speculation, imagination, and desire.

Olivia and Alex are indeed a power couple of female slash fandom, one among a scattered pantheon of classic one true pairings—OTPs that certain media seem to invite us to recognize by portraying a profound, if not explicitly romantic, relationship between two characters (an archetype that, in the world of femslash, does not much predate Xena: Warrior Princess, 1995–2001). My personal engagement with their saga depends on the contingencies that shape television viewership—daily routines, a fortuitous meeting, and the topographies of social networks and lesbian subcultures (both online and off)—demonstrating how interpretations of, and libidinal

encounters with, SVU the program are entangled with Internet fandom and with everyday life. Television criticism often leans toward one or the other side of the border separating diegetic content from audience reception, examining one territory in relative isolation. Here, I attempt to plot the intersections between screen text and fan text, taking them as mutually constitutive. This process incorporates the disintegration of a number of linked binaries because the indeterminacy of inside/outside or gay/straight impinges on the stability of private/public, fiction/reality, fan/critic, leisure/work, and other oppositions. Crucial among them is the rapidly dissolving frontier between television and the Internet, which brings the interdependence of TV producers and consumers ever more out into the open.

Figure 1. Olivia Benson (NBC promotional image).

[1.3] The subtext of my argument is the notion that television is itself in the closet about its digital tendencies, largely as a defense mechanism for preserving broadcast's profit models and margins. Like the question so often posed about Olivia—"is she or isn't she?"—the question "is it or isn't it TV?" has high stakes in hierarchical economies of power, and is addressed with a parallel coyness. Moreover, these taxonomic teases are interlaced and analogous: as slash fandom becomes increasingly visible and pervasive under conditions of increasingly competitive and diffuse distribution and attention, its cultivation (or at least negotiation) takes on increasing importance. Convergence, in other words, is queer, in both content and form. In this milieu, my analysis consists not of cracking the case of Olivia Benson where the aforementioned detectives remain stymied, but rather of mapping the specifically televisual limits that circumscribe their inquiries, especially at the hazardous junctions of epistemological endeavors, erotic investments, and capitalist economics. I can offer no incontrovertible proof that Olivia is a lesbian, no stable hierarchy of meaning among text, subtext, and metatext. Any evidence that might be offered is always already ensnared in the vortex of the closet, wherein the secret truths of (homo)sexuality are simultaneously exposed and effaced in relentless fluctuations between binary poles.

[1.4] What I present here is the more nuanced claim that Olivia is the fulcrum of an apparatus of lesbian desire that operates at the volatile interchanges permeating these geographies, including those that constitute television as a mass medium. Given television's interpenetration with its social context, with online paratexts, with the competencies and orientations of its viewers, the desires and procedures of my three detectives (the character, the fan, and the critic) mirror and structure each other in their pursuit of a verdict. My intervention here, while not minimizing the value of these stabilizing projects, is to delve into the unstable circuits of mutual interdependence between the strata of this textual network. I take seriously the question of how what appears on television can channel fans' deductive and creative activities, as well as the question of how fans' meaningmaking can influence the import of television programs. I maintain that it is ultimately in such complex relations that the most fruitful prospects for knowledge, passion, and profit lie.

2. Closet case

[2.1] If Olivia is gay, then she's a closet case.

—Sally Forth, "An Olivia Benson Rave" (2006)

[2.2] Fans' inquests into Olivia's sexuality are animated by a politics of representation that calls for "gay characters" to come out of the closet. While I wouldn't want to belittle calls for increased visibility, it's important to remember that lesbians never transparently and unambiguously appear, and this is even more true of their portrayal on television. This rich indeterminacy is at the heart of Eve Sedgwick's intervention in Epistemology of the Closet, which investigates how, around the turn of the 20th century, the homosexual/heterosexual binary was transformed into the privileged, obligatory taxonomy for classifying all persons and all permutations of sexuality.

The closet is Sedgwick's figure for this profoundly contradictory organizing principle, not only of sexual identity but also of all oscillations of secrecy and disclosure that are primordially filtered through the "one particular sexuality that was distinctively constituted as secrecy" (1990:73). This aporetic logic is all the more insistent when operating within the already highly compromised and overdetermined domain of TV representation.

Epistemology and consumption are fundamentally intertwined with sexuality in the televisual economy, as Lynne Joyrich argues: "U.S. television both impedes and constructs, exposes and buries, a particular knowledge of sexuality" (2001:440) to the point that "the closet becomes an implicit TV form" (450). Joyrich observes that the media have managed homosexual desire through deliberate ambiguity, with contradictory consequences. This subtextual strategy, wherein coded desire is readable only to viewers properly qualified to decrypt it, is typically condemned (by all but slash fans) as coy, mercenary, and apolitical at best. The appearance of explicit gay characters on TV programs can serve to localize and thus contain what are otherwise more pervasive and destabilizing homoerotic undercurrents, implying that, enmeshed as we are in the inexorable seesaw of binaries, subtext or connotation is in some ways the more progressive mode.

[2.3] According to Joyrich, this strategy is a key permutation of "the [TV] industry's attempts to define sexuality as product while retaining its simultaneous anxiety around sexuality as practice" (2001:451), an economic bargain often facilitated by "encourag[ing] an epistemology (and erotics) of 'knowing viewers'" (453) (or, in my terms, trained detectives). She links "the logic of the commodity" to "the logic of the closet" (462), just as Amelie Hastie similarly calls attention to the "inherent overlap between consumerist and epistemological economies present both in television itself and in television criticism" (2007:91). One form these hybrid economies take is show tieins, be they commercial merchandise or fan productions. They capitalize on the viewership's coupling of desire and pleasure with the project of investigation to promote a realm of supplementary texts that drive and are driven by TV as a consumerist medium. The practices of screen, fan, and academic detectives are congruent and interdependent, shaped by interlocking modes of engagement: epistemology and consumption. Each is enabled and constrained by closet formations wherein binary terms continually reassert their authority in spite of their manifest instability and contradictions. Both academics and fans have sought out the "queer character" as an object of knowledge through the same selfperpetuating ciphers that seem to propel her ever further from reach.

[2.4] My study is necessarily engaged with a broader ongoing debate in the discipline of television studies about how to theorize the interfaces between text, audience, and sociopolitical context. These have lately been transformed from more or less stable and opposable categories to a more postmodern assemblage. We must grapple with the precarious question of whether meaning is located inside or outside the text, in representation or interpretation. Even as the programmatic binary is extensively rejected in favor of more complex, interactive models, as I show here, it seems impossible to dispense with these terms completely (note 1). We can take from

this assemblage an appreciation of the interdependence of queer interpretive work and specific codes and conventions of screen representation. The quandaries of textuality and sexuality continue to merge in the presentday turn to media convergence, wherein subtext and slash as a platform for fan engagement become increasingly foregrounded in overlapping academic and industrial discussions (Jenkins 2006). By all accounts, then, we arrive at an epistemological diagram of sexuality where inside and outside interpenetrate, the television text compromised by intertextual relations and infiltrated by audience readings. This is not to suggest that no distinctions or hierarchies can be recognized across these registers. Episodes of SVU are obviously distinguishable from fan fiction stories, for example, as SVU's producers are from fans as producers, and each is differently

interfaced with apparatuses of power. The point is that discourses of sexual knowledge—on the part of fans, who refer alternately to episodes, fan works, actors, and industry in attempts to find evidentiary purchase, as much as on the part of academics—make it apparent that crucial televisual boundaries stubbornly elude efforts to render them fixed and impermeable.

3. Special victims

[3.1] After the first time [Alex] wondered whether people could tell. She had gay friends who would play "lesbian/straight?" over coffee as if there were secret signs, visible only to women in the know.

And maybe there was something in that. She wondered if she exhibited such signs…

[3.2] When Olivia is near she feels the whole world watching…"We should be more careful," she says, watching the squad room for signs of interest. "We shouldn't…not where everyone can see us"…

sometimes she wonders if they know already. There's not much that escapes a detective in sex crimes.

—CGB, "Objects in the Mirror" (fanfic, 2004)

[3.3] Just as closet formations often intersect with work via the economic underpinnings of public and private spheres, gendered ideologies of work often collide with our perception of sexuality. Working women on screen have been an object of interest for queer and female fans, perhaps since the early days of Mary Tyler Moore's workplace family and Cagney and Lacey's police partnership. In her analysis of feminist sitcoms across several decades (here, Murphy Brown in the 1990s), Lauren Rabinovitz includes a discussion of how Murphy Brown's

"assertiveness, independence, brassiness, and 'smart mouth,' as well as her tailored and even sometimes androgynous wardrobe, may suggest her capacity as a lesbian or figure for lesbian identification while references to her active, ongoing heterosexual life and desire undercut such signifiers" (1999:160). The ambivalence of connotation is in full force here, and I'd like to point out that 10 years later, lesbianoriented fans describe Olivia, and the oscillation between the eruption and erasure of queer desire surrounding her on SVU, in strikingly similar terms. As Angie B (2004) observes, Olivia has had brushes with past or potential boyfriends on screen, but these fleeting references to heterosexuality seem far outweighed by the pervasive fact that she is

[3.4] one of the few characters on TV to exhibit what are often considered to be dyke characteristics—

with short hair, a leather jacket, and a gun at her hip, Olivia sits with legs apart, commanding the space around her. She is the protector of the victims who come through her department, a strong woman in a profession filled with men, and often physically or verbally dominates "perps." Her uniform includes tshirts, sweaters, slacks and sensible shoes—no heels, no frills, and little jewelry except for what appears to be a man's watch.

[3.5] Notably, these qualities, like Murphy Brown's, have, in and of themselves, nothing to do with sex between women. What they do imply is these characters' contravention of the bounds of properly feminine aesthetics and activities, the challenge to stable taxonomies of gender that inheres in their role as successful professionals.

Though they may appear superficial and stereotypical, such historically contoured markers for encoding transgression in style and accessories are a crucial dimension of lesbian viewing strategies.

[3.6] Alongside Olivia's place in a genealogy of television's working women, it is significant that her character is located within a distinct textual milieu: the crime procedural—a form that John Fiske describes as "the primary masculine television genre," and one of TV's favored workplaces. Because, as Fiske puts it, "'most masculine texts' eliminate 'the most significant cultural producers of the masculine identity—women, work, and marriage'"

(Fiske in Cuklanz 1999:18–19), it follows that the portrayal of women and private, "feminine" concerns like romance is especially conflicted here. Lisa M. Cuklanz identifies an economically motivated shift in the textual orientation of detective shows: "In the 1980s the genre became more and more similar to the soap opera, with the aim of attracting a broadbased, mixedgender audience…the form and content of crime dramas became increasingly feminized" (24)—but such hybridization may exacerbate rather than alleviate the tensions plaguing this televisual version of separate spheres. As Louisa Stein (2008) theorizes, genre mixing is a ubiquitous media strategy, and it offers frustrations as well as opportunities to both producers and fans. In the case of SVU, the uneasy amalgamation of Olivia as police heroine and Olivia as romantic heroine, of public justice and intimate sex

detective series dictate that "the show deliberately does not focus on the personal lives of its characters." This attribute incites and justifies disproportionately intensive deductive formulas: in the rubric of one group (Baby Lurches, now offline), for example, one drink between characters in the diegetic realm equates to a sexual liaison, once you control for the program's acute representational restraint. Moreover, I'd contend that many fans are also consciously engaged with the ways the more enfolding contortions of the closet manipulate the visibility of lesbian eroticism, both on screen and off.

[3.10] As I (along with commentators like Sally Forth and Angie B) have theorized SVU, the elements that conspire to render Olivia unrepresentable as a lesbian on screen are ultimately extratextual: our culture's pervasive homophobia; the economic imperative to appeal to a mass audience; the gendered hazards bequeathed to television by historical hierarchies and transformations; the insidious ubiquity of the closet. Fan fiction stories, however, often transpose the impediments to Olivia and Alex's romance from outside the text to inside the characters' psyches, reconstituting these oppressions as their individual fears and inhibitions. Even when fics thematize, as they often do, Olivia's or Alex's struggle with prejudice or internalized homophobia, these conditions are still located as hangups that, although perhaps seething with acknowledged violence, can be processed and (usually) overcome privately. Simultaneously, stories may transpose the fans' procedures of watching (obsessive scrutiny of the characters' attire, vigilance for suspect looks and touches), as well as their tendency to fantasize about what they see, into the heads of the characters, converting the viewers'

competencies as sex detectives into Olivia and Alex's erotic waltz. What appears is a kind of machine for collapsing TV's divergent registers into each other, a libidinous interface with the perpetual flows of meaning wherein SVU episodes, industry gossip, and fan production penetrate and transform each other. It is in this interactive destabilization of the ostensibly obvious perimeters distinguishing text, audience, and metatext that lesbian desire in the televisual sense operates.

4. Is she or isn't she?

[4.1] Mariska: A week ago, I'm walking down Seventh Ave. […] and all of a sudden this guy yells, […]

"Damn! I thought you were a lesbian!"

[4.2] Conan: Really? Because of your character [Olivia Benson] on the show?

[4.3] Mariska: Yes, everyone thinks that, and I don't know why.

—Mariska Hargitay on Late Night with Conan O'Brien (April 2003)

[4.4] All SVU slash to some degree engages the circulation of sexuality across variable strata. Crucial to such circulation is plausibility: how much responsibility do fan writers have to textual fidelity? How much leeway do they have to transform the primary text from without? This dispute is rendered in fan jargon as canon versus fanon. Henry Jenkins notes that rejection of slash fan fiction has "less to do with the stated reason that it violates established characterization than with unstated beliefs about the nature of human sexuality that determine what types of character conduct can be viewed as plausible" (1994:468), although Sara Gwenllian Jones critiques this tendency, pointing out that "in such formulations, slash is interpreted as 'resistant' or 'subversive' because it seems deliberately to ignore or overrule clear textual messages indicating characters' heterosexuality" (2002:81).

A verdict in Olivia's case could only be provisionally negotiated among three epistemologically incommensurate but inseparable layers: screen texts, fan texts, and the social context that mediates among them. These layers are negotiated differently by different viewers: "heteroglossic cultural references which are easily read one way by queer viewers" are read "quite differently by heterosexuals unfamiliar with the queer lexicon" (Jones 2000:19), yet the "deficit between what is presented on screen and what is implied or omitted that cult television formats exploit in order to enthrall viewers" (13). In other words, the diverse pleasures fans glean from imaginatively filling in what their favorite shows formally and strategically leave out is a crucial element of marketability. In this sense, Olivia's chronically boyfriend and girlfriendless condition is an impetus of SVU's popularity because it stimulates much of the speculation and argument that swirl around her.

[4.5] Discourses arguing the case of Olivia Benson promiscuously intersect the structuring oppositions of sexuality and television alike. At issue is what register of evidence for Olivia and her ilk's orientation is ultimately

definitive: the television text, or the extratextual milieu. The former offers proof in the form of mysteriously cathected scenes with Alexandra Cabot, short hair, and butch accessories; the legitimacy of audience interpretations, viewing practices, and communities that resoundingly proclaim Olivia's lesbian desirability. The latter assesses the conscious intentions of the show's producers for the character and the economic necessity of keeping her palatable to a broad audience, the (perhaps excessively) open heterosexuality of Mariska Hargitay, homophobia, and the dearth of "real" lesbians in the mass media. Such boundary confusions are figured in fiction, but they are more than just a metaphor. The unreliability of its own perimeter was a founding condition of television: because "experts of the period [the 1950s] agreed that the modern home should blur distinctions between inside and outside spaces," as Lynne Spigel notes, "television was the ideal companion for these suburban homes" (1997:212–13). At the same time, this ambiguity was the source of acute "anxieties" as

"popular media expressed uncertainty about the distinction between real and electrical space" (219). Television's tendency to perforate and compromise the frontiers between discrete spaces, generating contradictory overlaps and simultaneities, only intensifies with media convergence. Resolution to the enigma of where diegetic authority stops and audience interpretation begins is frustrated by design as paratexts—including online promotions, interactive network Web sites, and fan sites—further erode the circumference of the medium. Such transmedia branding leads to what Sharon Marie Ross calls teleparticipation, or "invitations to interact with TV shows beyond the moment of viewing and 'outside' of the TV show itself" (2008:4).

[4.6] Thus, the mystery, "is she or isn't she?", is inextricable from the mystery of what television itself is: if we can't determine the boundaries of television, then evidence for our mystery will never be stable, rendering convergence a closet brimming with speculation and creativity. Just as television technology—the signal's perpetual transmission through the walls of the home, the scanning beam or pixels that only simulate a fixed image—is central to the difficulty of confirming its limits, the Internet platforms of television fandom are integral its border wars. In her "Brief History of Media Fandom," Francesca Coppa observes that from the 1990s, "the movement of fandom online, as well as an increasingly customizable experience, moved slash fandom out into the mainstream" (2006:54), making it more influential in both the production and consumption of mass media. In an initial shift from fan activity on Usenet, "mailing lists customized fandom by allowing fans to select from among their fannish interests, [then] blogs such as LiveJournal.com…began to be widely adopted across fandom around 2003, where it caused a widescale reorganization of fandom infrastructure" (57). SVU spanned this transition, which is a factor in the varied geography of its slash following: a compendium of links to author pages, Yahoo!

mailing lists, LiveJournal communities (figures 2 and 3), multimedia archives, and official Web sites

(http://xenawp.org/svu) offers some sense of the broad scope of slash activity around Olivia, who is paired with

Alex as well as other female SVU characters.

Figure 2. Community header image by p_inkjeans for the LiveJournal community ob_fangrrl. [View larger

image.]

Figure 3. Community header image by aleatory_6 for the LiveJournal community alex_liv_lovers. [View larger

image.]

[4.7] Online fandom's technological substrate makes particular registers possible in the open case file on Olivia Benson's sexuality. Although SVU fans of various orientations display an intense investment in definitively determining the truth, there is significant confusion about where to locate legitimate evidence. The hermeneutic uncertainties of fan discourse parallel those that vex scholarly discourse (to the extent that these domains are distinct), revolving around the axes of television's inside and outside, knowledges private and public, and media producers and consumers. Given the indeterminacy of the borders of both heterosexuality and textuality, there is little hope of closing the case once and for all, but the inquests and debates can illuminate the prolific operations of the closet. While social networking interfaces tend to gather likeminded fans to discuss a loose cloud of topics, more linear message boards may invite fans from diverse subcommunities to discuss a clearly defined topic, and as such, they are a platform where such debates almost inevitably erupt.

[4.8] One notable thread, on the officially sponsored yet largely unmoderated SVU board at USA Network's Web site (the program airs on the USA Network in syndication), can serve as an example of the vehemence and

complexity of the testimonies mobilized in attempts to prove that Olivia is gay or straight (note 2). It begins with

a cautious, openended query by mariskafans: "So, would anyone be too terribly offended if Olivia started dating a girl?" Tellingly, the question is immediately transmuted into a dispute over Olivia's probable sexual orientation.

Some fans consider only the most explicit textual citations admissible as evidence, and say so quite emphatically:

[4.9] dtobe2008: She is DEFINITELY straight. There have been many episodes where she's had a date with a man and you've seen a few.

[4.10] teresa985: The fact that she's dated men before on the show, and no women, leads me to believe that she's straight. Unless she flat out says: "I'm dating a woman" or something of that nature, I'm not going to believe she's a lesbian.

[4.11] Others respond to this literalism by pointing out the inherently partial picture of Olivia's desires that the screen text offers, alongside the possibility of a less rigidly binary sexuality:

[4.12] Bekster: We don't know that she's straight—she's mentioned a significant other, what, once?

She could definitely be bisexual, which would be great, she's gorgeous!

[4.13] Kloie: And…just because a girl's slept with men doesn't necessarily mean she's straight. lol

[4.14] This tactic is then countered with references to extratextual gossip (the avowed heterosexuality of Hargitay) and TV industry logics (the imperative to appeal to a mass audience and remain within the program's formal constraints):

[4.15] svu junkie: They will never make Olivia gay 'cause her heterosexuality has already been established. If she decided to "jump the fence" then they would have to focus on her personal life and we all know they would NEVER do this!! Heck…the show's been on 5 years and we've seen the interior of Olivia's apt…what…maybe once??

[4.16] SVUFreak107: OMG YOU GUYS ARE CRAZY!!! Mariska/Olivia is not gay no matter what it will just screw up her image in real life and no one will like her. It will take people away from teh show not to it!!!

[4.17] A later poster objects on political grounds, lamenting the casualties of the closet's gendered double binds:

[4.18] SVUAddict: I find it very frustrating when females who are strong and assertive immediately get labeled lesbians. Yes, Olivia is tough and independent, but she's also straight and I've grown tired—

in my own life and in Hollywood—of seeing powerful women labeled as gay. To me, at least, it undermines the potential of straight women to possess these characteristics.

[4.19] Meanwhile, what is perhaps the most fascinating response overtly describes the influence of fan production on Olivia's hypothesized sexual orientation:

[4.20] Munchz Hunch: as far as olivia and being gay goes, the only reason i ever thought she WAS

gay was because of all the fan fics about her BEING gay! that was what made me question her

sexuality…people write fan fics from what they got off the show, and i havent seen every episode, not even CLOSE, so i was wondering after reading those fics if they [Olivia and Alex, etc.] truly WERE gay couples on the show. but that was put to rest after seeing her with cassidy [1.10 "Closure"] and with that reporter dude [1.16 "The Third Guy"]…so i have had my suspicions, but they were all eventually cleared up.

[4.21] In this viewer's hierarchy, fan fiction has substantial authority in the investigation of Olivia's sexuality because it is written by those with particular expertise in reading television's signals. However, diegetic verification trumps these fan interpretations, providing a stable resolution to the mystery (at least if one conveniently overlooks the option of bisexuality, as noted above). When priority is given to clues located inside the television text, the implication is that if some are arriving at the wrong verdict, their viewing strategies must be perverse or deluded. Spank puts this dismissal most succinctly: "This is ridiculous…You lot look for things that aren't there." I would argue, however, that the significance of these processes of looking should not be underestimated: what popular debates such as this one illustrate is that commercial authority over textual conclusions is dynamically negotiated and always provisional.

[4.22] Far from the message board debate in both degree and kind, one fan under the pseudonym Sally Forth composed an elaborate riposte to these sorts of scornful reactions to the proposition that Olivia isn't quite straight. Her exhaustive, expansive, and often excessive "rave," rendered as a static Web page dated 2006

(http://web.archive.org/web/20060423012451/http://www.sallyforth.info/), is an idiosyncratic and remarkable document of vernacular theory, detailing her observations and arguments concerning Olivia's intimacies with lesbian desire through both textual analysis and broader political critique. Covering everything from obscure inside jokes to the moral, legal, and conceptual battles over social issues such as gay visibility and samesex marriage, Sally's content and links manifest her engagement with fan and media networks even in the absence of technical interactivity. Confirming that "on every SVUrelated message board I've seen, the issue of Olivia's sexual preference comes up at some point," she gripes, "Any time I posted that Olivia might be gay or bi, well, let me say, I got my ass kicked. 'You're crazy. That scene/look/action/appearance could mean anything. Olivia Benson is not gay. Get over it!'" Sally, like some of the posters quoted above, is not optimistic about the prospect of Olivia coming out within the constraints of commercial television, writing, "IMHO, TPTB [The Powers That Be]

will keep Olivia as she is. No boyfriend. No girlfriend. That is the only way to avoid alienating any fans." But she nonetheless champions the integrity of spectatorial practices, asserting, "The whole point behind subtext is that people can enjoy the show however they wish, without having someone tell them that they're wrong or reading things into the show that aren't there." Her claims are not based solely on a revaluation of fan readings, however: she supports this call for interpretive pluralism with a humorous but meticulously impartial account of the textual evidence on both sides of the question "is she or isn't she?", making the case that those who consider the inquest over at the first glimpse of an onscreen boyfriend just aren't looking hard enough. That is, although she selfidentifies as a lesbian fan, for Sally too, the figure of Olivia's lesbianism is a shifting jumble of diegetic references and absences, audience competencies and investments, industrial conditions, and political context that is not easily stabilized, and at the same time not easily dismissed. Both ephemeral online discussions and Sally's more concerted manifesto are artifacts of fans' struggles with the complexity and contradictions of the project of representing or locating lesbian desire in the televisual landscape—its frustrations and its inexhaustibly generative potential.

5. Textual orientation

[5.1] The fluctuating topology of television's text and metatext, denotation and connotation, canon and fanon is a conceptual challenge to sexuality as an epistemological project, but it also concretely intrudes at the points of contact between the territories of production and consumption on either side of the screen. I have already noted television's formal and historical inclination as a medium that endeavors to be coextensive with everyday life, to unfocus comfortable demarcations of all sorts. Jane Feuer notes, "Television as an ideological apparatus strives to break down any barriers between the fictional diegesis, the advertising diegesis, and the diegesis of the viewing family, finding it advantageous to assume all three are one and the same" (1986:105). The commercial

Figure 4. Graphic by aqua_blurr, posted on October 18, 2004, to the LiveJournal community ob_fangrrl. This image adds a humorous internal monologue to a screencap by aleatory_6 in which Olivia is dressed up in highfemme "drag" for an undercover sting (6.02 "Debt"). [View larger image. ]

Figure 5. Graphic by newbie_2u, posted on November 2, 2005, to the LiveJournal community ob_fangrrl. Fans

saw the changes in Olivia as so dramatic that they declared the original character a "missing person." [View

larger image.]

[5.4] If, in its early days, slash was sometimes condemned as character rape, for fans of "butch" Olivia, her feminization was the true violence, and their vehement expressions of rage and betrayal were commensurate with such an atrocity. In an impassioned post on the subject dated September 22, 2005, LiveJournal blogger trancer21 captures the intractable, intolerable position that results:

[5.5] I really feel that the consumption of fandom has changed my opinions. Because, while reading these MH [Mariska Hargitay] articles, seeing the pictures, I get the picture of a woman who's trying to reclaim ownership of her character from the fans who see the character as gay. There is no separation between actor and character…And it pisses me off because Olivia Benson is NOT the property of Mariska Hargitay. Once those little images leave the cathode ray clutter, it becomes the property of the audience.

[5.6] In other words, the entanglement of actor and character is itself inextricable from the entanglement of the cathode ray and the audience that generates interpretive concords about Olivia and Hargitay's text and paratext, and these epistemological snarls are in turn ensnared in the economics of the industry. For Olivia is certainly not

"the property of the audience" proportionally to her status as property within the apparatus of corporate ownership, buttressed by the legal mechanism of copyright and the system of mass distribution and financing.

However, the devices of ownership are still unable to contain her in these bounds, and in keeping with the futility of binary enclosure, the siege of Olivia on screen stimulated an efflorescence of snark (that is, sarcastic criticism) online. Following the conjecture that elements of Mariska Hargitay's persona were forcibly grafted onto Olivia Benson, much of it lampooned the resulting monstrous mutant: Oliska Hargenson. As far as I can tell, this portmanteau was coined as the punch line of the parodic fanfic "It Ain't Her" by newbie_2u, posted on October 4, 2005, to the LiveJournal community ob_fangrrl, which features Detectives Munch and Tutuola investigating Olivia's apparent disappearance. It is an example of a smattering of meta stories treating this theme, and others often refigure the extratextual battle fans framed in terms of Olivia versus Mariska as an angstridden erotic drama of Olivia/Mariska. One rendition by giantessmess posted on September 10, 2005, to ob_fangirl reverses

the familiar hierarchy, portraying Olivia as the stronger and more real double, and Mariska as the television viewer who falls prey to her charms:

[5.7] She grew Olivia out, strand by retouched strand. She tried to stop herself from disappearing, as she felt the camera draw her inside it…But she still felt herself fading. Watching Olivia, failing to see herself, falling helplessly in love with her possessor…Mariska was afraid to sleep. She was afraid that she wanted Olivia to find her. Afraid of her dreams that bled into reality.

[5.8] Here, it is Olivia who possesses Mariska, in both spectral and propertied senses, infiltrating "reality" with uncanny spectacle. It is not incidental that the memetic conspiracy in which these artifacts participate was largely located in a LiveJournal community: this and comparable distributed, interactive Web networks haunt television like fanon Olivia haunts Mariska, perturbing the economies of corporate possession. In this context, paranoia on both sides about Mariska and Olivia commingling seems well founded. Today, TV's existence depends on its interpenetration with fan fictions.

6. My girlfriend Olivia

[6.1] After previewing selections from the original version of this essay while it was a work in progress, Sally Forth jokingly told me that she "can't wait to get to the 'Olivia is really gay' part" (personal correspondence, June 26, 2004). Needless to say, there is no such part. My analysis has not solved any of the enigmas of the closet, whether on the axes of straight/gay or TV/Internet, or any of its other intertwined polarities. The price to be paid for such complexity is a refusal of the sort of politics of representation that Sally Forth rousingly renders in her 2006 rave:

[6.2] In order to be free, we must be seen…For this reason, the struggle to become visible has been part of every civil rights movement in this country. Conservatives are constantly fighting against the realistic portrayal of gays and lesbians in the media. By making us invisible, they can define us, control us, and stop us from fully participating in this culture…It is why the closet is so destructive.

[6.3] While this call can be deployed strategically, the threshold of the hidden/visible is itself caught up in the closet's structural logic. As the case of Olivia Benson demonstrates, seeing a lesbian on television is far from a simple procedure, and what looks like a realistic portrayal is contingent on localized viewing strategies. The closet is their terrain, and despite its oppressive fickleness, I'd venture that it generates as well as conceals truths, opens as well as closes doors.

[6.4] This returns me to the provisional distinction between what I would qualify as lesbian versus queer readings. As a TV fan, I occupy both positions, and I can appreciate the desire for a sexuality—lesbian—that appears conclusive and legible as a political identity. Given that a queer perspective thwarts closure and boundaries, it is understandable that it might be considered pessimistically as its own sort of "closet of connotation" (Doty 1993:xii), refusing any authoritative findings and relegating all meanings to perpetual subtext.

Arguably, however, fandom's drive is itself a queer one because it is openness that inspires the creative engagements and interventions that aim to but never fully succeed at filling in a program's gaps. This tension between lesbian and queer modes, without any final resolution, defines SVU femslash fandom during its most dynamic era. In the context of media studies, I am committed to a queer methodology at the cost of any decisive outcome because I believe that it accentuates the dimensions of fan production that resist, even if they do not topple, the epistemological regime that is most convenient for capitalism. This is perhaps little consolation, though, to the bitter fans who called for Olivia to come out, struggling with TPTB over ownership of her image.

[6.5] As my own rejoinder to those who insist on enforcing Olivia's heterosexuality, my work here is conceived as engaging with rather than merely commenting on this expansive and interactive battleground. This essay, which has been posted online in various earlier versions since mid2004 and which itself may be recognized as a node in the diffuse matrix of Olivia fandom, also has permeable boundaries and is open to wanton intersections and continual reconfiguration. If in one sense I've created a colossal tease for those who may wish to prove conclusively that Olivia is a lesbian, in another, this ardent critique has been the supreme erotic encounter between Olivia (my fellow detective) and me, in defiance of the frontier dividing the real world from the one on

the TV or computer screen—and what could be more substantial evidence that Olivia swings my way than that?

Nonetheless, it remains unclear how Olivia can be my girlfriend within an academic project, or how such a project can satisfy fandom's desires.

[6.6] Part of the puzzle is differentiating serious work from salacious leisure, a margin that late capitalism renders ever more coy. The explicit incorporation of fan labor into the media industry undermines the distinction between professional and amateur production, which debunks the fantasy that consumers inhabit an entirely separate sphere from producers. And on the flip side of this blurred boundary, it can be in the promotional interest of creators to present themselves as familiar with (and to) fandom. Meanwhile, as consumer engagement is increasingly valued, the importance of desire as an interface between media commodities and their reception, as a form of productivity in itself, comes to the fore. The industrial escalation of television's identity crisis makes it imperative to consider the confluences between outside and inside, public and private, reality and fiction that lend the libidinal economies of slash and closets their powerful vitality. What I offer here is my own fannish reworking of some of the scholarly traditions of television studies that intensifies their linkages with these emerging systems.

7. Notes

1. For an analysis of media audiences as occupying various subject positions, see Ang (1995). See also Fiske's

desire to "dissolve" the classification of the audience into "a multitude of differences" that "makes nonsense of any categorical boundaries" (1991:56).

2. Law & Order: SVU USA Network Message Board, available via the Wayback Machine at

http://web.archive.org/web/20040720081022/http://63.240.52.141/ubb/usa/html/ubb/Forum24/HTML/000155.html

The USANetwork.com forums have undergone a redesign, and content before 2005 is no longer available.

Unfortunately, the second page of this discussion is not archived.

8. Works cited

Ang, Ien. 1995. Living room wars: Rethinking media audiences for a postmodern world. New York: Routledge.

Angie B. 2004. SVU's Detective Benson attracts lesbian fans. AfterEllen.com, May.

http://www.afterellen.com/archive/ellen/TV/svu.html (accessed August 14, 2009).

Chonin, Neva. 2005. With hot Law & Order squad's focus on sex crime, suddenly everybody's watching the

detectives. San Francisco Chronicle, March 23. http://sfgate.com/cgibin/article.cgi?

f=/c/a/2005/03/23/DDGHTBSLLF1.DTL (accessed August 14, 2009).

Coppa, Francesca. 2006. A brief history of media fandom. In Fan fiction and fan communities in the age of the Internet, ed. Karen Hellekson and Kristina Busse, 41–59. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.

Cuklanz, Lisa M. 1999. Rape on prime time: Television, masculinity, and sexual violence. Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press.

Doty, Alexander. 1993. Making things perfectly queer: Interpreting mass culture. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press.

Feuer, Jane. 1986. Narrative form in American network television. In High theory/low culture: Analyzing popular television and film, ed. Colin MacCabe, 101–14. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Fiske, John. 1991. Moments of television: Neither the text nor the audience. In Remote control: Television, audiences, and cultural power, ed. Ellen Seiter et al., 56–78. New York: Routledge.

Hastie, Amelie. 2007. The epistemological stakes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Television criticism and marketing demands. In Undead TV: Essays on "Buffy The Vampire Slayer," ed. Elana Levine and Lisa Parks, 74–95. Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press.

Jenkins, Henry. 1994. Star Trek rerun, reread, rewritten: Fan writing as textual poaching. In Television: The critical view, ed. Horace Newcomb, 448–72. 5th ed. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.

Jenkins, Henry. 2006. Convergence culture: where old and new media collide. New York: New York Univ. Press.

Jones, Sara Gwenllian. 2000. Starring Lucy Lawless? Continuum 14:9–22. [doi:10.1080/713657674]

Jones, Sara Gwenllian. 2002. The sex lives of cult television characters. Screen 43:79–90.

[doi:10.1093/screen/43.1.79]

Joyrich, Lynne. 2001. Epistemology of the console. Critical Inquiry 27:439–67. [doi:10.1086/449016]

Rabinovitz, Lauren. 1999. Ms.representation: The politics of feminist sitcoms. In Television, history, and American culture: Feminist critical essays, ed. Lauren Rabinovitz and Mary Beth Haralovich, 144–67. Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press.

Ross, Sharon Marie. 2008. Beyond the box: Television and the Internet. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. 1990. Epistemology of the closet. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.

Spigel, Lynn. 1997. The suburban home companion: Television and the neighborhood ideal in postwar America.

In Feminist television criticism: A reader, ed. Charlotte Brunsdon, Julie D'Acci, and Lynn Spigel, 211–34. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.

Stein, Louisa Ellen. 2008. "EmotionsOnly" versus "Special People": Genre in fan discourse. Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 1. doi:10.3983/twc.2008.0043.

Transformative Works and Cultures, Vol 3 (2009)

Theory

On productivity and game fandom

Hanna Wirman

University of the West of England, Bristol, United Kingdom

[0.1] Abstract— As a result of its unique characteristics as a technology and a

medium, a computer game engages its players with several novel forms of

coproductivity, such as modding, the making of machinima videos, and the writing

of game play walkthroughs. Depending on the game, genre, and playing style, the

player is either expected or encouraged to create game content and gamerelated

texts of her own. This essay discusses the productive practices surrounding

computer games, proposing five dimensions of player productivity: (1) game play as

productivity; (2) productivity for play: instrumental productivity; (3) productivity

beyond play: expressive productivity; (4) games as tools; and (5) productivity as a

part of game play. Such mapping reveals limitations in views that consider fandom

predominantly as productivity or approach player coproductivity straightforwardly as

fandom. The essay aims to illustrate that we should look for alternative

manifestations of fandom among players, those not solely based on productivity. By

exploring various ways in which players of computer games take part in the

production of the games they play, the essay discusses games as an excellent

example of a participatory culture because of the blurring of professional and

hobbyist productivity in games. Since new motivations for productivity are proposed,

this view informs research about fandom and productivity in current media culture in

general.

[0.2] Keywords— Cocreativity; Coproductivity; Computer games; Fans;

Participation; Productivity; The Sims; World of Warcraft

Wirman, Hanna. 2009. On productivity and game fandom. Transformative Works

and Cultures, no. 3. http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2009.0145.

doi:10.3983/twc.2009.0145

1. Introduction

[1.1] It is a precondition for every study of fandom that fans are somehow different

from other, usual media users and audience members. Otherwise the entire concept of

fandom would become obsolete. Drawing on his research on 19thcentury music

lovers, Daniel Cavicchi (2007) writes about fans as those who refuse to accept

anonymity and limited involvement of audiences and who want to extend their roles as

members of audience toward more active participation and engagement. Generally,

theories about fandom recognize and underline the impact fans make on their

preferred medium: fans are, as has been extensively explored in the work of fandom

researchers, active as users and members of audiences. Very often this activity is presented as a contribution of textual productivity.

[1.2] Emphasis on resistance and textual productivity among a group of audience

members or users is, indeed, what is unique to fan studies in comparison to audience

research in general. The tendency to concentrate on fan productivity is familiar,

especially from first and secondwave fan studies, where fan texts offered a tangible

and perhaps easy basis for explorations into resistance and power relations in general

(see Sandvoss 2005). These days, fandom is often discussed based on texts that are

considered as an outcome of fannish activities (Hellekson and Busse 2006).

[1.3] Fans rework, cocreate, and recirculate texts that are possibly derivative and

appropriative, or as Abigail Derecho (2006) suggests, archontic, in regard to the

original content, as the texts seem to be ever expanding and never completely closed

(for example, when fan fiction is written based on existing characters from a television

series). For fan studies, Matt Hills argues, it is fans' creativity as producers that "has formed the basis for theorisations of fandom which celebrate this 'activity', whether it

be video editing, costuming/impersonation…, folk songwriting and performing or

fanzine production" (2002:39). While the mental production of meanings,

interpretations, and identities has long been one of the interests of fan studies, the

new and altered material forms of culture created by fans are arguably one of the

biggest themes on which scholarly work, both on fandom in general and on games

fandom in particular, has concentrated.

[1.4] Such critics find fan texts to be important markers of the creativity, rather than

passivity, of fans. John Fiske (1992), for example, argues that all audiences produce

their own meanings and pleasures around the products of the culture industries, but

fans divert this semiotic productivity into some form of textual productivity. In the

same spirit, Henry Jenkins (1992) has suggested five further levels of fan activity, one

of which is the particular forms of cultural production and artwork (for example, fan

writing).

[1.5] Also, in her brief history of media fandom, Francesca Coppa describes the

development of "bigger, louder, less defined, and more exciting" fandom in the early years of the 21st century and states that "media fans are making more kinds of art

than ever before" (2006:57). However, and this is what I will look at in this essay, the emergence of participatory cultures makes complex fans' active engagement where it

takes a form of textual productivity. When participatory cultures are understood as

cultures that have "relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong support for creating and sharing one's creations, and some type of informal

mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to

novices" (Jenkins et al. 2006:7), their characteristics seemingly overlap with the productive qualities of typical fan participation.

[1.6] Therefore, it becomes interesting to discuss if and how fan productivity is

distinct from everyday media use that is inherently productive in current participatory

cultures. For in computer games, "the authorial shift that occurs between gamers and

designers differentiates it from other traditional media" (Jones 2006:266). Thus,

games can be used as excellent examples of participatory cultures. In his recent study

on game fandom, Robert Jones goes on to say that this shift "thus positions the video

game as an important site of investigation into fan cultures" (2006:266), implying that looking at games could help us to deepen our notions of the relationship between

fandom and productivity in general. Games, both as a medium and as a technology,

engage their users in unique ways that result in multiple forms of coproductivity.

[1.7] Consequently, a crucial question for this essay is: when player productivity

such as new graphical textures for game characters (known as skins) or other game

modifications, which could be considered typical manifestations of participatory

cultures, are understood as fan engagement, is that misreading them or charging

them with importance and affect greater than what actually exists? Drawing a clear

line between fandom and the productivity that is part of all game play is difficult and

unnecessary. Instead, looking at different forms of productivity in games, which

ultimately is the aim of this essay, helps identify the possible motivations for this

productivity and can be used to categorize or examine the different groups of userproducers and their specific affiliations with specific games or characteristics of the same game. Until this work has been done, we can't concentrate on the personal

affective relationships and identity construction of players and fans and recognize

different modes of participation in game cultures.

[1.8] The "conventional logic [which has occurred in many theories of fandom],

seeking to construct a sustainable opposition between the 'fan' and the 'consumer,'

falsifies the fan's experience by positioning fan and consumer as separable cultural

identities," states Matt Hills (2002:29). For him, fans are "always already" consumers.

What I would like to add to this discussion with my essay, is the proposition that

computer game players are, in addition to being consumers, always already producers.

For this reason, computer games offer a good starting point for explorations on

fandom and productivity.

[1.9] However, strikingly in game studies, games and play have broadly been

conceptualized as non or unproductive as opposed to everyday lives. Celia Pearce

argues that unproductivity is a quality of games inherited from early play studies such

as Huizinga's (1998) and Caillois's (2001) work that continues to inform some areas of

game studies. Furthermore, such wasteoftime understanding of the use of media

products is often characteristic of research on mass media as well (Pearce 2006).

Pearce herself suggests that "in fact neither play nor games is inherently unproductive and furthermore, that the boundaries between play and production, between work and

leisure, and between media consumption and media production are increasingly

blurring" (2006:18). Works by Kücklich (2005), Sotamaa (2007), and Yee (2006) all

discuss the intermingling of (productive) work and (unproductive) play qualities in

game play engagement. In the same breath, Thomas Malaby proposes that three

characteristics often associated with games, separable from everyday life, pleasurable, and finally safe—what he defines as nonproductivity—are not inherent features of

games but "always cultural accomplishments specific to a given context" (2007:96).

Without attaching the notion of unproductivity or, alternatively, productivity onto

either play or games exclusively, this essay concentrates on the ways in which games

do facilitate productive activities and discusses what forms of productivity already exist

among players.

[1.10] This essay proposes a study of video game players that reveals the nuances of

productivity within a specific culture, thus broadening our notions of player

engagement and the ways it may overlap with fan engagement. Simultaneously, the

essay aims to demonstrate that considering all gamerelated productive practices as

fan practices is generally oversimplifying. Whereas current game studies seem to

consider fandom predominantly linked to playergenerated content—in other words,

user coproductivity—my aim is to suggest that such accounts do not fully consider the

motivations behind player engagement.

[1.11] I then want to propose that there are at least five kinds of productivity related

to games, and that every one of them, in a particular way, stretches the dichotomy

between fans and nonfans. The five dimensions I am going to introduce are: (1) game

play as productivity; (2) productivity for play: instrumental productivity; (3)

productivity beyond play: expressive productivity; (4) games as tools; and (5)

productivity as a part of game play. These dimensions are not inseparable from each

other but are used here in discrete ways to help unpack the complexity of the

practices involved. When a game is played, these different forms and orientations

behind productivity usually overlap and meet. Rather than offering a set of rigid

categories, the dimensions suggested can be used as analytical tools.

[1.12] In regard to the format of this essay, I will start section 2 by proposing that

all game play is a form of player productivity. The second dimension of productivity

relates directly to playing and succeeding in a game (section 3), while the third grows

from the expressive and artistic intentions of the player (section 4). In addition to

these three I will discuss cases in which games serve as technical tools for forms of

selfexpression or other media fandoms that have very little to do with the game being

played (section 5). Productivity as a part of play is introduced in section 6. It covers recent, socalled Game 3.0 games, which integrate the creation of new game content

as a consumer product. Through suggesting these dimensions of game productivity, I

intend to show that productivity in games serves different coproductive purposes than

in other media fandoms and that these different productive practices all need to be

discussed separately with regard to how they could be studied in terms of game play

engagement as fandom.

2. Play as productivity

[2.1] It seems that the connection between media fans and original media producers

is something that encapsulates computer game play already as a nonfan activity.

Thus, it is important for the forthcoming discussion to understand the shared authority

between designers and players of games as cultural products. Cocreativity, a term

introduced to game studies by John Banks (2002) and further elaborated by Sue

Morris (2003) and Jon Dovey and Helen Kennedy (2006), is a way to understand the

ways in which authorship of a game is shared between paid game developers and the

players of a game. In her study, Morris (2003) suggests firstperson shooter games as

products of collaborative creative processes between game developers used by game

companies and individual players, because game modifications—playermade

alterations to game content and mechanics—feed new ideas and content into

professional game production. This results in a particular cocreative relationship

between player and developers.

[2.2] Dovey and Kennedy (2006) broaden the concept of cocreativity to gather

various forms of player productivity, such as fan art, mod arts, and tactical arts, and

show its usability regarding explorations of games as cocreative media. Building on

this work, I would like to suggest further categorization of such practices. First is to

consider game play itself as player productivity.

[2.3] So I will start from the beginning—from the activity of playing a game—and I

will follow other game scholars in proposing game play as productivity. Espen

Aarseth's Cybertext (1997) paved the way to one of the foundational principles of

game studies: games are texts with unique characteristics, cybertexts. Compared to

linear and thus many older and earlier forms of media, such as television or film,

computer games allow users not only to interpret, but also to explore, configure, and

add content to them (Aarseth 1997). Games cannot be approached like linear media

because they do not come into being until a player puts life into them, plays them,

creates particular stories out of multiple possibilities, remixes her own set of actions

and outcomes, and thus creates the media text while playing. This configurative

practice means that games may develop in emergent ways and have unpredictable

outcomes (for example, Aarseth 1997; Eskelinen 2001; Dovey and Kennedy 2006).

Sal Humphreys has articulated this particularity of the medium, proposing that the

game play "is an engagement which serves to create the text each time it is engaged"

(2005:38). This feature has also had an impact on the study of games: "the computer

game only exists as an 'object for contemplation' and analysis as and when it is

played" (Dovey and Kennedy 2006:104). Productivity can, therefore, be understood as

a precondition for the game as a cultural text.

[2.4] From this perspective, then, when playing computer games all players are

producers of the original media text, meaning, again, that every gamer is a coauthor

of the game, not only a producer of meanings of the game. And this idea seems to be

agreed upon in game studies. Simply put, a user's involvement in the game text is

significantly different from the contexts of earlier media. Aarseth's (1997) distinction

between interpretative user function, where the user is only able to make decisions

regarding the meaning of the text, and configurative user function, where the user can

choose and create new strings of signs that exist in the text (note 1), sheds light on

this change. The game player (co)produces the game throughout the play process

itself, unlike the reader of a book or viewer of a film, for whom the material object

already exists in the world as a product open for various interpretations by different

users. The configurative user function required from the player can be illustrated with

a simple but fundamental example. If a player does not make the effort of moving a

character in a game—in The Sims 2 (2005), for example—no progress takes place and

the game, depending on its dynamics, either stays static or faces its end quickly.

Actions taken by the player have impact upon the functions available later in the game

world and how game play can proceed. While Jones points out that "as an interactive

medium, the video game requires the participation of the gamer," he reminds us that

this interactivity should not be conflated with fan participation, such as the writing of

slash fiction, and thus attempts to establish borders between fan and nonfan activities

(2006:643). I agree with Jones that game play as productivity differs in degree from

writing of fan fiction as productivity and try to go further in understanding where these

differences originate.

[2.5] The partial authority every game offers to its player means not only that games

are better understood as platforms for experiences than as products, but also that

games as cybertexts are only partly predetermined or precoded before the activity of

play takes place. In games, it is not only at the level of interpretation that the

meaning of a game can be determined, but also as the material game artifact itself.

However, each game as played can also be interpreted in various different ways once

it has been created via game play, whereas in a narrative film the development of

events and the order of them are prewritten in the text. The same boxed game may

lead to many entirely different played games as developed by different players and

when replayed by a player. Furthermore, every player can create a new and

substantially different material game text every time she decides to play it.

[2.6] In multiplayer games, this means that the player also affects other players'

experiences of the game. T. L. Taylor's (2006) and Humphrey's (2005) studies of

MMORPGs (massive multiplayer online roleplaying games) extensively describe the

players' ongoing impact on each other's actions in such games. Their studies have

opened up the social dynamics of multiplayer game play as well as the combination of

unpaid and paid labor that produces such play. In World of Warcraft (WoW, 2004),

which is one of the most popular contemporary games and an online multiplayer game

with a player base of more than 11.5 million, players must at the very least create

characters with specific qualities, wander around the game world with these

characters, and then participate in temporarily creating a game environment for other

players. They may kill opponents, pick up or buy items, and go into various locations

and thus transform the game environment. Additionally, most players will take part in

social or collective play, such as forming and attending parties (a group of players

gathered together in order to accomplish a certain quest or other challenge in the

game) and guilds, in order to participate in the social and ingame cultural system of

WoW. All these activities change and create the game world for other players. As

Humphreys writes, "the trajectory of game play is thus contingent upon the particular

dynamics and action generated by shifting combinations of players" (2005:40).

[2.7] Therefore, configuration, the first step of player productivity, seems to be for a

game what interpretation is for a film or a television series. To be explicit, a casual

player is always productive, whereas a casual viewer is not. In games, interpretation is

another level of user participation that comes after or parallel to configuration.

[2.8] Furthermore, in some games, configuration may encompass the systemic

structures of a game. A player may, for example, be required to create her own goals

for the game play, rather than simply responding to goals coded into the game system

by its manufacturer. Especially in the case of socalled sandbox games—simulation

games such as The Sims 2 that offer a form of free play without preferred goals or a winning state—the player must invent the aims of the game play. Configuration of the

structure of the game is almost a precondition for this form of game. In The Sims 2, the player can decide to aim for a big house and large family, or to be a single person

with a good career, or even aim to create a family with a graveyard for a backyard and

ghosts coming in every night. These goals vary from player to player, though the

game supports some goals better than others.

[2.9] The situation gets complicated, given that some games facilitate and afford

more alternative playing styles. This means that players of such games can, through

their game play and specific choices, create several different material versions of the

game that have little to do with each other. For example, in WoW there are separate game servers for those players interested in roleplay and for those concentrating on

strategic skills and goals. The playing styles, ways of communicating with other

players, and emphasis on different graphical, narrative, and mechanical features of the

game are different depending on whether the player is interested in roleplay or in

strategy. Players who prefer roleplay are likely to produce games with strong

narratives and deep characters, whereas strategyoriented players will focus on the

structure and mechanics of the game as a rule system.

[2.10] Consequently, players with such differing orientations may also produce offgame texts that have different foci. The two orientations to be discussed in the next two sections seem to differ from each other drastically. One group of productivity (for

example, machinima videos made of WoW game play) has stronger connections to

earlier media fandom, while another, because of its instrumentality, is more strongly

linked to game play and offers insights into entirely new forms of user productivity,

and perhaps fandom. While this section described all game play as player productivity,

the next two sections will look at these two forms of offgame productive activities.

3. Productivity for play: Instrumental productivity

[3.1] Another way productive participation in game cultures surpasses already wellstudied forms of fandom is that some playerproduced texts are simultaneously clearly part of the game play and materially separate; they are mainly written and organized

outside the playing moment. Because computer game play often requires a lot of

knowledge of the game, including techniques, strategies, and item locations, online

sources offering this information may be used during the game play to assist the play,

overcome difficult game situations, and generally play more effectively. As game play

is temporally flexible and depends on the player, games enable the simultaneous

consultation of this kind of instrumental information while playing—information on

characters, objects, quests, and monsters in the game, for example. By

instrumentality, I refer to toollike use of information and meanstoends rationality in order to gain efficiency in a game and especially with regard to the structures of the

game and game mechanics. Such information is provided on Web sites designed for

this purpose. Seth Giddings's characterization of walkthroughs describes both their

value for players and their instrumentality:

[3.2] It is in part an instruction manual, assisting a stuck video game

player through a particular puzzle, tortuous labyrinth or fiendish demand on

handeye coordination, but it is also a verbal map of the peculiar space–

time of the video game's virtual world. It is a document of the writer/player's

skill and effort in exploring and solving every last aspect of the game world.

It is knowledge shared via the Web to both assist other players and to

display the writer's expertise in, and devotion to, the game in question. A

walkthrough is a determinedly nonliterary work, dispassionate, stripped of

noninstrumental description and of most subjective reflection on its writer's

part. (Giddings 2006:31)

[3.3] Sources such as walkthroughs and databases are often continuously updated or

rewritten by people while they play the games. This characteristic of computer gamerelated productivity derives from the combination of the technology used for getting involved with the original text, a game, and the transition of fandoms to the Internet.

Consequently, often involvement with both the original source text and the productive

practices related to it take place on a personal computer and often also online. This

has noteworthy implications for game play, as the player is able to participate in fan

productivity and community interaction in parallel with the play itself (note 2).

Information on the game is easily available online and moving between the game and

sources available online is smooth. Players who would rather find optimal solutions and

models of acting for gamespecific challenges than learn them slowly by trial and error

can easily consult online sources during the game play.

[3.4] The terms power gamer and hardcore gamer are usually used when there is an emphasis on a player's efficiency, clear personal goals, and desire to win. Such

players invest plenty of time and money in play and often have a playing style that

does not meet the usual expectations of fun or leisure, even though they themselves

may "consider their own play style quite reasonable, rational, and pleasurable" (Taylor 2006:72). In connection with these player types, Taylor (2006) discusses instrumental

play, in which such power gamers are situated more closely to work than play in their

approach. "The simple idea of 'fun' is turned on its head by examples of engagement

that rest on efficiency, (often painful) learning, rote and boring tasks, heavy doses of

responsibility, and intensity of focus" (Taylor 2006:88). This contrasts with the

average person's idea of game play as something purely enjoyable. Correspondingly,

with instrumental productivity I refer to the way introduced player productivity yields new and altered game texts that offer tools for more effective play. Because of their

functional status, these texts do not usually serve any other purposes outside game

play, meaning that they are not interesting for nonplayers as independent texts. (But

some can be. For example, there are walkthroughs that are closer to interesting

stories than to instructions on how to proceed in a game.)

[3.5] According to Andrew Burn (2006), authors of walkthroughs know the

procedural demands of the game system and are not interested in a holistic view of

the game, which includes the narrative, for example. The aim of a player is to proceed

through the game as efficiently as possible. The texts that I group under this notion of

instrumental productivity are based on the player's interest in games as systems and structures. Use of such sources does not necessarily lead to certain interpretations of

the game but will impact upon players' choices and actions. These choices and actions,

once made, form a game open to interpretation. As an example, a WoW player may

search an online database for the average selling price for an herb she has picked up

from a distant land. She may sell it at a small discount in the ingame auction house

because she needs the money urgently. When another player buys the herb in order to

create a potion needed in fighting, the seller gets her money via the ingame mail

system. When these transactions and events have taken place, interpretations about

the economic ideologies, workings of the auction house, and fairness of players in

setting up prices can be made.

[3.6] Another example of instrumental productivity is online databases such as

Thottbot. Thottbot is an unofficial WoW database that features tools for players to use

to obtain gamerelated information about game items, locations, quests, and

monsters. The database is equipped with a search function, which makes it very

convenient to use alongside the actual WoW game. Figure 1 shows some of the

information available for a player interested in the statistics, looks, sources, and uses

for a specific item. Using Thottbot to find locations for quests or certain monsters frees

the player from spending time on what, from some perspectives, may seem

unimportant or routine tasks. For many players, databases such as Thottbot, as well

as addons providing the same information, are extremely important for game play.

The game is played with one or more different databases open in the browser

windows, and a play session involves continuous switching between the game and

these databases. Players who use such databases increase their chances of success in

the game as they have more information about the system and simulation available.

Such functional practices are used by players because they make playing easier,

efficient, and, in the end, more fun.

Figure 1. Information on WoW character's equipment, magister's robes, on Thottbot.

[View larger image.]

[3.7] Interface modifications and addons could also be understood in terms of

instrumental productivity. While it is the players' responsibility to search, transfer, and

transform the information from walkthroughs and databases into the game and finally

toward actions and decisions in the game, interface modifications and addons are

playermade pieces of software that change the looks and functions of the game

interface and are thus materially parts of the game. They are available online for other

players to use and serve the same function of facilitating more effective game play

(note 3). These modifications, which are popular among hardcore players, offer information and tools, new buttons and other interface elements, for executing certain

actions that would normally involve performing additional crucial clicks that take

seconds to carry out or for browsing sources outside the game. For example, the

QuestHelper addon for WoW tells the player how to finish a quest in the easiest and

fastest manner. Meanwhile, the Auctioneer Suite offers statistical information on

sellable game items so that selling and buying them via ingame auction house in

WoW is faster and more profitable.

[3.8] Moving to the economical and political aspects of such additions to games, the making of playeroriginated elements of games is often supported by game

companies, as they offer tools and distribution platforms for making and sharing them.

The communities that are formed through these practices are then enlisted into

commercially successful networks and companies such as Maxis, the development

company behind The Sims, which take full advantage of this free content made by

players (Banks 2002). Instrumental productivity does indeed sometimes take the

shape of commercially profitable engagement. The economic point of view with regard

to playerproduced texts is nowadays made even more complex by thirdparty

companies that make a profit based on player productivity but are not directly

associated with game publishers. Mia Consalvo (2007) describes how one of the

databases, Allakhazam.com, originally "a onepage guide for EverQuest" and now an

information source for all major MMORPG games, is offering content that has been

added and updated by player communities. This is provided for its premium users for a

yearly fee of $29.99. Another form of such paratextual industry is, Consalvo suggests,

gameguide publishing. Strategy guides such as World of Warcraft Strategy Collection

2008 (BradyGames 2007) and gameworld map books such as World of Warcraft

Atlas, Second Edition (BradyGames 2008) are available in mainstream book stores and

offer firsthand information and glossy pictures on WoW. Unexplored areas of the game

can be studied in advance from the atlas books, for example.

4. Productivity beyond play: Expressive productivity

[4.1] We can distinguish game modifications from play as productivity because the

way a game is altered through modification results in changes to games that are

visible to other players and affect their game play. Borrowing Katie Salen and Eric

Zimmerman's term, Jones (2006) calls this kind of play transformative play. To

illustrate the same difference between play as productivity and interface modifications,

for example, we can look at Aarseth's (1997) useful distinction between scriptonic and

textonic changes to a cybertext, although we risk stretching the concepts to excess.

Scriptonic change refers to modification in the information as it appears to players, while textonic means changes in the cybertext itself. Joost Raessens (2005) talks

about the same phenomenon, but uses the word construction in referring to additions

to a game as software. It is a more extreme form of productive participation and is

characteristic only of a minority of players because it requires advanced technical tools

and skills from the player. Interface modifications are examples of instrumental

productivity that produces textonic changes.

[4.2] But there exists another group of game modifications, also resulting in such

changes, that does not indicate instrumentality by definition. These game

modifications are probably more widely known and add new content into the game

worlds in terms of game levels or objects or changing the looks of the characters—

their skins. Skinning is the practice in which players use graphics editors or special software designed for this purpose to alter the looks of game characters. This can vary

from changing the color of a character's skirt to creating an entirely new character

with a new skin color and clothes. Accordingly, a skin is a playermade outlook for a

computer game character or avatar. Making a skin involves using a graphics editor to

create a new picture and saving the image file in a specific place in the folder where

the actual game has been installed.

[4.3] Making such alterations to the game serves no purpose in more effective game

play but is rather a practice of selfexpression and creative exploration. Players of The Sims 2 are well known for their active skin production. Players have created skins that, for example, bring cultural symbols into the game (figures 2 and 3). These examples

further demonstrate that selfexpression can also make a game to better suit local

values and tastes. Helen Kennedy (2005) has studied women players who use skinning

in order to enrich the range of female characters in games that contain only limited

representations of females, such as the Quake games (1996–2007). Her examples

show that there sometimes seems to be a political importance to skinning, even if the

agenda behind it is not explicitly political.

Figure 2. Burqa skin by bettye from ModTheSims2. [View larger image .]

Figure 3. Bindi skins by TwoHorses from ModTheSims2. [View larger image .]

[4.4] While there seems to be no instrumental aspect to the modifications that affect

the visual characteristics of the game world, such as skins (note 4), such modifications

are often understood as a form of hacking and are thus seen as resistant toward the

original game. But, just as Jenkins (2006) observes that it is overreaching to label all

DIY media as a form of destructive cultural jamming, it is not sufficient to understand

game modifying as simply countercultural. Makers of game modifications do indeed

rework and partly destroy the games they modify but often do it in order to lengthen

their engagement with the game and to offer their insights of the game to other

gamers. This said, however, projects such as Velvet Strike, an antiwar game

modification inserting politically charged graffiti into the game world for Counter Strike (1999) can be seen as a kind of tactical art, because, as Dovey and Kennedy (2006)

argue, there is an intended political or activist impulse behind such modifying. Gameworld modifications are, of course, generally regarded as copyright infringements.

They are also made with playercreated tools or even with no tools at all and therefore

require good technical skills and more effort than that for production integrated into

the game itself.

[4.5] Because game modifications can appear both to embrace the original text and

to be seemingly countercultural, I wish to discuss them generally as an expressive

form of game productivity together with machinima videos (videos created from 3D

game play footage recorded during the game), stories about games, drawings, screen

captures, and poems based on games. These practices do not support play or exist as

essential parts of a game, but some of them, such as machinimas, are created during

play. They can also exist as independent texts with no need for the user/viewer/reader

to understand the original game. For example, several humorous machinima videos

are equally understandable and thus entertaining for both players and nonplayers. At

first sight, it also seems that this model of player productivity covers what is traditionally considered fan production: that is, fan fiction and drawings, as well as

movies and videos based on the original text. Machinimas, for example, are often pure

game play movies or involve inventing stories about the lives of game characters.

[4.6] But creating fiction with game characters is somewhat distinct from making fan

fiction representing existing movie or TV characters, which is a practice widely

maintained by TV fans. The difference emerges because game characters' life histories

and characteristics are only partly encoded in the game and, depending on the game

in question, can be defined to some extent by player actions. The same character can

thus represent entirely opposite roles, values, and identities in different players'

games as well as in the fan fiction based on these games. Such a character is not as

fixed by its qualities as a character attached to linear media. For example, The Sims 2

does not suggest personal histories or specific characteristics for game characters

outside a player's choice. A The Simsbased machinima video titled "Leet Str33t"

makes fun of geeky language and topical Internet phenomena, presenting characters

that live their ordinary lives on Leet Str33t communicating in leet (or, correctly,1337)

speak (note 5). Meanwhile, many other games offer characters with detailed

characteristics and colorful backgrounds with which to create further stories and

machinima. For example, the players of Super Mario games have created tens of

machinima videos representing the love lives, dinner plans, and other everyday

occasions of the game characters Mario, Luigi, and Princess Peach. Finally, in

MMORPGs such as WoW, it is the player who creates the character and its life history

little by little during the play by choosing how to proceed in the game, how to

communicate with other characters, what to wear, and what kind of tasks to fulfill.

Similarly to The Sims games, the characters are thus freely adjustable to narratives of any kind.

[4.7] While I am defining instrumental productivity as the contribution of players who

have a strong interest in game mechanics and structures, it is visual representations,

characters, and narrative that seem to be the starting points for what I call expressive productivity. These texts are created to serve the artistic selfexpression of a player (or a nonplayer, as I will later suggest), and the motivation behind creating them may

well be anything from fondness for a particular game lore or character to distributing

political statements. The distinction leads toward separating productivity that

concentrates on form/structure from productivity around content in games.

[4.8] If we then compare players who create poems or stories based on games to the

players writing walkthroughs and strategy guides, one helpful point of comparative

duality could be to look at MMORPGs. In these, roleplayers are often distinguished

from power gamers, and this position is supported by Taylor's (2006) research on

EverQuest (1999), which shows that roleplayers, players who play the game incharacter and attempt to identify with it, are normally seen as interested in the backstory and narrative, while power gamers, players who aim to play as effectively as

possible, concentrate on goals, such as completing game quests. In other words, roleplayers seem expressively productive and power gamers instrumentally productive.

Figure 4 classifies different gamerelated texts according to their origins in either

expressive or instrumental productivity.

Figure 4. Different orientations of gamerelated productivity. [View larger image .]

[4.9] Finally, while game modifications and other player productivity that

encompasses reworking of game content cannot be understood as purely

countercultural or resistant, the motivation for making game modifications may derive

from a wish to continue one's experiences with a particular game even longer and in

new ways. Such productivity actually extends the life cycle of a product and creates

deeper engagement with the game. Jenkins (2006) and Julian Kücklich (2005), among

others, have suggested that such participation creates passionate affiliation and brand

loyalty. Player production results in what Charles Leadbeater (2008) has noted about

participatory cultures in general: players can get products that are exactly as they

wish them to be and customized for their very own purposes. While some game

scholars (for example, Kücklich) wish to suggest that game developers gain a onesided advantage at the expense of players, Humphreys reminds us that industry and players are not mutually exclusive spheres: "The interests of commerce and the

interests of culture are not necessarily opposed" (2005:47). However, when

concentrating on active playerengagement, there is often a risk of idealizing and

imposing too much empowerment onto these actions.

5. Games as tools

[5.1] My presumption of dividing productivity that is not part of game play into the

suggested two categories is not without problems. Quite often machinima videos,

gamefact forums, and walkthroughs all present an expressive account of the

narrative, simultaneously suggesting more effective ways to play the game or

presenting important details of the game. The duality could also be contested by the

fact that games are also used as tools for other purposes than playing or even for

purposes related to other fandoms. Henry Lowood suggests that "when a computer

game is released today, it is as much a set of design tools as a finished product"

(2006:29). Machinima videos are an excellent example here. Lowood offers an

introduction to games' tool use in machinima making: "Machinima makers have

learned how to redeploy this sophisticated software for making movies, relying on

their mastery of the games and game software. Beginning as players, they found that

they could transform themselves into actors, directors and even 'cameras' to make

these animated movies inexpensively on the same personal computers used to frag

monsters and friends in DOOM or Quake" (2006:26).

[5.2] Playermade music videos form one of the genres of machinima. Often, as soon

as a new music video for a pop song, for example, is released, a machinima version of

it can be found on the Web. This means that a player has used a game in order to

reconstruct the video with the video game technology. The player has chosen

characters and character outfits that correspond to those in the original video. Then,

like a puppet master, she has organized the characters' movements so that they

resemble what happens in the original video. Finally, the player has used software in

order to record what happens in the game.

Lily Allen,Al e-Ultimate Sim Version

Video 1. A machinima imitation of Lily Allen's music video for "Alfie" by Badboy2008.

Lily Allen - Al e

Video 2. Original Lily Allen music video for "Alfie."

[5.3] Louisa Ellen Stein's study (2006) of players of The Sims games serves as

another kind of example of games' tool use. The players she has studied created Sims

characters from the Harry Potter books and then devised new fannish stories within

the game with these Sims characters. Stein suggests that the unpredictability of The

Sims games creates a feeling of the characters' full existence in the game. Fans feel able to act outside the limitations offered by the canon of Harry Potter because the

characters seem to exist "beyond the original source text, and beyond even the

specific captured narrative being told through Sims images" (Stein 2006:257).

Character qualities introduced in the books do not apply to the game, and Sims Harry

Potter characters act independently of them.

[5.4] Several questions arise from such hybrid productivity and games' tool use. Do

these examples suggest that a music video made with The Sims 2 playing "Alfie" by Lily Allen that loosely copies the original music video is a Lily Allen fan text? Or is it a The Sims 2 fan text? Or is it both? How to approach an episode of Lost made with The Sims 2? Or an episode of Friends made with the same game, or a Brad Pitt skin for a Sims character? Are the Harry Potter fans discussed in Stein's study also fans of The

Sims? Whatever the answer is, it is clear that games can be mobilized to express

fondness for a song or particular star, to create new stories, express opinions, or even

advertise a product, as the CocaCola machinima advertisement made with Grand

Theft Auto and CBS's Second Life machinima advertisement for Two and a Half Men demonstrate. Furthermore, hundreds of autonomous machinima series and short

movies exist, such as the five seasons of a wellknown machinima series, Red vs. Blue

(2003–2009) by Rooster Teeth Productions. Red vs. Blue is a parody of firstperson

shooter games, a comic science fiction machinima made using visuals from the Halo games (2001–2009), and it features two opposing teams in futuristic desert settings.

6. Productivity as a part of play

[6.1] James Newman ends his book Playing with Videogames (2008) with a short

discussion of the third generation of video games, generally described by the umbrella

term Game 3.0 (note 6). These integrate player cocreativity into the game play itself

(finessed by the industry as "putting the spotlight back onto the consumer") and are clearly connected to the social software made available by Web 2.0, such as YouTube

and Flickr. Newman uses Little Big Planet (LBP, 2008) as an example of Game 3.0, but Spore (2008) and Hello Kitty Online (HKO, forthcoming) fall into this category as well (note 7). The first two games were published in the UK in late 2008, Spore (PC and Mac) on September 5 and LBP (PS3) on November 5. While introducing these games, I

will show how productivity is increasingly being integrated into game play as one of

the central mechanics of the game, although it is still not always necessary for game

play. Such productivity also seems important for the continued success of games to a

changing industry. In the marketing of the games discussed hereafter, the making of

players' own content has been forcefully introduced and such content has been then

used in order to attract greater numbers of players.

[6.2] Spore is characterized as a multigenre massive singleplayer online metaverse video game. Whereas the notion of massive(ly) multiplayer game refers to games with

a large number of simultaneous players, it is not clear what is meant by massive

singleplayer games. I suggest it is precisely this that is interesting and novel about

this particular game: a new way of mobilizing a large number of players and

generating collaboration without actually bringing them into the same game play

situation to play with and against each other. In Spore, this is implemented by the technically nondemanding production and sharing of playergenerated content, such as

Spore creatures. A number of editors are made available for the players to create their own content for the game, the most significant of which, Spore Creature Creator, had

already been published by Electronic Arts before the actual Spore game appeared.

Several features are included to facilitate including other players' creations into one's

own game, such as an RSS feed for favorite creator content. Significantly, the favorite

creator is "just" another player of the game. Furthermore, Web sites such as The Best Spore Creature (http://www.bestsporecreature.com) already include millions of

creatures created by players (note 8).

[6.3] While the marketing material for Spore utilizes the catch phrase "Create, Play and Share," another game, the action platform game LBP, proposes three surprisingly

similar themes and modes for the game: play, create, and share. Similarly to Spore,

the LBP player is able to add material made by her or other players into the game and editors for such work are integrated in the game product. These include characters

and levels, for example. In numbers, players had shared 84,000 levels for the game

by November 13 (Three Speech 2008). The HKO game, which will be a franchiseled

MMORPG for the PC, differs very little from many other popular MMORPGs but

presumably has a very different target audience. Unlike earlier games in the genre,

HKO offers an ingame blogging tool as well as a tool for taking realtime footage from

the game play, a new form for player productivity. The game's Web site also includes

a number of ways for players to produce videos, and even the beta testers for the

game were initially selected by videos created by potential players. Productivity in HKO

does not cover the making of new parts for the game and for other players to play, as

do Spore and LBP, but it still brings traditional play more toward player productivity.

[6.4] As these three examples show, outgame player productivity is an inseparable

part of such games, not an addon or extra. But this is a new level of player

productivity, one that works in addition to play itself as a form of textual productivity.

In Game 3.0 games such as Spore, LBP, and maybe also HKO, the production and

dissemination of the playermade game texts is anticipated by the producers and

developers and is an important aspect of marketing the games in a way that leads to

the creation of a community within which distribution and share of new game content

takes place. Productivity in these games serves as a strong starting point for creating

player communities, since player creations are not limited within one's own game. A

special relationship with the game is not a requirement of player productivity in these

cases; instead, player productivity is built into the game itself.

7. Conclusions and future reflections

[7.1] Alongside game play, the WoW player may chat online to her friends, endlessly

develop character(s), and play the game, thus making the game look and feel different

to other players. She may contribute to Thottbot by describing where to look for a

specific rare mob, take part in raids in order to kill new bosses, express her opinions

regarding the price of items in the Allakhazam.com database, or write a game ticket to

a game master in order to report a bug in the game. If scholars define fandom on the

grounds of the degree of contribution to the knowledge about a game, then most of

the MMORPG players would be categorized as fans. This would unnecessarily stretch

the concept of fandom. Instead, it seems that what has earlier been considered as fan

productivity is increasingly being structured into the media text itself in games.

[7.2] In this essay I have suggested that productivity in games is manifold and

encompasses all players. Although fan communities and community interaction have

not been the primary foci of this essay, the importance of other players and online

communities for player productivity is probably clear from the dimensions of player productivity I have suggested. Places for sharing and distributing playerproduced

content facilitate player communities, and playerproduced texts such as character

skins or walkthroughs become evaluated and discussed within these communities.

Peer recognition is an evident motivation for players to produce new content. Thus,

not only does cocreativity encompass a player and an official producer, but players are

also coproducers in regard to each other. This coproductivity is collaboratively

orchestrated mainly on online forums. Furthermore, it is a unique aspect of multiplayer

games that communities among the users/audiences are already created during game

play. These communities form strong bases for fan communities. A player of a

multiplayer game such as WoW may be involved in community interaction both ingame and outside of it on an online forum, yet parallel to game play. Player communities are acting simultaneously in multiple places, and they are interconnected

and overlapping. As competition between game publishers is hard, these communities

also form and maintain strong opinions on competing products and therefore have

impact upon the sales of the games.

[7.3] As player productivity or cocreativity grows from a group of varying motivations

and is tightly linked to the production of games as media texts, I therefore suggest

that we need better definitions for game fandom as well as for its different forms (note

9). Not all the productivity related to games can easily be understood as fandom. In

game cultures in particular, as suggested in this essay, there are forms of productive

activity—such as the creation of walkthroughs, game modifications, and addons, as

well as the possibility to easily share content created ingame among the player

community—that do not have counterparts in the fan activities of traditional media.

However, it is already easy to recognize that various forms of recent media use,

including what has been called Web 2.0, require more specific and elaborate accounts

in media fandom. Understanding the underlying motivations and connections to

original media in such productivity can be entered through the levels of productivity

presented in this paper.

[7.4] This essay may seem to suggest, too, that computer game players' productive

practices are especially emancipatory. However, even the games I have used as

examples show that instead of independent DIY culture, game cultures remain very

dependent on a mass market, and the most visible fan texts are altered from or based

on those popular games. It is also worth noting that in the end, only a small

percentage of all the players contribute to the production of new texts. While the

highly productive power gamers may appear to occupy the most extreme position of a

cocreator, even they work within the varying economic and legal boundaries and

regulations set by global corporations.

[7.5] Examples used in this essay are all from PC games and primarily from the games WoW and The Sims 2. Therefore, in addition to exploring more closely the

social, political, and economic aspects of the different dimensions of player

productivity, applications of the proposed model to different forms of games, game

genres, and playing styles are what I would suggest as starting points for future

research. Such work would result in enriching and broadening the proposed

categorization and in multifaceted comprehension of player productivity.

8. Acknowledgments

[8.1] An earlier version of this paper was presented at the DiGRA 2007 (Digital

Games Research Association): Situated Play conference in Tokyo. Thanks go to Olli

Leino for reading and commenting on drafts of this essay. I would like to give a special

thanks to my supervisors, Estella Tincknell and Seth Giddings, and advisor, Helen

Kennedy, for their valuable help with the composition and arguments of this essay.

9. Notes

1. Aarseth writes that "a text, then, is any object with the primary function to relay

verbal information" where the information is understood as "a string of signs, which may (but does not have to) make sense to a given observer" (1997:62).

2. Similar activity takes place when fans of a TV series watch episodes of a show in

real time, maybe via the Internet, and use online forums for commenting and

reflecting on the events of the show. However, in multiplayer games the player is also

responsible for the outcomes of the game, and the productivity and discussions online

may and often do affect the game play of many players. There are also meaningful

differences in the temporality of a show that is defined by the broadcaster, whereas

the timing of events of the game play is determined by the players and the order and

length of events may vary from player to player. This happens, for example, when

players kill respawning (regularly and continuously reappearing) monsters in a

multiplayer game.

3. In order to illustrate differences, I have simplified interface modifications to be

understood as modifications that simply enable more effective game play. However,

there may be interface modifications that are more decorative and not meant to

improve the effectiveness of playing.

4. Skins may, however, be partially instrumental as well. Creating a character skin

that one identifies with better can potentially fuse a player–avatar identification that,

again, makes playing more fluid and possibly even more efficient. For example, if a

female player is constantly distracted by the male avatar she plays, or by a

hypersexualized female avatar she is forced to play, then creating a skin more in tune

with her personal preferences would facilitate identification, reduce distraction, and

thus be a means to an end for more efficient game play.

5. For "Leet Str33t" machinima videos by AnonymousKind, see

http://www.machinima.com/film/view&id=26722.

6. The term Game 3.0 was originally suggested by Sony Worldwide Studios' president Phil Harrison during his keynote speech at the Game Developers Conference in 2007.

7. The Sims 3 (2009) game would fall into the same category but was published only some days prior to making the final corrections to this essay. Therefore the game is

not discussed here, but it will be part of my future studies.

8. On June 25 in 2008, one week after Creature Creator was released, Electronic Arts

announced that 1 million playermade creatures were available for other players. On

May 4 in 2009, the number was 100 million (Electronic Arts 2009).

9. In doing so, it may be valuable to bear in mind an important remark made by Hills

(2002): definitive definitions for larger phenomena such as fandom should not make

us assume that just by fixing the terms in place, we can isolate an object of study.

After all, identifications as fans or power gamers are multidimensional cultural

constructions.

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Transformative Works and Cultures, Vol 3 (2009)

Praxis

Sites of participation: Wiki fandom and the case of Lostpedia

Jason Mittel

Middlebury Col ege, Middlebury, Vermont, United States

[0.1] Abstract— This essay explores the awardwinning fan site Lostpedia to examine how the wiki platform enables fan engagement, structures participation, and distinguishes between various forms of content, including canon, fanon, and parody. I write as a participantobserver, with extensive experience as a Lostpedia reader and editor. The article uses the "digital breadcrumbs" of wikis to trace the history of fan creativity, participation, game play, and debates within a shared site of community fan engagement. Using the Lostpedia site as a case study of fan praxis, the article highlights how issues like competing fandoms, copyright, and modes of discourse become manifest via the usergenerated content of a fan wiki.

[0.2] Keywords— Fan community; Television; TV; Wiki

Mittell, Jason. Sites of participation: Wiki fandom and the case of Lostpedia. Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 3.

http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2009.0118.

doi:10.3983/twc.2009.0118

1. Introduction

[1.1] In its December 28, 2007, issue, Entertainment Weekly ( EW) indulged its typical listmaking fetish by adding to its normal assortment of yearend "best of" rankings a list of 25 "essential" fan Web sites. Not surprisingly, a wide array of cult media and personalities had featured sites, from The Amazing Race to Joss Whedon, including popular films, television shows, musical artists, and books. I read the entry for Lostpedia (http://lostpedia.wikia.com/), which

was ranked number 3, with a particular sense of pride—not only did it help justify my own research on this fan site, which I can now claim is an "awardwinning site," but I am an owner and author of that awardwinning site. Created by me, and thousands of other contributors, Lostpedia represents a collective effort to build what EW calls "the ultimate resource for researching new conjectures and keeping tabs on what's been debunked and what hasn't"

concerning the television series Lost. My personal involvement with Lostpedia runs a bit deeper than that of most users, however—during the summer of 2006, I was an active player of the alternate reality game known as The Lost Experience and was one of the most frequent updaters of Lostpedia's coverage of the game. I was promoted to the level of sysop (systems operator) as a result of my work on the site's Lost Experience pages, and served as one of a dozen or so site administrators for around six months, until my professional and familial commitments forced me to shift back to the status of a rankandfile user—after all, "sysop of Lostpedia" has no clear place on a CV, even that of a television scholar. Yet I continue to engage with Lostpedia as an academic fan, or acafan, interested in how it augments my fan practices around Lost and inflects my understanding of television fandom and new media systems.

[1.2] I'm highlighting my own participantobserver status not only to provide a bit of methodological reflexivity, but also to frame my reading of EW's celebration of Lostpedia. While it praises the site's comprehensive coverage of all things Lost, from spoilers to theories to a multitude of cultural references, EW does not mention me—nor the dozens of other past and current sysops, nor the thousands of contributors who ensure the site's comprehensiveness and quality. Notably, the blurb does not even mention that the site is a wiki, and thus generates content collectively in a constant frenzy of editing, updating, and linking. Only one other of EW's top 25 fan sites was a wiki, Memory Alpha (ranked 11), a Star Trek site; the magazine identifies it as a wiki but does not bother explaining what that means.

Perhaps wikis had become sufficiently mainstream and acceptable by 2007 that previous handwringing surrounding Wikipedia's lack of authority and attribution had been supplanted by a casual understanding that collective contributions can yield authoritative results. Or more likely, EW was simply more impressed by the product of Lostpedia than the process that yields it, not considering it worthwhile to highlight how such sites are made in what was admittedly a short writeup.

[1.3] In this essay, I do focus on the processes that yield the results of Lostpedia, examining how fan wikis constitute a system of participation. The basic definition of a wiki—a Web site that can be edited by its users via a

simple Web interface—suggests a structure that privileges particular possibilities of use and creation. While wikis can be used on a small scale to allow a closed community of writers to collaborate, such as in a class, an office, or an organization, a wiki becomes exponentially more robust as its base of editors expands, as with Wikipedia, the world's most famous wiki. Thus, while there have been other Lost wikis (including one featured as "official" on ABC's Web site), Lostpedia has become the predominant Lost wiki (and perhaps the most prominent Lost fan site overall) as a result of the efforts and size of its user base, not because of the efforts of its initial creator.

2. Lostpedia: The Lost wiki

[2.1] The site was launched in 2005, at the dawn of the show's second season, by Kevin Croy, a computer programmer. Croy created the site as a technical test of how to administer the MediaWiki software, figuring Lost was a good topic to experiment with. The site's growth surprised him, as dedicated editors began adding and supervising content while Croy and others successfully maintained the invisible but vital back end. Lostpedia has since grown into a fullfledged Lost portal, with an associated forum, blog, and IRC chat room as well as more than ten foreignlanguage mirrors, although my analysis will focus on the original Englishlanguage wiki. In 2008, Lostpedia migrated from its own independent server to the wikia.com domain, which is run by the Wikimedia Foundation; despite the migration, the same community of Lostpedians continues to make the site one of the most popular wikis in the world, with more than 25,000 registered users who have generated more than 5,000 unique pages, more than 600,000

edits, and more than 150 million page views.

[2.2] My analysis of Lostpedia seeks to understand how the site functions as a place for the aggregation of fan creativity, what limits and boundaries are placed on that fangenerated content, and what rationales underlie those policies and preferences. I'm building on issues raised by Sarah Toton in her analysis of the Battlestar Wiki (2008), in which she highlights how despite the openended, usergenerated framework of fan wikis, the Battlestar Wiki limits its content to canonical material from the show, factual definitions and explanations, and hypotheses about narrative enigmas. For Toton, the absence of queer readings, fan fiction, fan vids, and other typical hallmarks of television fandom constitutes the wiki as a masculine space separated from, and even hostile to, the oftstudied femalecentered community of science fiction fandom and its associated creative practices like vidding and fan fiction. Toton's analysis suggests that wikis as a platform seem to be better suited to such typically masculinist pursuits of cataloguing and analysis than to feminine creativity and community. However, my experiences with Lostpedia complicate this neat linkage between technological platform, gender identity, and mode of fandom.

[2.3] Lostpedia is both larger and more inclusive than the Battlestar Wiki. Its breadth is in part due to Lost's significantly larger global viewership, and the broader array of Lost transmedia content, including multiple games, novels, toys, and extensive Web tieins that extend the show's narrative universe. Perhaps even more central to the growth of Lostpedia, the show's central narrative framework presents Lost as a puzzle to be solved, a set of interlocking enigmas that require viewers to engage with research materials and a searchable archive to understand them. The show's core narrative focuses on a group of plane crash survivors attempting to explore and make sense of a mysterious island, uncovering centuries of complex backstory and unexplained phenomena, including time travel, reincarnation, ghosts, and electromagnetic implosions. Steven Jones (2008:19–46) goes so far as to suggest that the experience of watching Lost is closer to playing a video game than watching a television series. Such ludic narrative logic and transmedia storytelling promote a model of "forensic fandom," a mode of television engagement encouraging research, collaboration, analysis, and interpretation (see Mittell 2009). As Henry Jenkins discusses in his early study of online forensic fandom of Twin Peaks, fans saw the technologies of the VCR and Usenet boards as essential tools with which to crack the narrative codes of the series (Jenkins 2006b). Just as Lost's narrative architecture has pushed the boundaries of television storytelling far beyond the innovations of Twin Peaks, the decoder rings of today have similarly evolved to facilitate a more inclusive, fasterpaced, participatory, and multimedia forensic fandom.

[2.4] Thus Lostpedia's core function is as a shared archive of data, culling information from the show, its brand extensions, and its cultural references to make sense of the show's mysteries and narrative web. But in this essay, I'm more interested in how Lostpedia goes beyond the realm of data collection, as it includes elaborate policies on how to treat borderline material such as speculation, hypotheses, fanon, parody, and fangenerated paratexts. How do the users who generate the site's content make these distinctions and decide on these policies? And how does the wiki system enact such policies and put them into practice?

[2.5] A brief methodological aside: I had planned on surveying and interviewing Lostpedians about these topics, getting a sense of their own conceptions of the site and its boundaries. I tried to duplicate the successful online survey that Jonathan Gray and I conducted of Lost spoiler fans, which yielded over 200 responses and a wealth of research material (Gray and Mittell 2007). I created a similar survey for Lostpedia and posted a link to it from the site's popular discussion forum. Alas, the results were underwhelming—only 20 users even began to answer the survey, and virtually none of the responses included any useful comments. While there may be many reasons why the survey failed, including poor design and unsuccessful promotion on the forum, the contrast between this result and the success of our similarly designed and promoted spoiler survey led me to believe an online survey was not going to be an adequate way to get Lostpedians to reflect on their own processes.

[2.6] Fortunately for researchers, the wiki architecture leaves historical breadcrumbs. The MediaWiki software that runs both Lostpedia and Wikipedia saves a record of every change to a page, allowing researchers to view the evolution of pages and track the development of policies. Even more usefully, each wiki page has associated with it a discussion tab where users discuss the page's content, debate ideas before posting them to the main page, and even vote on proposed policies or major edits. In this way, decisions as to how to define the site's parameters and scope are explored and rationalized in public spaces of the site itself. For this reason, fan wikis provide a tremendous resource for scholars to observe a fan community reflecting on its own practices, making the metadiscussions of fandom transparent and accessible to all who know where to look. Additionally, such research avoids the hurdle of the institutional review board: by analyzing the public, published practices of wiki users, researchers can chronicle fan practices without needing to justify research methods under guidelines designed for much more invasive and controversial techniques.

[2.7] Toton highlights the lack of queer readings as one important limit of the Battlestar Wiki, arguing that their absence means that an important aspect of fan culture and creativity is not represented. When I began my research on Lostpedia in Spring 2008, Lostpedia had a space for queer readings and shipping fandom on the page called

Pairings (http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Pairings). The page's topic was then defined as follows: "Pairings are relationships, either real or suggested, that fans enjoy and would love to see consummated. The desire for love to blossom on the Island between several pairs of characters, to varying degrees of commitment and affection is

explored further in fan fiction" (note 1). Beneath this brief disclaimer, the page listed a wide array of romantic relationships depicted in the show and the fannish nicknames for them, such as Sawyer and Kate ("Skate") and Charlie and Claire, whose multiple monikers include PB&J for "pregnant babe and junkie." This page also included relationships more imagined than enacted, like Sayid and Kate ("Kayid") and Claire and Ethan ("Eclaire"). Samesex pairings were unproblematically included in this list, such as Kate and Juliet ("Juliate") and Locke and Sawyer ("Lawyer"), with links to related fancreated projects that explore these relationships, such as the satirical fan vid Brokeback Island (http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Brokeback_Island). On this page, all romantic relationships, from canonical to slash to extratextual (like the mashup of producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse into "Darlton"), were given equal billing, seeming to exist on the same level within the Lostpedia universe.

[2.8] One of the hazards of researching wikis is that the object of analysis is always in flux. On January 2, 2009, the Pairings page was transformed without discussion. On that day, a Lostpedia sysop removed all noncanonical relationships from the page, offering only the explanation "removing fan wished relationships. nonencyclopedic cruft." A link to a page on fanmade names (http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Fanmade_names) remained, but the

shipping content there is far less prominent and extensive. This edit exemplifies how wiki content can appear and disappear according to a single user's preferences, rather than by consensus or as a result of debate, even when a clear policy on such changes has been established—and often such changes are left in place, simply because nobody within the community notices the edit. While any wiki does reflect a version of consensus among the editing community at a given time, it is important to note that it is often a passively accepted status quo rather than an actively negotiated agreement. Active and vocal editors will be able to trump less forceful and less active users, even if their preferences or opinions are not widely shared.

[2.9] While the instability of wikis can be frustrating, this fluidity also allows researchers to engage directly with them when appropriate. Although as a researcher I would not want to impose a single vision of proper fan practice, the wiki platform allows interventions to be transparent and impermanent. Because I disagreed with the decision to eliminate imagined relationships from the site, I created a page entitled Pairings (fanon)

(http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Pairings_(fanon)) on March 27, 2009, to restore the "cruft" that had been edited out,

albeit within its own fanonical space, as dictated by Lostpedia policy. I made this direct intervention into the site as a

fan and dedicated user, informed by my analysis of the site's practices. No users have protested this change, and there have been a few additions to the page since. This relative lack of response suggests that wikis are often transformed not by a unified community, but by individual decisions passively accepted by the user base.

[2.10] The Pairing page's discussion tab (http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Talk:Pairings) reveals a history that

includes more drama and conflict, concerned not so much with slash content as with the basic validity of shipping fandom. In June 2006 one fan, Pazuzu47, wrote, "This is an unneeded, idiotic and ridiculous article btw." Two minutes later, an active female editor (and selfdescribed "squeeing fangirl" and Skater) named Jengod replied, "Emotion and human relationships ARE a totally legitimate part of the Lost world. Just because it's not hard math or supermystical doesn't mean it's not important. 'Ships are a huge part of fandom for lots of people." Similarly, male editor XSG

weighed in shortly after: "The truth is that Lostpedia is used by many different people for many different purposes, and while I share your sentiments regarding the necessity of this article, I can appreciate that folks like Jengod do find that it has value. Let's play nicely in the sandbox!" A similar conflict developed later that summer around what nickname to use for Hurley and Libby as a couple; infrequent editor Offput wrote, "My girlfriend says that Hubby and Hurlibby suck and has proposed Hurby. What say you?" CaptainInsano, a hypermasculine editor whose judgmental attitude toward fans with differing fannish investments than his own was well known in the community, replied, "Are you serious. You have discussions about this, and it what is worse is that it is with your girlfriend (real, imaginary, or inflatable). You guys need to find something else to talk about." One user wrote to tell CaptainInsano to "play nice,"

while Offput responded with dismay to this attack: "I always thought wikis were there to invite people to discuss not to humiliate them into submission." Notably, Offput did not make another edit for seven months.

[2.11] Such discussions highlight how Lostpedia can function as a space of debate over how to appropriately use the site, as well as how best to watch the show itself. In my own experience, the bravado and insultbased humor of users like CaptainInsano is not tolerated, with a number of prominent editors of both genders regularly weighing in to defend a broad array of fan practices and ways to use the site, not asserting a singular norm of how best to watch Lost or engage with Lostpedia. However, Lostpedians do maintain and discuss some important principles regarding how best to organize and categorize the various types of material contained on the site.

[2.12] Lostpedia categorizes its content into a number of broad types, including canon, theory, fanon, and parody.

These categories are central to the organization of Lostpedia, but what material belongs in which category is far from selfevident for a transmedia narrative like Lost. The canon page (http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Canon) in Lostpedia

has undergone a series of significant revisions—initially, it offered two categories, canon and noncanon, defined by the presence or absence of official endorsement by the show's creators. After The Lost Experience and the tiein novel Bad Twin complicated the boundaries of the storyworld, Lostpedians began to debate various levels of canonicity. One dedicated editor, Scottkj, proposed a complex and highly Catholic set of canonical levels—Canon, Deuterocanon, Ex cathēdrā, and Apocrypha. While the community ultimately rejected these gradients, both because their complexity was daunting to casual users and their religious connotations put off some editors, the ensuing discussion forced Lostpedians to engage with fairly complex notions of narrative medium, transmedia authority, and intentionality—for instance, if a deleted scene appears on a DVD, does it count as a canonical event in the storyworld? As an active editor named GodEmperorOfHell philosophically posited, "If Claire had coffee with the pilot and someone deleted that scene, did they have coffee?" The canon policy that stands today is more straightforward, with three levels: canon, semicanon, and noncanon. Ultimate authority rests with the authors, both creative and industrial—if it comes out via ABC or from the mouths of producers, it is canonical. Usually.

[2.13] One of the central ways this canon policy impacts Lostpedia's users is that canonical content is presented as the site's standard or norm, which fits with Lostpedia's typical encyclopedic form of writing—a page containing canon is unmarked, simply existing as one of hundreds of entries in Lostpedia's archive of the show's narrative universe. By contrast, most other modes of information contained on the site are labeled noncanonical, creating a clear hierarchy between creatorendorsed truth and fancreated paratruth, or perhaps truthiness, in Stephen Colbert's wikifriendly

term. The most integrated of these noncanonical modes are theories (http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Theory)—since

its inception, Lostpedia has served as a site for mulling possible explanations for the island's enigmas, with a variety of different ways of separating the canonical known from theoretical speculation and musings. Unlike other encyclopedias and even Wikipedia, Lostpedia has always allowed for original research and analysis, incorporating fancreated knowledge alongside the more encyclopedic acts of collecting, organizing, and distilling canonical information.

[2.14] Lostpedians do try to mark differences between various forms of theory. Some broadbased theories about the nature of the island garner their own pages, such as the Garden of Eden theory

(http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Garden_of_Eden_(theory)) and the Black Hole theory

(http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Black_hole_(theory))—these macrotheories are expected to offer compelling

evidence, provide links to external sources supporting their underlying ideas, and present a persuasive case for their accuracy. Discussion pages for such theories tend to be robust debates over their merits and inconsistencies, a model of collective engagement that many scholars highlight as one of the most participatory and exciting aspects of fan culture (see Jenkins 2006a).

[2.15] For some Lostpedians, theories and speculations belong on the site's discussion forums, not within the wiki itself, which they see as an authoritative documentation of the canonical storyworld. To enforce this distinction between fact and conjecture, a wiki architecture was developed for including theories in Lostpedia's archive: the theory tab, a separate subpage on each article that allows for noncanonical possibilities. Lostpedians work to ensure that such theory tabs are not simply discussion forums and speculative musings, but more elaborated attempts to hypothesize and support an interpretation. The theory tab emerged in late 2006 out of a frustration that individual articles were being overwhelmed with speculation and theories, which detracted from canonical information. The discussion about the theory tab

(http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Lostpedia_talk:Theory_policy/Archived_Talk#Just_me_venting.2C_but_a_radical_idea... ) recognized that theorizing was unusual for most other wikis modeled after Wikipedia, but also that such analysis is crucial for the nature of Lost's narrative mode.

[2.16] In many ways, the creation of the theory tab served to further enshrine the site's authorialendorsed factual content. As one anonymous editor wrote in endorsing the theory tab, "Not only do I feel it will keep things organized, and give more room for elaborated canonbased justifications of each theory, but also think the explicit separation of Theories from the facts articles, will be of a great effect on debunking any claims of Lostpedia being a fictionbased project." The ironic contortions of attempting to deny the fictional roots of a Lost encyclopedia aside, such comments highlight how the site's architecture is designed to allow spaces for noncanonical fan production as a means of prioritizing canonical authorized content. These spaces are a markedout, separate sphere of unofficial knowledge that helps make canon seem more official by comparison. The site's policy also stipulates that canon trumps theory—

when a theory is disproved, by either producer denials or conclusive storyworld evidence, it is deleted from the theory tab. While the policy allows discredited theories to be archived on a page's discussion tab, it is clear that the goal of theories is to arrive at fact, not to serve as an ongoing realm of fan creativity, speculation, and noncanonical imagination of different narrative possibilities.

[2.17] The discussion over the place of theories cuts to the very heart of the definition of Lostpedia and wikis in general. PandoraX, an active female editor and former sysop who initially proposed theory tabs, highlighted the concern that theories might muddy the waters of the site's goals: " Wiki editors, IMHO, should seek to be recorders, rather than editorialists, otherwise we risk biasing others with our opinions. I've noticed many newer editors don't edit anything *but* theories nowadays" (emphasis in original). Other users take a more pluralist approach to including theorizing within the purview of Lostpedia, highlighting how much postepisode traffic is devoted to editing theories rather than adding canonical information, and that not all users consult the site as they might an encyclopedia. Even show runner Damon Lindelof highlights this coexistence of theory and canon in a 2009 interview

conducted on Lostpedia (http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/The_Lostpedia_Interview:Carlton_Cuse_&_Damon_Lindelof);

after explaining the official show bible, maintained by story editor Gregg Nations, Lindelof suggests that

[2.18] what differentiates Gregg from what Lostpedia does, is that Lostpedia is speculative. That is to say, it has to assume something, because it's not run by us. So, you know, I think there is sometimes a perception out there that Lostpedia is kind of branded by the show, as opposed to a separate fan community, and we find ourselves having to differentiate those two things. That being said, when we've visited the site we are incredibly impressed with sort of the level of detail. There are occasions where we basically say "What was Juliet's husband's first name?" and if Gregg is not sitting in his office we will log into Lostpedia to get that answer.

[2.19] Thus for Lost's production staff, as for many of its fans, Lostpedia's primary function is as a repository of canonical fact, supplemented—and made questionably valid—by the associated speculation and theories.

[2.20] In many ways, the tensions between Lostpedia's canonical and noncanonical information stem from the slippage between the software platform of wikis and its most wellknown iteration in Wikipedia—there is no inherent reason why wikis should be suited more for recording than for editorializing, and many wikis have been used as sites

of collaborative creativity, collective brainstorming, and other activities that go beyond gathering and organizing facts (Dena, Douglass, and Marino 2005; Mason and Thomas 2008). But for most people, the word wiki evokes Wikipedia

and its assumed objective model of writing—for instance, in a comment on Toton's Flow article (http://flowtv.org/?

p=1060), a Battlestar Wiki user named Spencerian offers the following dubious claim as fact: "A wiki, by definition, is

an encyclopedia." This pervasive connection between wikis and encyclopedias is further emphasized by Lostpedia's name evoking the objective pedia rather than the collaborative wiki aspect of Wikipedia's portmanteau name;

although its name and platform do imply an encyclopedic factualism, Lostpedia's practices include a broader array of creative production than most Wikipediastyle wikis.

[2.21] As we well know, fan production goes far beyond collecting and recording narrative information, and Lostpedia does have ample space for fanonical modes of contribution. Initially, the site allowed for parody, allowing editors to create pages that tweaked many of the conventions of both Lost and Lostpedia. One of my favorite such pages was Box, a parodic theory positing that a cardboard box made by the company owned by Hurley and employing Locke was the essential powerful force that caused all of the island's enigmas—the page documented every instance of a box appearing in the show, and included enigmatic clues like "Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have described a new lead character in Season 3 as 'cubical, hollow, brown, and corrugated.'" This fanonical page faced a bit of a crisis of faith in season 3, when Ben Linus referred to a "magic box"

(http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Magic_box) that allowed him to transport Locke's father to the island—editors had to clarify the links to Box to separate the canonical (although probably metaphoric) magic box from the parodic Lostpedia box, while some editors felt that Ben's reference to the box was a shoutout to Lostpedia from the producers, a theory that remains unsubstantiated.

[2.22] In the summer of 2007, Lostpedia had a collective change of heart about parodies

(http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Lostpedia:Parody). As numerous parodic pages emerged to lessthanenthusiastic reactions, the community debated (http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Lostpedia_talk:Parody) how to deal with bad parodies, and whether embracing parodies creates a slippery slope. As XSG wrote:

[2.23] If we accept parodic articles, how do we feel about slash? I could argue, and possibly successfully, that the only difference between slash and parody is the intended audience. Opening the door to one would therefore open the door to the other, and… I don't think slash belongs in Lostpedia. I'm questioning whether fanon does, either, and now I wonder about parody. Thoughts?

[2.24] The consensus was that neither parody nor slash belonged in Lostpedia, or at least that neither should originate there. Parody and fanon became markers used to point to fanproduced content that resided outside of Lostpedia, such as fan vids, fanfic, parodies, and fan Web sites, but Lostpedia removed all pages consisting of original fan content, including Box (which lives on only via the Internet Archive

[http://web.archive.org/web/20070225014550/www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Box]).

[2.25] But we shouldn't take this decision to ban original content creation as a disavowal of the wiki architecture's potential to enable collaborative creativity. One fanonical page that remains is Jackface

(http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Jackface), a gallery of images of Matthew Fox, the actor who portrays Jack Shepard,

making exaggerated facial expressions. Jackface works as a site of wikified creativity because the community shares the basic parameters of what constitutes a Jackface and an appreciation for the form—the collective intelligence of Jackfacers makes the page a definitive resource for sharing a parodic wink about one of the show's lead actors, while feeling like we are contributing to a project that is a bit more creative than merely documenting canon.

[2.26] Jackface also points to a facet of fan productivity that can lead to differences among contributors: fair use. As a U.S.based Web site, Lostpedia strives to adhere to American copyright law, avoiding reproducing copyrighted material except to illustrate an example or concept via brief quotations or screencaptured images under the banner of fair use (see Tushnet 2007). However, Lostpedians have not articulated a collective interpretation of fair use as it applies on the site, relying instead on a single user's outline of policies

(http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Lostpedia:Fair_Use) adapted from Wikipedia, which has undergone little discussion or significant editing. ABC and other copyright holders have not requested that material be removed from Lostpedia, at least not in a publicly identifiable way. But despite this, and even though producers explicitly acknowledge referencing the site, some editors act in an overly constrained manner for fear of legal action, mirroring the "chilling effects" of a "permission culture" that presumes infringing guilt over fair use innocence (Lessig, 2004).

[2.27] Occasionally, individual users will take down material out of concern for legal reprisal—the Jackface gallery was removed from the site in March 2008 for this reason. Another user overturned the removal, reinstating the gallery without discussion, three months later. It has pingponged on and off the site in this way several times, as users differently interpret its legal status and edit accordingly. While the wiki architecture would allow deliberation and debate with the goal of articulating a clear fair use policy, it also allows "first come, first served" policy, with decisions enacted unilaterally but without binding force. Sysops can also exert their power to assert an opinion by locking down an article—after a series of Jackface edits, a sysop locked the page in a state without the controversial gallery, despite other users (including myself) objecting to what may be a misreading of fair use policy. As of this writing, the discussion has stalled because a lack of interest in the debate, not because of any clear consensus position. Deliberative policy making requires users to focus their efforts on articulating shared goals, which has happened around questions of canon much more than copyright.

[2.28] Lostpedia also allows a mode of writing that we might think of as creative nonfiction, with the caveat that this

"nonfictional" gaze is aimed at the fictional storyworld of Lost. Pages on topics categorized as literary devices (http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Literary_techniques), such as Archetype, Plot Twist, and Symbolism, all offer original

analysis and research, synthesizing elements of the show to demonstrate its use of particular storytelling devices and representational strategies. Such original research is strictly forbidden on Wikipedia, marking a key difference between the two and showing how Lostpedia can work in ways belied by its encyclopedialike label.

[2.29] One interesting example of this mode of collaborative research is the Economics page (http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Economics). Originally drafted in June 2006 by user Scunning, a doctoral student in

economics, the page initially read like a term paper, exploring how the allocation of resources on the island mirrored various economic models. Dozens of editors dived in, expanding, deepening, and rethinking the original article, until it was named "featured article of the week" in late 2006, the first time such an analytical page was highlighted on the site's front page. While academics are prone to thinking of analysis as a solitary extension of a single mind, Scunning embraced the collaborative output of the community (http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Talk:Economics):

[2.30] Wow. When I started working on this entry around 8 months ago, I never dreamed the community of viewers would transform it into this. This entry is really spectacular as a result of what everyone has contributed. The weakest parts of it, I now see, are the original sections I wrote! Seriously, this is phenomenal.

[2.31] The Economics page, like other analytical pages on Lostpedia

(http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Analysis), are not tagged as Fanon or otherwise marked as noncanonical.

This distinction was noted in July 2007 by Silence, a male user who was an active Wikipedia administrator but had just joined Lostpedia:

[2.32] In what sense is analysis, in the sense you're using it, not fanon? "Analysis" like Economics is noncanonical (I don't think the word "socialism" has ever even been used in the show), fancreated, and is based on, but not a part of, actual canon. Something doesn't need to be farfetched or outlandish to be fanon, after all.

[2.33] Two years have passed with no reply, suggesting that distinguishing analysis from canon is a far less pressing concern among Lostpedians than demarcating or eliminating more explicitly creative modes like parody and fanfic. While the wiki architecture allows for multiple modes of collaborative creativity, the Lostpedia community seems to have embraced a different hierarchy of perceived value than has Wikipedia. It allows original research, analysis, and theories, but still embraces core distinctions in fan culture that privilege canonical content and extensions of canon over more explicitly noncanonical modes of creativity, distinctions that certainly align with the gendered differences noted by Toton and many fan scholars.

[2.34] Lostpedia's dual function as a catalog of canon and a site of original creativity found an interesting point of synergy surrounding The Lost Experience in the summer of 2006. This alternate reality game (ARG) extended the show's narrative universe beyond the confines of the television screen and into the real lives of viewers. Fans could attend events and receive complimentary Apollo Bars (a candy featured in season 2), watch a representative of the mysterious (and fictional) Hanso Foundation appear on Jimmy Kimmel Live! to denounce the misinformation spread by Lost, and witness a live event at Comic Con in which the ARG's main character, Rachel Blake, accused Lost

producers of having "blood on [their] hands." Clearly the blurring of the boundary between real life and the fictional universe was part of the game's appeal, a slippage that extended into Lostpedia.

[2.35] A key part of The Lost Experience was a hunt for 70 pieces of a larger code that could be entered into a Web site to reveal a hidden video offering key information about both the ARG and the inshow DHARMA Initiative. These codes were primarily linked to graphic glyphs that were embedded in a variety of Web sites or posted in reallife locations. In August, the "puppet masters" of the ARG contacted a number of fan sites to ask them to embed glyphs, including Lostpedia. Kevin Croy, Lostpedia's head administrator, received such a request and contacted me, in my role as the designated Lost Experience sysop. The two of us devised a puzzle using wiki protocols that was designed to reward dedicated Lostpedians through their knowledge of the site by giving them their own glyph. While it took a few days for users to discover the trail of links, some Lostpedians found a new user account in the name of Rachel Blake posting on Lostpedia, beginning the search for the hidden glyph within the wiki. Once the glyph was found, one Lostpedian commented on Blake's page, "Awww. This is so exciting! I feel like Lostpedia is getting a little reward! :)."

However, the way the material was placed on Lostpedia probably violated the community's policies on posting original content and properly labeling noncanonical contributions, policies that both players and the administrators happily overlooked. The puzzle placed me in an interesting loop, since I participated as researcher, game player, community member, and momentary puppet master, and it also highlights how the encyclopedic thrust of Lostpedia can be punctured to create spaces of ludic engagement and fictional roleplay, even as it still functions as an authoritative and reliable source of Lost information.

[2.36] I want to conclude by highlighting the potential of the wiki architecture to overcome and blur boundaries and hierarchies between fiction and truth, canon and fanon. Even though Lostpedia's structure privileges canon and the authority of Lost's creators, it also offers many spaces for unauthorized content, creative experimentation, and the blurring of boundaries between categories. Except for an occasional rant by an aggressive user, the site hosts impressively collegial discourse across different realms of fandom: shippers and cataloguers, theorists and vidders.

The open platform of the wiki allows constant remaking of the site's parameters and policies, and Lostpedians use other platforms to include content not appropriate to the main wiki—in the hiatus after season 3, the site sponsored a fan fiction contest, hosted on the Lostpedia discussion forum, to map out the arc of the following season. While the site's hierarchies and attitudes matter, they are fluid and everchanging, reshaping themselves as the community develops. Although hierarchies of modes of practice, engagement, and identity persist within various spheres of fandom, I hope that the structural possibilities of wikis like Lostpedia will allow fans to find spaces where differences within a fandom can be ironed out, one edit at a time.

3. Note

1. Because of the fluid nature of wikis, the text of Lostpedia is likely to change over time. Whenever appropriate,

quotations will cite a date that the page did include the material; if not noted, the quotations were part of Lostpedia on March 20, 2009.

4. Works Cited

"25 Essential Fansites." 2007. Entertainment Weekly 971–72 (December 28).

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20167049,00.html.

Dena, Christy, Jeremy Douglass, and Mark Marino. 2005. Benchmark fiction: A framework for comparative new media studies. Paper presented at the Digital Arts and Culture Conference, Bergen, Norway. In Proceedings of the Digital Arts and Culture Conference, 89–98, http://jeremydouglass.com/cv/benchmark.pdf (accessed August 13, 2009).

Gray, Jonathan, and Jason Mittell. 2007. Speculation on spoilers: Lost fandom, narrative consumption, and rethinking textuality. Particip@tions 4, no. 1. http://www.participations.org/Volume%204/Issue%201/4_01_graymittell.htm.

Jenkins, Henry. 2006a. Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide. New York: New York Univ. Press.

Jenkins, Henry. 2006b. "Do you enjoy making the rest of us feel stupid?": alt.tv.twinpeaks, the trickster author, and viewer mastery. In Fans, bloggers, and gamers: Exploring participatory culture, 115–33. New York: New York Univ.

Press.

Jones, Steven E. 2008. The meaning of video games: Gaming and textual strategies. New York: Routledge.

Lessig, Lawrence. 2004. Free culture: How big media uses technology and the law to lock down culture and control creativity. New York: Penguin.

Mason, Bruce, and Sue Thomas. 2008. A million penguins research report. Institute of Creative Technologies, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK, April 24.

Mittell, Jason. 2009. Lost in a great story: Evaluation in narrative television (and television studies). In Reading

"Lost": Perspectives on a hit television show, ed. Roberta Pearson, 119–38. London: I. B. Tauris.

Toton, Sarah. 2008. Cataloging knowledge: Gender, generative fandom, and the Battlestar Wiki. Flow 7, no. 14,

http://flowtv.org/?p=1060.

Tushnet, Rebecca. 2007. Copyright law, fan practices, and the rights of the author. In Fandom: Identities and communities in a mediated world, ed. Jonathan Gray, Cornel Sandvoss, and C. Lee Harrington, 60–71. New York: New York Univ. Press.

Transformative Works and Cultures, Vol 3 (2009)

Praxis

Identity and authenticity in the filk community

Melissa L. Tatum

University of Arizona James E. Rogers Col ege of Law, Tucson, Arizona, United States

[0.1] Abstract— As a result of several studies examining the relationship between

identity and music subcultures, sociologists have developed a framework for

analyzing those relationships. I apply this framework to the filk community, using

the question "Is wizard rock filk?" as a vehicle for exploring slippery questions: What is filk? What is the filk community? What does it mean to be a filker? Part of the

difficulty with defining these terms rests with the fact that people approach filk in

different ways; it can be one of many activities at a convention, a genre of music, a

subculture, or some or all of these. Although both wizard rock and filk are musical

movements within fandom, I conclude that the answer to the question "Is wizard

rock filk?" depends on the context of who is answering the question and what

perspective that person holds with respect to the filk community. This dependence

on perspectives is particularly important in the filk community and has repercussions

for the larger fan community because one of the hallmarks of these fan communities

is a tolerance of differing perspectives.

[0.2] Keywords— Filk; Wizard rock

Tatum, Melissa L. 2009. Identity and authenticity in the filk community.

Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 3.

http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2009.0139.

doi:10.3983/twc.2009.0139

1. Introduction

[1.1] Recently, while I was at a conference to present a paper on filk, a member of

the audience asked whether I thought wizard rock was filk, or more specifically,

whether filkers considered wizard rock to be filk. My immediate reaction was "No,

wizard rock is not filk," but when I tried to articulate why, my arguments either ran

into roadblocks or circled back on themselves. As an academic, both of those

outcomes were completely unacceptable, so I began writing this essay as part of an

effort to unravel my thinking on the subject.

[1.2] As I worked through the various arguments, this essay mutated from a simple

extended answer into a more complex look at identity and authenticity in the filk

community. The transformation began with the realization that answering the

deceptively easy question of what filkers think of wizard rock required that I define the filk community, define how the filk community views wizard rock, and construct a

framework for analyzing the connections between identity and music subcultures.

[1.3] Fortunately, sociologists have spent decades studying the relationships

between music, subcultures, and identity, and in the process, they have built a

framework for exploring the symbiotic relationship between music and identity. That

framework provides the ideal mechanism for answering the question "Is wizard rock

filk?"—or rather, for answering the question of whether I think wizard rock is filk.

[1.4] To explore this question, I first provide a brief orientation to filk and wizard

rock. I then set out a sociological framework for examining issues of identity in music

subcultures, apply that framework to the filk community, and use it to analyze wizard

rock from a filker's perspective.

2. What is this thing called filk?

[2.1] Filk is not easily defined, although parts of it are easy to explain. For decades,

the science fiction and fantasy community has regularly brought its authors and fans

together for weekend conventions. Many of these conventiongoers would gather in the

evening hours for song circles, playing music and swapping songs. In the early years,

these gatherings were small, informal gatherings in hotel rooms or hallways, but over

the last 25 or 30 years, filk has become more mainstream. Filk is an accepted part of

fan conventions; dedicated filk conventions have sprung up, such as GAFilk

(http://www.gafilk.org) and OVFF (Ohio Valley Filk Fest, http://www.ovff.org), a filking

hall of fame (http://www.filkontario.ca/hof/hofmain.html), and an annual awards

ceremony (the Pegasus Awards, http://www.ovff.org/pegasus). The term filk is generally attributed to Lee Jacobs; it is the result of a typographical error that changed

"folk music" to "filk music" (Filking 101) (note 1).

[2.2] Filk appears in three basic spaces at conventions: filk rooms, filk concerts, and

filk panels. Filk rooms are the classic space and are traditionally arranged so that

filkers sit in a circle, taking turns performing. The method of taking turns can vary,

with the two basic forms being bardic and chaos. In a bardic circle, the rotation

proceeds around the circle in order, with each person either performing a single song,

requesting another member of the circle perform a particular song, or passing the

turn. In a chaos circle, turns proceed in random order, often with the idea that each

song should be in some way connected (for example, by tune, theme, composer) to

the song that was just performed. Both styles have advantages and disadvantages,

and several variations have developed as part of efforts to maximize the advantages

and minimize the disadvantages. As filk has become more popular, conventions have

sorts of music in widely ranging genres: folk, electronica, metal, and hiphop (Vineyard 2007).

[3.3] What unites these bands into a genre or subculture is not their musical style,

but rather the content of their music (Vineyard 2007). As with filk, wizard rock

encompasses a wide variety of musical styles. Unlike filk, however, the subject of

wizard rock is more limited. As the sound clips above demonstrate, filk songs cover a

wide variety of topics; in contrast, wrock bands exclusively play music rooted in the

Harry Potter universe. One other significant difference between wrock and filk is the

performance format; filk music is rooted in the song circle, while wizard rock bands

perform in more conventional formats, with the bands on stage playing for an

audience of fans. Thus, although filk and wizard rock both share a common base in the

science fiction and fantasy world, the two genres do not appear, at least initially, to

overlap. Before reaching a definitive conclusion on the subject, it important to

understand what we mean when we talk about a music subculture and how we define

the identity of that subculture.

4. Music and identity

[4.1] Debates within music communities over how to define themselves are not

unique, and indeed, sociologists regularly study the relationship between music and

identity (Davis 2006; Williams 2006; Kruse 1993). This relationship is of interest

because "music is seen as consequential in the creation of subcultures as well as a

consequence of them" (Williams 2006:174). As part of this exploration of identity and

community, sociologists study "how members of music scenes construct identities that

separate themselves from the mainstream" (Williams 2006:184).

[4.2] It is important, then, to understand what is meant by social identity. J. Patrick

Williams (2006:177) defines this term broadly as "plac[ing] the individual as a

member of a social category that differs from other categories. Membership in [a]

category accompanies the person" even when the person is not interacting with other

subculturalists. Williams continues,

[4.3] Successful identification rests upon expressing a similarity of self to

one's peers as well as distinction from members of mainstream society.

Subcultural participants may, for example, construct narratives that

emphasize their allegiance to a group ethos or to subcultural values and

norms. Such narratives build ingroup cohesion and highlight how subculture

differs from mainstream culture. The resulting subcultural boundaries situate

some people on the "inside" and others on the "outside." Such identifications

are an affective as well as a cognitive experience, invoking positive feelings and emotions as people identify as members of a group. (2006:177–78)

[4.4] Williams (2006) conducted an interesting study of socalled straightedgers, a

part of the punk movement that defines itself in part by not doing drugs, not smoking,

and so on. Williams explored a dispute between "two different types of straightedge

participants [that have] emerged as more people outside of traditional straightedge

music scenes learn about straightedge on the internet and begin interacting within

online subcultural spaces" (2006:175). His article focuses on claims made by each

category regarding what constitutes "authentic" straightedge identity. He distilled those claims into two categories: straightedgers who "utilized the internet forum as a

supplement to their participation in facetoface straightedge music scenes," and those who "argued in favor of a broader definition of straightedge that included anyone who

lived the straightedge lifestyle" (Williams 2006:183).

[4.5] The debates over authenticity centered on whether participation in the facetoface straightedge music scene was a necessary element of a straightedge identity (Williams 2006:188). The socalled musicstraightedgers were not openly hostile

toward the Netstraightedgers, but instead

[4.6] expressed their concerns about the dilution of straightedge through

what they saw as people bypassing essential(ized) criteria for authenticity.

This perceived "defusion" was occurring because the internet facilitated the

spread of subcultural information and knowledge to populations who did

have that "essential" something that made straightedgers different.

(Williams 2006:188)

[4.7] Williams then explores notions of authenticity more abstractly, noting that it "is not an either/or experience. Like all symbols, authenticity is interpreted by individuals

and mediated through interaction with significant others" (2006:189), and that

"authentic characteristics do 'not inhere in the object, person or performance said to

be authentic. Rather, authenticity is a claim made by or for someone, thing or

performance and either accepted or rejected by relevant others'" (Peterson 2005 in

Williams 2006:177).

[4.8] The sociological studies of music and subculture, and in particular Williams's

study of the straightedge community, provide a wealth of tools for exploring

definitions of filk, particularly those offered by the filk community itself. As the next

section makes clear, no clear, universally accepted definition of filk exists.

5. Defining filk and the filk community

[5.1] Much angst and ink have been spent in attempts to define filk and to identify precisely who is a filker. Indeed, one source asserted that "one of the things filkers do besides sing and write songs is argue over exactly what filk is" (M.A.S.S.F.I.L.C.). This struggle fits squarely into Williams's (2006:189) observation that labeling something

as "authentic" or "inauthentic" is not an absolute but rather something filtered through individual perspective and interpretation. Thus, it is important to understand both the

definitions that have been offered and the perspective of the person evaluating those

definitions.

[5.2] Many definitions have been proffered to explain what constitutes filk. Those

definitions range from "the folk music of the science fiction and fantasy community"

(Shapero) to "filk is anything that happens in a filk circle" to definitions about lyric content:

[5.3] Filk includes songs about every science fiction or fantasy subject you

could imagine: outer space (both real and fictional), books, movies, TV

shows, dragons, magic, unicorns, vampires, and aliens of every sort. It also

includes songs about things of interest to the Science Fiction and Fantasy

community (usually referred to as "fandom") and strongly resembles

contemporary folk music. (M.A.S.S.F.I.L.C.)

[5.4] One filker, Gary McGath, surveyed the various definitions, sought input from

those in the filk community, and attempted to build a more allencompassing

definition. His efforts resulted in the declaration that "filk music is a musical movement among fans of science fiction and fantasy fandom and closely related activities,

emphasizing content which is related to the genre or its fans, and promoting broad

participation. Filkers are people who participate in this movement" (Filk: A New

Definition).

[5.5] Although other definitions do exist, the ones set out above generally represent

the spectrum of descriptions offered. But they also conceal some of the sources of

disagreement. Perhaps the biggest single factor influencing how one defines filk

centers around performance quality. Filk circles are egalitarian and welcoming to all

attendees. The result is an uneven quality of musical skill. Filkers range from

professional musicians to enthusiastic amateurs who have difficulty carrying a tune.

This variation in quality leads many to disparage filk and filkers. At the same time,

however, many in the filk community view this inclusive approach as one of the most

positive hallmarks of their community.

[5.6] At first glance, that inclusiveness would seem to argue in favor of a conclusion

that wizard rock is filk. But even if filkers would reach out to include wrockers, do

wrockers want to be considered part of the filk community? Before that question can

be answered, it is important to step back and evaluate the various definitions of filk.

Which definition is the appropriate one, and does that definition encompass wizard

rock?

6. Is wizard rock filk?

[6.1] The definitions of filk discussed above fall into two basic categories, one

focusing on the content of the music and the other focusing on who is performing the

music. If you adopt any of the definitions focusing on content, wizard rock would

appear to be filk. It is about the Harry Potter universe, which in turn is centered

around magic, thus putting it clearly within the science fiction and fantasy genre. If

you adopt one of the definitions based on community, whether wizard rock is filk will

depend on which community—that of fandom in general or the filk community more

specifically. Those involved in wizard rock are clearly part of fandom, but they are not

part of the filk community.

[6.2] Part of the difficulty with definitions arises because different people approach

filk in different ways; it can be one of many activities at a convention, a genre of

music, and/or a subculture (as that term is used by sociologists). Definitions of filk will

naturally, and obviously, vary depending on who is asked the question and from which

perspective they approach filk. As Williams (2006) discussed, there is no rigid test for

authenticity in the abstract; claims of authenticity can only be made and evaluated in

context.

[6.3] The answer to "Is wizard rock filk?" thus depends on who is answering the

question and what perspective that person holds visàvis filk. A group's identity can

be defined either by those within the group or by those outside the group. The

definitions chosen by insiders and outsiders are likely to differ, as each perspective is

defining the group for a particular purpose (Tatum 2000). Insiders form definitions as

part of a process of selfidentification, both in terms of who they are individually and

whom they choose to associate with. Outsiders, however, often choose a definition

designed to foster a particular emotional response to the group or to achieve a

particular goal (Tatum 2000).

[6.4] In this particular case, we are interested in the insider's definition because we

are exploring the question of how filkers view wizard rock. Opting for an insider's

perspective does not resolve our difficulties, however, because it is clear that filkers

themselves do not agree on a single definition. Although it is folly to insist on

unanimity from community members on all issues, the question of a group's identity

usually generates at least a core of agreement among the group's members.

[6.5] In reality, there is a core of agreement among filkers about what constitutes filk. The major disagreement is over how to classify songs performed by those who are

not active, selfidentifying members of the filk community and how to classify the

musicians who compose and perform those songs. The definitions of filk that focus on

content would reach out to include all songs (and musicians) with a science fiction and

fantasy component to them. The definitions of filk that focus on community likely

would not.

[6.6] This dispute is not likely to be resolved largely because of the nature of the filk

community and of fandom in general. One of the hallmarks of the fandom community,

and filk even more specifically, is a tolerance of differing perspectives. Filk and fandom

are far from homogenous, in any sense of the word. Filkers and fans come in all races,

religions, genders, educational backgrounds, and occupations. Indeed, "filking more

often speaks directly about fandom as a distinctive social community," more so than

other fan activities, because "while only a small percentage of those attending any

given con participate in the filksinging, its ranks typically embody a cross section of

the larger fan community" (Jenkins 1992:253–54).

[6.7] Accordingly, I can only answer the question "Is wizard rock filk?" from my own perspective; other people may answer the question very differently. To borrow

Williams's language, what I view as authentic in terms of filk is influenced by my

perspective and interpreted through the lens of my experiences.

[6.8] How, then, do I define "filk" and the "filk community"? I am drawn to Gary McGath's definition: "Filk music is a musical movement among fans of science fiction

and fantasy fandom and closely related activities, emphasizing content which is related

to the genre or its fans, and promoting broad participation. Filkers are people who

participate in this movement" (Filk: A New Definition). At first, this definition would also appear to encompass wizard rock because wizard rock is a "musical movement"

that takes place "among fans of science fiction and fantasy" and that "emphasizes content related to the genre." There are, however, two critical differences: the format of wizard rock, and the lack of overlap between the two communities.

[6.9] First, as to format, wizard rock is not filk because it promotes performance to a particular crowd rather than building a community of performers who perform for each other. The difference between performing for an audience and participating in a music

community is an important one. As McGath stated, "More important than [filk's]

subject matter is its attitude toward music: that people should make their own music,

even if they aren't great at it" (Spirit of Filk). McGath's definition appeals to me

because it highlights what I find most noteworthy about filk—the sense of community

and the shared enjoyment of both the music and the genre. Sally ChildsHelton, an

ethnomusicologist, movingly articulated this in her acceptance speech when she was inducted into the Filk Hall of Fame:

[6.10] Being an ethnomusicologist, I professionally look at the way people

use music in their everyday lives. I look at the way that music is expressive

of a culture and all the many relationships between music and cultures. All of

us were raised in a culture that said, "If you don't have talent, then forget

about doing any kind of art." Forget about singing, about dancing, about

doing any of those things, and we have to be acculturated out of it…In a

way, we've been robbed. We have robbed ourselves of the joy of making

music, of dancing, of doing art. [The filk] community has taken that and

pitched it out the window and said, "We are making music because we love

it, we need to do it, it feeds our souls, it feeds our community, it feed us as

individuals." And we do it.

[6.11] One of the great joys for me in this community, is that I see people

over the years growing as musicians and growing as human beings. That is

not a small accomplishment in this day and age. So, just be aware that

we're doing something—I dare use the word revolutionary, but we are—we

are taking back our right as human beings to make art. If the rest of the

culture was doing this, it would be a very different and much better culture

to live in…

[6.12] We have taken our right to be creative and to literally "play" in the

best sense of that word. We invite each other out to play. And we do it. We

do it with great joy, and we do it with great hearts. We do it with a lot of

loving forgiveness for people who are still developing as musicians and may

be a little painful at first to listen to. We see the growth, we see the value,

we see the community, and I can tell you that as a musical subculture,—if

you want to get really academic about it we are a musical subculture—I

don't know of one like it anywhere. (ChildsHelton 2003)

[6.13] My first experience as a participant in a filk circle typified this description. I

wrote a song as part of a workshop at the 2007 Balticon, a regional science fiction

convention held in Maryland, and I nervously took it to the filk room that evening.

After a bit of dithering about whether to take a turn—not only because I lack a good

singing voice, but also because the circle was full of talented musicians, including the

convention's music guests of honor—I chickened out and started putting the music

away. I do not play the guitar or any other accompaniment instrument, and the

thought of trying to stay at least roughly in the ballpark of the tune without any

musical backup was simply overwhelming. I thought I was being discreet, but one of

the filkers near me leaned over and asked if I wanted to take a turn, even offering to

accompany me (I had the chords but no guitar). I took a deep breath, thought "what the hell," pulled the lyrics back out, and took my turn. When I finished, one of the

members of the circle complimented my lyrics and asked for a copy.

[6.14] I would later be comforted by reading Jordin Kare's (1995) statement that the

traditional key for filk is "off," and also by my experiences in filk circles over the last 2

years. In all of those circles, I was made to feel welcome. Other scholars have

recognized this inclusiveness as a significant factor in defining filk. In his book Textual Poachers, Henry Jenkins observed that

[6.15] filk originated as a form of music that could be sung communally

and its pleasure comes less from the quality of its performance than from

the sense of community it generates. Filk shares many of the features

musicologists have traditionally used to define folk music: oral circulation

rather than fixed written texts, continuity within musical tradition, variation

in performance, and selection by a community that determines which songs

are preserved, which discarded. (1992:268–69)

[6.16] For me, then, perhaps understandably, given my start in filk, the question

"What is filk?" can be answered only with reference to the filk community. Wizard rock does not identify itself as filk, nor does it identify itself as part of the filk community.

Nowhere in any of the histories of wrock discussed earlier does wizard rock locate its

origins in filk. Indeed, it is not clear whether wizard rock bands are even aware of the

filk community. In one interview, a member of a wrock band declared, "There is

nothing like this anywhere" (Vineyard 2007), even though filk music has existed for

decades, and a significant portion of filk music celebrates favorite books and movies.

[6.17] Wizard rock could certainly become part of the filk community by deciding to

do so, or deciding for itself that there is a connection between the two communities.

Unless or until it does this, however, I do not consider wrockers to be filkers. That

conclusion rests partly on my belief that to label wizard rock "filk" would be to force a label on wizard rock that it has not chosen, and each community should have the right

to define for itself what its identity will be and who counts as a member of the group.

To do otherwise—to broaden the label of filk beyond those who selfidentify as

members of the community—would put me in the position of an outsider defining a

group, which carries inherent dangers (Tatum 2000:12).

[6.18] My major concern rests in the fact that the failure of wizard rock to identify

and understand its connections to the filk community carries with it consequences for

both groups. Although I've been involved in filk for only 2 years, I have been involved

in fandom for a decade. In that decade, I've attended conventions, published short

stories, been a guest at conventions, helped run conventions, and witnessed the

continued fracturing of fandom into subgroups—anime, graphic novels, gamers, and so on. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with subgroups, and it is perfectly acceptable

for people to focus on the aspect of fandom they are drawn to. The problem arises

when those groups lose sight of what connects them and when they cease to identify

with each other as part of the larger group known as "fandom." Growth and change

are critical to the continued health of any culture. Fragmentation and isolation,

however, are antithetical to a culture's continued health.

[6.19] Groups who share common origins and identities may be able to draw on each

other's resources and expertise. Wizard rock and filk may have overlapping audiences

and might benefit from sharing information about venues and schedules to avoid

creating conflicts for fans. Wizard rock and filk might also be able to assist each other

in solving common problems. For example, both communities are apparently

questioning the balance between enthusiasm and quality.

[6.20] I mentioned earlier, one major discussion in the filk community is about

quality of performance, an issue that has been percolating for decades. Almost 20

years ago, Jenkins observed that within filk, "a star system has started to emerge as

individual performers are drawn from the community…and featured…A form of music

founded on ideals of musical democracy, an acceptance of various competencies, has

become more hierarchical due to the push toward professional standards of technical

perfection" (1992:275).

[6.21] Similar issues also arise in wizard rock. One of the wizard rock Web sites

asserts that the "music of wizard rock varies in a number of ways, from recording

quality to genre to subject matter…To some, it matters very little if the recording

quality or vocal and musical stylings of the performers are not acutely refined…Other

individuals would rather only acknowledge wizard rock bands with exceptional musical

talent" (Wizrocklopedia). A member of the band Whomping Willows, one of the earliest

wrock bands, addressed the controversy by declaring,

[6.22] Half of these bands are populated by kids who are just learning to

play an instrument and record music. The beauty of Wizard Rock is that for

many of the bands, it's nothing more than a LEARNING EXPERIENCE. We, as

the elder statespeople of Wizard Rock, should not be encouraging young

people to worry about categorization and public image. We should be

encouraging them to HAVE FUN. (Wizardrock.org)

[6.23] Filk has wrestled with this issue far longer than wizard rock and might have

some insights to contribute. Conversely, the fact that wizard rock is a much younger

genre might mean that it has some fresh perspectives and insights into the issue. But

if the two groups are not communicating, they will be unable to share those insights.

[6.24] When groups share common origins and identities but fail to recognize those commonalities, it should lead each group into a round of introspection. That

introspection is happening in the filk community, although it is not clear yet what the

outcome will be, or even whether anything will change. The filk community on

LiveJournal (http://community.livejournal.com/filk/) debated the issue of whether

wizard rock is filk. The discussion started with an observation dated April 26, 2009, by

LiveJournal user ultimatepsi:

[6.25] I've noticed an increasing amount of geeky music (nerdcore, video

game bands, Wizard Rock, etc) made by people who don't consider

themselves filkers…It is unclear to me why few of the new geek musicians

are involved with the filk community. Do they not know about it? Are they

judging it to be for amateurs? Do they not feel included, perhaps based on

musical style, or not directly scifi content or some other factor? Do they not

want to share performance space? Is there some other cultural factor that

creates a divide?

[6.26] The resulting discussion ranged through many of the issues and perspectives

that I discuss here, further cementing my belief that no one filker can speak for the

entire community as to whether wizard rock is filk. So for this particular filker, the

answer to the question "Is wizard rock filk?" is that wizard rock is not filk because the members of the wrock community do not define themselves as filkers. And perhaps

the filk community needs to ask itself, as LiveJournal user happyfunpaul does in the

same LiveJournal discussion, whether filkers have "become too closed of a circle, and

need to open up more? Do we have a reputation that drives people away, or is it just

lack of knowledge?" At the same time, filkers need to hold tight to the values that

make filk the distinct subculture that I want to be a member of: the values of inclusion

and of taking joy in music.

7. Acknowledgments

[7.1] This article would not exist without three groups of people, and I am

tremendously grateful for their insights and assistance. First, to the members of the

filk community—thank you for sharing the filk world with me. Second, to the

organizers and fellow presenters at American University's Sixth Conference on

IP/Gender: Mapping the Connections—thank you for providing an opportunity to

combine my professional and personal worlds in such an interesting way. Finally, to

Cameron Crandall and Lisa Broidy, who served as sounding boards as I wrestled with

this project—your comments and suggestions were invaluable, particularly Dr. Broidy,

who sent me the article on authentic identities that caused my thoughts to coalesce

and allowed this essay to finally take shape.

[7.2] Thanks to Allison Morris for hosting the MP3 files.

8. Notes

1. A number of filk resources are available on the Web, with information ranging from

lyrics to explanations of filk and filk etiquette. In this article, I refer to "Filking 101: What Is Filk?", http://www.filk.com/filk101.htm (entry undated); Brooke Lunderville's

Web site, http://catfish.dhs.org/~happyfish/filk (dated June 5, 2009);

M.A.S.S.F.I.L.C., "Filk Defined," http://www.massfilc.org/filkdefined.html (dated March

22, 2008); Gary McGath's "Filk: A New Definition,"

http://www.mcgath.com/filkdef.html (dated May 13, 2002) and "The Spirit of Filk,"

http://www.mcgath.com/spiritfilk.html (dated May 14, 2002); and Nick Smith's "What the Heck Is Filk Music?", hosted at Kay Shapero's site,

http://www.kayshapero.net/filkdef.htm (dated January 13, 2009). I cite these

parenthetically in the text; the versions I cite were accessed on August 4, 2009.

2. Sound clips are provided by Melissa Tatum and Mary Crowell. Crowell is a prominent

filker, both as a solo artist and as a member of the group Three Weird Sisters.

Crowell's Web site is http://www.myspace.com/marycrowell, and that of the Three

Weird Sisters is http://www.myspace.com/officialthreeweirdsisters and

http://www.threeweirdsisters.com.

3. A number of good general wizard rock resources are available on the Web. This

article makes use of Wikipedia's "Wizard Rock, Harry Potter Fandom,"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter_fandom; Wizardrock.org's "What Is Wizard

Rock," http://wizardrock.org/?page_id=2; and Wizrocklopedia's "The History of Wrock," http://wizrocklopedia.com/thehistoryofwizardrock/. I cite these

parenthetically in the text; the versions I cite were accessed on August 4, 2009.

9. Works cited

ChildsHelton, Sally. 2003. This is my tribe. Filk Hall of Fame at FilKONtario, March 29.

http://www.filkontario.ca/hof/hoftribe.html (accessed August 4, 2009).

Davis, Joanna R. 2006. Growing up punk: Negotiating aging identity in a local music

scene. Symbolic Interaction 29:63–69. [doi:10.1525/si.2006.29.1.63]

Jenkins, Henry. 1992. Textual poachers. New York: Routledge.

Kare, Jordin. 1995. Filk music? Interfilk,

http://www.interfilk.org/interfilk/singout.htm#Jordin Kare (accessed August 4, 2009).

Originally published in Singout Magazine.

Kruse, Holly. 1993. Subcultural identity in alternative music community. Popular Music 12:33–41. [doi:10.1017/S026114300000533X]

Peterson, R. A. 2005. In search of authenticity. Journal of Management Studies

42:1083–98. [doi:10.1111/j.14676486.2005.00533.x]

Tatum, Melissa L. 2000. Group identity: Changing the outsider's perspective. George

Mason University Civil Rights Law Journal 10:357–97.

Vineyard, Jennifer. 2007. Harry Potter fandom reaches magical new level thanks to

wizard rock bands. MTV.com,

http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1561855/20070606/story.jhtml (accessed August 4, 2009).

Williams, J. Patrick. 2006. Authentic identities: Straightedge subculture, music, and

the Internet. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 35:173–200.

[doi:10.1177/0891241605285100]

Transformative Works and Cultures, Vol 3 (2009)

Praxis

The Web planet: How the changing Internet divided Doctor Who fan

fiction writers

Leora Hadas

Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel

[0.1] Abstract— This paper analyzes the debate that arose in online Doctor Who

fandom surrounding the switch to moderated submissions for "A Teaspoon and an

Open Mind," the fandom's main fan fiction archive. As has been the case with many

classic texts of science fiction and fantasy, from The Lord of the Rings on, the new adaptation of the cult series Doctor Who was the cause of much tension and conflict

within the fandom. It has opened up the franchise to a vast new audience

unschooled in the fandom's ways or the ways of fandom at large, and the change in

archive policy served as an arena where many of these tensions came to a head. An

indepth analysis of this debate leads to the argument that the cultural logics of

fandom and of participatory culture might be more separate than they initially

appear. Some fans wholly embrace the ideals of Web 2.0 and argue for the archive

as a nonhierarchical, communal space where all content is equal regardless of what

standards it might not meet. Yet while their rhetoric resembles the ideas of

academia about the potential of fandom as an educational space, other, more

veteran fans reject academia, instead using the discourse of private enterprise and

property rights, more commonly associated with the producers of texts than with

their fans and poachers, to argue for the rights of site moderators to regulate

content.

[0.2] Keywords— Adaptation; Archive; A Teaspoon and an Open Mind; Doctor Who;

Fan fiction; Web 2.0

Hadas, Leora. 2009. The Web planet: How the changing Internet divided Doctor Who

fan fiction writers. Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 3.

http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2009.0129.

doi:10.3983/twc.2009.0129

1. Introduction

[1.1] The first days of 2008 saw an upheaval in the large, active, and notoriously

conflicted online fan community of the science fiction series Doctor Who: the fandom's largest fan fiction archive, A Teaspoon and an Open Mind (T&OM,

http://www.whofic.com), stopped allowing stories to be uploaded automatically and

began moderating all submissions. This move was met by a variety of reactions, but

one incident that stands out took place following the banning of popular author

MelindaKitty: another author was prompted to publicize her claims against T&OM and

call for discussion in the pages of a blog called fighting_spoon. In a fandom that has, since the 2005 relaunch of the series, been dealing with increasing fragmentation and

conflict within its ranks, such a rallying cry was all that was needed to set off a loud

debate.

[1.2] In this paper, I wish to present and examine the controversy and subsequent

conflict surrounding the switch to moderation of T&OM not only in light of the

upheavals within Doctor Who fandom, but also within the context of the broader

changes and challenges that online fan communities increasingly face with the advent

of what is commonly called participation culture. I propose that, while the logic of participation might seem to mirror the logic of fandom (Bassett 2008), they are not

one and the same; that even an interpretive fannish community cannot be seen apart

from its own norms and ideals; and that the loose and open nature of participatory

culture as idealized in the Web 2.0 model might, in fact, clash with these ideals as

much as it might clash with the wider cultural model of production it is threatening to

replace. In analyzing the discussion taking place between supporters and detractors of

archive policy on the fighting_spoon community, I highlight the clash of two different

discourses of fandom as they appeared in this case: a fandomasorganizedcommunity view that relies upon the rhetoric of private enterprise and stresses the importance of norms and standards, and a fandomasfreespace discourse echoing

notions expressed in academic literature of fandom as a safe, equalopportunity

creative and didactic environment. This clash also serves to illustrate the problems of

viewing participation culture and fandom as driven by the same logic.

2. Community and conflict: Doctor Who fandom between Old

and Nu

[2.1] Running 26 consecutive years from 1963 to 1989, Doctor Who was not just a

science fiction classic, but also a cultural icon in Britain. After its cancellation, in spite or perhaps because of the various fannish enterprises that stepped up to produce

more of the text, it became something of a niche interest, as an invested and closeknit fan community grew around the Big Finish audio plays and the various lines of books. The 2005 revival of the series, now commonly known as Nu Who, caught these

fans by surprise, and was not necessarily greeted with joy.

[2.2] By January 2008, when the T&OM controversy broke out, the new series of

Doctor Who was enjoying a fantastic popularity. This is attested to by the wild surge of series fan fiction on the site Fanfiction.net—from a mere 710 between 1998 and 2005

to over 12,000 by mid2008. The oncesmall fandom was now met with the scenario

faced by a growing number of cinema and television adaptations and revivals, from

the 2001 The Lord of the Rings films to Battlestar Galactica and Watchmen: a science

fiction or fantasy classic, long loved and cherished by a dedicated fannish minority, suddenly opened to a huge new flux of eager, often young, outsiders with little initial

awareness and investment in the original text and no experience in the ways of its

longtime fandom—or indeed, any fandom at all. Although these newcomers share the

same virtual space with more veteran fans, they do not necessarily share the same

virtual community, constructed by practices and norms that have sometimes been in

place well before said community came online.

[2.3] This nowcommon scenario is among several factors that have seen fandom

change a great deal from the isolated and misunderstood subculture first studied by

nowcanonical accounts such as those of Jenkins (1992), Tulloch and Jenkins (1995),

and Penley (1991), among others. What was once thought of as a unique viewing

position of intense, creative involvement has been steadily losing its exclusivity under

assault by the combined forces of marketing and technology. Media corporations have

long since come to appreciate the value of a fiercely devoted and invested crowd of

consumers, despite fans' unruly ways with their texts; the Internet and other digital

technologies that allow users to create, manipulate, and share content provide the

other piece of the puzzle. What was once reserved for a particular audience—whether

they were considered freaks and geeks or the countercultural elite—is rapidly

becoming all the rage in media production as well as consumption.

[2.4] All these changes have necessitated a move away from canonical ideas and

conceptions of all things fannish, from the definition of a fan to the inherent value (or

lack thereof) of fan work. Recent fandom studies have for some time now been

attempting to formulate their own discourses around evolving fandom; not everything

is textual poaching (Jenkins and Hills 2006; McGowan 2007). Rather, trends in current

research often approach fandom within the larger concept of participation culture and

the power struggle and cultural shift inherent in the blurring of borders between

producers and consumers. The exclusive narrative of fandom as a unique

phenomenon, which fans themselves often adopt in their selfconstruction opposite

"mundanes" and "couch potatoes" (Merrick 2004), thus gives way before the inclusive narrative of participation culture as an open and empowering playground in which the

entire audience can play, regardless of their level of involvement, experience, or

competence (Lee 2004; Pugh 2004). Of particular interest are the studies of neonate

online communities of mostly teenaged fan fiction writers, which broach the idea of fan

fiction as an experimental arena where young writers can take their first interpretive

and creative steps within an interested and supportive community (Jenkins 2006;

Thomas 2006).

[2.5] Little attention, however, has so far been paid to the reactions of the longtime

fans to all these developments. Such learning and playoriented communities, in

which there is no right way to be a fan, might be perceived as empowering to these young people taking their first steps into participation, but the more experienced and

involved fannish crowd, who are already past their learning stage, now must share

their play space with a multitude of players still mastering the rules. Fandom is more

used to contending with negative stereotypes and keeping to itself lest it draw

dangerous attention from media producers than it is to coping with becoming "cool." It remains to be seen how established fandom will respond to its new status and whether

new participants will adopt their outlook or challenge it (Hills forthcoming).

3. Fans 2.0: Participation versus authority

[3.1] Much as fandom is no static, monolithic body, it would be equally wrong to

make this assumption of the Internet. While interactivity has always been the defining

dimension of the Web, the things that constitute this interactivity—such what content

is under user control and the degree of control afforded—are now considered to have

been recently transformed by a new model of online participation. This model is

commonly labeled Web 2.0.

[3.2] The principal idea behind Web 2.0 is that of the Internet as a platform, not a

provider, of users as producers and participants, not consumers. BitTorrent, MySpace,

Facebook, Wikipedia, and other such Web sites all have in common the function of

enabling users to fill in their own content, presenting them not with a product, but

with a framework. The Web 2.0 rhetoric speaks of Internet by and for the people; the

prerequisite of programming knowledge that was necessary to build one's own Web

site is no longer relevant. Tim O'Reilly, the man behind the Web 2.0 coinage, refers to

the power behind the new model as "harnessing collective intelligence": not only

relying on user contribution to make the bulk of the content on Web sites, but also

depending on the user community to maintain itself and the popularity and viability of

the Web site (O'Reilly 2007). The more a Web 2.0 site or application is used, the

better it becomes.

[3.3] Web 2.0 is a decentralized, nonhierarchical model, relying on and appealing to

the collective power and interest of countless users, the long tail of the curve, rather

than merely to the bulk of powerful companies and advertisers. Data and applications

are not rendered from above onto the people, as in the Microsoft model, but are

constantly available and in constant improvement via their own users. This is hardly

limited to content, but includes the applications themselves, data management, and

even things that might not be appropriately considered the purview of the Netusing

public, such as the aforementioned case of Wikipedia: as Lankshear and Knobel (2007)

put it, information stands as true until someone overwrites it. The model assumes that

all users, by their very nature as content generators, have something of value to contribute.

[3.4] In theory, the participatory logic of the Web 2.0 ethos is the same one that has

been driving fandom for as long as the concept has existed. The cultural shift toward

participation mentioned above has been driven forward by the technologies and

attitudes that characterize this model, and has driven them in turn, as once clearcut

borders between consumers and producers are steadily eroded. Digital technologies

not only make the production and sharing of content—such as home movies uploaded

to YouTube or amateur music spread through filesharing applications—easier, but

similarly allow easier manipulation of existing content (Jenkins 2006). Sampling,

screencapping, and editing, media consumers transform the face of consumption and

force media companies to reconsider their attitudes toward everything consumption

used to mean.

[3.5] It may seem at first glance, then, that fans and fandom stand only to gain from

participation culture being increasingly adopted and celebrated across the board.

There is an old and strong link between the concepts of interpretive community and

virtual community: Helen Merrick (2004) proposes that the forms and practices

commonly associated with the latter have in fact existed in the former as far back as

fandom existed at all. Historically, fandom has indeed been on the Internet almost

from the moment of its conception, with fan fiction being posted to Usenet as early as

1982 (Hale 2002), before even the earliest works on convergence. The interactive,

digital, and multimodal space of the Internet is in many ways ideal for fandom,

enabling fans to connect across geographical distance and borders, discuss content of

all sorts, and generate their own, from simple fan fiction to elaborate works of

machinima and Flash vids. It may be observed, then, that the Web 2.0 model has had

a profound impact on the conduct of fandom as well (Gooch 2008). If participation is

the essence of fandom, then the changes brought on by the new model should be

fandom's wet dream. However, as the Doctor Who fans are learning, such openness

does not necessarily fit in with their conception of what fandom means. The model

may supposedly thrive on a community of users, but this is a community with different

rules, one much more dispersed and inclusive and seldom as committed as most

communities traditionally associated with fandom. Fans have been conceived as the

elite audience for reasons of their intense involvement both with the text and with

each other, but there is no such prerequisite of care and devotion in the everyday,

casual involvement made possible by Web 2.0's various means. If everybody is free to

become a part of the community, naturally, the community will lose its distinction and

its members will have less and less in common—certainly not a defined ethos that

unifies them on any level.

4. Case study: A Teaspoon and an Open Mind—Background and

methodology

[4.1] Established in September 2003, the A Teaspoon and an Open Mind archive

offered Doctor Who fans a fandomspecific venue modeled after the vast, popular, and (some would say) infamous archive at fanfiction.net (note 1). Authors were able to

upload their stories to the archive by themselves, without intervention or assistance

from the site moderators. With the series' 2005 revival, it quickly became the largest

archive of online Doctor Who fan fiction, hosting over 19,000 stories by over 2,500

authors. More than its size, its chief importance lies in its popularity as the fandom's

definitive archive, a central hub hosting stories of all sorts by authors of all levels of

skill and investment in the text. In the polarized and contested online fandom of

Doctor Who, the archive was neutral, inclusive ground.

[4.2] In the last days of December 2007, T&OM's longtime owners and moderators

announced their retirement from the position and put out a call for moderating

volunteers, passing archive ownership and management over to wellknown writer

Carmen Sandiego and a team that formed under her, whose identities remained

mostly unknown to fandom at large. The transition itself went smoothly until, on

January 5, the new team began implementing changes to archive policies, the biggest

of which was the introduction of moderation on all submissions: stories now had to be

read by the moderator team and approved before being uploaded. Instead of an

instantaneous upload, a story could now take several hours to appear on the site, and

could be rejected from the archive due to errors in spelling, grammar, or formatting,

or for being content other than fan fiction.

[4.3] On January 4, with the changes announced but not yet implemented,

MelindaKitty, a longstanding and popular author, posted a nonfiction essay in which

she referred to a character as a poof, a derogatory British slang term for a

homosexual. Soon after, Carmen Sandiego commented on the essay (using the site's

builtin comments feature) requesting the removal of what she perceived as an

offensive slur, and noting that essays were no longer allowed on the site. To this,

MelindaKitty reacted by moving the essay into the fan fiction category without altering

its content, only to receive a second warning. Another user, Leda, claiming to be

MelindaKitty's wife, used the site's comments feature to reply to Carmen Sandiego's

warnings in increasingly rude and confrontational language. On January 5, both

MelindaKitty and Leda were permanently banned from the archive. As MelindaKitty

was a widely popular author, this event did not remain an isolated incident, but was

used by her and others as a rallying cry for writers who viewed the archive's new

policies as restrictive and unacceptable.

[4.4] Soon, the incident began to send waves through Doctor Who's LiveJournal fandom, the main fannish venue of many archive participants. Participants and

observers commented on the issue though much of the conversation occurred in

friends lock. At the time of these events—and today—I was on the friends lists of

several of the T&OM moderators and thus was privy to locked posts and discussions.

Yet my ability to view them does not negate the fact that they were not meant for

public viewing, and using their content in research would be a highly unethical breach

of user privacy. I must also consider the possibility that my view of the case is

incomplete: there may have been other friends locked posts to which I cannot gain

access. Thus, I chose not to analyze and comment upon those posts; nor did I feel, in

the interest of balance, it would be appropriate to include the public posts in the

corpus. I do, however, wish to briefly discuss the possible implications of the acts of

public and private posting themselves.

[4.5] The locking of posts—using a site feature, in this case the friends feature, to

restrict the ability to access and comment on content—may itself be viewed as a form

of enforcement of norms. The user who makes a locked post is literally determining

the borders of the in and outgroup and who is qualified to have their voice heard; in

other words, the very act of friends locking defines the fannish space as a closed and

regulated one, a thing apart from the wideopen Internet and the ideal of equalopportunity opinions. While public posts are not without their issues of power relations

—it is difficult to argue equality between poster and commenter when the former's

words are at a fixed point at the top of the page—they do invite participation from

anyone who happens to find them, making it possible even for complete strangers and

newcomers to the site to have as much of a say as any of the longtime users or the

poster's close friends. Locked posts, on the other hand, mean that any discussion is

held only within the community of informed users who have in some way proven their

participatory competence. In this case, I might argue that the purpose was the specific

avoidance of any encounter with such uninformed players, both because these posts

had chronicled the posters' personal reactions to stressful events and because—as we

shall see—fans on the opposite side of the debate were viewed as disruptive and prone

to misconduct. Additionally, friends locking the posts allowed the posters to speak

freely without risking any breach of norms of proper behavior in the eyes of the

greater community, placing their restrained and regulated conduct opposite the public

outcry of their detractors.

[4.6] What I wish to analyze, instead, is what was probably the main event of the

"Teaspoon kerfuffle," which took place roughly two weeks after the initial incident. On January 19, T&OM writer Nenya established the blog she called fighting_spoon. This

blog was not under friends lock; its proclaimed purpose was to offer Nenya's claims

against the archive moderators and invite other users to react to them. The discussion

in this forum happened over four days, the last comments coming in on the 23rd. Of the total of 202 comments made to 4 posts, 91 were from anonymous users, 88 were

made by 11 loggedin LJ users, and the remaining 23 were made by 4 people who

signed by name only. Fighting_spoon became the arena in which both sides left their

private blogs and actually came out to respond to each other's claims. In best Internet

tradition, the discussion began with resistance and mutual creative insults, but soon

posters were shaping agenda and arguing at greater length, presenting their views

and backing them up with a variety of arguments.

[4.7] Of course, the great number of anonymous or nameonly comments in the

community raises its own set of methodological problems, with which all online

research grapples. For one, beyond the 15 who identified themselves by name or user

name, I have no real ability to tell how many people were involved in the discussion,

nor which anonymous comments might have been made by the same user. The

various personal blog posts I've mentioned above and the comments made on them

help with this somewhat: all signed, they give a clear sense that even if only a few

people were active in the debate itself, a great many more were watching from the

sidelines and expressing support of one position or another. I also attempted to single

out stylistic features and selfpositioning declarations that gave me some idea, if not of

a commenter's identity, then of their fandom background. Still, these are only partial

means. The problem of fannish groups closing up their discussions and engaging each

other only under the safety of anonymity may be viewed as proceeding naturally from

the character of online fandom, as subcommunities are able to isolate themselves and

control the terms of their engagement with those outside the group. As such, the main

focus of my analysis was not the users and their actual identities, the study of which

was limited, but the text itself, and how those users presented their identity and

played it out through discourse.

[4.8] Approaching fighting_spoon, my interest was twofold: in the ideas that each

side expressed regarding fandom and how it should look and work, and in the ways in

which these ideas were formulated. The rhetoric used, I believe, is as essential to the

understanding of the conflict as the worldviews it conveys. The conflict at its core is

about standards of writing, about what deserves and does not deserve to be

published, and about what is appropriate or inappropriate for publishing in a fannish

context. It is thus interesting to observe the different approaches to the use of

language in discussion—the adherence to codes both on the microlevel, such as

spelling and grammar, and on the macrolevel, of the construction of arguments.

Stylistically, I was also interested in levels of formality displayed by the users on both

sides, theorizing that the more normoriented T&OM supporters would use fewer swear

words, fewer attitude markers such as exclamation marks, fewer emoticons and less

Net speak, and fewer rhetorical devices such as loaded words and sarcasm. I did not,

however, expect to see a difference in the degree to which fannish slang and terminology were used, reasoning that both sides were aiming to show cultural

competence in the struggle to determine whose way is the right way for the culture to

go. The arena for stylistic analysis that yielded the most interesting results was the

appeals made by both groups for the validity of their claims, on which they justified

their understanding of how fandom works and their right to define its nature.

[4.9] My themeoriented analysis focused on the use and construction of key terms

within the theory that has been outlined in previous sections. I considered how

participants posed and related to issues of community, content, rights of selfexpression, gatekeeping, and fannish norms, as well as any reference to the conflict between the ideals of participation and classic fandom. I read to discover what

community meant to both sides, what they described as legitimate and illegitimate

content, to whom they granted the right of gatekeeping, and how all these things

came together to define what fandom was to them. Where possible, I also attempted

to pry out markers of fannish identity, particularly as they relate to veteran versus

new fans, and the value placed upon such identities. Of course, I have no way to know

if the commenter claiming years of experience indeed has them, but the statements

themselves may be used to demonstrate the importance (or lack thereof) placed on

such things by both sides in the discussion. In this same vein, I looked at how each of

the groups constructed and worked to delegitimize the other's claims to authority and

deciding power, and the personal and group characteristics they found undesirable. It

may be seen, then, that the categories for analysis were drawn from the key concepts

and issues that formulate the theory of conflict in evolving online fandom. I shall now

attempt to use the resulting analysis to demonstrate the workings of these concepts

and issues within the case studied.

5. The fighting_spoon discourse

[5.1] Reading fighting_spoon from a content and styleoriented point of view reveals

the clash of two particular discourses, each of them based around a model of how a

fannish community should ideally look and work in relation to questions of content,

gatekeeping, who is a valued community member, and who should hold a position of

authority. These discourses operate on the levels of ideology and rhetoric, both of

which I will now present.

[5.2] The model offered by the T&OM critics relies on the discourse of democracy and

of participation, constructing online fandom as an open opportunity space. In their

view, not only is the ability to write fan fiction a basic right, but so is the ability to post it—a right that is not preconditioned by anything and should not be subject to any

limitation. While they acknowledge that content can be, to use their term,

objectionable, they propose that such content should not be banned but posted and discussed, and that readers also have a right to ignore what they disapprove of. Even

while claiming to understand the need for some standards, they stress that "just fan

fiction," as opposed to professional publishing, should be fun and thus unrestricted. As MelindaKitty sums up her fannish position: "I believe that all writers must start

somewhere. If you don't like what they write, don't read it. That's your right. Just

posting a story is a major accomplishment for some…Comparing Teaspoon to a private

publishing house is laughable. It's fanfiction. We don't own any of the characters,

rights, or canon. We make no money. We sell no product" (http://fighting

spoon.livejournal.com/999.html?thread=33255#t33255).

[5.3] Another feature of this free, open space is the idea that everyone should have a

voice in the running of the archive, with many commenters complaining that the

moderators had been uncommunicative, that they should hold polls or consult with the

archive's writers before deciding on or implementing policies, and in one case, even

that they should be democratically elected. Stylistically, the terminology used also

echoes this discourse: users talk about a public arena, of the Internet as the "greatest democracy there is," and of online fandom activity based not on rules but on good

faith. There are many mentions of rights, and many references to free speech, once

even citing the First Amendment. At the same time, these commenters are also far

likelier to ask for or encourage discussion, addressing the need to talk. While this may

be viewed as the one tactic open to them as opposed to the site moderators, it may

also support the view of a community space based on openness and equality.

[5.4] Fandom is viewed by the antiT&OM users as not only a democratic space, but

a didactic one as well. According to these comments, since fan fiction writers needn't

be held up to standards but should be encouraged to selfexpress in any way, fannish

spaces should ideally function as safe places where young and inexperienced writers

can learn their craft by doing. It is interesting to see how the argument, in both

content and style, is reminiscent of Thomas's and Jenkins's abovementioned papers

about young people's involvement in online fan writing. The turns of phrase the anti

T&OM commenters use are not unlike those of fans interviewed by Thomas or Jenkins.

Writes one fan,

[5.5] I want to make sure others have a life INSIDE Teaspoon. It was a

fantastic community. Many authors build their spare time around it. For

someone less resilient, being banned from or rejected by such a community

could put them off writing forever.

[5.6] That would be inexcusable. Fanfiction is about testing boundaries,

making believe, and having fun with characters we all know and love.

(http://fightingspoon.livejournal.com/999.html?thread=12007#t12007)

[5.7] Writes another:

[5.8] Why have up [ sic] become so much more picker [ sic] on content and

content representation?

[5.9] If a reader doesn't like it, they have the choice not to read it. Those

who do want to read and will give us important input on improving. Isn't the

point of reviewing and commenting to improve and gain help from our fellow

fans on our writing? So shouldn't they be telling us how to improve, not you

by limiting us? (http://fightingspoon.livejournal.com/1157.html?

thread=1413#t1413)

[5.10] Opposite that, the proT&OM comments offer a model of fandom relying on a

different discourse: not of democracy, which they dismiss as irrelevant, but of free

enterprise. They argue that a fan fiction archive exists apart from any community that

might form among its users and has no duty to it, and that those who pay for the

server space and volunteer their time and effort to maintain and manage the site

should be able to run it as they see fit and filter any content they deem inappropriate.

Frequent expressions of gratitude to the moderators for their hard work, and

assertions that any unhappy T&OM users can and should respond simply by opening

their own archives, point to a view of fandom not as a contentbased space where a

community of users runs itself, but as relying on the organization of members who

create private spaces and topdown frameworks: "The site isn't a democracy. Are you

paying for it? Did you contribute to setup costs? Have you been running it in your

freetime over the past five years? Nope, don't think so. Noone forces anyone to use

it. You don't like how it's run? Tough luck" (http://fighting

spoon.livejournal.com/999.html?thread=13031#t13031).

[5.11] Fan creation, as these users view it, does not automatically command respect

by its very nature, and they do not speak of it as having inherent value, whether

creative or didactic. Moderators are not only permitted to practice quality control, but

also encouraged to do it by commenters who complain of the lack of standards in fan

fiction. To these users, rather than being an open space, fandom also has rules that

must be followed in order to participate properly—in this case, rules of language as

well as rules of personal conduct.

[5.12] I'm delighted that summaries and submissions are being moderated

—it's not just a matter of proper spelling and grammar, but it's also a

question of what counts as a story. Is a selfinsert where the author

"appears" in the TARDIS and yells at the Doctor, or shags Jack, a story? Why

should a summary be half a screen long? And as for authors who state in

their summary that they don't care about spelling and grammar and "just

judge the story," if they can't be bothered then why should I?

(http://fightingspoon.livejournal.com/1157.html?thread=8837#t8837)

[5.13] Another aspect of this is the promoderator construction of the situation as

one in which a lone malcontent or clique was banned for misconduct rather than

difference of opinion. Arguments against the antiT&OM faction repeatedly cite the

documented instances of personal attacks on Carmen Sandiego, and often accuse the

author of posing as multiple people to give the appearance of a larger unhappy crowd.

These users have a clear idea of what construes norms and misbehavior in an online

fannish environment, and they often stress the importance of norms, as opposed to

MelindaKitty's attempts to turn the discussion to posting policy.

[5.14] A key term that repeats many times in the discourse of these users is false

entitlement. T&OM's defenders use this term to reject any claim to an equal say in archive management, stressing, often in a vitriolic and confrontational tone, the point

that being producers of content does not make writers automatically entitled to a place

to put up any sort of content they wish. The stylistic flavoring of the proT&OM

arguments and the discourse they rely on are defined by the frequent use of the term,

as well as references to the archive as private, payment for Web space, and the

unpaid work of Web site moderators. Some of these users even use the term private

enterprise to define their fannish outlook in the debate itself. "If you want to have the right to boss the mods around, you could pay them. Otherwise, you're really just not

entitled to any say in archive policy. That's not fascism, it's the nature of private

enterprise" (http://fightingspoon.livejournal.com/999.html?thread=23527#t23527).

[5.15] Aside from this use of the terminology and style of arguing, I had expected to

find linguistic elements that correspond to the two groups' positions regarding norms

and standards: this expectation was only partially fulfilled. With a few exceptions—all

signedin posters on the T&OM critics' side, community founder Nenya among them—

users on both sides display the use of correct spelling and grammar, as well as

properly structured sentences and paragraphs. The main difference of style was in

tone of argument: while the archive supporters' tone is occasionally vitriolic, their

expressions remain ones of restrained sarcasm and mockery, expressing their outrage

without caps lock, exclamation marks, or even swear words. Their tone, for the most

part, is factual and straightforward. The T&OM critics, on the other hand, show a more

informal, emotional tone, including the use of harsh language, exclamation marks, and

capslock and emotes (the use of descriptives surrounded by asterisks to mean actions

performed, such as *hugs* or *offers hand*). As anticipated, little difference was

found in the use of fannish terms and slang. While different than what I expected,

these findings do show a looser attitude toward language use and a greater emphasis

on informal communication on the side of the antiT&OM faction. Perhaps the fact that

this was not linked to a lesser grasp of language indicates that this use is a matter of choice rather than a side effect of reduced competence.

[5.16] Perhaps the most interesting stylistic find, however, and the one that might

go furthest in supporting the theory, is the ways in which each side framed its claims

as relevant, what each of them claimed as the source of their authority on fannish

matters. In the discourse of the T&OM detractors, the appeal was made to community,

to what MelindaKitty calls her fellow fans. Her posts and others' make many references to the friends they have acquired in the archive, to its fun communal atmosphere, and

claim to be fighting for T&OM, essentially constructing the changes to the Web site as

a hostile takeover of a community hub. This attitude further reveals itself in a

readiness to speak in the first person plural; comments on this side of the discussion

often use "we"—as in the "we writers" in whose name Nenya claims to speak in her opening post—and refer to the experience of other archive users, something the

opposing side rarely if ever does. Another feature of this style is the frequent use of

appeals, both to unknown readers who might be following the discussion without

speaking up and to commenters on the other side of the arguments. Devices such as

pleading with the readers to ask themselves if this is "the Teaspoon you joined,"

rhetorical questions, and Nenya's invitation to users to "talk to me" all seek to include all participants in the discussion, whether commenters or lurkers, as part of the

community that is being attacked.

[5.17] In this view, community is blatantly opposed to authority: from reading these

users' arguments, one would hardly guess that the moderators are all fans and fan

fiction writers themselves, members of the same community whose privilege is

restricted entirely to the archive. Thus the opposing side is delegitimized not simply as

a minority, but as outsiders who have no such sense of community, and are not

authorized to speak for it, much less run it. In contrast, those who argue against this

takeover repeatedly affirm their connection and devotion to the site and to the

fandom, even while lamenting specific developments. One user writes: "It makes me

want to tear my hair out, but I am leery of openly complaining. I have so many lovely

reviews and comments, and so much history there, I'd hate to lose it all…but it's

getting harder and harder for people to stay on the right side of the mods"

(http://fightingspoon.livejournal.com/999.html?thread=2023#t2023).

[5.18] However, the supporters of T&OM's policy speak from an authoritative position

of experience, speaking as senior members who understand how fandom works. Users

on this side tend to cite their experience in other fandoms, with other archives, to

demonstrate that the T&OM situation is normal, indeed lenient as compared to other

archives. Many comments express amazement at 12 to 14 hours being considered a

long waiting period, offering tales of archives that have much stricter rules and may

take days and weeks to update sites and occasionally noting that T&OM's users should be grateful that stories are uploaded as quickly as they are. Not only this, but several

such comments also bring up their experience with similar fandom kerfuffles, giving

the impression that they have seen too many to take them seriously. See for example

this anonymous comment: "Maybe you missed the gigantic furore a few years back

when ff.net banned NC17 fic and songfic and a bunch of users got TOSed. People had

much the same tantrums as you're having now. Archives change their rules. That's

life" (http://fightingspoon.livejournal.com/999.html?thread=14823#t14823).

[5.19] Not only are rule changes standard things, says this user, but "that's life," the unavoidable reality of fandom that is selfevident to those who have experience within

it. While the anonymity of the discussion prevents us from learning whether the

commenters presenting such arguments truly are veteran fans, such reliance on

fandom familiarity combined with degrading references to the age of the complainers

("because you're three years old and cannot live without instant gratification," or more tellingly, "teenagers who can't write to save their lives") indicate that they consider such experience a source of authority and cultural capital. The condescending tone

shared by this and other similar posts, as well as the frequent references to the real

lives of the moderators—lives that presumably consist of jobs, studies, and families,

things of the adult world—all point to the importance that these commenters place on

maturity and adult conduct, if not adult status. "They probably have lives/are in

different time zones/have better things to do. I've been in fandoms where archives

could go weeks between updates" (http://fightingspoon.livejournal.com/1157.html?

thread=4485#t4485).

[5.20] While the image presented by these various discursive features is highly

polarized, it must be remembered that it arises from the analysis of what was,

essentially, a fight and not a search for compromise. Attitudes on both sides are no

doubt much more nuanced, both in themselves and in the differences between

individual participants; for the moment, fighting_spoon paints a broadstroke image of

the issues and end positions involved in the conflict.

6. Conclusions

[6.1] Both the arguments they make and the style in which they make them indicate

that the T&OM critics have Webshaped views of how fandom ought to look:

community as shaped by content and the ability to share it freely, regardless of

quality, because by definition, all content is good. (The Web 2.0 model of fan fiction,

as it were.) Essentially, the antiT&OM faction in fighting_spoon wishes only for what it has grown used to receiving from the Internet: an open archive, communityrun and

without enforced standards. The virtual spaces of fandom in this conception are all

common spaces, regardless of who provides and runs them. Rather than owners or moderators, archives and lists have maintainers, who are expected to provide only the

framework. In the debate reviewed, these fans display a great deal of confidence in

the ability of the community to moderate itself; in their view, all the archive's users

are qualified to comment on its policies, and they reject the idea of the archivist's right

to control site content even when this is repeatedly pointed out to be a norm in

fandom.

[6.2] T&OM's supporters, on the other hand, not only reject this attitude wholesale,

but also view the opposite group's behavior and attitude as a breach of an existing fan

community ethos that does have and does stress a code of conduct. Unlike the claim

for fandom as a free space without hierarchies, they emphasize the (thankless)

voluntary nature of the moderator's work and the upholding of some standards even

when these constrain selfexpression. A community, as such, is built up on norms, not

rights. It is easy—perhaps deceptively so—to recognize how such a view would be

formed in a marginalized community, working through interpersonal connections and

word of mouth, much as fandom had been before it was revolutionized by the

Internet. In such a setup, it would make sense for voluntary work, vital for the

community's survival, to be awarded respect and status; in the age of printcopied

fanzines and conventions organized by unpaid volunteers, moderators or their

equivalents were very much necessary, and one risked a great deal more by breaching

rules of conduct than a banning from one fan fiction archive among many.

[6.3] As noted, many of the T&OM critics' arguments seem to be lifted from recent

studies on young people's new fan communities online, but they may seem familiar

even to those who don't read academic papers—a similar rhetoric is often used by fans

to justify their position as opposed to the original creators of media text. The right to

selfexpression—the idea that everyone is entitled to have a creative go at popular

texts, by dint of their very popularity—has long been a staple argument of fan fiction

authors. As opposed to an establishment often viewed as oppressive, hoarding its

textual goods, fandom constructs itself as a subversive free space that poses no limits

on textual play, where readers and writers are not simply equal in status, but the lines

between them are blurred to invisible. Its communal nature is held up as one of

fandom's great strengths and the appropriate answer to a system in which texts are

treated as products in the hierarchical logic of capitalism. As the broad acceptance of

the textual poaching terminology might tell us, fandom is quite willing to revel in and

even uphold as an ideal its own lawlessness.

[6.4] Yet when used not from fans to major companies but from fans to fans, this

rhetoric of freedom from rules meets a great deal of resistance, and even scorn, as its

proponents are accused of a false sense of entitlement and bluntly told that they have

no innate right to freedom in every fannish space. The T&OM's supporters' use of arguments regarding property rights, associated more with copyright holders' side of

the fandom discussion, completely turns things over. As one commenter says: "So you

claim the right to free speech despite the fact that you are working with copyright

materials that you have not obtained permission or rights to use…but the mods of

Teaspoon do not have the right of a publisher to reject work because they have not

obtained permission or rights? That's rather hypocritical" (http://fighting

spoon.livejournal.com/999.html?thread=36839#t36839).

[6.5] The application and outcome of this logic are, of course, different: the fans'

actual right to write is in this discussion an axiom, not put to question. Both sides in

the debate are, after all, in the business of fan fiction. Still, the owners of the archive

are granted a position of gatekeeping that is denied the owners of the copyright. Some

participants, as in an extract quoted above, go so far as to grant them the right to

decide what counts as a story, what falls within the purview of good, acceptable fan

work and what does not—a right that fans vehemently deny commercial bodies (see,

for example, the case of Warner Bros. and Harry Potter fandom, in Jenkins 2006).

[6.6] Perhaps this is a sign of double standards within fandom, and then perhaps this

demonstrates how a community based on an ambiguous relationship with laws and

rules keeps itself from degenerating into anarchy. The power relations between the

BBC and Doctor Who's fans and between the T&OM moderators and the archive's

authors and readership are nothing alike, of course: on such a level playing field, the

fans have no one to defend their rights but their fellows in the community itself, no

laws to fall back on but selfregulated norms, nor can they hope to enjoy a reward for

their work beyond communal recognition. As volunteers spending their own time and

money, the T&OM moderators are no media conglomerate in a cold, strictly business

relationship with media consumers, but work out of goodwill and thus are more

entitled to receive goodwill in turn. Possibly a simple ingroup bias is at work: it is

certainly much easier to identify with the interests of a fellow fan than with those of

the media company that might present a danger to fandom as a whole. But possibly,

in order to preserve the cohesive and inclusive nature that allows it to function as a

subculture constantly justifying its own existence, it becomes necessary for fandom to

adopt this extracareful discourse concerning the ownership rights and private space of

individual members. This is similar to the different attitudes toward plagiarism in

fandom: lifting paragraphs wholesale from the original text is merely dismissed as lazy

writing, while doing the same from another fan author's story usually results in

widespread shunning (Hale 2002). Either way, this problematizes the nowpopular

image of fandom as an open space of learning as opposed to a space of commercial

restriction, and even more so, its position opposite the cultural shift toward

participation.

[6.7] On a concluding note: although A Teaspoon and an Open Mind did not change any of its policies as a result of the fighting_spoon incident, and despite several

attempts to create alternate archives to serve as community hubs, the site continues

to thrive and its popularity remains undiminished. Whether this is in spite of or

because of its policies is hard to determine; the very fact of the conflict remains to

illustrate the complicated shift that online fandom is undergoing, along with the

medium within which it works.

7. Acknowledgments

[7.1] A previous version of this article was originally part of work for the course

"Internet and Popular Culture," taught by Dr. Limor Shifman, whose help and input

have been invaluable. I would also like to thank Dr. Matt Hills for his interest and

comments.

8. Note

1. As a large multifandom archive that only rarely serves as the main fan fiction

repository of a fandom, Fanfiction.net is perhaps not the best comparison to make;

however, it is the prevalent one made by participants in the discussion that I study,

which I felt was telling.

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Transformative Works and Cultures, Vol 3 (2009)

Symposium

The magic of television: Thinking through magical realism in recent

TV

Lynne Joyrich

Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, United States

[0.1] Abstract— After decades in which television has been marked as more banal

than bewitching, recalling the "magic of television" is more likely to evoke a sense of wonder for the perceived innocence of an earlier televisual audience than for

television itself. With TV offered on demand, captured with DVRs, downloaded or

watched streaming on the Web, purchased as DVD sets, miniaturized for private

screenings, jumbosized for public spectacles, monitored in closed circuits, and

accessed for open forums, oncemysterious television flows have flowed to new

media forms, giving TV an appearing/disappearing, nowyouseeit/nowyoudon't

magical act of its own. Has TV disappeared, or has it multiplied—redoubled each

time it's sawed in half, replicating like rabbits pulled out of a hat? Is it still TV or

something else when programs are screened (as if through a magic curtain) via

today's delivery systems?

[0.2] Keywords— Fantasy; Magical realism; Reality; Television

Joyrich, Lynne. 2009. The magic of television: Thinking through magical realism in

recent TV. Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 3.

http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2009.0165.

[1] "Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It is with great pleasure that I introduce

you to the magic of television." It was with these words on August 26, 1936, that BBC

announcer Leslie Mitchell inaugurated the first public television broadcast (Wheen

1985:1949) (note 1). Nearly threequarters of a century later, that phrase, "the magic of television," is still with us, even as its connotations have changed, along with

transformations in depictions and deployments of the televisual. After decades in

which television has been marked as more banal than bewitching, recalling the magic

of television is now more likely to evoke a sense of wonder for the perceived innocence

of an earlier televisual audience than for television itself. At the time of Mitchell's

statement, the magic of television consisted of its proclaimed power to transport

viewers even as they remained set in front of a console—the ability to reveal other

worlds, constructing TV itself as otherwordly. Its magic lay in its supposed

transparent, objective nature (paradoxically, in its factual, not fantasmatic capacities),

seemingly allowing viewers to see through it to a real happening elsewhere but still

miraculously visible at home. Today, this belief in transparency has long been critiqued

(as much by everyday viewers as by scholars), and the transportation of television is as evident in how TV has magically transported itself into other media realms as in

how it transports its viewers. With TV offered on demand, captured with DVRs,

downloaded or watched streaming on the Web, purchased as DVD sets, miniaturized

for private screenings, jumbosized for public spectacles, monitored in closed circuits,

and accessed for open forums, oncemysterious television flows have flowed to new

media forms, giving TV an appearing/disappearing, nowyouseeit/nowyoudon't

magical act of its own. Has TV disappeared, or has it multiplied—redoubled each time

it's sawed in half, replicating like rabbits pulled out of a hat? Is it still TV or something else when programs are screened (as if through a magic curtain) via today's delivery

systems?

[2] Given its alchemical transmutations, there's a different kind of magic involved as

television has transformed itself within our media reality. Likewise, this reality is itself transforming, requiring imaginative modes of thinking about television and the real

within our mediaverse—creative ways of talking about these appearing/disappearing

acts that can account for both their prosaic and perplexing aspects, their ordinary and

extraordinary elements. This may seem to require entirely new terms and traditions,

ones that can go beyond the binaries by which we typically categorize cultural texts.

Yet there is a wellknown creative tradition (or, more accurately, tradition s)

emphasizing exactly these kinds of transformations between levels of reality and

mediation, fact and fantasy: the textual formations of magical realism.

[3] While suggestively signifying the mix of the mysterious and the mundane, the

term magical realism has itself been mysteriously absent from most discussions of TV

(at least of U.S., and other Western and/or global northern, TV formats). Despite the

productivity of the phrase in art and literary criticism (where, interestingly, the term

means quite different things, as it has been taken to indicate a new objectivity of

extreme realism in art historical accounts of visual work, but a marvelous unreality in

literary categorizations of written work), the term is not deployed often in regard to

television. TV might be the ideal medium for thinking together logics of the real and

the unreal, the "objective" and the "out of this world." Why then isn't the term used more—whether to name a particular genre on television, an available strategy of

representation on which a variety of TV texts might rely, or, most intriguingly, the

status of television as a whole?

[4] One possible aspect of this, as previously noted, has to do with the

disappearing/reappearing act of TV in our multimediascape; another is tied to the

visibility or invisibility of various traditions in our multinationalscape. Paradoxically

(though with the kind of paradox that magical realism itself might relish), the visibility

or realization of certain national traditions on the world stage—their real dominance in

terms of global media traffic—may lead to an invisibility, a derealization, of their appeal to the unreal. That is, their very certainty in terms of cultural recognition may

lead to a curious lack of recognition of the ways in which they register uncertainty.

Thus, while magical realism has been associated with various national, regional, or

diasporic traditions (obviously Latin American narrative, and also Yiddish, African, and

Indian narrative, among others, that comment on the place of the marginalized), it

has not been seen as having a prominent place in dominant AngloAmerican culture—

precisely because of that culture's prominence. In other words, magic realism has

been theorized as a form that, in narrating the emergence of the mystical within the

matteroffact, recognizes that matters of fact—particularly facts of power and

dominance and of who has the dominance to mark certain things as fact—must be

interrogated. In this way, it registers the presence of the other—not only the

otherworldly literalized in the mysticism or magic, but also the worldly other, those

who historically have been othered on the world stage. If magical realism has

therefore been seen as a form that gives voice to the disempowered (by imbuing with

power that which is not acknowledged as part of the rational—and economically

rationalized—world), then it may make sense that it has been associated more with

globally disadvantaged cultures than with globally hegemonic ones. But, of course, it is

precisely the status of sense that magical realism (not to mention television) calls into

question—which is exactly why TV may be an interesting place for (or displacement of)

this form.

[5] In fact, there are a number of recent U.S. television programs that might usefully

be claimed as magical realist, even though these are typically categorized, by both

industry and audience, through other genre and marketing divisions. Consider, for

example, premium TV's Six Feet Under (HBO, 2001), Carnivale (HBO, 2003), Dead Like Me (Showtime, 2003), and John From Cincinnati (HBO, 2007), and, from standard network television, Tru Calling (Fox, 2003), Wonderfalls (Fox, 2004), Lost (ABC, 2004), Heroes (NBC, 2006), Pushing Daisies (ABC, 2006), Journeyman (NBC, 2006), Eli Stone (ABC, 2007), and Life on Mars (ABC, 2008). There are many others that deploy magical moments: from soap operas that include stories of supernatural

enchantment (not only soaps explicitly marketed as paranormal serials, like Passions

[NBC, 1999], but apparently normal serials too, like Days of Our Lives [NBC, 1965]

and One Life to Live [ABC, 1968]) to primetime series (like parts of the biblically inspired Kings [NBC, 2009], the "satanically" inspired Reaper [CW, 2007)], and just the secularly inspired civic quirkiness of the cop show The Unusuals [ABC, 2009]).

And, of course, there are aspects of magic across science fiction and fantasy

programming. Given that latter association, it is tempting to read U.S. TV's turn to

magical realism in terms of the attention paid to fantasy programs that have gained

cult TV status and thus cult TV's fan base (note 2). Yet, while the connections to

fantasy genres are telling in some ways, they don't tell the whole story; for rather

than only focusing on the fantastic, it is equally important to read this in terms of the complex, shifting notions of the real in even the most prosaic everyday television.

[6] It is exactly in its movement between and across the fantastic and the realistic

that magical realism (dis)locates itself, registering the determinate indeterminacy of

interstitial cultures by its refusal to come down solely on one side or the other—just

like television, in its own move between fantasy and reality. Both of these terms

( fantasy and reality) designate TV genres—and not just any TV genres, but ones that are especially significant to commercial television's place (even continued survival) in

today's multichannel, multimedia, multinational corporate universe. Faced with both

increased competition for users from other media arenas and increased correlation in

ownership across these arenas (and so with paradoxical pressures toward, on the one

hand, unification and, on the other, fragmentation), television has come up with its

own dual, if seemingly opposed, modes of response. This is evident in not only

technological but also generic developments, as commercial TV has turned in one

direction toward reality programming and, simultaneously, in the other direction of

fantasy.

[7] Both might be seen as strategic choices for TV today. Reality programming is, of

course, relatively cheap to produce, and, given the fillintheblanks structure of many

popular reality shows, such formats are easy to trade on the world market, gaining a

desirable status in the transnational traffic in media/informational products. Further,

the emphasis on reality might be seen (at least by the industry) as strategically

desirable for television's status more specifically: reiterating announcements of the

medium's privileged relation to liveness, collective immediacy, and eventfulness,

reality programming can still try to stake a claim for television over and above other

media forms. Conversely, fantasy TV operates not by trying to claim priority over

other media but precisely by connecting and converging with them: television's

fantastic programs depend on constructing—and, more significantly, spurring viewers

to construct—expansive universes that encourage further exploration across a wide

range of technological, textual, and performative options (through wikis, blogs, games,

fan productions, conventions both live and virtual, and so on).

[8] With, then, the simultaneous development of both of these (at first glance polar)

strategies—the real and the fantastic—the saliency of magical realism to TV (even, or

maybe especially, to reality TV) becomes more apparent. After all, just as much as

fantasy programs, reality TV too promises magic. It has productively been read in

terms of its pedagogically realist function for neoliberal society (teaching us, as Laurie

Ouellette [2004] and Anna McCarthy [2007] have demonstrated, to discipline and take

responsibility for ourselves). But as part of this mystifying ideology, reality

programming also encourages us to hope for the magic moment, the enchanted

occurrence that exceeds rational, selfoptimizing, disciplinary strategies. The enormous impact made by Britain's Got Talent' s Susan Boyle might serve as an

example here, described, as it was, as a case of the eruption of magic where

enchantment was least expected, the extraordinary emerging from the most ordinary

of both programming and persona.

[9] Such an example speaks to the very status of reality itself today—or, more

accurately, to the status of realit ies, as it is precisely the coexistence of different levels of realness that marks our televisual universes (both the explicitly magical and the

more seemingly mundane ones, not to mention both the televisual universes that

appear on our media screens and the universe, partly constituted by media operations

themselves, in which we live). But while we exist within and across these realities, we

don't yet have a particularly effective language with which to discuss this, as attempts

to analyze how the factual and the fantastical inform and intervene in one another

tend to reiterate the very (il)logic of inadequate binaries—a reiteration that, as Justin

Lewis has noted, defines "the epistemological contradictions already involved in

watching television" (2004:289). Lewis makes this observation in his essay "The

Meaning of Real Life," in which he considers the ways in which television depends on

maintaining epistemological distinctions between real and unreal, authentic and

inauthentic (allowing viewers to make sense and pleasure from these differences),

even as it also disrupts those distinctions (equally then allowing viewers to play with

TV's ironies). This yields a popular epistemology that is evident, for instance, in how

viewers might shift between the materiality of TV production and the makebelieve of

TV diegeses in predicting program outcomes, how those outcomes might relate to

interpretations of both the televisual and the real, how that "real televisual" might operate to produce meanings and communities, how those communities might revel

in, say, the display of authentic pretense or pretend authenticity (as much as either

option on its own), and so on.

[10] We all know cases like this…but what sort of mode of knowing, exactly, is it? In

my own work on TV's epistemology, I too have been interested in television's

existence on the border between what we typically think of opposite sides—the public

and the private, the ordinary and the extraordinary, the normal and the strange—and

in attempting to find ways of terming TV's epistemology that do not simply reproduce

those binaries and so might allow us to come to terms with it most productively.

Previously, I've considered this in relation to sexuality—focusing on the ways in which

TV both expands and evacuates knowledge of sexuality, making it, like something

slipped into a magician's trunk or closet, variously appear and disappear (Joyrich

2001). But, of course, constructions of sexuality are hardly the only cultural formations

that materialize or vanish through televisual epistemology, and so other tricks for

apprehension are likewise critical. This brings me again to the productions of magical

realism and the suggestion that this form might help us better understand and negotiate categories of real/unreal, expected/unexpected, credible/incredible,

self/other, us/them: categories central to the very operations of television (as it

articulates the domestic with the social, the newsworthy with the humdrum) but ones

that have been unsettled and reworked in a massmediated world that relies on these

terms even as it destabilizes them.

[11] Moreover, considering television in terms of magical realism might unsettle and

rework not only how we assess TV but also how we assess this representational

modality. For, as noted above, in its expression of a different reality, magical realism

has, most often, been linked to socalled different cultures: cultures seen as somehow

embodying difference from the rationalized norms of Western capitalist modernity. It

has thus not been seen as central to mainstream American society—despite, as I've

been suggesting, its growing centrality to the United States' most mainstream

medium, television. Even heightening that paradox is the fact that those U.S. TV

programs that stand as perhaps the clearest examples of the genre emphasize not

"minority traditions" but "Americana" itself: for instance, the 1930s Dust Bowl era that provides the setting for the miraculous occurrences in Carnivale; the surfandskateboard culture that draws the mysterious John from Cincinnati westward to California; the attachments to Mom and Pop, apple pie, and a boy's best friend (his

dog) that define the characters in the enchanting Pushing Daisies. How should we

evaluate the emergence of the spectacular within these most vernacular symbols and

sites, the otherworldly within such ordinary worlds? What is the work of the magical

for such overworked tropes?

[12] It is tempting, certainly, to read this as television domesticating the difference

associated with magical realism. Yet it is perhaps more useful to see how magical

realist TV might open up spaces for the marginal and the other within the normative

everyday, allowing us then to rethink the binary of marginal versus mainstream as

much as the other polarities previously mentioned. Indeed, within our current

mediascape, that conceptual binary seems particularly inadequate, given the complex

intermedial webs across texts, technologies, and communities (and thus across

multidimensional realities) that make any such division impossible. It is this

imbrication of the margin and the center, the normative and the strange, the existent

and the emergent, the rational and the irrational (or, more precisely, the

nonrationalized) that magical realism registers—and it is also precisely this imbrication

that defines the televisual today.

[13] Let me end, then, with one final example: the U.S. TV show Chuck (NBC, 2007),

about (as promotional materials describe it) an "average computerwhiznextdoor"

who receives an encoded email message that, with its burst of digitized video

imagery, turns him into a kind of bioDVR, a storehouse of information and images (a superflow of jumbled bits that span the archives of dramatic, comedic, and reality

surveillance TV spy shows). At first glance, this program might not seem to fit the

genre I'm attempting to map, as the wondrous things that befall our regularguy

protagonist aren't due to magic per se but to technology—specifically, to the intersect

of multiple media modes within Chuck's brain. These make him not just a whiz but a

literalized media wizard, embodying a cybermancy that, in the narrative of the

program, both compares and contrasts to the more mundane reality of the big box

electronics store in which Chuck works (the Buy More, which his quirky but ordinary

cohorts have redubbed with the magical name of Buymoria to describe their

adventures in the world of techno/media consumerism). Yet by narrating the ways in

which one might be enchanted (literally) by media technologies, the program shares

many features with the more obviously magical realist shows previously mentioned.

Indeed, by intermixing televisual fantasies (through its parodic references to the

improbabilities of TV spy, scifi, and superhero programs) with everyday realities

(through its parodic references to the "buy more" ethos of consumer capitalism),

Chuck illustrates that intersect of the mystical and the mundane, the real and the

virtual, that defines not only magical realism, but television itself. It is at this

intersection that we now all find ourselves, once again welcomed to the magic of

television—even if, or especially because, it's now a fantastically enhanced TV. More so

than making magical realism irrelevant to television, this makes that term even more

suggestive, directing us not just toward the tricks of TV but to the importance of

imaginatively conjuring a response.

Notes

1. And, of course, the phrase "the magic of television" is even more associated with

early television marketing discourses than with early television broadcasts themselves

—especially in the United States, which repeated the slogan to promote TV as a

consumer object.

2. Or this may be less of a turn than a return, as one might make connections

between some of today's magical realist programs and what Lynn Spigel has called the

fantastic sitcoms of the 1960s (the zany comedies like Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, My Mother the Car, Mr. Ed [Spigel 1991]) and/or with the more dramatic, classic anthology series Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits. Such historical precedents are important to consider; yet they should not be taken to indicate that the recent spate of

magical TV texts simply manifests an extension of the fantasy genre, since, I argue,

there are other precedents (including those from reality forms) that are equally

significant to TV's magical realist hybridity.

Works cited

Joyrich, Lynne. 2001. Epistemology of the console. Critical Inquiry 27:439–67.

[doi:10.1086/449016]

Lewis, Justin. 2004. The meaning of real life. In Reality TV: Remaking television

culture, ed. Susan Murray and Laurie Ouellette, 288–302. New York: NYU Press.

McCarthy, Anna. 2007. Reality television: A neoliberal theater of suffering. Social Text

25(4):17–41. [doi:10.1215/016424722007010]

Ouellette, Laurie. 2004. "Take responsibility for yourself": Judge Judy and the neoliberal citizen. In Reality TV: Remaking television culture, ed. Susan Murray and Laurie Ouellette, 231–50. New York: NYU Press.

Spigel, Lynn. 1991. From domestic space to outer space: The 1960s fantastic family

sitcom. In Close encounters: Film, feminism, and science fiction, ed. Constance

Penley, Elisabeth Lyon, Lynn Spigel, and Janet Bergstrom, 205–35. Minneapolis: Univ.

of Minnesota Press.

Wheen, Francis. 1985. Television: A history. London: Century.

Transformative Works and Cultures, Vol 3 (2009)

Symposium

The future of academic writing?

Avi Santo

Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia, United States

[0.1] Abstract— Contemporary academic debates about online publishing raise

important questions about the future of scholarly writing practices as more

academics begin to explore the multinodal and participatory digital environment,

seeking not only to study it but also to engage in the praxis and community building

it makes possible. Through exploring why media studies scholars might choose to

participate in online endeavors like In Media Res, I want to show how digital

interactive technologies might enable a rethinking of the forms and functions of

scholarly writing.

[0.2] Keywords— Academic publishing; Knowledge communities; In Medias Res;

MediaCommons

Santo, Avi. 2009. The future of academic writing? Transformative Works and

Cultures, no. 3. http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2009.0163.

1. Digital publishing and the changing face of scholarship

[1.1] Contemporary academic debates about online publishing raise important

questions about the future of scholarly writing practices as more academics begin to

explore the multinodal and participatory digital environment, seeking not only to study

it but also to engage in the praxis and community building it makes possible. Through

exploring why media studies scholars might choose to participate in online endeavors

like In Media Res (http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/imr/), I want to show

how digital interactive technologies might enable a rethinking of the forms and

functions of scholarly writing.

[1.2] Many scholars now have their own blogs and actively use these spaces to

comment on emerging practices, engage in conversations with colleagues, students,

and curious Web surfers, and work through their intellectual processes in public. By

emphasizing the critical process over its finished product and by engaging in open

discussion while works are still in progress, they create new forms of networked,

crossdisciplinary, and collaborative scholarship and teach critical thinking and digital

literacy skills in new ways. Other scholars are beginning to experiment with

multimediated essays, scholarly gaming initiatives, and fan/activist mashup efforts,

rewriting the grammar of academic publishing in the process. Still more are trying out their material on new audiences, searching for ways to engage in conversations with

nonacademic communities instead of ignoring, critiquing, or lecturing them. This last

approach poses a disciplinary challenge, as online communities may resist hierarchical

forms of knowledge formation. In other words, scholarly writing online must not only

form its arguments differently but also, perhaps, repurpose argumentation as

conversation, with the academic recast as a member of a community, stewarding and

participating in discussions, rather than as an expert explaining the community to

itself.

[1.3] In many ways, the symposium element of Transformative Works and Cultures

attempts to offer a space where multiple members of a community, some of whom are

academics while others are not, are given equal opportunity to address one another.

One of the premises guiding TWC's mission is that fandom and academia are not

mutually exclusive communities (though they have often been encouraged to think of

themselves as such). In recognizing the intersection of overlapping identities, TWC

offers scholars the opportunity not only to address nonacademics, but to engage them

as fellow cultural citizens. It allows academics to write as netizens, not just about them.

[1.4] In most cases, though, academic reward and incentive systems do not yet take

into account digital forms of scholarly endeavor. As Kathleen Fitzpatrick has astutely

noted in her post to The Valve (http://www.thevalve.org), even as avenues of

traditional academic publishing continue to decline and digital models become vital as

both alternative sites of publication and innovative modes of scholarship, the academy

has continued to dismiss online initiatives as not meeting the "rigorous" standards needed for tenure and career advancement. A new paradigm of peer review is needed,

one that serves the needs of not only the institution and the discipline, but the wider

community as well.

[1.5] Quite simply, we must reevaluate our modes of scholarly engagement and

processes for credentialing expertise in a digital world. By continuing to value—and to

romantically idealize—a secluded writing practice, media scholars fail to engage with

communities that associate credibility with the foregrounding of ongoing and

cumulative process rather than finished product. This has not only handicapped

innovative scholarship and the development of peer networks but also alienated many

nonacademics, who view the work that results as undemocratic and condescending.

The end result is a growing disconnect between scholars and the public they serve,

precisely because the process of critical analysis is made to seem proprietary and

removed from everyday experience.

[1.6] Academic assessments of credibility continue to emphasize virtuoso

performances of individual intellectual achievement (in the classroom, conference

panel, or journal article) over communally built knowledge. We need to change this

hierarchical display of expertise to meet the criteria for digital credibility. Media

scholars should seek to be stewards of conversation rather than purveyors of

knowledge. Yet in order for academics to assume leadership roles within larger

communities of activists, citizens, consumers, and producers, we must first be willing

to be members of such communities, and we must recognize that nonacademic forms

of knowledge are often articulated quite differently from academic forms. This model

promotes building knowledge networks out into "alternative" communities (from an

academic point of view), and such networks would be a revitalizing addition to the

ways in which academic knowledge is currently disseminated: that is, primarily

through genealogies of scholars and scholarship created by the masterapprentice

model that prevails in the humanities academy today.

[1.7] Presenting work in progress is a critical part of fostering participant cultures

and emergent knowledge communities. Allowing work to become "lost" or embedded

in the fabric of an ongoing conversation, in which lateral connections between existing

ideas and fresh contributions are the norm, is essential if academic scholarship is to

once again fulfill its role of provoking critical discourse and encouraging diverse

perspectives.

[1.8] Moreover, if we want to teach our students to be critical thinkers and writers,

we must be willing to show them our own missteps and struggles, not just the finished

results. We must be willing to prioritize the process and progression of critical thought

over its finished product and show students the mechanisms through which finished

works are created, so that they can evaluate and learn from them, as well as the

works themselves. Doing so would illuminate the critical process, which is often

shrouded from them. By foregrounding the process and inviting feedback from myriad

communities at an earlier stage than the traditional blind peer review, we might make

transparent the development of critical writing, encourage increased sharing and

critical discussion within those communities, and expose students to both the pains

and rewards of critical analysis.

2. Changing models in practice: In Media Res

[2.1] In Media Res (IMR) is one of several emerging sites that experiment with new

approaches to scholarly writing in the digital era. It is currently the most visible project created by MediaCommons, a networked scholarly environment being developed by

Kathleen Fitzpatrick and myself, in collaboration with the Institute for the Future of the

Book (IFB). MediaCommons is attempting to reimagine what academic publishing and

scholarly review processes might look like in the digital age. Kathleen and I, with the support, encouragement, and enthusiasm of Bob Stein and Ben Vershbow at the IFB,

first began to map out what this environment might look like after a workshop

organized by the IFB and the Annenberg School at USC in May 2006 to address

problems with the current state of academic publishing. MediaCommons and IMR were

first introduced at the Flow conference in October 2006, and our editorial board was

formed soon afterward. The MediaCommons Web site was recently redesigned, thanks

in part to a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

[2.2] Though MediaCommons was initially envisioned as a digital scholarly press, we

quickly realized that academics publishing in a digital environment required not only

new modes of writing, but also new ways of thinking about the functions of scholarly

writing. Thus we reconceptualized MediaCommons as a scholarly network dedicated to

shifting the focus of scholarship back to the circulation of discourse by transforming

what it means to publish in a digital environment. MediaCommons is dedicated to

making the process of scholarly writing and publishing visible and to encouraging

authors, editors, and readers to engage one another throughout. In so doing, we hope

that new scholarly processes and forms of writing will emerge, at once collaborative,

multinodal, openended, and multidirectional. We are currently seeking further funding

from the Arthur Mellon Foundation to develop and test an online peertopeer review

protocol that we hope will become the standard in evaluating online scholarship. The

grant is coauthored with NYU Press.

[2.3] IMR is published every weekday and is dedicated to experimenting with

collaborative, multimodal forms of online scholarship. Each day, a different media

scholar curates a 30second to 3minute clip accompanied by a 300 to 350word

impressionistic provocation. IMR offers scholars opportunities to engage in both new

ways of writing and new ways of thinking about writing in a digital environment. IMR

also regularly hosts theme weeks, which are designed to generate a networked

conversation between curators. All the posts in that week will thematically overlap,

and the participating curators agree to comment on one another's work.

[2.4] We use the title curator because like a curator in a museum, a scholar who

posts on IMR is repurposing an object (in this case, a media object) that already exists

and providing context through commentary, which frames the object in a particular

way. Our goal is to promote an online dialogue among scholars and the public about

contemporary approaches to studying media. Curatorial notes are purposely short

because they are intended to enable a lively debate in which the sum total of the

conversation will be more valuable than any one particular voice.

[2.5] To date, we have had 361 original curatorial posts to the site from 236 different

contributors, including some of the top scholars in the field of media studies. In May

2009, IMR received 8,907 unique visitors (287 per day), averaging 2.67 visits each to the site, for an average of 719 visits per day.

[2.6] IMR recently added to and improved the site's features. We are in the process

of adding a feedback feature that will allow curators to get a better sense of how their

posts are being used (for example, in research projects, in classroom activities, for

intellectual stimulation), which is a necessary step in establishing the legitimacy of

these forms of scholarship in the eyes of institutional review boards. We are also

developing a customization tool that will allow teachers to create passwordprotected

versions of IMR posts that can be incorporated into lessons. The tool will allow

teachers to add lessonspecific questions and prompts for their students.

[2.7] If you are interested in curating a post for In Media Res or have any questions,

please do not hesitate to contact me.

Transformative Works and Cultures, Vol 3 (2009)

Symposium

Repackaging fan culture: The regifting economy of ancillary content

models

Suzanne Scott

University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, United States

[0.1] Abstract— As "Web 2.0 companies speak about creating communities around

their products and services, rather than recognizing that they are more often

courting existing communities with their own histories, agendas, hierarchies,

traditions, and practices" (Jenkins et al. 2009a), media fandom is rapidly being

constructed as a fertile battleground where the territory between online gift

economies and commodity culture will be negotiated. My concern, as fans and

acafans continue to vigorously debate the importance or continued viability of

fandom's gift economy and focus on flagrant instances of the industry's attempt to

coopt fandom, is that the subtler attempts to replicate fannish gift economies aren't

being met with an equivalent volume of discussion or scrutiny.

[0.2] Keywords— Ancillary content model; Commercialization; Convergence

culture; Fandom; Gift economy; Transmedia storytelling

Scott, Suzanne. 2009. Repackaging fan culture: The regifting economy of ancillary

content models. Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 3.

http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2009.0150.

1. Protecting fandom's gift economy/Fandom's gift economy as

protectorate

[1.1] Studies of fan culture have been returning with increasing frequency to Lewis

Hyde's 1983 anthropological study The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property

in an attempt to reaffirm the gift economy's central role in the construction and

maintenance of online communities (Jenkins et al. 2009a; Hellekson 2009). In

particular, recent work on online gift economies has acknowledged the inability to

engage with gift economies and commodity culture as disparate systems, as

commodity culture begins selectively appropriating the gift economy's ethos for its

own economic gain. As "Web 2.0 companies speak about creating communities around

their products and services, rather than recognizing that they are more often courting

existing communities with their own histories, agendas, hierarchies, traditions, and

practices" (Jenkins et al. 2009a), media fandom is rapidly being constructed as a

fertile battleground where the territory between online gift economies and commodity

culture will be negotiated. The oftcited harbinger of such a conflict is FanLib (De Kosnik 2009; Hellekson 2009; Jenkins 2007b), a shortlived fan fiction archive that

sought to monetize fan production in exchange for prizes and proximity to the

participating shows' producers. FanLib's fatal flaw, according to Karen Hellekson, was

"misreading 'community' as 'commodity'"(Hellekson 2009:118). In its attempt to

commercialize fandom's gift economy, FanLib was overwhelmingly viewed as an

attempt by "(male) venture capitalists to profit financially from (femalegenerated) fan fiction" (Hellekson 2009:117). FanLib remains the most histrionic example of an

attempted (and failed) commercial cooptation of fandom, arguably overshadowing the

discussion and analysis of more covert and complex instances of corporate attempts to

construct their own fannish spaces for profit. My concern, as fans and acafans continue

to vigorously debate the importance or continued viability of fandom's gift economy

and focus on flagrant instances of the industry's attempt to coopt fandom, is that the

subtler attempts to replicate fannish gift economies aren't being met with an

equivalent volume of discussion or scrutiny.

[1.2] There are a number of important reasons why fandom (and those who study it)

continue to construct gift and commercial models as discrete economic spheres. This

strategic definition of fandom as a gift economy serves as a defensive front to impede

encroaching industrial factions. Hellekson (2009), for one, constructs the strictly

anticommercial nature of fandom's gift economy as a form of legal and social

protection. Correctly noting that "at the heart of this anticommercial requirement of

fan works is fans' fear that they will be sued by producers of content for copyright

violation" (Hellekson 2009:114) Hellekson goes on to argue that fandom's gift

economy also functions as a form of exclusion, a way for fan communities to preserve

their "own autonomy while simultaneously solidifying the group" (117). Thus, there is both a legal and social imperative to view fandom as transforming the objects of

commodity culture into gifts, a transformative process "where value gets transformed

into worth, where what has a price becomes priceless, where economic investment

gives way to sentimental investment" (Jenkins et al. 2009b), and where bonds of

community are formed and strengthened.

[1.3] For other scholars, who foresee the commercialization of fandom's gift economy

as an alternately unnerving and empowering inevitability, the possibility of fans

monetizing their own modes of production is posed as an alternate form of preemptive

"protection." Justly concerned that fan fiction authors are potentially "waiting too long to decide to profit from their innovative art form, and allowing an interloper to package

the genre in its first commercially viable format" (De Kosnik 2009:120), Abigail De

Kosnik argues that the "rewards of participating in a commercial market…might be just

as attractive as the rewards of participating in a community's gift culture" (123). Here, the possibility of fans initiating the commercialization of fan production is put forth as

an alternative mode of preserving fandom's gift economy, thus gifting insiders, rather than outsiders, the right to profit. Although monetizing fan practice to preserve the

underlying ideals of fandom's gift economy might seem counterintuitive, De Kosnik's

structuring concern about who will ultimately profit from fandom is well founded. As

the industry begins to solicit fan art and fan films/vids to include on their properties'

advertisementlaced official Web sites with more frequency, De Kosnik's model clearly

identifies the value of fan labor and encourages fans to develop a competitive model to

profit from their labors of love rather than continuing to feed an industrial promotional

machine.

[1.4] Richard Barbrook, reflecting back on his 1998 essay "The HiTech Gift

Economy" in 2005, acknowledges that constructing commodity culture and gift

economies in binary terms is problematic. Describing the online economy as a

fundamentally "mixed economy," Barbrook (2005) argues that "moneycommodity and gift relations are not just in conflict with each other, but also coexist in symbiosis,"

even as each economic model "threaten[s] to supplant the other." Far from existing on opposite poles, commodity economies and gift economies are always already

enmeshed, and there is perhaps no better example of this than fandom itself (De

Kosnik 2009), where grassroots production is inspired by the consumption of

commercial media texts. Although few fans or scholars would deny that commercial

culture is a defining component of fandom, directionality in terms of how these

disparate economic forms mix has always been central to the celebration of fandom's

gift economy. Fan studies embraces the move from consumption to production and the

reconstruction of texts that circulate within commercial economy into fanproduced

texts that circulate as gifts within fan communities. FanLib's efforts to supplant

fandom's gift economy with a commercialized model of fan production, on the other

hand, was vocally denounced by fans and ultimately led to the site's closure in 2008.

[1.5] Although De Kosnik asserts that "the existence of commercial markets for

goods does not typically eliminate parallel gift economies" (De Kosnik 2009:123) and

that the commercialization of fan practice might actually be empowering for female fan

authors, it is precisely this parallelism that is disconcerting when applied to

commercial appropriations of fandom's gift economy model. Again, this is an issue of

directionality—specifically, in which direction the profits flow between fandom and the

industry that is poised to embrace a narrowly defined version of fandom for purely

promotional purposes. Media producers, primarily through the lure of "gifted" ancillary content aimed at fans through official Web sites, are rapidly perfecting a mixed

economy that obscures its commercial imperatives through a calculated adoption of

fandom's gift economy, its sense of community, and the promise of participation.

[1.6] The regifting economy that is emerging, I argue, is the result of the industry's careful cultivation of a parallel fan space alongside grassroots formations of fandom.

By precariously attempting to balance the communal ideals of fandom's gift economy

with their commercial interests, the regifting economy of ancillary content models in

particular can be viewed as attempting to regift a narrowly defined and contained

version of fandom to a general audience. This regifted version of fandom that ancillary

content models represent exchanges grassroots fandom's organically generated output

and fluid exchange of fan works for the regulation and resale of fan works through

contests and the elusive promise of credibility. Although unofficial fan works and

official ancillary content both contribute to the narrative world of a series and do

similar textual work, the impetus behind their creation and exchange is fundamentally

different. As Hyde (1983:70) stresses, "there are many gifts that must be refused" as a result of the motives behind their presentation; thus, the term regifting economy is meant to synthesize the negative social connotations tied to the practice of regifting

with a brief analysis of why acafans and existing fan communities should be aware and

critical of these planned communities and their purpose as a site of initiation for the

next generation of fans.

2. Regifting: The Seinfeldian roots of a social taboo

[2.1] Popular culture may locate the popular origin of the term regifting and its

negative cultural connotations in a 1995 episode of Seinfeld titled "The Label Maker."

Elaine coins the term when she realizes that the titular gift, which she had given to a

friend, has been recycled and given to Jerry. Jerry, trying to defuse the situation,

suggests that it might simply be an homage to Elaine's original gift. Later in the

episode, after the regifting is confirmed, Jerry and George have the following

conversation about gift etiquette as Jerry contemplates trying to take back a pair of

tickets he had offered to the offending regifter:

[2.2] Jerry: I can't call Tim Whatley and ask for the tickets back.

[2.3] George: You just gave them to him two days ago, he's gotta give you

a grace period.

[2.4] Jerry: Are you even vaguely familiar with the concept of giving?

There's no grace period.

[2.5] George: Well, didn't he regift the label maker?

[2.6] Jerry: Possibly.

[2.7] George: Well, if he can regift, why can't you degift? ("The Label Maker")

[2.8] George's fundamental disregard for the unwritten rules of etiquette that

surround gifting, reinforced by Jerry's pointed remark that George isn't "even vaguely

familiar with the concept of giving," situates George firmly within the logic of

commercial culture, from his invocation of the "grace period" we associate with the purchase and return of commodities, to his moral relativism on the subject of regifting

or "degifting" (defined in Seinfeld as taking a gift back). Conversely, we might frame Jerry as a spokesman for the moral economy of gift exchanges. Henry Jenkins and

others (2009a), adopting the term moral economy from social historian E. P.

Thompson and questioning its applicability to the exchange of digital media, state that

the moral economy is "governed by an implicit set of understandings about what is

'right' or 'legitimate' for each player to do." As evidenced by Jerry's response in "The Label Maker" and in the term's ongoing cultural use, the social stigmas attached to

regifting are rooted in the act's inherent subterfuge, breaking the rules of the moral

economy by masking something old as something new, something unwanted as

desirable. If "the cardinal difference between gift and commodity exchange [is] that a

gift establishes a feelingbond between two people" (Hyde 1983:57), then "we cannot really become bound to those who give us false gifts" (70). Regifting literally presents a false gift, in large part because no thought has been given to the construction or

purchase of a gift that is meaningful or specific to the recipient, and consequently is

less likely to forge a bond between the giver and the recipient.

[2.9] The social taboo of degifting does not originate in this episode, but rather is a

politically correct reworking of the term Indian giver, broadly defined by Hyde

(1983:3) as one who is "so uncivilized as to ask us to return a gift he has given." Hyde (1983:4) opens his analysis of gift economies and their function with a historical

overview of the term's misuse, arguing that the original Indian givers "understood a

cardinal property of the gift: whatever we have been given is supposed to be given

away again, not kept." Framing the derogatory evolution of the Indian giver as

capitalism's inability to comprehend "such a limited sense of private property," Hyde (1983:4) introduces the term "white man keeper" to describe members of commodity

culture whose "instinct is to remove property from circulation." This construction of men as agents of capitalism with no understanding of the (frequently feminized) gift

economy or its functioning continues to be evoked in anxieties surrounding the

masculine/corporate exploitation of female fan communities and their texts.

[2.10] FanLib, whose male board of directors in no way attempted to understand or

reach out to the female fan community from whose labor they were attempting to

profit, is a textbook example (Jenkins 2007b), but it is also a spectacular case that

potentially overshadows more covert examples. To some extent, we can characterize online female fan communities as the Indians in this Hydean analogy, and the media

producers pushing these ancillary content models as the "white man keepers" of online fan culture who have failed to understand that it is the reciprocity and free circulation

of fan works within female fan communities that identifies them as communities. By

only encouraging circulation within the boundaries of a text's official Web site, or by

restricting the circulation of fan works they've commissioned, media producers have

made it clear that like the white man keepers before them, they fundamentally

misunderstand how online fan communities form and continue to coalesce. Fan

communities, in turn, continue to embrace the "cardinal property of the gift" (Hyde 1983:4): its unrestricted movement. These characterizations are compounded by the

fact that male fans have historically sought professional status or financial

compensation for their creative works more frequently than their female counterparts,

and that fan practices deemed "masculine" (game modding, fan filmmaking) are

generally considered more viable as professional calling cards (De Kosnik 2009). It has

long been the case that male audiences are more valued and courted, but as media

producers shape their definition of an ideal fandom, it is increasingly one that is

defined as fanboy specific, or one that teaches its users to consume and create in a

fanboyish manner by acknowledging some genres of fan production and obscuring

others.

3. White man keepers: Ancillary content models and the

regifting economy

[3.1] Ancillary content models, which are typically constructed around television

series with cult or fannish appeal and located on the show's official (networksponsored) Web site, offer audiences a glut of "free" narrative and behindthescenes content in the form of Webisodes, Web comics, blogs, video blogs, episodic podcasts,

and so on (note 1). Positioned precariously between official/commercial transmedia

storytelling systems (Jenkins 2006:93–130) and the unofficial/gifted exchange of texts

within fandom, ancillary content models downplay their commercial infrastructure by

adopting the guise of a gift economy, vocally claiming that their goal is simply to give

fans more—more "free" content, more access to the show's creative team. The

rhetoric of gifting that accompanies ancillary content models, and the accompanying

drive to create a community founded on this "gifted" content, is arguably more

concerned with creating alternative revenue streams for the failing commercial model

of television than it is with fostering a fan community or encouraging fan practices.

Grappling with the growing problem of timeshifting, ancillary content models create a

"digital enclosure" (Andrejevic 2007:2–3) within which they can carefully cultivate and

monitor an alternative, "official" fan community whose participatory value is measured by its consumption of advertisementlaced ancillary content.

[3.2] By regifting a version of participatory fan culture to a general audience

unfamiliar with fandom's gift economy, these planned communities attempt to

repackage fan culture, masking something old as something new, something

unwanted (or unwieldy) as something desirable (or controllable, or profitable).

Although it could be argued that fandom also polices its boundaries and subjects, its

motivations for doing so are ultimately about protecting, rather than controlling, the

ideological diversity of fannish responses to the text. As Hellekson (2009) notes,

"learning how to engage [with fandom and its gift economy] is part of the initiation,

the us versus them, the fan versus the nonfan." The "them," in this case, is both the creators of ancillary content models and their intended audience. That Hellekson

frames fandom's gift economy, and learning to play by its unwritten communal rules,

as an "initiation," a potential form of "exclusion," is especially telling. Although fandom responds to its own mainstreaming within convergence culture by fortifying its borders

and rites of initiation, ancillary content models are opening their doors to casual

viewers unfamiliar with what fandom has historically valued and how it functions.

Whether or not ancillary content models are being actively deployed as a device to rein

in and control fandom, they are serving as a potential gateway to fandom for

mainstream audiences, and they are pointedly offering a warped version of fandom's

gift economy that equates consumption and canonical mastery with community.

[3.3] When ancillary content models do actively attempt to replicate the reciprocity

of fandom's gift economy by encouraging fans to submit their creative fan works

(typically through contests for fan film or fan vids, or galleries for uploaded fan art),

the legal and creative strictures they place on fans circumvents their efforts. One

example is the Battlestar Galactica Videomaker Toolkit, which launched in 2007 (figure 1). In exchange for being offered raw downloadable audiovisual files from the series,

fans would turn over the rights to their finished product to SciFi (now SyFy) and attach

a promotional tag for the show. Importantly, the raw material offered to fans was

primarily composed of clips of gun battles, Centurion robots, and ships careening

through space—fodder that certainly targeted male fan filmmakers over members of

the (predominantly female) vidding community. As this example suggests, ancillary

content models offer few incentives for fans already enmeshed in grassroots creative

fan communities to contribute, and there is consequently less opportunity for

participants to be exposed to and initiated into those fan communities.

Figure 1. Partial screenshot of Scifi.com's (now Syfy.com) Battlestar Galactica's Video Maker Toolkit (2007), illustrating the Toolkit's emphasis on the contest's terms and

conditions and predilection for actionoriented clips. [View larger image.]

[3.4] More frequently than not, fannish participation is restricted to enunciative

forms of fan production (Fiske 1992:38), such as posting to message boards and the

collaborative construction of the show's wiki. Because the ultimate goal of these

ancillary content models is ostensibly to create a "unified and coordinated

entertainment experience" (Jenkins 2007a), it is unsurprising that a unification of the text, and an attempted unification of responses to the text, is a frequent byproduct.

This unification is frequently personified in the textual and creative authority of a

fanboy authorgod (note 2), who serves as both continuity watchdog and conveyor of

meaning. The result, according to Kristina Busse (2006), is that "certain groups of fans can become legit if and only if they follow certain ideas, don't become too rebellious,

too pornographic, don't read too much against the grain."

[3.5] Given the long, gendered history of fan communities and their relationship with

producers, and the frequent alignment of gift economies with "feminine" forms of

social exchange, it's difficult not to construct those overseeing these ancillary content

models as convergence culture's white man keepers, in a literal sense. Similar to

Hyde's white man keepers, their contemporary counterparts are characterized by a

desire to restrict the gift's movement and find some way to capitalize on it (Hyde

1983:4). Despite its glib popculture origins, the Seinfeld episode pointedly illustrates the golden rule of regifting: you ought never regift to the original giver or any of the

giver's acquaintances. Perhaps one of the central reasons why fans continue to cast a

wary eye at these planned communities and their construction of a "legitimate"

fandom is because they recognize the gifts being given mass audiences as their own.

3. Notes

1. NBC's Web site for Heroes (http://www.nbc.com/Heroes/evolutions/) is an ideal example of an ancillary content model, from the range of content offered to how

frequently it deploys buzzwords like community and interactive to offer the guise of participation. For a more detailed discussion of Battlestar Galactica's ancillary content model and its potential impact on fan production, see Scott (2008).

2. Fanboy authorgods might include Ronald D. Moore ( Battlestar Galactica, 2003–

2009), Tim Kring ( Heroes, 2006–present), Erik Kripke ( Supernatural, 2005–present), George Lucas ( Star Wars, 1977 and later), and so on.

4. Works Cited

Andrejevic, Mark. 2007. iSpy: Surveillance and power in the interactive era. Lawrence: Univ. of Kansas Press.

Barbrook, Richard. 2005. The hitech gift economy. First Monday 3 (12), December 7.

http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/631/552

(accessed February 3, 2009).

Busse, Kristina. 2006. Podcasts and the fan experience of disseminated media

commentary. Paper presented at the Flow Conference, Austin, TX.

http://www.kristinabusse.com/cv/research/flow06.html (accessed March 2, 2009).

De Kosnik, Abigail. 2009. Should fan fiction be free? In "In Focus: Fandom and

Feminism," ed. Kristina Busse. Cinema Journal 48 (4): 118–124.

Fiske, John. 1992. The cultural economy of fandom. In The adoring audience: fan

culture and popular media, ed. Lisa A. Lewis, 30–49. New York: Routledge.

Hellekson, Karen. 2009. A fannish field of value: Online fan gift culture. In "In Focus: Fandom and Feminism," ed. Kristina Busse. Cinema Journal 48 (4): 113–18.

Hyde, Lewis. 1983. The gift: Imagination and the erotic life of property. New York: Vintage.

Jenkins, Henry. 2006. Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide. New

York: New York Univ. Press.

Jenkins, Henry. 2007a. Transmedia storytelling 101. Confessions of an AcaFan: The

Official Weblog of Henry Jenkins, March 22.

http://henryjenkins.org/2007/03/transmedia_storytelling_101.html (accessed March 24, 2007).

Jenkins, Henry. 2007b. Transforming fan culture into usergenerated content: The

case of FanLib. Confessions of an AcaFan: The Official Weblog of Henry Jenkins, May

22. http://www.henryjenkins.org/2007/05/transforming_fan_culture_into.html

(accessed June 1, 2007).

Jenkins, Henry, et al. 2009a. If it doesn't spread, it's dead (part three): The gift

economy and commodity culture. Confessions of an AcaFan: The Official Weblog of

Henry Jenkins, February 16.

http://henryjenkins.org/2009/02/if_it_doesnt_spread_its_dead_p_2.html (accessed February 18, 2009).

Jenkins, Henry et al. 2009b. If it doesn't spread, it's dead (part four): Thinking

through the gift economy. Confessions of an AcaFan: The Official Weblog of Henry

Jenkins, February 18.

http://henryjenkins.org/2009/02/if_it_doesnt_spread_its_dead_p_3.html (accessed February 19, 2009).

Scott, Suzanne. 2008. Authorized resistance: Is fan production frakked? In Cylons in

America: Critical Studies in Battlestar Galactica, ed. Tiffany Potter and C. W. Marshall, 210–23. New York: Continuum.

Seinfeld. 1995. Directed by Andy Ackerman. DVD. NBC.

Transformative Works and Cultures, Vol 3 (2009)

Symposium

Snogs of innocence, snogs of experience

Dana Shil ing

Jersey City, New Jersey, United States

[0.1] Abstract— The current conventional wisdom is that rape is wrong because it is contrary to the interest in bodily autonomy: human beings are entitled to decide the

conditions under which they will have sex. That is, it is grounded in an assumption

that sexual pleasure is a good thing, and it is wrong to subject a person to sexual

contact contrary to that person's intentions. But this assumption has not entirely

replaced earlier assumptions, such as that sexual activity is always wrong and can

be justified only by the need to reproduce the human race, or assumptions that

sexual activity is right and good in the context of a lifelong marital commitment, but

not otherwise. Here, I examine a number of subplots, themes and episodes within

the series "Dollhouse," "Firefly," "Blake's 7," "The 4400," and "Dawson's Creek" with a view to analyzing the issues of sexual consent and autonomy raised within them.

[0.2] Keywords— Consent issues; Dollhouse; Prostitution; Rape; TV

Shilling, Dana. 2009. Snogs of innocence, snogs of experience. Transformative

Works and Cultures, no. 3. http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2009.0157.

[0.3] HELENA: How might one do, sir, to lose it [virginity] to her own

liking?

—Shakespeare, "All's Well that Ends Well"

[0.4] HELENA: Is there now military policy how virgins might blow up men?

—Shakespeare, "All's Well that Ends Well"

[0.5] "Jehane, on yonder hill there stands,

My castle, guarding well my lands;

What hinders me from taking you,

And doing what I list to do

To your fair willful body, while

Your knight lies dead?" A wicked smile

Wrinkled her face, her lips grew thin,

A long way out she thrust her chin:

"You know that I should strangle you

While you were sleeping, or bite through

Your throat, by God's help, Ah!" she said.

—William Morris, "The Haystack in the Flood"

1. Introduction

[1.1] Warning: Contains spoilers for "Dollhouse," "Firefly," "Blake's 7," "The 4400,"

and "Dawson's Creek." I don't think Shakespearean spoiler warnings are required.

[1.2] Looking back at the entire first season of the lowrated Dollhouse, one of my first reactions is that, while I was often disturbed by it, I'm sure that was the

intention. But leaving aside the question of whether disturbing the audience is a

legitimate creative tactic (it certainly isn't a good way to get a show renewed) I realize

that the show raises many issues about sexual consent—perhaps with fully consensual

sexual activities as a Goldilockean midpoint with issues of rape and dubious consent on

one side and issues about prostitution on the other.

[1.3] Many fans didn't watch Dollhouse, or stopped watching early in its run, because of the vast sleaze potential of the premise. For those who have not seen the series:

the Dollhouse is a kind of employment agency for Actives who can be hired, in

exchange for presumably immense fees, to be programmed with any set of skills or

personality traits so that they can do whatever the client wants; between

engagements, the Actives are returned to a dormant state, where some flashes of

their original personalities are displayed. The Actives are designated by call signals, so,

for example, Caroline became Echo and Mellie became November—but there is a

hybrid Echo/Caroline or November/Mellie who might even be stronger and more

integrated than the original personality. To the extent that an Active's engagement

involves some kind of sexual behavior, there is certainly prostitution involved, and

possibly rape. The Dollhouse is also figured as a sort of playforpay Eden, so

emotions about the sexual abuse of children can also be triggered; in their Sleeping

state, the dolls suggest the ideal of childish innocence.

[1.4] But to the extent that the Actives are treated as property, it's just some of

those comforting family values. In the case of the Dollhouse, Adelle DeWitt is the

patriarch: she has the Pater Potestas (the right to decide which infants will be reared

and which will be exposed or killed)—that is, who continues to get Treatments and

return to the presumably blissful state of freedom from adult concerns and who goes

to the Attic—a Sheol or Hell dimension that is mentioned but not seen in the first

season of Dollhouse.

[1.5] I suspect that it has always seemed like a stupid question to ask "Why is rape wrong?" but the obvious answer today is not the same as the previous obvious

answer; in fact, it's a polar opposite. Dollhouse (by design, I think) makes the viewer uncomfortable by depicting activities that are wrong—sometimes using older concepts

about sexual morality, sometimes new ones, but deploying them in ways that

accentuate the clash between the two. The viewer (or voyeur?) has to decide which of

these beliefs he or she actually holds. Indeed, one of the reasons Dollhouse so disturbs the potential fan is that the show looks at the dolls through the lens of more

antiquated ideas about rape and prostitution. Couple that with the dolls' melding of

child and sexually mature being, add a dash of mental incompetence and masquerade,

and you have a recipe for fan avoidance.

2. Why is rape wrong?

[2.1] The current conventional wisdom is that rape is wrong because it is contrary to

the interest in bodily autonomy: human beings are entitled to decide the conditions

under which they will have sex. That is, it is grounded in an assumption that sexual

pleasure is a good thing, and it is wrong to subject a person to sexual contact contrary

to that person's intentions. But this assumption has not entirely replaced earlier

assumptions, such as that sexual activity is always wrong and can be justified only by

the need to reproduce the human race, or assumptions that sexual activity is right and

good in the context of a lifelong marital commitment, but not otherwise. ( Irrespective

of their personal beliefs, people raised in AngloAmerican culture are exposed not only

to ideas about rape but to legal codes heavily influenced by this theology. The site

http://www.newadvent.org has extensive archives of Patristic theology, including St.

Ambrose, "Concerning Virginity," http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/34071.htm; St.

Augustine, "On Holy Virginity," http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1310.htm; St.

Gregory of Nyssa, "On Virginity," http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2907.htm).

[2.2] Traditionally, the rape of an unmarried woman was contrary to her father's

interest in securing a good bride price for a virgin, and rape decreased the daughter's

market value. But fortunately, the Old Testament allows a happy ending—the rapist

can purchase the rape victim at a low, low discount price. In this analysis, a rapist is

like someone who jumps a subway turnstile or someone who buys bootleg booze

without the tax stamp; he's trying to avoid a payment obligation (Deuteronomy 22).

As Susan Weidman Schneider (1985:220) notes,

[2.3] The Jewish laws concerning rape, which derive from a few verses in

Deuteronomy, basically view women as helpless creatures, very much the

property of their fathers or husbands. A convicted rapist must compensate a

father or husband for the rape of his daughter or wife, and only an

unmarried orphan is permitted to keep any fine awarded…One of the most

appalling consequences of the rape laws, and one that highlighted women's

dependent status, was that an unmarried woman who was raped became the

bride of the man who raped her.

[2.4] The rape of a married woman—by someone other than her husband—was

contrary to the husband's interest in his wife's marital fidelity, as a guarantee of the

parentage of the sons who would inherit his property. Until very recently, U.S. law did

not recognize marital rape as a crime—by consenting to marriage, a woman had

consented to have sex whenever her husband wanted.

3. Why is prostitution wrong?

[3.1] Again, there has been a millennialong consensus that prostitution is wrong,

but for changing reasons. There has always been a demand, among men who were

economically capable of paying, for at least some quantity and quality of sexual

services, despite religious ideologies calling for a celibate vocation, sexual abstinence,

or marriage, with fornication and adultery condemned as sinful. As for the nexus

between prostitution and rape, prostitution has often obtained official tolerance on the

grounds that without sexual outlet, men would ravish pure virgins.

[3.2] One aspect of the culture war in the United States is that some subcultures

continue to place a high value on premarital virginity, whereas others are skeptical

about the value of whatever virginal purity continues to exist. The former group would

say that prostitution is wrong because it is a form of nonmarital sexuality; the latter,

that it is wrong because people should have sex with partners who are genuinely fond

of them for aspects of their person or character beyond wallet level. Some Dollhouse

viewers say that if anything, the wrongfulness of prostitution is compounded by

inducing the provider of sexual services to believe that he or she is, in fact, genuinely

fond of the recipient of those services.

4. Tell me what you fear and I will tell you what you are

[4.1] Perhaps on a societal level we can paraphrase BrillatSavarin by looking at the

culture's fears rather than its diet. The rationale for a law against statutory rape is that there is an age of consent below which a person is deemed unable to understand the

consequences of sexual activity, so his or her consent is irrelevant. Some states have

"Romeo and Juliet" laws that decriminalize voluntary sexual contact where both parties are close in age, on the theory that adults should be held criminally liable for taking

advantage of younger partners—a community interest that is not present when both

partners are young.

[4.2] However, 21stcentury U.S. culture is caught in a paradox: the age of sexual maturity continues to drop, while the age of social adulthood continues to increase. As

the economy worsens and there are fewer and fewer jobs to be had, fewer and fewer

young people will be able to achieve their own households, so social maturity will be

delayed even further. So for at least several years, adolescents are both culturally

idolized as the most sexually attractive members of society and are also viewed as

children in need of protection from predators.

5. The special hell

[5.1] The Blake's 7 episode "Deliverance" has a character named Meegat, a priestess who decides that one of the lead characters, the antiheroic Avon, is actually the deity

her people have been awaiting for centuries. Despite his quite high opinion of himself

(shared by a large portion of the fandom) he spends most of the episode fending her

off and trying to disabuse her of this belief.

[5.2] A Blake's 7 fan seeing the Firefly episode "Our Mrs. Reynolds" for the first time would therefore probably view Saffron as another Meegat and agree with Shepherd

Book's warning that taking sexual advantage of an apparently guileless maiden is

wrong—even though Saffron is, according to the laws of her hometown, Mal's wife. Mal

initially agrees with this moral stance, but later comes close to yielding to Saffron's

articulate (and naked) presentation of herself as a mature woman who genuinely

desires him. If Saffron really were who she pretended to be, then it could be argued

that Mal would be a rat to break Inara's heart by choosing Saffron over her, but he

wouldn't be at fault in expressing mutual desire between consenting adults who have

ended up married to each other (even if one of them didn't know it at the time).

[5.3] As it happened, however, Saffron is a scheming polygamist con artist, and it's a

good thing she never met Captain Jack Harkness, or the universe would implode.

6. Damages

[6.1] Elizabeth Spencer's novella Light in the Piazza has been made into a movie and a Broadway musical. It's about two American women, a mother and daughter, in Italy

in the 1950s, and the mother's moral crisis when a handsome young Italian aristocrat

falls in love with her daughter. The problem, exacerbated by the difficulties of

members of one culture understanding members of another culture, is that the

daughter is not, or is not just, the charming innocent that her suitor sees—she

experienced brain damage in an accident.

[6.2] This might be a useful analogy for Dollhouse—it could be argued that in the resting state, the dolls have suffered induced brain damage. Or as those of us who

have suffered criticallevel computer problems might say, there has been a clean

install but only the operating system has been reinstalled, none of the programs.

[6.3] The 4400 is about a group of alien abductees who return to Earth with various occult powers. One of the abductees (Lily) became pregnant during the abduction, and

her daughter, Isabelle, goes immediately from being a very scary baby to being a

beautiful young woman with serious boundary issues. Isabelle becomes sexually

involved with Shawn, the leader of the returned "4400s." At first, Isabelle's father (or stepfather, or Josephlike husband of Isabelle's mother) warns Shawn not to become

involved with Isabelle, who is really a mere child despite her mature appearance and

seductive demeanor. Shawn doesn't listen, although he soon becomes involved in a

massive Fatal Attraction–esque meltdown that suggests that Adam's first and second

wives would have had a lot to talk about—that Edenic innocence and Lilith's sexualized

malice are easily joined in a single being.

7. Martyr of purity

[7.1] Yet in the discourse of rape and virginity, there is often a blurring, or even a

crossing over, between blaming the rapist and blaming the victim. According to the

Catholic.org Web site (http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=78), St.

Maria Goretti, "patron of youth, young women, purity, and victims of rape," died in 1902, when she was 12. An 18yearold neighbor threatened to rape her at knifepoint.

She told him she would rather die than submit; he stabbed her multiple times, and she

died, although not before she forgave him. Maria Goretti was canonized in 1950.

Catholic.org says that "she is called a martyr because she fought against Alexander's

attempt at sexual assault," but the main factor in her canonization is that she forgave her attacker.

[7.2] However, unless they happened to be calling Potential Slayers in Anzio that

day, it doesn't seem physically impossible for an armed assailant to rape a 12yearold

girl, so her "submission" or "refusal to submit" says a lot more about concepts of maidenly purity and womanly honor than about sexual assault.

[7.3] Even outside the context of rape, women can be blamed for tempting men into

rape or into unchaste behavior. In The Winter's Tale, Polixenes says that as boys, he and Leontes were innocent twinned lambs frisking in the sun: "We knew not the

doctrine of illdoing nor dreamed that any did," and if they had continued that way,

before the temptations thrown in their path by their eventual wives, they would have

been free from the taint of original sin. Hermione's reply is "Of this make no conclusion, lest you say your queen and I are devils" ( The Winter's Tale, 1.2.67–85).

8. Who raped whom?

[8.1] Returning to Dollhouse, I think it's clear that Sierra's handler, Hearn, raped her

—Sierra obviously knew that something painful, frightening, and unwanted had

occurred when she was powerless to defend herself. Insofar as the dolls are

conditioned to place absolute trust in their handlers, abuse of a doll by a handler is a

kind of incestuous abuse within the created family that is a constant theme in the

Jossverse (although it's a shame that she blamed poor Victor, a fellow doll who wasn't

guilty and really liked her!). And even DeWitt, who is hardly the most punctilious of

moralists, knew that there had been a crime requiring redress—indeed, a crime

against a woman requiring redress by another woman (DeWitt) using November as a

tool. DeWitt commands November to kill Hearn—more or less for committing a crime

that DeWitt has committed herself—and I think the episode "Briar Rose" hinted that

eventually women will rescue themselves if no one does it for them (note 1).

[8.2] However, I suspect that DeWitt was reacting at least as much to the handler's

misuse of valuable Dollhouse property. Topher Brink, the resident mad scientist, is

allowed a strictly rationed series of treats in which he is allowed to make Sierra believe

that she is his girlgeek counterpart. But what about DeWitt's addiction to sneaking

out of the office (at least once in the middle of a crisis), discarding her work phone,

and triggering Victor's Don Juan program so often that, as it were, his screen saver is

incapable of dealing with the material burned into the screen? Shouldn't she be at

work and not damaging valuable corporate property?

[8.3] Less frivolously, however, has DeWitt raped Victor? He seems to be enjoying

the engagement while it occurs, and in his resting state, he doesn't know that it has

occurred. Is it like a tree falling in an uninhabited forest? Or, as Othello said, that it

would be okay if the entire camp enjoyed Desdemona, as long as he never found out

about it?

[8.4] I stopped watching Dawson's Creek shortly after Kevin Williamson left and the shark was jumped, but I still vividly remember the season 1 plotline about Pacey and

his English teacher, a development that seemed less shocking than it actually was,

perhaps because Joshua Jackson did not do a very convincing job of appearing to be

15. If the teacher had gotten caught (I believe she hotfooted it out of town before it

got past gossip to the indictment stage), then she would have been legally liable, as

an adult having sex with a minor, although I think it would be fair to say that in moral

terms she was a victim of his failure to disclose the crucial fact of his age.

[8.5] Looking back at the epigraph, in All's Well that Ends Well, did Helena rape Bertram? This is one case in which modern thinking would be more likely to find rape

than traditional concepts. To the early modern mind, it would probably be deemed licit

or even praiseworthy for a wife to engage in marital sex in order to produce a

legitimate heir for her husband—however little her husband actually liked her. Today,

however, we would be more likely to point out that Helena used deceit to induce her

husband to perform a sexual act that he had explicitly refused to perform.

9. Conclusion: C'mon and rescue me?

[9.1] As the William Morris epigraph shows, the Jossverse is not the first realm of the

imagination in which women are perfectly capable of physical, or even violent,

response to attacks on their purity, or their autonomy—however they choose to

analyze it. Nowadays, or in the imagined future (for example, Firefly's Kaylee Frye)

"innocence" can be a matter of hope and optimism, not virginity, and rescue can be performed by the endangered maiden herself, or as a collaborative affair.

[9.2] One reason I found the later episodes of Dollhouse more satisfying than the

earlier episodes (although even the later episodes leave many questions unanswered

and issues unexplored) is that the initial presentation of the situation was obviously

simplistic (and intended to be perceived as such). FBI agent Paul Ballard started out,

in his own mind, as an unproblematic hero intent on saving Caroline. After losing his

job, alienating everyone he knows, and seemingly turning himself into a facsimile of

the kind of obsessed loner who becomes the object of the hunt for an assassin or

serial killer, Ballard discovers that in many ways, Echo (or Echo/Caroline) is stronger

than he is; she may not need his help and may not want it. The end of the first season

also hints at a revolt of the dolls—but very much relying on their own resources.

10. Note

1. TV.com's episode summary

(http://www.tv.com/Dollhouse/Briar+Rose/episode/1244286/summary.html) refers to Echo's use of the story of "Sleeping Beauty" in her engagement as a therapist in a facility for troubled youth, to help a traumatized—and violent—girl recover from

trauma; Echo tells the girl in so many words that girls can save themselves and

needn't—shouldn't—rely on a prince to save them.

11. Work cited

Schneider, Susan Weidman. 1984. Jewish and female: Choice and changes in our lives today. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Transformative Works and Cultures, Vol 3 (2009)

Symposium

Playing [with] multiple roles: Readers, authors, and characters in

"Who Is Blaise Zabini?"

Anne Col ins Smith

Stephen F. Austin State University, Nacogdoches, Texas, United States

[0.1] Abstract— Fans who produce fan works in genres such as fiction, music, and

music video take on dual roles in the process, as readers of the original canon and

as creators of their own products. These roles—and more—are creatively explored in

the Parselmouths' wizard rock composition "Who Is Blaise Zabini?". Like many works of fan fiction, the Parselmouths' songs move beyond a reader's ordinary role, taking

on an authorial role to generate new characters and events in the Harry Potter

universe. What makes this particular work unusual is that at the same time that

they are adopting the roles of authors, and even of participants, the Parselmouths

also restrict their own authorial and participatory power, claiming that the Slytherin

characters they portray could not perceive their classmate Blaise Zabini until J. K.

Rowling provided a complete description of him. To untangle their multiple roles and

to recognize the creativity exercised by the Parselmouths in collapsing the

boundaries among them, it will be helpful to turn to a theory of audience response

that delineates specific roles and that specifies the limitations and the powers

inherent in them.

[0.2] Keywords— Harry Potter; Philosophy of literature; Wizard rock

Smith, Anne Collins. 2009. Playing [with] multiple roles: Readers, authors, and

characters in "Who Is Blaise Zabini?" Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 3.

http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2009.0186.

1. Introduction

[1.1] Fans who produce fan works in genres such as fiction, music, and music video

take on dual roles in the process, as readers of the original canon and as creators of

their own products. These roles—and more—are creatively explored in the

Parselmouths' wizard rock composition "Who Is Blaise Zabini?" (note 1). Like many works of fan fiction, the Parselmouths' songs move beyond a reader's ordinary role,

taking on an authorial role to generate new characters and events in the Harry Potter

universe. What makes this particular work unusual is that at the same time that they

are adopting the roles of authors, and even of participants, the Parselmouths also

restrict their own authorial and participatory power, claiming that the Slytherin

characters they portray could not perceive their classmate Blaise Zabini until J. K.

Rowling provided a complete description of him. To untangle their multiple roles and to

recognize the creativity exercised by the Parselmouths in collapsing the boundaries among them, it will be helpful to turn to a theory of audience response that delineates

specific roles and that specifies the limitations and the powers inherent in them.

[1.2] In the course of considering the relationship of fiction to truth and the truth

value of sentences describing fictional characters and events, Peter Lamarque and

Stein Haugom Olsen (2002) make some distinctions that are also useful in discussing

audience response to literature. Using these distinctions, we can recognize the

Parselmouths as creating and maintaining three distinct roles for themselves, and as

crossing the boundaries of these roles in playful and imaginative ways. First, however,

it will be helpful to situate the Parselmouths in a fannish context.

2. What is wizard rock?

[2.1] It is safe to say that the oldest form of fan work, and the form most written

about in the scholarly and popular press, is fan fiction. Whether you trace it back to

the unauthorized continuation of the Pickwick Papers in pennydreadful publications

(note 2) or prefer to restrict it to science fiction media fandom and date it to the 1967

publication of Spockanalia, the first Star Trek fanzine (Verba 1996:1), fan fiction has a long history indeed. There are, however, other forms of fan work, and one that has

received little attention is the practice of filking, the writing, performing, and recording of songs based on fannish texts.

[2.2] Filking is a practice adopted by media fandom from earlier science fiction

fandom (note 3); the term reportedly comes from a typo for "folk music" in an early

science fiction convention program. Earlier forms of filk music, such as filks based on

literary science fiction texts or describing original science fiction universes, continue to coexist with mediafandom filk music. As the name's origin suggests, most filk music is

performed or recorded in a folkbased style, featuring primarily voices and acoustic

guitars. Some works are original compositions, while others fit new words to wellknown tunes. Some describe or comment upon events or characters from the fannish universe; others, like fan fiction, create new narratives within the fannish universe.

Still others describe or comment upon fandom itself, offering insights into the ways

that fans view and depict themselves.

[2.3] As a casual collector of mediabased filk recordings, I have observed that they

have been circulated in an underground fashion for years among media fans, originally

in the form of cassette tapes, some made in studios, others at live performances;

some of them are now available on CD. Like fanzines, they are usually sold at a cost

designed to recoup the expenses of creating the recording without making a profit;

their creators hope to stay under the radar of those who own the copyrights and

trademarks of the commercial properties concerned. Filks are frequently performed at science fiction conventions; there are even conventions specifically devoted to the

practice of filking. Some fantasybased filkers also perform at Renaissance fairs. In my

experience, however, traditional mediafandom filking rarely takes place outside these

venues.

[2.4] Young Harry Potter fans have reconstructed filking in an exciting new way.

Teenaged and youngadult musicians have formed bands on a rock 'n' roll, rather than

a folk, pattern. They record and release music in genres ranging from garageband

rock to techno to rap. Their recordings are available on CDs and from iTunes; most of

the bands have free samples available on their MySpace pages. Many also post videos

of their performances on YouTube; more are posted there by their fans. While these

bands do perform at conventions, they also stage concerts at libraries, schools, and

other venues. Operating with the blessing of J. K. Rowling and openly supporting a

number of charities with their revenue, these bands do not have to follow the same

underground protocols as traditional filkers. The genre is known as wizard rock.

[2.5] Like traditional filks, wizard rock compositions may describe or comment upon

events or characters in the Harry Potter series, create new narratives within the Harry

Potter universe, or comment upon Harry Potter fandom or upon the world of wizard

rock itself. The wizard rock band known as the Parselmouths, founded by Brittany

Vahlberg and Kristina Horner, engages in all of these practices. The philosophers

Lamarque and Olsen shed an interesting light on the practice of fiction that can be

brought to bear on the Parselmouths' approach.

3. What is the practice of fiction?

[3.1] According to Lamarque and Olsen, what makes a given work a work of fiction is

the participation by both the storyteller and the audience in a social practice governed

by rules that have arisen through custom (2002:33–34). The practice of fiction is

therefore a collaboration between the storyteller and the audience, who mutually

agree that the statements made by the storyteller are "fictive utterances," statements that both the storyteller and the audience recognize as creating a fiction.

[3.2] The ontological status of, and the truthvalue of statements about, fictional

entities are matters of concern to Lamarque and Olsen. For example, to what extent is

it true that Harry Potter attends Hogwarts? Harry Potter does not exist. Neither does

Hogwarts. Nonetheless, it is clear that the statement "Harry Potter attends Hogwarts

School of Witchcraft and Wizardry" is true in some sense, whereas the statement

"Harry Potter attends St. Brutus's Academy for Incurably Criminal Boys" is not true in that sense.

[3.3] Lamarque and Olsen address this issue by establishing that "fictional content is such that how things are (in the fiction) is determined by how they are described to be

in a fictive utterance" (2002:51, emphasis theirs). Thus events, settings, characters, and other objects described in a story have truth value within the story according to

the author's descriptions of them. Statements about these objects are "the focus of a

special kind of imaginative effort" made jointly by the author and the audience

(2002:76). Although the characters and settings within a fiction, such as Harry Potter,

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and St. Brutus's Academy for Incurably

Criminal Boys, may not exist outside that fiction, "what we call fictional names refer

within a fiction to actual objects…Only from the external perspective are the names

'fictional' or identify fictional characters" (2002:83).

[3.4] In an especially intriguing passage, speaking of a fictional character, Lamarque

and Olsen state, "In the fiction, for her fellows, she is a person, an actual fleshandblood human being" (2002:87). Thus, within a story, the characters regard other characters and objects in the story as real, although for us, the audience, they are in

fact fictional. Harry Potter is fictional to us, but to Ron and Hermione, he is quite real;

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is fictional to us, but to its students, it is

their home (note 4). And, most important for the topic at hand, from the perspective of the other students at Hogwarts, Blaise Zabini is a real person.

4. Who is Blaise Zabini?

[4.1] Blaise Zabini is mentioned briefly in chapter 7 of Sorcerer's Stone as a student who is sorted into Slytherin by the Sorting Hat. No description is offered of this

character, who does not appear in the books again until chapter 7 of HalfBlood Prince.

Even Blaise Zabini's gender is undefined, although famous historical bearers of the

name have been male (note 5). This indeterminacy presents a problem for readers. In

their discussion of fictional characters, Lamarque and Olsen observe that "if a name

were to be introduced in a fiction without any descriptive support a reader would not

be able to make sense of sentences (in the fiction) using the name nor be able to

makebelieve that the name has a reference" (2002:84). This appears to be exactly

what has happened here: lacking a description by the author, readers have no clear

mental picture of Blaise Zabini.

[4.2] On the other hand, this indeterminacy also offers readers the opportunity to fill

in the blank for themselves. According to this theory, as part of their collaborative role

in the social practice of fiction, "readers 'fill in,' or just take for granted, an enormous amount of detail which is not explicitly given…Much of the pleasure of reading fiction

derives from the imaginative 'filling in' of character and incident" (2002:89). The

reader does not supplement willynilly; Lamarque and Olsen argue that the customary

practice of fiction requires that the filling in be "authorized," that is, governed by a number of clues furnished by the author as well as external clues such as conventions

associated with the author's choice of genre (2002:89–90). Readers of the Harry

Potter series could safely assume from the context in which Blaise Zabini appears in

Sorcerer's Stone that the character was a young person with some magical ability.

Moreover, given that the series fell into the genre of children's fantasy rather than

genres such as the cold war thriller, the science fiction novel, or the police procedural,

Blaise Zabini was unlikely to turn out to be a communist spy, a cyborg from the future,

or a serial murderer. Until the publication of the sixth book in the series, however,

other details were left to the modified discretion of the individual reader. One

paratextual factor that would somewhat inhibit the fillingin process for readers of the

first five books in the series, prior to the publication of the sixth, was the knowledge

that further books were yet to come, and any details formulated by the reader might

turn out to be contradicted later on by the author (note 6).

[4.3] Nonetheless, according to Lamarque and Olsen's theory, Blaise Zabini always

existed within the fictional world of Harry Potter as a "fleshandblood human being"

from the perspective of the other characters. The Parselmouths playfully imagine,

however, that the fictional characters in the Harry Potter series could not initially

perceive Blaise Zabini clearly. Speaking as fellow Slytherins, they report, "We all gave him second glances / But all we saw was fuzz." Their attempts to determine Zabini's

gender by observing which dormitory he slept in proved fruitless: "Don't know where

he sleeps at night / he just kind of disappears." In fact, the problem is not experienced only by Zabini's classmates; Zabini too is equally limited in knowledge, and has no

idea what gender has been assigned by the author: "Poor Blaise was Confunded /

about his gender role." This was especially problematic when it came to using the

restroom: "The biggest issue was the fact / he didn't know which room to use"

(Parselmouths 2007).

[4.4] Once J. K. Rowling describes Blaise, however, the other characters are

suddenly able to perceive him, and he becomes aware of his gender identity: "He's

secure in being a boy now" (Parselmouths 2007). It is clear that Rowling's description

of Zabini is the turning point, since the indeterminacy is described as persisting "until our sixth year." The narrators observe that "he would have been a nice girl as well,"

which emphasizes his earlier gender indeterminacy as a potentiality that could have

gone in either direction. The comment may also be interpreted as an olive branch

offered to fans who had previously imagined the character as female and were

disappointed to have their version deauthorized.

5. The Parselmouths and the practice of fiction

[5.1] In describing the manner in which the audience "makes believe" with respect to a fictive utterance, Lamarque and Olsen describe an "internal perspective" that readers may choose to take. "In adopting the internal perspective of the fictive stance readers project themselves into imaginary 'worlds' and observe them, as it were, subjectively

from the point of view of an observer or participant. In doing so they can acquire a

sense…of 'what it is like to be' someone in a situation or world of that kind"

(2002:153). The Parselmouths extend this internal perspective to the point of crafting

fictional identities for themselves within the imaginary world of Harry Potter and

writing narratives in the form of songs, usually told from their characters' points of

view. Since their characters are students in Slytherin, the Parselmouths present the

Slytherin perspective on various characters and events in the series with gusto and

imagination, and also invent entire new episodes, such as a disastrous double date

with Crabbe and Goyle in "Who Are These Boyz?" (Parselmouths 2007). This activity

clearly has its roots in the reader's customary projection of the self into the imaginary

world, but the Parselmouths' creation of original compositions describing their

adventures goes beyond the ordinary practice of reader response to the point of

creating a new work (note 7).

[5.2] The term Parselmouths itself, then, actually has three meanings in this context: it can refer to the groups' members as readers of Rowling's stories, as the authors of

transformative works based on Rowling's stories, and as the fictional characters who

narrate these works and take part in the events described therein. As readers, they

are aided and hampered by textual and paratextual factors in their efforts to construct

and enter into the imaginative world of the Harry Potter series. As authors of

transformative works, they are free to reshape the original material to their own

purposes, unconfined by the conventions of "authorized" makebelieve. Finally, as

fictional characters, they perceive the world described in the Harry Potter series as

real.

[5.3] The Parselmouths playfully transgress the ordinary boundaries of these roles

not once but twice. As authors of their own transformative works, they are free to

imagine Blaise Zabini, and indeed any other character, however they please, but they

ordinarily stick fairly close to a perspective authorized, in Lamarque and Olsen's sense,

by the original author's descriptions (note 8). As fictional characters, they would

ordinarily perceive Blaise Zabini as a real person, one perhaps not yet known to

readers of the story, but real to them as characters within it. Lamarque and Olsen

point out that although a narrative will never spell every detail out completely to the

readers, "we can infer that 'In the fiction, these details are determinate' (normally

internal to a fiction there will not be widespread vagueness of fact)" (2002:91). The

Parselmouths take the indeterminacy that is presented to them as readers and pass it

along to themselves as authors and even to themselves as fictional characters so that

the vagueness seems to exist within the fiction itself. Conversely, they also give their version of the character of Blaise Zabini a readerlike stance so that he too perceives

himself as undefined until the original author (J. K. Rowling) provides him with a more

distinctive description.

[5.4] Part of what makes this indeterminacy especially interesting is that the

audience (both of the original series and of the transformative work) knows that it was

resolved in the sixth book. Absent a lucky guess, any speculation in which the

audience engaged before the publication of that book was probably overturned as

incorrect. In a sense, this makes Blaise Zabini more indeterminate from the readers'

perspective because they were not free to create a specific Blaise Zabini for

themselves. On the other hand, although Blaise Zabini was indeterminate during the

first five books, readers can now engage in retroactive continuity: since they are now

familiar with his appearance, attitude, and family background, they can imagine him

as a younger version of the boy they met in HalfBlood Prince while rereading the

earlier books.

[5.5] This indeterminacy did in fact cause disagreements in fandom, not once but

twice. Before the publication of HalfBlood Prince, some fans chose to portray Blaise Zabini as a girl in their fiction, others as a boy, which led to disputes. Moreover, many

fans who used Blaise Zabini as a character in their fiction assumed that the character

was white; Rowling's revelation that he was, in fact, black led to some very negative

reactions and bitter online arguments (note 9). While "Who Is Blaise Zabini?" may

easily be interpreted as referring indirectly to the first controversy, it appears to

sidestep the second entirely, although its overall positive description of the revealed

Blaise—"we knew that he was cool"—suggests a desire to maintain a positive

standpoint on the character.

[5.6] Of course, the characters in the books are not capable of reading ahead and

retroactively recognizing themselves. Thus, the Parselmouthsasauthors behave not

only like readers (in imagining Blaise Zabini only to the extent authorized by Rowling's

initially minimal description of the character and in recognizing that even authorized

speculation will probably be overturned) but also like characters (in limiting their

knowledge of Blaise Zabini chronologically) (note 10). Taking on these roles simultaneously renders them unable to perceive Zabini clearly, and also makes Zabini,

as written by the Parselmouthsasauthors, unable to perceive himself.

6. Conclusion

[6.1] Fan fiction authors take on dual roles as readers and as authors; each role

carries its own limitations and privileges. As readers, their collaboration in the rule

governed practice of fiction limits their authorized filling in and making believe, which includes a possible third role, imagining their own participation in the world created by

the original author. As authors of their own transformative works, however, they are

not bound by these conventions, although they may freely choose to follow them. I

would venture to say that a significant distinction between conventional fan fiction on

the one hand, and professionally published transformative works such as The Wind

Done Gone or Wicked on the other, lies in the respect that fans demonstrate for the conventions of authorized filling in and their tendency to follow these conventions

despite the wider range of possibilities open to them as authors.

[6.2] In "Who Is Blaise Zabini?" the Parselmouths draw attention to these practices by choosing to stay within the confines of restrictions placed on them as readers that

do not apply to them as authors, and by further projecting these restrictions directly

onto the characters they imagine themselves to be, as well as onto other characters

portrayed in their transformative work. By applying these restrictions across role

boundaries, they generate a humorously absurd situation, producing a creative,

playful, and thoughtprovoking reflection on the multiple roles enjoyed by fans as

readers, authors, and participants.

6. Notes

1. A live performance of the song may be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=mS_kT9Asn0o.

2. "Such was the voracious public appetite for anything Dickensian that some of the

more imaginative pirates even began to lift the most popular characters such as Sam

Weller and Mr Pickwick and transport them to different countries…for new and still

more varied adventures" (Haining 1976:69).

3. An indepth discussion and analysis of filking, as text and practice, may be found in

the chapter "Strangers No More, We Sing: Filk Music, Folk Culture, and the Fan

Community" in Jenkins (1992). The entries on "filk," "filker," and "filksing" in Rogow (1991) are also highly informative.

4. Lamarque and Olsen address as a separate issue the reality of extrafictional objects

that make an appearance in fiction; for example, King's Cross Station exists outside as

well as within the Harry Potter corpus. While fascinating, this issue is not relevant to

the current topic.

5. Historical persons named Blaise include the philosophermathematician Blaise

Pascal; St. Blaise, a fourthcentury bishop and martyr; and Blaise, the legendary

teacher of Merlin.

6. The popular term in fandom for fan speculation being proven wrong by later

canonical revelations is jossing, after Joss Whedon, the creator of universes such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly, whose fans often found their speculations overturned. Professional as well as fannish examples exist; Alan Dean Foster's Star

Wars novel, Splinter of the Mind's Eye (1978), for example, hints at a romantic

undercurrent between Luke and Leia that is frankly disturbing in light of later

revelations about their true relationship.

7. Although they do not directly address participatory culture, Lamarque and Olsen do

address cases in which an author transforms previously created material: "Material

initially produced with one set of intentions can be appropriated by the fictionmaker

under a different set of intentions. In that way a new work can come into being, not

just an old work treated in a new way" (49). While their focus is on the transformation of nonfictional texts into fiction, this discussion appears to be applicable to other

transformative works as well.

8. For example, when characters clearly defined in canon, such as Professor Slughorn,

Rubeus Hagrid, Moaning Myrtle, Draco Malfoy, Vincent Crabbe, and Gregory Goyle,

appear in other works by the Parselmouths, they are portrayed in a manner consistent

with their portrayal in the books.

9. Disputes over Blaise Zabini's gender are mentioned in the entry on the character in

the Harry Potter wiki: http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Blaise_Zabini. Reactions to his race are described and linked at

http://www.journalfen.net/community/fandom_wank/855387.html and

http://www.journalfen.net/community/fandom_wank/764908.html.

10. The one concession to the possibility of applying the knowledge retroactively is the

group's consistent use of a masculine pronoun to refer to the character.

7. Works cited

Blaise Zabini. Harry Potter Wiki. http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Blaise_Zabini

(accessed July 6, 2009).

Fandom Wank. Posts discussing Blaise Zabini and fannish reactions.

http://www.journalfen.net/community/fandom_wank/855387.html and

http://www.journalfen.net/community/fandom_wank/764908.html (accessed July 7,

2009).

Haining, Peter. 1976. The penny dreadful. London: Gollancz.

Jenkins, Henry. 1992. Textual poachers: Television fans and participatory culture. New York: Routledge.

Lamarque, Peter, and Stein Haugom Olsen. 2002. Truth, fiction, and literature.

Oxford: Clarendon.

Parselmouths. 2007. Who is Blaise Zabini? Illegal love potion. Wizard Rock EP of the Month Club.

Parselmouths. Who is Blaise Zabini @ Storyville PR 2007.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mS_kT9Asn0o (accessed July 4, 2009).

Rogow, Roberta. 1991. Futurespeak: A fan's guide to the language of science fiction.

New York: Paragon House.

Verba, Joan Marie. 1996. Boldly writing: A Trekker fan and zine history, 1967–1987.

Minnetonka, MN: FTL Publications.

Transformative Works and Cultures, Vol 3 (2009)

Symposium

"A Jedi like my father before me": Social identity and the New York

Comic Con

Jen Gunnels

Yorktown Heights, New York, United States

[0.1] Abstract— Very few venues exist for adults to play dressup, with Renaissance festivals, comic and other media conventions, and liveaction roleplaying games

comprising the bulk of these venues. This sort of behavior is expected of people in

their formative years—children and teenagers—where they try on and receive

feedback about the "range of possible extensions of the self" (Elliot 1986, quoted in Kaiser 1996:162). What might be the reasoning behind the behavior of adults doing

so, especially after primary socialization has occurred?

[0.2] Keywords— Comic Cons; Community; Cosplay; Fan studies; Generation X;

Identity; Performance studies; Sociology; Star Wars

Gunnels, Jen. 2009. "A Jedi like my father before me": Social identity and the New York Comic Con. Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 3.

http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2009.0161.

1. Introduction

[1.1] ObiWan looked amazing! His costume was meticulously detailed, right down to

a filmquality light saber. He walked a fine line between staying in character, which

was delightful because he was really good, and discussing the wellorganized Star

Wars cosplay (costume roleplay) fan base (figure 1). I became even giddier at finding

no fewer than five slave Leias. And when asked by a storm trooper if I wanted to try

on the helmet, I said, "Hell, yes" (figure 2). Examining identity and how people choose to perform it places me in unusual circumstances. In this case, the experience was

both enjoyable and enlightening.

Figure 1. ObiWan Kenobi, Jennifer Gunnels, Anakin (Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith, 2005). Photo by Nicole Fellows. [View larger image.]

Figure 2. The author as clone. Photo by Nicole Fellows. [View larger image.]

[1.2] I was at the 2009 New York Comic Con to ask ObiWan and his friends why they did this. Very few venues exist for adults to play dressup, with Renaissance

festivals, comic and other media conventions, and liveaction roleplaying games

comprising the bulk of these venues. This sort of behavior is expected of people in

their formative years—children and teenagers—where they try on and receive

feedback about the "range of possible extensions of the self" (Elliot 1986, quoted in Kaiser 1996:162). What might be the reasoning behind the behavior of adults doing

so, especially after primary socialization has occurred? Susan B. Kaiser, in her study of

clothing, wonders whether roleplay dress is important "in terms of providing some

means for 'escaping' from mundane daily routines, as well as for expression of

creativity," but she concludes that "little is known about fantasy dressing; this is an area with a great deal of potential for contributing to an understanding of creativity

and selfexpression" (1996:163). Very little has been written on the subject, beyond

mentioning that this behavior happens.

[1.3] As my ongoing research is showing, the behavior isn't necessarily mere

escapism. Adults engage in costumed roleplay to explore an identity that may not be

practicable in everyday life. For comic and other media conventions, the behavior also

has a social, communal nature. In the case of Star Wars, members of Generation X,

who saw the original Star Wars trilogy, are reminded of its effect on their childhood.

Star Wars helped socialize this generation and may be providing a template for their

own parenting, especially because current socioeconomic issues are not dissimilar to

those of 1977. In this way, cosplay, as a performed identity, can provide a means of

permitting individual agency and social commentary on current and past social

stresses.

2. Ordering identity

[2.1] When examining performed identities, such as those seen in Star Wars

cosplayers, two things should be kept in mind: How is the identity being ordered? And

what is the framework surrounding its construction? These are important not only

because identity is fluid, but also because it can be perceived or misperceived on the

basis of the social framework into which it is being projected. To answer the first

question, Henry Tajfel (1982) posits that identity is selfdetermined, and that a person

can have multiple identities in place. The individual determines the dominant identity

through hierarchically organizing potential identities—for instance, I am a woman, an

academic, a mother, and a friend, among other identities. However, the ordering of

identity is largely based on the notion of framing, which determines not only how we

decide to order our identity in that moment, but also how others will either read or

misread what is presented (Goffman 1959). A frame is usually socially and historically

determined: I wouldn't dress as slave Leia to go to work, and regardless of Leia's

introduction to the cultural consciousness, no one would dress like that in the 1950s.

3. Cosplay and the New York Comic Con

[3.1] Some identities can be performed and explored as cosplay. The study of

cosplay and its practice specifically within the United States is sparse. Most studies of

cosplay are framed within its expression within Japanese popular culture, particularly

manga and anime, and its export to the United States and other points West (as can

be seen at http://www.cosplay.com/); other studies discuss cosplay in terms of gender. What has not been examined is its nature as performance and as identity play

as found at sites such as conventions. The site of my fieldwork, the New York Comic

Con, began in 2006. In 2 years, it has grown explosively from a total attendance of

33,000 to a total attendance of 67,000 in 2008. It is the second largest popular culture

convention in the United States. The con is an amalgam of material, cultural, and

visual consumption. In addition to vendors, areas are set up for gaming tournaments,

demonstrations, film previews, and media podcasts; other activities include seminars

and professional panels (with writers, artists, and other professionals), and artists

autograph material and network for future work (like a job fair).

[3.2] When I attended the Comic Con in 2009, very few of the audience choose to

participate in costume—as an offhand guess, I'd estimate that perhaps less than 5

percent of the attending audience was in costume—although all of them were having a

good deal of fun (figure 3).

Figure 3. Non–Star Wars cosplayers. Photo by Nicole Fellows. [View larger image. ]

[3.3] The quality of the costumes varied but tended toward the virtuoso, with a great

deal of detail, such as the costume worn by ObiWan, a cosplayer who became one of

my interview subjects. In fact, I was surprised to find that many of the cosplayers

drew from the Star Wars universe (figure 4). I took an informal tally that broke the

character representations down as follows: one ObiWan Kenobi, one Anakin

Skywalker (both from Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, 2005), five slave

Princess Leias ( Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, 1983), four Wookies, one

Han Solo ( Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, 1977), three Imperial officers (two

men, one woman), and, at a conservative guess, a dozen Jedi and perhaps another 8

or 10 storm troopers from the 501st Legion, Vader's Fist, a national Star Wars

costuming organization. All were networked with groups specifically created to assist

people in cosplaying the characters from the Star Wars universe (note 1). Intrigued, I

found myself examining the cosplayers' possible purposes for choosing these specific

identities.

Figure 4. Slave Leias and Wookies. Photo by Nicole Fellows. [View larger image.]

4. Fandom through performance and fetish

[4.1] When observing cosplayers, regardless of the universes they represent, some

might wonder why they choose to connect with their fandom through performance, as

opposed to other manifestations of fan engagement. Two reasons in particular come to

the fore: the immediacy of the physical, and applying archetypes/fetishes to aspects of

personal identity. Francesca Coppa (2006) notes that fanfic can be read as

performative when viewed through the lens of Richard Schechner's wellknown ideas

on performance. Fiction, however, lacks the level of real, constructed immediacy found

in a true performance environment. Yes, you can imagine that you are ObiWan

Kenobi as you read a fan text, but wouldn't you rather be him? Of course, this isn't possible, but cosplay serves as a middle ground.

[4.2] Further, Schechner's concept of the subjunctive mood in performance

(1985:37)—not me, not not me—allows people to incorporate aspects of the character

into their own identity. This can, and sometimes does, lead to a fetishization of both

costume and character. Donning the costume, or even simply carrying a small prop

such as a light saber, allows cosplayers to tap into the character as archetype and the

costume piece as fetish: "The fetish is empowering, transgressive of the realm of the

everyday and mundane, and transforms the user, thus marking a return in a sense to

the original meaning of the fetish" (Wetmore 2007:177). Essentially, both become a

totem, or a meaningful emblem or symbol, and "people will act towards totems in such

a way based on the meaning they have given the totem." Meaning will then manifest

as social interaction (Garrard 2008:17).

[4.3] In an interview I conducted on February 7, 2009, ObiWan shared with me his

view of why he admires ObiWan—what meaning he has given his chosen totem: "The

nobility, the warrior, the leadership, following the Jedi Code, all these things, I think,

make him that great archetype that we've come to know and love." When I asked him

more specifically if there were any aspects of ObiWan that carried over into his

everyday life, he replied,

[4.4] I'd like to think there's a lot, but I could certainly be more noble. I

could certainly be a better leader in my own life. But when it comes right

down to it…I could be a better person in my own life. Probably when I step

into costume, into the role, I think I become a better person than I am in

real life and could certainly aspire to be as good as Kenobi.

[4.5] Becoming the character acts as transformative moment: he is not Kenobi, but

not not Kenobi. As he remarks, aspects of the character are specifically tied to donning

the costume. He may not believe that he carries specific aspects of character identity

over into everyday life, yet they are available to his identity when in costume.

[4.6] Another of my interview subjects, Steve Koets, a member of the 501st Legion,

summed up being a storm trooper as a question of enjoying the sense of shared

community. In an email interview I conducted with him on January 22, 2009, he

stated that he participates because he "never really let go of an aspect of childhood

that lets you truly believe that you're a race car driver whilst peddling your big wheel

down the sidewalk. Or Luke Skywalker flying down the Deathstar trench." An anecdote

he shared further stresses the aspect of his childhood love of the Star Wars universe:

[4.7] A few years ago my wife threw a 40th birthday party for me. Knowing

my closet love for star wars (from my childhood)…[she] surprised the

dickens out me with a star wars theme party. Everyone came in a costume

Cantina Band DJ, fullsize Jabba the Hut Statue, Millennium Falcon cake my

wife in a Princess Leia metal bikini…and my indoctrination into the 501st

[Legion]…I absolutely was impressed by the squad of storm troopers, Darth

Vader, Bobba Fett and many more that marched into the room to present

me with my present an actual set of storm trooper armor. The costumes

were very screen accurate and worth up to $3000 a piece after being "sworn

to the empire"…what is cooler than being a storm trooper?

[4.8] Indeed, what is cooler than being a storm trooper? Determined to find out why

so many cosplayers were drawn to this role, I asked many storm troopers, all of whom

were either already members of the 501st or were in the process of requesting

membership, about the appeal of this role. Koets replied, "They are the

'misunderstood bad guys'…the troopers began with the clone army—OWNED by the

republic—they were the military force that protected the rights of Democratic

government—that turned into one run by the emperor—but because they were owned

—and had allegiance, they ended up with the bad rap" (email interview, January 26,

2009). Another member of the 501st (figure 5), in an interview at the con (February 7,

2009), remembers being 7 years old: for him, the first guys who really stood out in

the films were the storm troopers. Now that he's old enough, he "can afford to indulge

in having wanted to be a storm trooper."

Figure 5. Member of the 501st and Jennifer Gunnels. Photo by Nicole Fellows. [View

larger image.]

[4.9] The most interesting similarity with nearly all of the Star Wars cosplayers was

their ages. Most of them represented a spectrum of Generation X, which I'm defining

following William Strauss and Neil Howe (1992) as members of the population born

between 1961 and 1981. The release of the original trilogy films (1977, 1980, and

1983, respectively) meant that members of this generation were impressionable

children. The content of the films becomes progressively more complex, thus

presenting more complicated ideas concerning life to progressively older (and

appropriately so for the messages) audiences. As an example, I fall into the middle

range of Generation X. At the release of the films, I was 9, 12, and 15—very age

appropriate for considering what the films had to say about navigating the path to

adulthood and society.

[4.10] Why Star Wars? Why now? Several cosplayers, particularly those who decided

on characters from the original trilogy, pointed to a backward entry into cosplay:

participation began with their children's interest in the franchise, even though they

themselves had been fans since childhood. Koets, like many others I interviewed,

found that he connected with his children through his own childhood love of Star Wars.

Koets and one of the Wookies I interviewed were pulled into Star Wars cosplay

through building an R2D2 robot with their children. Koets "hopp[ed] around the house

for a good lightsaber battle [with his children]," and the Wookie cosplayer, after

completing the R2D2 model, felt compelled to have a costume to go with it. When I

met him at the 2009 Comic Con, he even carried his own childhood Chewbacca action

figure.

[4.11] The fact that they are parents is telling. Through their involvement, the adults

reaccess their memories of seeing the original film and how this material helped them

navigate the circumstances of their own childhood. They revisit these memories while

immersed in similar social circumstances to their first viewings. Then, as now, a new

generation of children are discovering Star Wars while the country is in dire

socioeconomic circumstances. As children, members of Generation X found themselves

thrust into a period of rapid value shifts, the breakdown of the nuclear family, and

economic upheaval. In addition, the parenting style of the baby boomers, in opposition

to their own strict upbringing, tended to leave their Generation X children to their own

devices. This proved detrimental in bequeathing the cultural information—"the

teaching of society's acceptable values, norms, beliefs, and actions" (Garrard 2008:9)

—necessary for navigating a path to adulthood. Star Wars filled the gap.

[4.12] Several scholars, such as Bruno Bettelheim (1991), explain how fairy tales

and myth provide a vehicle for this teaching. Today's fairy tales and myths are

expressions of popular culture—films, TV shows, video games. The Star Wars films are relevant here, as producer and film critic Dale Pollock acknowledges in his remarks

about the mythic power behind the original Star Wars film: "Children get the message

—they know eventually they'll have to leave home, take risks, submit to trials, learn to

control their emotions, and act like adults. What they don't know is how to do these

things. Star Wars shows them" (Garrard 2008:67). Children of Generation X

understood, as most children eventually do, that they would need to learn to negotiate

the world as adults. They knew the "what" but not the "how," and Star Wars bridged that gap: George Lucas used the structures of the mythic journey throughout the

original trilogy, and Generation X in turn used it as a model for navigating their path to

adulthood. All of this blossomed in 1977's sociohistorical context: economic downturn,

rising housing prices, rising gas prices, rising inflation, and falling real wages (Garrard

2008:87). Sound familiar?

5. Conclusion

[5.1] As with any area of study, particularly those (like this study) with scarce

secondary literature to consult, my examination of Star Wars cosplay within the New

York Comic Con raises more questions than it answers. Why do cosplayers choose the

characters they do? How do cosplaying communities, like the 501st Legion, work on a

larger scale? Are cosplayers at other comic cons portraying Star Wars characters for

similar reasons? Why do people choose cosplay over other forms of fan participation—

or do they participate in other fan areas as well? If so, to what extent?

[5.2] The Star Wars cosplayers are clearly tapping into their childhoods: today's

social context eerily mirrors the context that members of Generation X grew up in, and

the children born to Generation X are growing up in parallel circumstances

characterized by economic instability. For some cosplayers, dipping into the Star Wars

universe may be a way to cope, as well as a way to share coping strategies with their

own children—to pass on the same myth that enabled them to negotiate their own

growth within our culture. Will we point them in the direction of Luke Skywalker and

ObiWan Kenobi to learn how to best negotiate the times? In all honesty, I would like

to think so. Perhaps they will forge a New Jedi Order to balance the mistakes of the

Knights of the Old Republic.

6. Acknowledgments

[6.1] A version of this paper was presented at the 2009 PCA/ACA Conference in New

Orleans for the Faires and Festivals group. I thank Nicole Fellows for her assistance in

gathering field material and shooting footage at the 2009 New York Comic Con.

7. Note

1. The cosplayer within the Star Wars universe can find enormous help and support online. My discussion with ObiWan Kenobi revealed two major sources for assisting

the wouldbe Star Wars cosplayer: The Padawan's Guide

(http://www.padawansguide.com/) and Padme's Wardrobe and Closet (http://www.anakinsangel.net/PadmesPic.html). These provide sources and materials

for organizations such as the 501st Legion (http://www.501stlegion.org/index.php),

"the world's definitive Imperial costuming organization" and a national charity

organization, the beginnings of which are outlined in the documentary film Heart of an

Empire (2007).

8. Works cited

Bettlelheim, Bruno. 1991. The uses of enchantment: The meaning and importance of

fairy tales. New York: Penguin.

Coppa, Francesca. 2006. Writing bodies in space: Media fan fiction as theatrical

performance. In Fan fiction and fan communities in the age of the Internet, ed. Karen Hellekson and Kristina Busse, 225–44. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.

Garrard, Todd Anthony. 2008. Remember, the Force will be with you…always: The

electronic media and "Star Wars" and the socialization of Generation X. Master's thesis, Univ. of Texas–San Antonio.

Goffman, Erving. 1959. The presentation of self in everyday life. New York: Anchor

Doubleday.

Kaiser, Susan B. 1996. The social psychology of clothing: Symbolic appearances in

context. 2nd ed. New York: Fairchild Books and Visuals.

Schechner, Richard. 1985. Between theater and anthropology. Philadelphia: Univ. of

Pennsylvania Press.

Strauss, William, and Neil Howe. 1992. Generations. New York: Harper Perennial.

Tajfel, Henri, ed. 1982. Introduction. In Social identity and intergroup relations, 1–11.

Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.

Wetmore Jr., Kevin J. 2007. Your father's lightsaber: The fetishization of objects

between the trilogies. In Culture, identities and technology in the "Star Wars" films: Essays on the two trilogies, ed. Carl Silvio and Tony M. Vinci, 175–87. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.

Transformative Works and Cultures, Vol 3 (2009)

Symposium

The Hunt for Gollum: Tracking issues of fandom cultures

Robin Anne Reid

Texas A&M University, Commerce, Texas, United States

[0.1] Abstract— The fanproduced film The Hunt for Gollum (Independent Online Cinema, 2009) was released May 3, 2009, for free viewing on the Internet,

garnering much interest from The Lord of the Rings fan communities and fan

reviewers. Reviews of the film—whether in major science fiction fan communities, on

the film's page in the Internet Movie Database, or in individual blogs and

LiveJournals—have been positive to glowing. The consensus seems to be that the

film is atypical of fan productions because of its professional production values.

What the reviewers fail to consider are circumstances of production and reception

that relate to gender differences in fan and mainstream culture. To address this

lack, I first discuss the film as a fan production, then question how choices made by

the creators regarding media and genre and the critical reception can be situated in

the broader context of gender.

[0.2] Keywords— Adaptation; Appropriation; Fan community; Fan film;

Filmmaking; J. R. R. Tolkien; The Lord of the Rings; The Hunt for Gollum

Reid, Robin Anne. 2009. The Hunt for Gollum: Tracking issues of fandom cultures.

Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 3.

http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2009.0162.

1. Introduction

[1.1] The fanproduced film The Hunt for Gollum (Independent Online Cinema, 2009)

was released May 3, 2009, for free viewing on the Internet, garnering much interest

from The Lord of the Rings fan communities and fan reviewers. The film does an

excellent job of bringing to life a subplot of J. R. R. Tolkien's novel and creating a

strong visual sense of Peter Jackson's film. Especially compelling are long shots of

mountains and forests, as well as closer shots of characters, particularly Aragorn,

traveling through Middleearth. The cinematic aspects of the film are outstanding, but

the script, even with dialogue from the novel, is less so.

[1.2] Reviews of the film—whether in major science fiction fan communities, on the

film's page in the Internet Movie Database, or in individual blogs and LiveJournals—

have been positive to glowing. Reviewers praise the high quality of the work done on a

low budget (£3,000). The consensus seems to be that the film is atypical of fan

productions because of its professional production values. The reviews focus on the

quality of the film and its close relationship to the source texts. What the reviewers fail to consider are circumstances of production and reception that relate to gender

differences in fan and mainstream culture. To address this lack, I first discuss the film

as a fan production, then question how choices made by the creators regarding media

and genre and the critical reception can be situated in the broader context of gender.

2. The film

[2.1] The cinematography parallels Jackson's work. Executive producer Chris

Bouchard's use of light and dark evokes important themes in both novel and film. The

soundtrack, collaboratively created by Adam Langston, Andrew Skrabutenas, and

Bouchard, hints at Howard Shore's work. The acting ranges from strong to excellent,

and costuming and makeup are well done. The setting, various locations in Britain, is

superb. Adrian Webster is convincing as a younger Aragorn, and in some shots mirrors

Viggo Mortensen's Aragorn. Webster conveys the physicality of Aragorn as a hunter

and tracker, a man used to a solitary life and able to see beyond the material world.

The creators clearly attempted to recreate or imitate, rather than transform, Tolkien's

and Jackson's work, and they have achieved that goal.

[2.2] The sense of imitation extends to the film's Web site

(http://www.thehuntforgollum.com/), which includes forums, invitations to submit fan art, and contest announcements as well as downloadable content. Media sites that

build in more fanoriented features did not originate with Peter Jackson's films, but

The Lord of the Rings film site (http://www.lordoftherings.net/) and Jackson's communication and perceived responsiveness to fan input are praised by fans. The

Hunt for Gollum site covers visual concepts and art, special effects, makeup, props, costumes, location shots, fight choreography, and a narrative of how the character of

Goblok developed over the course of the production. The director's blog

(http://www.hunt4gollum.blogspot.com/) includes information on the film, including the current translation efforts, which have resulted in versions with subtitles available

in a wide variety of languages, including French, German, and Turkish. The blog

invites volunteers to do translations in other languages, an example of the volunteer

work done in all other areas of the production, which supplemented the low budget.

[2.3] The film demonstrates a strong knowledge of the novel, but the selection of

story creates its own limitations. The plot is what is known in fandom as a gapfiller,

showing more than is related in the original text (novel or film). Hunt narrates directly events that are related in expository scenes in the source texts. Besides the

appendices, there are two scenes in the novel where Gandalf and Aragorn's search for

Gollum is related. The first recounting is brief: Gandalf relates the story of Gollum to

Frodo in "The Shadow of the Past," focusing primarily on how Gollum acquired the

Ring and what he did after losing it—actions that led to Sauron becoming aware of the Shire for the first time. The second occasion occurs later, when, as part of the

exposition in "The Council of Elrond," Gandalf and Aragorn discuss their search for and Aragorn's capture of Gollum. This section of the novel is directly related to the film

because the focus is on what the wizard and Ranger do rather than on Gollum's story.

Jackson deletes the story of Aragorn's hunt for Gollum; instead, viewers see Gandalf

journeying to Minas Tirith to find Isildur's written account. In Hunt, as in the novel, Gandalf asks Aragorn for help, and Aragorn alone captures Gollum, takes him to

Mirkwood, and turns him over to the Elves.

[2.4] This gap in the source narratives is exactly the sort of space that fan creations

can fill, and the directors, producers, cast, and crew of Hunt have done an excellent job, with a professionalappearing production faithful to the two source texts. Hunt

opens with a prologue that provides background on the Third Age and the scattered

line of kings, on the Rangers, and on Mordor's rising threat—and the immediate threat

of the One Ring. The main story arc is Aragorn's search for Gollum after he meets

Gandalf at the Prancing Pony at Bree. During his journeys into the wilderness

searching for Gollum, he visits a weatherworn statue of his ancestor, Elendil, asks for

his help, and sees brief visions of the future related in The Lord of the Rings.

[2.5] Aragorn has no luck in his search until he meets Arithir, an original character.

In language mirroring Gandalf's when he speaks to Frodo in the novel, Arithir relates

rumors from Ithilien to Mirkwood of a ghost that drinks blood and steals food. As

Aragorn searches for Gollum, and after he captures him, he must fight Orcs and the

Black Riders who have come west of the river. After a major battle with a large group

of Orcs, Aragorn is badly injured and nearly collapses. He sees a white flower, not

identified in this film but clearly meant to be athelas (a healing herb), and then has a vision of Arwen speaking Elvish, who assures him of her love and seems to heal him.

Gollum escapes as Aragorn is unconscious. Aragorn then tracks Gollum through the

night, only to be attacked by a Black Rider. The Elves come to Aragorn's aid after he

has fought off the Nazgûl, and Gollum is captured. Gandalf and Aragorn then plan to

move to protect Frodo, and Aragorn tells Gandalf to send the hobbit to Bree, where

Aragorn will wait to help guard him.

3. The reception

[3.1] The fan reception, as judged by Internet reviews, has been positive. I have

seen no commercial media review the film, nor would I expect to. Most reviewers

agree the film is a better homage to Jackson than to Tolkien. The assumptions these

reviewers have in common are that fan productions are amateur—meaning "not done

very well"—and not worth viewing by any but the most dedicated of fans, who by

definition have flawed critical standards. Because of its high production values, Hunt is seen as an exception to this rule, and indeed it is worthy of praise in terms of

professional criteria. Ken Denmead (2009) praises the film for looking like footage

leftover from Jackson's film; Michael Marano (2009), although claiming that the quality

of Bouchard's film is better than professional fantasy films from the 1980s, is the only

one to criticize the "flawless recreation of flawed filmmaking" (Jackson's) and to claim that Bouchard is better when creating his own vision. Reviewers note that the

audience for this film consists of fans of the book or film: except for the prologue, the

film provides little background information on the characters' history. Whereas

Jackson's film had to appeal to viewers who had never read the book, Hunt provides

no context, instead presenting scenes that require work on the part of the viewer to

place into sequence as part of a larger metatext including both novel and earlier film.

[3.2] However, Hunt's Web site provides some clues about their understanding of the

"fan" part of the fan text. The FAQ section notes, "The film is completely unofficial and nonprofit. We have reached an understanding with Tolkein [ sic] Enterprises to allow the film to be released noncommercially online but the project is completely unofficial

and unaffiliated" (http://www.thehuntforgollum.com/faq.html). This text acts as a disclaimer that firmly places the film within the fan realm. Yet the Web site also

indicates that the creators are overwhelmingly men, primarily white. Additionally,

many either wish to have or already have careers in acting and filmmaking. This film

can be read as a fan production that also serves as an audition or promotion piece for

aspiring professionals. The science fiction community in particular has long been

known for raising few barriers between fan and professional and for close interaction

between pros and fans, and Hunt follows this lead. However, certainly not all fans

engaged in fan production in any media are interested in professional careers, as

opposed to enjoying fan activities as a hobby.

[3.3] Higher status relating to professional and original works compared with the

lower status relating to hobbies and amateur productions has already been well

described as a (gendered) part of capitalist culture (Jenkins 1992). This hybrid fan/pro

film emphasizes one split in fan cultures and values: works done primarily for the

community, as hobbies, out of love for the text, are received differently than works

done as a type of apprenticeship, which includes love of the source text but has

professionals as part of the potential audience. The upshot: slickly designed fan films

created by men hoping to enter the profession generate a lot of attention—and may

really lead to the very job opportunities they are hoping for. Artworks and fictions

created by women, despite what in some cases are equally high production values, are

criticized for being amateur. There are also genre distinctions: most of the fanproduced films or episodes of shows—including Star Trek: The Hidden Frontier, the Star Trek fan film that includes gay (male) characters—are primarily produced by men

(http://www.hiddenfrontier.com/contact.php) while women tend to work with the shorter art form of videos, or vids.

[3.4] One film being created by a group of fans that includes more than one or two

women is the partner film to Hunt, called Born of Hope (2009). The crew page lists Kate Madison, Teja Hudson, Sara Austin, Keira Robertgon, and Vanessa Mills

(http://www.bornofhope.com/Crew.html). This film focuses on the storyline of

Arathorn II and Gilraen, parents of Aragorn, and the trailer shows the action set in a

community, the Dúnedain. While Hunt focuses on Aragorn as an epic hero, alone,

performing deeds beyond the skills of most men, Born of Hope focuses on another

element in Tolkien's novel: the communities and families who were threatened by

Sauron's war with the West. The appendices to The Lord of the Rings include the

information that Aragorn's father, the Chief of the Dúnedain, was killed by Orcs, and

that his mother, with their child, took refuge in Rivendell, where Aragorn was raised.

The gendered nature of film topic and creators seems clear: the men focus on the epic

hero, and the women focus on community. The decision to focus on a storyline that is

even less present in the text than Aragorn's journey, referenced in only a few lines in

appendix A and B, is an example of what Henry Jenkins (1992) has identified as

refocalization.

[3.5] Refocalizing involves changing the focus away from major characters or events

in a source text and making minor characters or events the focus of the fan

production. Refocalizing allows women characters to become protagonists and, in the

case of Hope, can show Aragorn as a baby and a young child, within the heart of his family and community, even though that community is later destroyed. Since the

majority of media texts (and, arguably, the literary canon as well as much popular

genre fiction outside the genre of romance) tend to focus on the solitary if not always

epic male hero, it seems clear that fan productions that recreate the characterization

and plots of the source texts will always be more maledominated (even if women are

involved, which happens).

[3.6] Transformative works, which shift the focus to minor or underused characters

or, in the case of slash fiction, foreground relationships, including romantic

relationships between the main male characters in action adventure narratives, tend to

be the creative domain of women fans. While the focus of this essay is on gender, it is

important to note that gender must be understood in the context of race and class. In

the case of these films, the fan creators are British; however, pictures on Web sites

are not clear indicators of ethnicity. The issues of constructions of race in media and

print texts, as well as how race operates in fandom productions and communities,

must be the focus of another essay: for example, the discussion of the Orcs in

Tolkien's work as raced others is a part of ongoing dialogues in fandom.

[3.7] In theory, fan productions and creations will be valued in the fan community, whether imitative or transformative, on their own merits, rather than on the gender or

race of the creators. However, The Hunt for Gollum's reception raises the question of whether fan stories of a more transformative sort—including slash—would stand any

chance of being created on film, given the necessity of raising money even for a lowbudget film. The choice of women to produce vids, transformative works utilizing already created graphic and audio materials, shows that women are neither averse to

nor lack the skills to work in visual media. However, a film of any length requires

greater resources, which may also not be as available to women as to men. The

probability is that stories that transform source texts too radically with regard to

gender and sexuality are unlikely to attract the support that more traditionally

constructed stories (stories like Hunt and Born of Hope) have, regardless of the love and passion of the creators for the source texts and the quality of their work. Because

mainstream culture tends to value productions that reflect the dominant values

regarding gender and sexuality, fandom is one cultural space where those values may

be questioned.

[3.8] My purpose in this essay is not to reverse the hierarchies that exist in

mainstream culture, that is, to dismiss one type of fan space and fan production, the

space and work that aims for professional employment, as inferior to or less than

another type of fan space and production, one that questions mainstream attitudes

and is created for love. Both are valid, but it is possible to note that mainstream

culture tends to valorize the professionalized space, equating it with masculinity, and

to ignore or marginalize the other spaces where equally exciting work, including work

that meets various types of professional standards, also exists.

4. Works cited

Denmead, Ken. 2009. Lord of the Rings fan film The Hunt for Gollum is an impressive

achievement. GeekDad, May 5. http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2009/05/reviewlord

oftheringsfanfilmthehuntforgollumisanimpressiveachievement (accessed

August 24, 2009).

Jenkins, Henry. 1992. Textual poachers: Television fans and participatory culture. New York: Routledge.

Marano, Michael. 2009. Aragorn's untold adventure is precious in The Hunt for Gollum.

Sci Fi Wire, May 8. http://scifiwire.com/2009/05/reviewaragornsuntoldad.php

(accessed August 24, 2009).

Transformative Works and Cultures, Vol 3 (2009)

Symposium

Pattern recognition: A dialogue on racism in fan communities

TWC Editor

[0.1] Abstract— In early 2009, science fiction fandom's online landscape erupted with discussions of race. A post regarding cultural appropriation on author Elizabeth Bear's blog sparked a wideranging conversation that soon became acrimonious, with professional science

fiction and fantasy writers and fans of science fiction literature and media weighing in. More recently, criticisms of Patricia C. Wrede's decision to set her young adult novel, The Thirteenth Child (2009), in an America empty of indigenous people have spearheaded new waves of discussion. Often the more widely read summaries of these debates have focused on what

they mean for writers and aspiring writers who plan to represent minority cultures in their

works. But what has their significance been for members of fan communities?

[0.2] Keywords— Class; Fan community; Gender; Race

TWC Editor. 2009. Pattern recognition: A dialogue on racism in fan communities.

Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 3. http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2009.0172.

1. Introduction

[1.1] In early 2009, science fiction fandom's online landscape erupted with discussions of

race. A post regarding cultural appropriation on author Elizabeth Bear's blog sparked a wideranging conversation that soon became acrimonious, with professional science fiction and fantasy writers and fans of science fiction literature and media weighing in; discussions which had taken place within fannish subcommunities for many years gained a much broader reach

(note 1). More recently, criticisms of Patricia C. Wrede's decision to set her young adult novel,

The Thirteenth Child (2009), in an America empty of indigenous people have spearheaded new

waves of discussion (http://linkspam.dreamwidth.org/tag/mammothfail) (note 2). Often the more widely read summaries of these debates have focused on what they mean for writers and

aspiring writers who plan to represent minority cultures in their works. But what has their

significance been for members of fan communities?

[1.2] Debates about racism and other forms of global structural inequality—seen as

unproductive Internet drama to some and as a form of social justice activism by others—have

increasingly shaped the public online landscapes of some sectors of science fiction and media fandom in recent years. This is a discussion among participants in these debates, primarily fans of color, about how discussions about race and fandom have shaped their experiences and

politics, and of what the emerging movements mean for fandom and antiracism. The

conversations took place informally at WisCon (http://www.wiscon.info) and have been transcribed, edited, and supplemented by email discussion afterward.

[1.3] The participants in this conversation are as follows (some are contributing under their fan names, other under their legal names): Coffeeandink, Deepa D., Jackie Gross, Liz Henry,

Oyceter, Sparkymonster, and Naamen Tilahun.

[1.4] Coffeeandink is a white feminist who sometimes blogs about science fiction, fandom, and race at http://coffeeandink.dreamwidth.org/. Deepa D. is a South Asian Indian woman whose public blog is http://deepad.dreamwidth.org/. Jackie Gross (ladyjax) is a black lesbian feminist

fan living in Oakland, California (http://ladyjax.dreamwidth.org/). She's still bitter about Space: Above and Beyond being canceled by Fox. Liz Henry is a feminist SF/F fan and netizen from the San Francisco Bay Area, and is white, queer, and disabled, a Web developer, blogger, and

translator. She blogs at http://badgerbag.dreamwidth.org/ and http://blogs.feministsf.net/.

Oyceter is a Chinese American woman who grew up partially in Taiwan. She blogs about books

at http://oyceter.dreamwidth.org/. Sparkymonster is a 34yearold geeky, mixedrace (black

and white), fat, queer, femme, feminist woman of color who brings her love of intersectionality

everywhere she goes. She blogs at http://sparkymonster.livejournal.com/ and sporadically at

http://www.fatshionista.com/. Naamen Tilahun is a 26yearold geeky black writer and fan

living in the Bay Area. He blogs in various places online, but his main home is

http://naamenblog.wordpress.com/.

[1.5] The discussion was moderated and transcribed by TWC symposium editor Alexis Lothian,

a white fan and academic who has written about fannish antiracist activism in both scholarly and fannish contexts. Her academic blog is at http://queergeektheory.wordpress.com/.

2. Changing the terms: Bingo?

[2.1] Alexis Lothian: Online political discussions have produced their own kinds of

transformative works. A genre that has become especially important in fan discussions of race has been the bingo card, where common arguments are debunked by a visual demonstration of

how clichéd they are.

[2.2] Liz Henry: I've seen bingo cards in online activist discussions for many years. I have a collection in a Flickr set (http://www.flickr.com/photos/lizhenry/sets/72157612897466679/)

that includes several race bingo cards as well as cards for antibreastfeeding arguments, fat hate, and more.

Figure 1. Example of a bingo card: Fantasy and Science Fiction Bingo, No Racism in Fiction

edition. Courtesy of Liz Henry. [View larger image.]

[2.3] Sparkymonster: I first encountered bingo cards in the feminist blogosphere, where they were explained on an amazing feminism 101 blog

(http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/).

[2.4] Deepa D.: Bingo cards have evolved as a shorthand for something that people have personally experienced. Without that personal experience, the bingo cards can seem

unnecessarily simplistic and generic—almost cruel. A problem occurs when people are exposed

to bingo cards without the experience of being socialized in the way fandom has talked about things. For example, I've had the meatspace experience of showing antiracist bingo cards to people who are not in fandom. People of color who weren't part of these discussions online had a sense of wonder and awe that people have come up with simple, clear language to explain all the diffuse experiences that have hurt them in various ways. They haven't had someone to do

that for them—to say, "You're not alone. This happens so often that we can give it a name and a threeword term to put on a square." On the other hand, for white people who haven't seen those arguments happening, it's the reduction of something that's a personal experience to a pattern that they feel puts them into a mold. So I think that the value of bingo cards is layered according to who is experiencing them.

[2.5] Coffeeandink: It's interesting that the people of color in this discussion find value in the fact that the bingo cards don't explain, that they say, "You are too ignorant for me to talk to, your argument is not worth my energy and time." Because that's what's always made me feel ambivalent about them. What I really want is for each square to be linked to a wiki explanation of the argument and counterargument, so that if the person making the racist argument takes

the initiative to click, there's an explanation available. But that again puts the burden on the person linking to bingo, the person of color, to be the educator, whereas it seems like people prefer to use the bingo cards as a protest against that expectation.

[2.6] Sparkymonster: I don't use bingo cards as a tool of discussion. But when I get so frustrated, angry, and hurt and someone says, "Ooh, bingo!" it breaks the toxic buildup for me.

Humor, especially bitter humor, is really critical for helping me make it through these kinds of discussions. Laughing at the stupidity is one form of release.

[2.7] Deepa D.: What we're really talking about here is what people of color experience, and I want to bring it back to that. Bingo cards might be useful for white people, but they are

important for people of color because they say, "What you are experiencing is not personal;

you're not alone; this is part of a structure." It's important to recognize the parts of the pattern because then it ceases to be about one person; it ceases to be about one incident that can be forgiven and becomes part of an institution that cannot be forgiven.

[2.8] Oyceter: It's naming something. It's like L. Timmel Duchamp's 2008 WisCon guest of

honor speech (http://ltimmel.home.mindspring.com/DuchampWisCon32GoHspeech.pdf) about sexual harassment—being able to have the term, to say, "This is racism." To name some of the arguments we might find on a bingo card: this is white women's tears, this is the tone argument.

[2.9] Deepa D.: All this was revelatory for me because I realized I found strength through having pattern recognition. I was able to parse instantly what someone was saying, to not take it personally or focus exclusively on the details, but to see it as part of a pattern and classify it accordingly. So I don't have to waste time having a personal reaction. I can go straightaway into strategies to deal with a pattern of oppression. And a lot of people don't have that, because depending on where you are in a whitemajority country, lot of people of color lack a

supportive, educational network, especially if you are young and not in an activist community.

[2.10] Oyceter: Or if your family doesn't teach you to recognize those patterns.

[2.11] Deepa D.: In education, teaching people to recognize patterns is a basic pedagogical tool; it's how we learn to understand math, to recognize cause and effect. Unless you can

recognize patterns in racism, you won't recognize institutional racism for what it is and how it manifests in individual people.

3. Manifestations: The tone argument

[3.1] Alexis Lothian: A bingo card definition of the tone argument goes something like, "You are alienating people with your anger. If you would only explain your criticism politely,

everyone would understand your point."

[3.2] Oyceter: When I started to get involved in discussions of race in fandom, I thought that the people of color calling people out for their racism were too mean and snarky. Then, as I got more involved, I realized that the snark is selfprotection against the ignorance and abuse that comes up when white people are asked to confront their racism. Sometimes all I can do is use cat macros because I am wordless.

[3.3] Coffeeandink: I noticed the phrase "a civil conversation" in the most recent rounds, coming from men in particular, from white people who hadn't previously engaged in discussions about race with people of color or in an antiracist space. It's another version of the tone

argument, the vocabulary argument. It ignores the subjectivity of reading tone and the unequal standards applied to people perceived to be white versus those who are perceived to be of

color. There's just no way to politely challenge privilege, because the privileged party defines politeness. The "civility" of the conversation is defined by the vocabulary used or the amount of ritual deference offered, not by whether or not someone just claimed that by virtue of your

race, you were incapable of reasoned argument.

[3.4] The thing that blew up the tone argument for me was the treatment of Zvi when she

criticized a Harry Potter fan community for using the term miscegenation without understanding its history (note 3). She was patient and civil, yet people were saying she was uncivil—even

insisting that her icon was inappropriately violent because it said, "If you can't be educated, you will be killfiled" (that is, summarily discarded, without reading).

[3.5] Deepa D.: The tone argument is important because almost all of us have made it—at least in our heads and sometimes, unfortunately, online—about another person of color.

Because we have hope! We have hope that being polite, being generous, being kind, or

explaining something in the right way, works. We are used to treating individuals as individuals

and persons, but talking about the tone argument again reinforces that it's a pattern: this is a systematic thing, not a oneperson thing, and systems can't be dismantled by politeness. You can dialogue politely with an individual, but you don't dialogue politely with an institution of oppression. You act disruptively with an institution of oppression—even if it's nonviolent

anarchism or nonviolent protest. You disrupt, you do not dialogue.

[3.6] Oyceter: And I think that's specifically why tone comes up: it's a form of systemic oppression. To make the tone argument is to say don't be violent; don't connect; talk on this individual level, and let me break alliances up into individual pieces.

[3.7] Sparkymonster: It's also a way for white people, or privileged people in general, to deny all responsibility by saying, "I will only educate myself if you will say it the perfect way."

This is something I struggled with for a long time. I would say, "Have you heard of this thing called white privilege?" and people would respond, "You are so mean and racist." I would think,

"What did I say?" But then I realized that it doesn't matter what I say—if someone is going to have that reaction, they will have that reaction whether I cover it with bunnies or tell them to die in a fire. I started to comment with lists of links because I realized I don't need to restate these articles, just get people to read them. I've had people say I'm being mean and

dismissive, that I'm treating them like they're stupid. But if I'm giving you links, if I'm bothering to comment at you, I probably think you're someone who can have a discussion with me. If you flip out in response, you don't have the same respect for me.

[3.8] When people describe fans of color challenging racism as a mean, undifferentiated

horde, they're not seeing how so many are being scrupulous and polite. My response is, "Who are you talking about? Stop smushing us!" There are people using many different kinds of strategic arguments, and they can include anger, which is a powerful and important tool.

4. Manifestations: Race and white femininity

[4.1] Alexis Lothian: The intersection of race and gender is crucial to a lot of the terminology that comes up in discussions of race in fandom, particularly because much of the discussion

takes place in online spaces that are dominated by white women.

[4.2] Sparkymonster: The common experience that gets shorthanded in bingo card terms as

"white women's tears" is when you're talking about race and a white woman's response is,

"When I was in high school these black girls were so mean to me!" or, "When you talk about race it makes me cry!" And then suddenly everyone is comforting the white woman instead of continuing to discuss race.

[4.3] Oyceter: It becomes about the white woman's pain for being jumped on for saying something racist, or about her pain from looking at the pain of an oppressive situation.

[4.4] Deepa D.: One of the purest, most crystalline forms of white women's tears comes when white women are genuinely upset about racism.

[4.5] Oyceter: And they aren't strong enough to take it. They think women of color are strong enough to deal with racism, but white women aren't. I would like to link to Chrystos's

poem "Those Tears" (http://resistracism.wordpress.com/2008/05/21/thosetears/), about the

tears of a white woman who was challenged for trying to enter a "women of color only" space, which may be where the term comes from. Some women of color then created the specific term

"white women's tears" as a reference not only to the poem, but also the term "white women's

syndrome" (http://www.racialicious.com/2008/08/27/whitefeministsandmichelle

obama/#comment917278) as a way to codify patterns of white women's behavior about

racism and sexism in general. Terms are shorthand for this giant intersectional thing: how white men "chivalrously" spring to the defense of white women "under attack" from women of color, and the entire system in which white womanhood is set up as the example of womanhood and

how that erases women of color as women. And it's all there in three words as "white women's syndrome."

[4.6] Liz Henry: It's also connected to missing white woman syndrome

(http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/2/3/1/3/3/p231334_index.html)

where a white woman goes missing and white men everywhere rush to the rescue—but black

women go missing and aren't given any of the same attention

(http://www.whataboutourdaughters.com/).

[4.7] Jackie Gross: Another pattern that all this connects to is the nice white lady—as demonstrated in the MADtv skit (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVFnirSq5s). It's the

trope of the white woman who comes to the benighted inner city youth to save them from

themselves, in movies like Dangerous Minds (1995) and Freedom Writers (2007).

[4.8] Sparkymonster: To bring us back to Wrede's The Thirteenth Child and its erasure of Native American people, in some ways, this reminds me of the reservation school system: "Kill the Indian and save the man" (http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/4929/).

[4.9] Deepa D.: There's an explicit link to missionary societies. It's easy to criticize missionaries who went out and tried to convert people to Christianity, but they were supported by women who stayed back and were nice and did social charity work, had sewing circles,

raised money to send to the heathens. Nice is an important term because, much as Jane Austen deconstructs in Northanger Abbey (1817), nice is small. Nice says that what you are doing is not aspiring to greatness, just everyday goodness, and that provides an easy lens to say that expecting it is not demanding heroism, but demanding common decency.

[4.10] Without power differentials, the obvious answer to the question "shouldn't we all be nice?" is "yeah, sure." But when you bring race back in, it looks different. A white person being nice to a person of color is a privilege and a condescension that they can choose to bestow or withhold, while for a person of color, being nice to a white person is a chore and a duty and in many cases a safeguard that we have to undertake for our own protection. It's pretty telling that while the mistress can be very "nice" and "kind" and "patient" to and with her servants, the powerless perform the same behaviors and courtesies as a duty and job.

5. The landscapes of fan communities

[5.1] Deepa D.: The fannish demographic is implicated in the terms we use especially when we talk about gender. People who selfidentify as female are the majority participants in the culture of transformative fan works based on media, so it's acceptable to carry an assumption that fannish space is a different space for using gendered words. It's good to deconstruct that, but the casual use has to be from a femaledominant space, as opposed to the larger context

where the default is male. For example, I use the word pretty as a compliment for men online in a way that routinely raises eyebrows and disapproving reactions offline from men. I'm also much less bothered by terms like bitchy and slutty and hysterical when I know they are being used among women, although they can still undeniably be weapons we use to hurt each other.

Another telling example is that fandom, as comprising women, immediately understands the

power of the phrase character rape, while it does not so swiftly regard the words colonial or Oriental with equal visceral horror, even though the effects of rape and colonialism have been equally scarring on women of color.

[5.2] Oyceter: That's very different from science fiction and fantasy (SFF) book fandom, which is mainly male. That was part of the miasma around the RaceFail (note 4) debate: the old

boys' club of SFF book fandom that led to the dismissal not only of people of color but also of LiveJournal. They had the idea that LJ is full of hysteria and shrieking, and they asked, "Where are the rational people in this discussion?" That's very gendered.

[5.3] Coffeeandink: Another difference between the book and media fandoms is that book fandom is filled with aspiring writers who want to make a living from their work, while media fandom isn't about making a living at all. Status in media fandom isn't based on whether you make money from your work.

[5.4] Oyceter: I think there's a greater distance between creators of media in media fandom and the fans and that allows for a flatter fandom, whereas in SFF book fandom, I think that

there's less of a distance between creators and fans because it is easier for SFF book fans to become SFF book creators than it is for media fans to become media producers—which in some

ways is cool, because fans can influence professional production, but it also creates a more hierarchical structure.

[5.5] Deepa D.: In media fandom, social capital is policed quickly, because it's the only kind of status writers have. If your fic is called racist, you lose a lot of social capital, while Elizabeth Bear can lose that social capital and gain financially from the additional sales the discussion brings her.

[5.6] Sparkymonster: On the one hand, if everyone agrees your fic is racist, then media fandom can trash you in 4 seconds. But on the other hand, there is also a weird forgetting,

where people change their user name or the memory of the trashing just fades with the

passage of time. So I'll see someone who got trashed for sexism, transphobia, or racism pop up under another user name, which is very easy to do—and sometimes people remember,

sometimes they don't. I think that's part of why people can get so defensive in media fandom—

because they are so caught up in their social capital.

[5.7] Deepa D.: While fic is archived and vids are shown publicly, in fandom, there is also always the idea that it's possible to rewrite things. Fans who are involved with the production of

transformative works are used to discussions where a community can constantly reinvent itself, where it can selfcorrect if things are going wrong. You can edit something that you've posted online.

[5.8] For SFF, it's a case of, "We published a book that was edited a year ago, written 2 years ago, and it's done. What do you want us to do about it now?" It's ironic and ridiculous in some ways, but the fact that we know we can change things makes us more responsible about

changing things. We recognize that things are permanent when they're on the public record,

that anyone can take a screencap and save it, but because things are constantly changing, it's our duty to document that change. We recognize that we selfcorrect, that sometimes that's for good and sometimes for bad, and we try to acknowledge that power and create a structure that takes account of it. However, in a lot of SFF, there's a sense that there are real words on dead trees that are set in stone and can't be changed, as opposed to empty words online that are a great publicity tool or ego massage, but that writers do not need to be held accountable for.

6. Racialized spaces and erased histories

[6.1] Coffeeandink: I'd like to talk about the gendering and racialization of space, both physical and virtual. Multiple white people posted about being frightened by RaceFail, that it made them afraid to write about people of color. My take is that this is a conversation that shouldn't be had in a public space. By having the conversation in a public space, he is marking this public space as a white space, where the white guy gets to announce that his racial anxiety is a concern everyone, especially people of color, should focus on. It's an assumption that all space belongs to me and my concerns: it's private if I want it to be, even if it's public and online, so it's outrageous if someone comes in and disagrees, yet this space is public and I can say what I want. People being checked on their privilege repeatedly have defensive reactions and have conversations about it in public—crying white women's tears. These reactions are

natural—there's nothing wrong with the emotions, but in having them publicly, you're saying

the entire world should be focused on you.

[6.2] Sparkymonster: It's a way for people to affirm their status as a nice white lady.

[6.3] Coffeeandink: It's a way of affirming the public space is white, as a space where white concerns are paramount.

[6.4] Naamen Tilahun: A lot of fans have a different idea of safe space than I and a lot of activists do, I think. Safe space for me has never included the idea that you won't be offended, won't be hurt, won't be angered, won't leave crying. From the activist spaces I was in, safe space was a way to air grievances, check in with each other, and discuss our differences. Fans, for some reason, seem to look at safe space as a place where they won't be challenged or

asked to explain their actions and thoughts—just the opposite. A safe space is where you

should be challenged, where you have to explain yourself. I remember the Queer Alliance at my undergrad school having a discussion on whether we were going to take a stance on marriage

equality or not. I and one other member were against an infavor stance for the organization, specifically because of our feminist issues with the institution of marriage. There was a

knockdown, dragout fight. We were challenged on some sides pretty harshly for our stance. It

was uncomfortable. I had to explain myself, and eventually some of the other members and I simply had to agree to disagree. Safe space is where it's safe to call someone out for something they said or did. Safe space is not yet another place where your privilege is supposed to protect you.

[6.5] The comments David Levine and other people made about not wanting to write

characters of color any more show me that if you can give it up that easily, you were never

invested.

[6.6] Oyceter: It's those people who say, "You people of color are making me rethink antiracism!"

[6.7] Naamen Tilahun: If what I say makes you rethink equality, then you were never

invested in that equality to begin with. Fighting for equality isn't easy—it has never been easy—

and if you are trying to be an ally in any situation, you will inevitably get called out.

[6.8] Oyceter: A horde of people kept popping up to say that they marched in the 1960s and that they knew the civil rights movement. They refused to accept the terms being used in the contemporary antiracist movement.

[6.9] Jackie Gross: It's the same as when white feminists use Audre Lorde's "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House" essay (1981) to signify how down they are.

[6.10] Sparkymonster: Lorde's essay was written because she was invited to speak at the Second Sex conference in 1979 at New York University, where the speakers were almost

entirely straight white women. Lorde spoke directly about straight white feminists who cling to racist and homophobic power structures because they don't want to give up their privilege. It depresses me that 30 years after she wrote this essay, feminists still put together conferences of white women talking to other white women. Our viewpoints are still being ignored. I don't

think feminists have really dealt with Lorde's letter to Mary Daly (http://tinyurl.com/lordedaly

letter), which is a critique of a white feminist coopting bits of African culture for her own

purposes, while ignoring the input and voices of actual African and African American women.

Mary Daly never responded publicly to that letter. I'm still appalled that Daly dismissed Lorde, and that Daly's acts of cultural appropriation are not part of the dialogue around gyn/ecology.

[6.11] Naamen Tilahun: During RaceFail, people would often not link to posts critiquing racism. They would pick and choose what people of color had said and use it to prove their

point, but they wouldn't include what came before or after. That's the same way Lorde gets

used.

[6.12] Deepa D.: Everyone here has commented on RaceFail, and we're all familiar with this level of detail in the history of antiracism. And in online discussions we've all been accused of being nonexistent or ignorant or too academic or not academic enough. We participate in

fandom as equals, which means we're no more but no less than any other fan. As fans, we

accept that there are different viewpoints—we're all online talking about Spike and Buffy or whatever, and we do that as equals. We give that respect to other fans automatically even

though, when it comes to racism, we are the experts.

[6.13] Jackie Gross: I'm 43, and part of me remembers this same conversation from 1986.

Women of color walked out of the '86 or '87 National Women's Studies Association meeting

because they were angry about being tokenized. This is not new. In feminist spaces, it stuck and was documented in books and articles. People remembered. There were articles in

newspapers, and there were books like Barbara Smith's Homegirls (1983), publishing houses like Kitchen Table Press that documented all of this.

[6.14] Deepa D.: To bring this back to the Organization for Transformative Works and its focus, media fandom has done that archive work. There are entire communities dedicated to

what can be talked about in which space, providing links to past debates that have shaped the conversation in fandom. International Blog Against Racism Week

(http://community.livejournal.com/ibarw) is just one example. In RaceFail, Rydra Wong rose up

to record what was taking place, linking to every part of the widespread conversation. Then

Naraht rose up in her place for the next round. Because they're burning out, we now have a

community called Linkspam (http://linkspam.dreamwidth.org/).

[6.15] But we have to talk about the fans of color who have been participating in fandom for the last 10 or 15 years—they're not activists.

[6.16] Sparkymonster: Yes, people like Te (http://teland.com/remember/) and Stormfreak,

an early voice in comics fandom who was vilified by Fandom Wank

(http://www.journalfen.net/community/fandom_wank/) but in retrospect spoke a lot of truth.

Witchqueen, now known as Zvi, and Witchwillow, now known as Avalon's Willow, were powerful

influences on me. One of Zvi's posts from 2002 (http://zvilikestv.livejournal.com/2385.html) really struck a chord and got me thinking/speaking.

[6.17] Deepa D.: They haven't filed a grant, they haven't got support to do activism; they're just people who want to be fans and who've laid the groundwork by fighting again and again in spaces where they shouldn't have had to fight in the first place. They've made it safer for us to speak up and find each other. In the fandom versus professional SFF discussion, we can feel

pride in the way fandom in general has policed itself. But that was at the cost of fans of color, who were burned out, hurt, not paid, and not rewarded. They paid the price by having to

retreat from something they love.

7. Notes

1. The discussions which followed Elizabeth Bear's original post (http://matociquala.livejournal.com/1544111.htm), and their significance within racerelated

online fan discussion as a whole, are summarized at Logophilos (http://logophilos.net/blather/?

p=1162), the Feminist SF Wiki (http://wiki.feministsf.net/index.php?title=RaceFail_09), and

Fanlore (http://fanlore.org/wiki/RaceFail_%2709).

2. This book led to controversy not just because Wrede chose to eliminate indigenous peoples, but because the elimination of native peoples only resulted in geographic locations having

different names. Many people were perturbed that rather than tackle writing nonstereotyped

Native Americans, she chose to eliminate them from the book.

3. Links relating to the Harry Potter fan community miscegenation debate include

http://www.journalfen.net/community/fandom_wank/1098854.html,

http://zvi.dreamwidth.org/405888.html, http://zvi.dreamwidth.org/406172.html,

http://zvi.dreamwidth.org/406286.html, and

http://coffeeandink.dreamwidth.org/tag/imbroglio:+daily+deviant.

4. Links relating to pro writers engaging in the 2009 RaceFail debate include

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2009/03/10/theinternetshatescalzi/#comment133582,

http://chopchica.livejournal.com/163464.html, http://james

nicoll.livejournal.com/1670726.html?thread=27644742#t27644742, and

http://jimhines.livejournal.com/431207.html?thread=684707

Transformative Works and Cultures, Vol 3 (2009)

Interview

Interview with Verb Noire

K. Tempest Bradford

New York, New York, United States

[0.1] Abstract— Interview with Verb Noire, conducted by K. Tempest Bradford.

[0.2] Keywords— People of color; Race

Bradford, K. Tempest. 2009. Interview with Verb Noire. Transformative Works and

Cultures, no. 3. http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2009.0160.

1. Introduction

[1.1] Science fiction and fantasy publishing is no longer completely dominated by large

conglomerate publishers. Small or independent presses are growing in number and

influence, producing awardwinning, bestselling authors whose voices often better reflect

the evermore diverse SF readership. However, there are still many underrepresented

voices in the genre, including people of color (POC).

[1.2] Enter Verb Noire (http://www.verbnoire.com/). Early in 2009, writer Mikki Kendall,

who blogs under the name Karnythia, and writer Jamie Nesbitt Golden conceived of an

independent epublishing press that specialized in fiction featuring POC protagonists.

Their mission is to "celebrate the works of talented, underrepresented authors and deliver them to a readership that demands more." Verb Noire's first book, River's Daughter, by Tasha Campbell, was released in May 2009.

[1.3] K. Tempest Bradford, who blogs as The Angry Black Woman

(http://theangryblackwoman.com/), first met Kendall through blog and LiveJournal

discussions about race, SF, and fandom. After a successful month guest blogging on

theangryblackwoman.com, Bradford invited Kendall to become a regular contributor. They

met in person for the first time this year at the WisCon Feminist Science Fiction

Convention, where they discussed Verb Noire, SF publishing, fandom, and community.

2. Perspective

[2.1] KTB: Knowing how tough it can be for small presses, are you worried or scared for the future of the enterprise?

[2.2] Karnythia: Yes and no. I would be an idiot not to have my "what if" moments. I also know that even if we don't make it, we will (to borrow a phrase) have changed the

face of the industry. I feel like we have to try, because sitting around waiting to be let in isn't going to work. Even if we personally fail, maybe the next person will succeed, or the

one after that.

[2.3] KTB: Someone has to step up and lay the groundwork.

[2.4] Karnythia: Exactly. Mind you, I'm hoping that we do knock the ball out of the

park. And I plan for us to keep trying as long as possible, marketing as aggressively as

we can.

[2.5] KTB: One thing I have been thinking about is how to deal with people who just

can't seem to "get" fiction written from POC perspectives. For instance, with Nisi Shawl's Tiptree Award–winning collection Filter House, there's been a lot of discussion around Matt Cheney's review of it in Strange Horizons (note 1). He really panned the book to hell.

The whole time I was reading his review, I thought: "The real reason he doesn't like this book is because it is not written for him, for his perspective, for his comfort, because he's a white guy."

[2.6] Karnythia: I think that those people will have to finally accept that they don't get to have the only view. There is no right way to do SF. The whole "I need a white perspective to enjoy a book" is so selfinvolved and racist. It is not about the authors, or even really about much of the prospective audience. Honestly,"This touched

uncomfortable places and that makes it bad," says a lot about the industry that no one

really wants to discuss, but the truth keeps playing out at the least opportune moments.

[2.7] KTB: No, it's not. Also, Matt didn't even explicitly say that, but I grokked that's what his problem was. When I first read Filter House I was a little shocked, but in a good way, to read so many stories that had an essence of, "I am written by a black woman and you just need to get used to that." I'm not used to reading a lot of fiction that makes me feel this way. I wish I could get more.

[2.8] Karnythia: I've been working on something that is all about the black woman's

perspective in horror because I really got tired of women who didn't fight back or say no.

I'm noticing as I go along that it's not that I dislike horror movies so much as I dislike the lack of real heroines. I think Nisi had a similar moment of, "I am not a white woman, so why is she supposed to be the example for me?"

[2.9] KTB: Exactly. Her stories resonated with me because she took that tack. But this may not work as well for others. Often we are the ones being asked to take the point of

view of the socalled default/mainstream culture, yet it's not often people from the

mainstream are asked to take ours.

3. POC and the wider community of SF publishing

[3.1] KTB: Verb Noire is obviously all about making POC visible and countering POC

disappearing in other published works. How do you think the press's impact is going to be

felt in the wider community of SF publishing? Sometimes the big houses end up following

the lead of the indie presses.

[3.2] Karnythia: I can pretty much guarantee we'll see some new imprints being

created. See what happened with Kimani Press in the romance genre (note 2). BET books owned a bunch of imprints that Harlequin bought and turned it into Kimani. Four books a

month, all African American romance. I think we'll see the same happening with Tor or

Baen, maybe Daw.

[3.3] A lot of the bigger publishers are so busy putting out new versions of the same old

thing that nothing fresh is getting out. I can go the rest of my life without another young

hip wealthy white person now with magical powers/vampire/ghost story.

[3.4] KTB: It's that thing media has where it finds a good, comfortable spot and, like an old cat, refuses to leave it. Media is so afraid of gamechanging. As you said, publishers

are like that, too.

[3.5] Karnythia: And it's so sad because, while Lord of the Rings was groundbreaking, the knockoffs? Not so much. And the romance genre is surviving off SF's castoffs.

[3.6] KTB: I do realize that there's plenty of market research to back up the oftrepeated notion that people want to see or read what they like over and over and don't want new things. But I don't think it has to be that way.

[3.7] Karnythia: You can make market research say anything if you pick the right

sample.

[3.8] KTB: This extends to the fiction I read, too—the same stories told over and over but without any kind of fresh perspective on them, not even the fresh perspective of, say,

another culture.

[3.9] Karnythia: It's The Last of the Mohicans approach where the hero is white but uses the skills from x society to save them. If they taught him the skills, why can't they save themselves?

[3.10] KTB: Obviously their skills work better when wielded by a white man.

[3.11] Karnythia: Everything is better with a white man—except, you know…not.

[3.12] KTB: I think it's part of an invisibility problem. Hollywood people seem to feel that "mainstream audiences" need a white person to identify with in a film, show, or

book, like adding the white character to the Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee movie (note

3).

[3.13] Karnythia: There was a lot of hullaballoo over Jill Scott's show— The No. 1

Ladies' Detective Agency—and the BBC deciding not to insert a white character. Highest ratings in years, blows the doors off HBO, and I am an addict. But…they still kept

believing the audience needed a white guy. That's why they've ruined Avatar: The Last

Airbender by casting white actors as characters who, in the original animated version, were all clearly portrayed as of color and will be shocked— shocked—when it flops.

[3.14] KTB: It's frustrating. You know there has to be a tipping point where it is deemed not okay by people in power to do this, even if their reasons for saying it's not okay is

that it means they will lose money.

[3.15] Karnythia: I think, especially as we start to turn to our own markets, that the socalled mainstream will follow out of curiosity, if nothing else.

[3.16] KTB: And maybe in search of something that's not the rehashed product they

continue to see.

[3.17] Since I've started coming to cons and being active in the science fiction and

fantasy community, the landscape has changed. I see more POC both in the "visible"/congoing community just as I am seeing more POC writing books or being in them. I feel like those two things are connected, though I'm not entirely sure which came first.

[3.18] Karnythia: I think it isn't a question of POC writing more or trying to participate more so much as that the doors are open a little more so that they get published. Plus,

with the Internet, we don't have to rely on the old methods. Look at the Web comic based

on African American folklore, Bayou (note 4). It is growing in popularity, and that has a lot to do with stuff like link spam (note 5) from readers who are also bloggers.

[3.19] KTB: It's important to note that this is just a techenhanced version of what POC

and really all fans did before. But preInternet, the conversations were more ingroup.

[3.20] Karnythia: Yep. We always had our lit, even if it was just passed as family lore.

But now other people can (and want to) see what we're talking about.

[3.21] KTB: Even as they are shocked and appalled that it's not what they assumed we would talk about.

[3.22] Karnythia: The idea that we're not really thinking about white people never

occurred to them, much less that we wouldn't really care about their opinion of what we

are talking about.

[3.23] KTB: That we are having conversations with each other. Or even between

different kinds of POC.

4. Creation of Verb Noire

[4.1] KTB: When you decided to start Verb Noire, what finally pissed you off enough to say, "Okay, let's do this"?

[4.2] Karnythia: It was all about this year's eruption of arguments over racism and

cultural appropriation in science fiction fandom (RaceFail) (note 6) and the realization that while authors of color are turning themselves inside out, the mainstream really has no

interest in letting us tell our own stories.

[4.3] I want scifi to actually reflect us—our voices, our views. And I'm thinking, in this day and age, why keep up the abusive relationship of yesteryear?

[4.4] People will swear that POC aren't into SF, but, like Pam Noles (note 7), people get

disgusted seeing us marginalized, erased, or made into caricatures.

[4.5] KTB: I wonder, do people tell themselves that POC don't watch or read SF because they believe it, or because they want it to be true so they can go on ignoring us?

[4.6] Karnythia: They want it to be true. I know when I first started participating in Doctor Who fandom, there was a lot of "I didn't know black people were watching" and lots of "you only started watching because of Martha." I just don't have the energy to battle to love a show.

[4.7] KTB: And it can be a battle. This is why we need Verb Noire. We need this kind of effort for other media too. Spike Lee was/is doing it. And BET is stepping up a bit with

their animation department. But for SF TV/movie media, there doesn't seem to be a

collective of people looking to bring our stories to the screen. Do you think that if we up

the ante in the literature world, film and TV would follow suit?

[4.8] Karnythia: Yes! Bestseller lists are the key, then standing strong on casting and writing, like Alexander McCall Smith did for Ladies' Detective Agency. They were way too trusting with Avatar, and we see what happened there. I think McCall's method of "I won't sell the rights unless you make these guarantees in the deal" was the best approach. The one thing writers of color and writers who create characters of color can't afford to do is

get blinded by the dollar signs or else their work is ruined. Look at the Wizard of Earthsea movie, where a world that was explicitly depicted as having very few white people ended

up almost entirely white on screen (note 8).

[4.9] KTB: Yes. In that case, I think that Le Guin never considered that the SciFi

Channel and the producers would be so completely stupid about casting.

[4.10] Karnythia: I'm sure she didn't. What happened to her was a major lesson,

though.

[4.11] KTB: If you weren't aware before of what they can and will do to you and your book, you should be now.

[4.12] Karnythia: Exactly. That's something our authors, should they hit big, will be reminded of. I want them to succeed, but not at the expense of their vision.

[4.13] KTB: In 2008 I was on a panel called "Can Internet Drama Change the World?"

at WisCon. I'm a veteran of many online arguments and other dramas, often finding

myself frustrated, angry, and in despair over the possibility of change. But the panelists

and I all agreed that extremely fraught Internet arguments (often labeled drama) are

useful and often lead to change. Almost every major fight, discussion, debate, or

argument I've had online led to something positive: new connections, strong friendships,

and, very often, important projects.

[4.14] My blog, The Angry Black Woman, came about because of online discussions

around race—which can be filled with drama—and my desire to foster more advanced

dialogue. The latest major debate, RaceFail, was widerreaching and longer than almost

any Internet drama I've ever been involved in. It generated a lot of heat and a lot of

anger, but it doesn't surprise me that it also generated substantial community action and

a project like Verb Noire. The positive reaction is often equal to or greater than the

negative "action" of Internet drama.

[4.15] Ultimately, the good things generated by drama will outlive the memory of the

drama, especially online. I have high hopes that Verb Noire will instigate important

changes in science fiction and fantasy publishing.

5. Notes

1. Tiptree Award, http://www.tiptree.org/; Matthew Cheney's review of Filter House,

http://www.strangehorizons.com/reviews/2008/10/filter_house_by.shtml.

2. Kimani Press, http://www.eharlequin.com/store.html?cid=368; Wikipedia entry,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimani_Press.

3. "This reminds me of the fantasy v. reality casting session for Anansi Boys that went on in the inboxes last year," by Pam Noles, And We Shall March, May 11, 2007,

http://andweshallmarch.typepad.com/and_we_shall_march/2007/05/this_reminds_me.html.

4. Bayou by Jeremy Love and Patrick Morgan, http://www.zudacomics.com/bayou.

5. Blog posts that contain large lists of links with little or no commentary for the purpose of keeping record of scattered posts and discussions around a single topic.

6. RaceFail summary on the FeministSF wiki, http://wiki.feministsf.net/index.php?

title=RaceFail_09.

7. "Shame," by Pam Noles, from The Infinite Matrix,

http://www.infinitematrix.net/faq/essays/noles.html.

8. "A whitewashed Earthsea—How the Sci Fi Channel wrecked my books," by Ursula K. Le Guin, Slate, December 16, 2004, http://www.slate.com/id/2111107/

Transformative Works and Cultures, Vol 3 (2009)

Interview

Interview with Mark Smith and Denise Paolucci

zvi LikesTV

Maryland, United States

[0.1] Abstract— Interview with Mark Smith and Denise Paolucci, conducted by zvi

LikesTV.

[0.2] Keywords— Blog; Fan community; Legal; Open source software

zvi LikesTV. 2009. Interview with Mark Smith and Denise Paolucci. Transformative

Works and Cultures, no. 3. http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2009.0166.

1. Introduction

[1.1] This is an interview with the owners of Dreamwidth Studios, LLC

(http://www.dreamwidth.org/), and founders of the Dreamwidth open source software

project, Mark Smith (http://xb95.com/) and Denise Paolucci

(http://denise.dreamwidth.org/tag/about+me). Mark and Denise were both employed

for several years by former owners of LiveJournal.com, with Mark working on software

development and Denise heading user management.

[1.2] LiveJournal and other Web sites that run on its code, known as LJ clones, are

widely used by a portion of both media fandom and speculative fiction fandom as a

blogging platform, newsreader (known as the friends list), and social media platform.

[1.3] Dreamwidth, the software, is a fork—that is, an independently developed

version of existing software with functionality that deviates from the original—of the

LiveJournal code. Mark, Denise, and approximately 40 volunteer coders have

transformed the software in a number of important ways. Perhaps the most important

change that developers face may be the massive rewrite that reorganizes and

simplifies the code's structure. Similarly, the most important change for users may be

the separation of the friends list into a reading page and an access list. On a

LiveJournalcode Web site, friending someone means to both allow them to see

secured entries on one's own journal and to have them appear on one's friends page—

that is, one's newsreader, where journal entries are aggregated for reading. In the

Dreamwidth software, these two functions are separated into giving access and

subscribing. This change had been requested by LiveJournal users for years. It is a fundamental change in the privacy capabilities of this journaling model, which is

significant because the finely granulated privacy controls have long been one of

LiveJournal's unique features.

[1.4] Dreamwidth.org is the installation of the code owned and managed by Mark

and Denise. In contrast to the practice of LiveJournal's various owners, Mark and

Denise intend that anyone will be able to set up his or her own installation of the

Dreamwidth code in a straightforward manner, with all of the functionality required to

host users and administer the Web site. (Much of the code required to fully administer

a LiveJournal clone is not available as free software; an LJ clone has to reimplement

some fundamental software, such as a payment system, on its own.) The Dreamwidth

code and the Dreamwidth.org Web site are currently in beta testing.

[1.5] This interview was conducted via IRC and the text then edited for brevity and

clarity. Zvi (http://zvilikestv.net/), who conducted the interview, is project leader for

the Dreamwidth Cool Hunters and a former Webmaster for the Organization for

Transformative Works.

2. Software

[2.1] Q: What's your goal in starting Dreamwidth?

[2.2] DP: I think one of the major things about Dreamwidth that I personally find

interesting is the fact that we're getting a chance to do things again. Both Mark and I

are approaching this project with a major eye toward our professional experience—

things that went well, things that went poorly—and taking that experience to heart.

People have called DW "a bunch of exLJ staff rebooting LJ from the outside," which is a slightly glib, but reasonably accurate, description.

[2.3] We're trying to avoid framing things as antiLJ or LJopposite, but we really

have learned so much from our time on LJ about what makes for a good online

community, and I think that it's really helping us as we go.

[2.4] Q: Is that familiarity the reason you went with what is, if you're only looking at the open source stuff, an incomplete and outofdate software suite, instead of

integrating a modern open source blogging tool and a modern open source bulletin

board, or whipping something up from scratch?

[2.5] DP: Joel Spolsky (of Joel on Software) has a whole rant about why it's

important to never throw out your code and start over again

(http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html), essentially boiling

down to this: when you reuse code, you get the benefit of all the work that's already been done on that code, both in terms of architecture and bug finding and fixing.

When we really set out to build an online community site, we knew that if we "rolled

our own," we'd be in development for years and the product, when we finished it,

wouldn't have that benefit of 10 years' worth of bug fixes, architecture, and design.

[2.6] Part of the final decision was, of course, that both Mark and I intimately know

the LJ code, and part of it was that we knew we'd be able to make it do what we

wanted it to do. Having to learn from scratch would delay us considerably. It took us

nearly a year to get DW productionready as it is, and that was with an already

established code base. Part of it was a really emotional decision: we both knew LJ,

sweated LJ, bled LJ over the years, and having a chance to fix all the things that

always annoyed us was really compelling.

[2.7] But more than that, there are a lot of things that LJ does right. Most of the

major Web 2.0 features or functions that are de rigueur on other sites these days were

in LJ circa 2002–2004 or so, either in nascent form or fully featured. To the best of my

knowledge, LJ was the first to have threaded comments with emailed notifications of

replies, for instance, and most of the community/group blogging tools that are

standard on the Internet now started out on LJ.

[2.8] MS: LJ was the first service, and one of the only (to my knowledge), to allow

voice posts. To have a reasonably integrated photo system. To have security for your

posts (and still probably the only to have such a fully articulated security system,

although Vox [http://www.vox.com/] comes closer). To have a builtin aggregator (friends page). LJ Talk, an instant messaging service. The list goes on; there are a lot

of things that LJ does or did first, and still is the only site that does a lot of them.

[2.9] DP: And a lot of the reason why LJ never got the credit for having pioneered

those features was due to either poor promotion or usability fail—that is, making a tool

less useful by implementing it so that it is difficult to use. We really wanted to fix that.

[2.10] Q: One of the concerns in some segments of online fandom has been about

that separation between LiveJournal and the rest of the Internet. Specifically, there's

concern that the LJ code doesn't play well with others (neither its own clones nor other

blogging platforms) in a way that a lot of other blogging software does now. Will

Dreamwidth further that splintering effect?

[2.11] DP: I think (correct me if I'm wrong here, Mark) that was actually one of the first things I pointed out as something I specifically wanted to address with DW! Like,

within the first 10 minutes of us talking about DW.

[2.12] MS: This was something we talked about extensively back when we were deciding whether or not to use the LJ code. Going with the LJ code base meant we

would not end up with an interoperable site, by default. We're against that.

[2.13] DP: I'd say that about 50 percent of the work we've done has been to

improve the interoperability functions. Our medium to longterm goal is to make it so

that anyone on any DWbased site can communicate seamlessly with anyone on any

other DWbased site, with what site they choose to host on being totally transparent.

[2.14] MS: We have addressed it, so far, in the context of interoperability mostly

with other LJ code sites. However, all of the core features we're working on have

future growth in mind. Andrea Nall built the importer so it can import from WordPress,

for example. It does not presently, but it's modular to make it do so. It's the same

with the crossposter, which posts a Dreamwidth entry to another blog. Allen Petersen

built that modular as well, so it's reasonably straightforward to support that.

[2.15] Q: So when you say interoperable, you mean DW code to DW code and DW to

Internet in general. Do you have any feelings on whether LJ or the other clones are

going to work with you for greater DWLJ compatibility? How and to what extent?

[2.16] MS: The interoperability standard LJ has maintained for the past decade is

woefully out of date and will not be Dreamwidth's policy. I want to support

OAuth/OpenID 2, Open Social, and whatever other crossplatform functionality that

makes sense for the community or for the Internet at large. I would rather us be more

compatible with, for example, WordPress and Blogger than focus purely on LJcode

platforms.

[2.17] DP: LJ's been pretty good so far with working with us. Tupshin Harper, LJ's

director of engineering, is really interested in working with us on feature development

and the like. I think there's going to be a limit to the amount of crosssite

interoperability that LJ is willing to uptake, just for business reasons, but I'm hopeful

that we can achieve a better set of features over time.

[2.18] And I think that with our stated commitment to accessibility, we'll see a lot of

people who start using DW as an overlay to their presence on the rest of the Internet,

and I really want to support that. I have this pieinthesky dream of DW eventually

evolving into a centralized dashboard of our users' Internet presence, pulling together

all of their various social media uses in one place.

3. Accessibility

[3.1] DP: We've already seen a lot of people saying that they find DW so much easier to use than LiveJournal and other blogging platforms, specifically because we

work so hard to be accessible to people with disabilities or people who need assistive

technology, that I think it'll be a major use case.

[3.2] Q: Why are you so focused on accessibility?

[3.3] MS: Because it's the right thing to do, in my opinion.

[3.4] DP: It sounds glib, but really, it's because it's just the right damn thing to do! I have disability issues myself, of a physical nature that don't tend to impact my

computing use, but I know what it's like to live in an inaccessible world, and I know

the relief that comes when you find someplace or someone who just gets it. Part of

what we really believe, from the very beginning, is that DW should be welcoming of

everyone. So the accessibility is part of that.

[3.5] Q: In what ways is it making the development process harder or easier? Who

benefits from this push for accessibility, just people with disabilities?

[3.6] DP: I think we all benefit, really, both on a practical and on a social scale.

Socially, it teaches everyone to be aware of the people around them and their needs,

and practically, a lot of the functions and features that make DW work well with

assistive tech also make DW more usable for everyone, and make DW display better

for lowbandwidth users, people on mobile devices, and people on older computers.

[3.7] It does make the dev [development] process a little harder, both in that we

have to constantly be thinking about it and in that it can take some extra time to add

assistive tech or code around some of the inherited accessibility problems, and there

have been times when it's taken more time to finish a feature or when fixing

something for accessibility purposes means introducing new bugs.

[3.8] MS: Designing an accessible Web site is a harder task than making something

just shiny and pretty with the latest whizbang features. Practically, we have had to,

and will have to, spend more effort to build a site that is more accessible. I do not

believe it has slowed us down any, however, since by making the decision to support

accessibility we have gotten some superb volunteers who are contributing to that part

of the project who probably wouldn't have contributed to DW otherwise.

[3.9] DP: And, of course, it's a huge shift in thinking and design. I know that I had a whole bunch of things that I never used to notice until someone would point it out:

"Hey, this isn't gonna fly." But we learn from our mistakes.

[3.10] And yes, by being more accessible, and by making it such a core focus of our dev process, we get so many incredible people coming to volunteer for us, because

they see that we're welcoming them and valuing them as people.

[3.11] MS: I think that everybody benefits, too. Especially in today's modern world, having a version of the site that works well for people who use lowresolution screens

and large fonts also makes it more compatible with mobile devices, which are

increasingly more common.

4. Users

[4.1] Q: Welcoming everyone sounds warm and fuzzy and terrific, but "everyone"

includes a lot of people who are unpleasant to other users because their ideology is

explicitly hateful, or they have poor social interaction skills, or they just like to make

other people miserable. Is everyone going to include, for want of a more precise term,

jerks?

[4.2] DP: John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory (http://www.penny

arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/) is always going to apply.

[4.3] MS: Yes, jerks are welcome on Dreamwidth, but please mind the terms of

service (http://www.dreamwidth.org/legal/tos).

[4.4] DP: I think, given my experience on LJ's abuse prevention team, that I've

probably seen pretty much every possible variation on "people being jerks to each

other on the Internet" that it's possible to come up with!

[4.5] Our general philosophy on users being jerks to each other is to go for a

technical, instead of a social, solution: make stronger antiabuse tools, and put their

control in the hands of the users. Basically, sites can go for one of two methods when

it comes to antiabuse tools. They can either use administrative solutions (site admins

banning or blocking people, cutting off IPs [Internet protocol addresses] at the source,

issuing warnings, generally behaving as the stern parent figure), or they can code

around it.

[4.6] A very basic example of a code solution is LJ/DW's ability to ban a user from

commenting in your journal, for instance. Or a community maintainer's ability to

remove someone from a community, or screen their comments so they're only visible

to the commenter and to the maintainer of the community.

[4.7] Generally, with my experience on LJ's abuse prevention team, I can pretty

conclusively say that as soon as you have a site administrator issuing a "hey, stop

being a jerk" warning, or putting down boundaries, the person in question is going to

start looking for ways to dance right up to the line, or (if blocks are set) looking for ways around it. There's something about a rule that makes people want to break it!

[4.8] So our ideal is less us saying "that's not okay" and more letting people tailor their individual DW experience. There are really finegrained privacy tools, for

instance, as well as different commenting settings and different levels of access.

[4.9] I actually think that our split of LJ's "friends" concept into its two component parts is a major step forward there. On LJ, you can't subscribe to people without

giving them access to do things in your journal, such as commenting if you have your

settings set to only allow friends to comment. On DW, there might be someone whose

writing you find interesting, in a "makes my blood boil but I want to keep tabs on it"

sort of way, and our setup allows you to do that without giving them any sway in your

space.

[4.10] Q: So what do you say to the people who say that because some particular

subset of everyone is on the service, they can't use Dreamwidth? I've seen the

suggestion, for instance, that if Dreamwidth allows fictional depictions of underage

sex, that schoolteachers won't be able to use the service.

[4.11] MS: It seems like an impossibly slippery slope. If we ever say " x or y is not welcome on DW because it offends z, " then we are going to become arbitrators of what are valid values for x, y, and z, and that's not a position I want us to ever be in.

If we ever tried to do that, not only would Denise and I probably disagree, but we'd

also end up making a site that suits our particular worldviews to the exclusion of

others. The only reasonable limit that I feel we can ever have on content is the one we

have now: what's restricted under U.S. law, and what is harmful to the service itself,

such as spam, viruses, and exploits.

[4.12] DP: I think that no matter what we choose to do, someone's going to be

happy about it and someone's going to be offended by it or negatively impacted by it.

[4.13] To loop back to a previous discussion point, this is one of the reasons why I

really want to improve our federated blog network features: that way, people who feel

like they don't want to or can't support Dreamwidth can set up their own instance of

the code, or find another instance of the code that's more to their liking, and still

participate in the greater community.

[4.14] I'd really question your particular example of underage sex and

schoolteachers. I don't think that just sharing server space with someone constitutes

an endorsement of their activity, really. Do you know what everyone who's using your

email provider is doing?

5. Legal relationship with users

[5.1] Q: I've seen a lot of people questioning what "welcome" will entail, a lot of speculation that, bluntly, Strikethrough (note 1) could happen here, too. In practical terms of not deleting accounts for violation of the site's terms of service and

responding to letters of lawyers, what does "welcome" mean?

[5.2] DP: In practical terms, we're not going to take down content unless it's illegal.

And by "illegal," we mean, "a court has ruled that this specific content violates the law." This is another case where my experience with LJ really serves us, since a lot of

what fannish content creators are concerned about is the possibility of a DMCA (note

2) takedown notice from the rights holder of the specific property that they're fannish

about. The DMCA is perhaps the most abused piece of legislation on the Internet.

[5.3] The DMCA does set forth what we have to do, yes. But even within that really

strict set of obligations, there's some wiggle room, as outlined in DW's policy

(http://www.dreamwidth.org/legal/dmca.bml).

[5.4] Our policy was specifically written to mitigate some of the worst abuses. For

instance, the law says we have to deny service to repeat offenders, but it doesn't say

what "repeat offender" is. So we wrote the policy as something that a court would

likely find reasonable, but which legitimate use (that is, not someone who's using DW

solely to spread cracked copies of software or something) isn't likely to trip.

[5.5] Another thing that came from experience is that most services don't forward

the takedown notice to the user in question. The law doesn't say "you have to forward

the notice," so a lot of places don't. We do. We'll also send it to the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse (http://www.chillingeffects.org/), which is a group that specifically

seeks to document abuses of the DMCA.

[5.6] Also, a lot of people don't realize that the law sets forth a way for the alleged

copyright infringer to dispute the notification, and again, a lot of services don't educate

their users about that right. We're going to be really clear about that too.

[5.7] So if, say, Marvel Comics filed a DMCA takedown notice on someone's XMen

fanfic, the law says we have to disable access to that material. But we'll tell the user

what we're doing, forward on the takedown notice, and give them information about

where they can learn about their rights. Our DMCA policy actually explicitly says that

people should contact the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) (note 3) if

their disputed work is also fan work. I checked with OTW's legal committee, and they

were all for us including that link.

[5.8] Q: So, to clarify, you're not offering any legal assistance, but your concern is more about providing information to your users than avoiding having an intellectual

property holder send you lots and lots of letters—or, even if not an IP holder, just a

loud and obnoxious third party.

[5.9] DP: Yes, exactly. We can't offer someone legal assistance or help defend their use, but we can tell them what their rights are and point them to where they can get more information. We're very used to loud and obnoxious third parties shouting at us.

[5.10] MS: People who are worried about DMCA should protect their posts

(http://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=54). Don't leave it public,

where the great Google can turn it up and the DMCAhappy lawyers can find it!

[5.11] DP: Or even just turn on the "view with discretion" bit

(http://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=146), which is another

layer of protection.

[5.12] Q: Dreamwidth is a forprofit business, and you both to intend to earn a living wage from the site. However, a lot of the work on the site—programming, answering

support questions, creating CSS designs for journals—is done by volunteers. Why do

you think that profiting from the work of your volunteers is a moral business plan?

What rewards, tangible or intangible, do volunteers receive from working on the site?

[5.13] DP: Our volunteers are going into it with the same attitude we have, really,

which is that we're all coming together to make something special and longlasting,

and everyone participates as much or as little as they have the time, energy, and

experience to participate. I think our volunteers are mostly people who are looking for

an Internet home that treats them with respect, where they can really make a

difference and get things done, and we're offering that. Mark and I aren't trying to be

the powerhungry dictators or the profiteering creeps—our role is more as the people

who are organizing and guiding everyone's efforts, and facilitating everyone's work to

work together to benefit the entire service.

[5.14] DP: Obviously, we are taking in money, because servers don't run on

idealism, but we aren't going into this expecting to get rich. Our operating agreement

actually specifies that twothirds of our profits have to be reinvested in the project

somehow, and half of that money will get directed as the community specifies. I view

it more as a collective project, where we, as the people who can devote fulltime

attention to the project, get paid a living wage in exchange for the time and effort we

put in, while the rest of the income gets used to further the project as a whole—but

we're all working together to build something. Mark and I just happen to be the ones

legally responsible for the bills in the end.

[5.15] MS: Tangibly, we provide active volunteers with free paid accounts. We also provide them with the infrastructure they need to work on what they want:

development environments, tools, and so on. Intangibly, there are many rewards to

volunteering: knowing that you're contributing to a project you care about, feeling like

a part of a team, helping out the community, feeling in charge of the site's destiny,

knowing that the things you're contributing are actually being used by thousands of

people. There's a lot of positive energy that comes from contributing to something

voluntarily.

[5.16] MS: Volunteerism, especially as it relates to a forprofit business, is nothing new. I used to volunteer for LiveJournal, as did Denise, when Brad Fitzpatrick, the

founder of LiveJournal, was making money and buying himself a house off it. I may

not have derived a monetary benefit from that work, but the value I got in terms of

professional experience was immense. Learning to deal with a development process,

people, and the support team was an intensely valuable thing for me. I would not be

where I am professionally without having done that.

[5.17] MS: One of the things I least expected when I joined the LJ volunteer team

was that I would end up meeting people who would become good friends to this day—

nearly a decade later. The people I share a house with, I met through volunteering. My

life has been permanently enriched by the experience, and I expect people will have a

similar experience with volunteering for Dreamwidth.

[5.18] DP: We also get a lot of volunteers who are excluded from the traditional

workforce in some way, whether through disability or life circumstances, and a lot of

them say that working on the Dreamwidth project really provides them a place they

can use their skills that they wouldn't otherwise have. Our accessibility project

coordinator, for instance, is totally bed bound, and she's one of the most brilliant

people I know. We can offer her a project to work on that fits her schedule and her

health issues. A lot of our volunteers are in similar situations, and they've said how

much they appreciate having a place where they feel they can make a difference.

6. Dreamwidth and fandom

[6.1] Q: A lot of interest in Dreamwidth has been as a place for fannish activity.

What kinds of fannish activity were you seeing on LiveJournal? What kinds have you

seen move over to Dreamwidth? Are there any fannish activities that you saw on LJ

that you are not seeing move to Dreamwidth?

[6.2] DP: One of the most prominent pieces of fannish activity, obviously, is fiction writing, and I've been really happy to see—even in our first 3 weeks!—how much of

that is appearing on Dreamwidth. In the past few weeks, I've been seeing more and

more stories posted to DW appear on fan fiction recommendation lists, and that's great to see. For instance, five out of every six stories I see recced in the New Trek

fandom are posted to DW, and that's awesome! (I think our longer post and comment

length limits, compared with LJ, is really appealing there.)

[6.3] One bit of fannish activity that isn't going to be switching to DW anytime soon

is anything having to do with icons, graphics, or art—we don't have any form of photo

or image hosting yet. We're going to have to do a lot more work to improve the image

posting functions, though, since that's something LJ code doesn't really have.

[6.4] MS: I've dug a bit through metafandom

(http://community.livejournal.com/metafandom/) to get an idea of how many links

are on LJ and how many are on DW, and have been pretty happy to see how many

we're seeing on DW.

[6.5] DP: We want to be a real home for all kinds of creative work—written and

visual. But I have seen some people questioning the "creative work" element of things, and I do also want to be clear that we don't just mean fiction or art. We mean any

kind of creation: essays, link organizing, recs, recording your life, everything.

[6.6] MS: I think that's part of our drive for accessibility too. I believe, at my core, that everybody has something useful to contribute to the world, even if it's just who

they are, their metaphorical voice. "Even if it's just" makes it sound like I'm setting that as a secondclass citizen, which is not my intent.

[6.7] Q: I was wondering to what extent you'd seen migration among roleplaying

gamers, music fans, sports fans, or foodies. Were those organized communities on LJ?

Are they moving as communities to DW?

[6.8] MS: We've had a few people asking us for invites for their roleplaying game

(RPG) group. We've granted most of those.

[6.9] DP: And I can think of a lot of interesting features that we can put in to make RPGs easier—things like switching back and forth between a "master account" and

various "sub" accounts more readily.

[6.10] I haven't really seen a lot of adoption among sports fen, music fen, foodies,

and so on. Mostly I'm seeing people who are using DW already who have these as

secondary interests creating communities for them, rather than moving those interests

to DW being the sole drive. But I'd certainly be interested in analyzing those

communities, seeing what they want or need in terms of features, and adding some of

those as well.

[6.11] One of the things I always loved about LJ was seeing what various subcultures used the tools for, and what kind of weird and funky adoptions came up. I've been

trying to make lists of those types of repurposings, and am really interested in making

things easier and more natural for people to use, based on that.

[6.12] Q: What about the communities that are connected to media fandom:

Comics? Speculative fiction? Horror? And are you seeing original fiction writers, pro or

amateur but not necessarily speculative fiction, moving to Dreamwidth?

[6.13] MS: We have briefly talked to the people behind scans_daily from LJ. They

were an LJ community that posted scans of comic book pages with commentary;

LiveJournal deleted their account because it decided that those scans were a copyright

violation and thus violated the LJ terms of service. They are looking at DW as a

possible resting place. I don't know about the rest.

[6.14] DP: We've been doing a lot of outreach in the speculative fiction community,

since a few of our core project team have roots in that culture. There are a few pro

speculative fiction authors who are really interested in DW and in the drive behind it.

The majority of moves so far have been in science fiction/fantasy fandom, but we're

seeing some others as well.

[6.15] Q: What other subcultures, interest groups, and communities are you seeing

come to Dreamwidth, and what's attracting them?

[6.16] DP: Aside from fandom, a lot of our early adopters have been people in

various alternative sexual or gender identity cultures: BDSM/kink communities, the

queer community, the transgender community—subcultures with really strong

identities and senses of community.

[6.17] And I think part of that is the feeling of unease that a lot of people get on

other services, where they fear that their kind of expression might be less desirable or

more "edge." Having our diversity statement there and public helps reassure people that yes, we do know about them, we're not scared of them, and we welcome them.

[6.18] MS: Explicitly welcome them.

[6.19] DP: Yes! The more varied the voices we have, the happier we are! I've always

thought that the strength of an online community lies in its diversity, so it makes me

really happy to see differing voices here.

[6.20] MS: We've had some people write in to ask if they would be welcome. One

woman, from the BDSM community, asked us about moving her Yahoo! group over.

She was concerned that they post pictures—and that they were R rated. I told her to come on over.

7. Fan friendly versus fannish

[7.1] Q: Your DMCA policy and your general welcoming stance is what you point to

when you say Dreamwidth is fan friendly. But you've clarified repeatedly that the

service is not fannish. You've also seen a lot of mistaken belief that Dreamwidth is a

project of the OTW. Can you explain that distinction and its implications for fannish

users and the service in general?

[7.2] DP: I think that part of the reason that people confuse us with the OTW is that we are, to the best of anyone's knowledge, the only two majorityfemale open source

projects on the Internet, and another part of the reason is because they both spring

out of the same vague social network. A lot of people who are real proponents of DW

are also proponents of the OTW, and vice versa.

[7.3] Part of the reason why I really want to clarify that DW is not a "fandom" project goes back to my point about diverse voices, though. For a lot of people, their fan work

and fan activity are an important part of their offduty time, but it's not the beall and

endall of their lives. One of the really neat things I always thought about fandom's

presence on LJ was that you'd get to know someone for their fan work, and in the

process, you'd get to know them as a person because the personal posts were mingled

in with the fan work. So I think the really neat side effect of having fannish work on a

service that's not fan specific is that breakdown effect—that people can socialize both

in and out of a fannish framework.

[7.4] MS: For me, the distinction is one of focus and priorities. I want to prioritize what we do on Dreamwidth based on what our users need and where we want the site

to go, not based on what x group or y group needs. Note that if our users are 90

percent from x group, then certainly most of our effort will go toward making the site better for that group.

[7.5] DP: I think, though, that there are things we can do that will be usable and

useful for everyone, and that's the design goal I've been trying to keep in mind the

whole way—not designing to a specific subculture's usage, but making features that

are flexible and powerful and that can be repurposed for a whole bunch of uses. When

I'm doing feature design, I always try to make sure that the features I'm designing

can be used in at least two or three different ways.

[7.6] Part of where LJ always fell down, to me, was the content management tools.

There's a really heavy emphasis on privacy and security, which I love, but it's focused

on creating new content, not finding and categorizing old content.

[7.7] Q: One of the ways in which you've been clarifying the distinction to the

fannish community is in your personal identities. Mark, you do not identify yourself as

a fan, whereas Denise, you do. Can you both explain what you mean with these

identifications and how (if at all) they may affect your interaction with your

Dreamwidth user base?

[7.8] DP: It's less a question of interacting with the user base (although it does

mean that I've got a good understanding of the vocabulary and culture that people will

be bringing to communications with us) and more of a question of knowing what sort

of features and functions "fandom" (by which I mean fannish use cases) will find useful and relevant, because they're usually things that I've wanted myself for a really long

time.

[7.9] The question of "what is fandom" is one that will never be resolved in our

lifetimes. But for me, when I selfidentify as fannish, I mean that I identify as part of

the Westernmediabased creative subculture, where people engage with source texts

in some sort of transformative way. (I personally write in the Stargate SG1 fandom.)

[7.10] MS: When I say I am not a fan, I mean that I have never been a part of the

fannish culture. I've seen it from the outside. I've read some fic, I have a lot of friends

who are in fandom, and I think it's interesting. I don't think I'll ever get into the

culture as a contributor or avid consumer. Also, I don't believe I am very specific with

my terminology. I know enough to know that fandom is a huge, diverse group with

many, many distinct overlapping and nonoverlapping groups.

8. Free and open source software development

[8.1] Q: I'm curious whether you've seen or experienced any parallels or

perpendiculars with the software development community and open source process, as

compared to any sort of fandom.

[8.2] DP: The most obvious parallel is that both fandom and the open source

software (OSS) community is composed of intensely passionate people who are

incredibly dedicated to their particular interest. Other than that…I'm not really sure. I

have this vague and unformed idea that it's the difference between male space and

female space, but I'm not entirely convinced of it, and I'm not sure I can talk about it

without having to resort to insane generalizations and talking out my ass.

[8.3] Q: Would you characterize Dreamwidth development as different from runofthemill free software development?

[8.4] MS: It's vastly, vastly different—and that's a conscious decision. The biggest differences are in who contributes, and how those contributions are received.

Traditionally, most OSS projects expect you to come in knowing what you are doing.

You are expected to be a master programmer and understand how it all works.

Meritocracy feels like a great idea when you look at the surface, but underneath, it

turns it into a competition, not a collaboration.

[8.5] DP: I haven't had a lot of experience with OSS development on projects other

than LJ, but what I have seen is always something that its proponents describe as

meritocracy, and the outside observers view as a small clique. We think that everyone

can contribute. There are so many different tasks that we have, developmentwise,

that need to get done. Some of them are huge and sweeping and do require a lot of

experience; some of them are literally onecharacter changes.

[8.6] By encouraging and teaching people who are less experienced on those onecharacter changes, we not only free up more experienced developer time and effort for the big things, but we also get people learning as they go until they are those

experienced developers. We're never going to run out of the little things. That kind of

attention to the small details also gives us a chance to showcase our commitment to

excellence and detail. We don't want to fall into the trap of saying, "That's a tiny thing.

We can work around it until someone has time to fix it." There's never going to be a

shortage of the huge issues, but that doesn't mean we can't pay attention to the tiny

things too.

[8.7] Q: How have people used to traditional free software development reacted to

your process? Does Dreamwidth interact with the larger OSS world?

[8.8] MS: They've been reacting very well. It's been surprising to me to see the

people who have shown up in IRC. People like Skud (http://infotrope.net/blog/), eagle (http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/), and adamk (http://ali.as/) are fairly wellknown oldschool OSS Perl types, and they have been interested in the DW project. As to the development process we're using, Skud has been really supportive and interested in it

and is helping us out. I don't have a good sense of how the greater OSS community

views our process yet, though.

[8.9] DP: One thing that I find really interesting is that there's been a conversation in the OSS world for years about how to interest or attract newcomers, and so a lot of

people are seeing DW and our success and getting interested because of that. I know

Skud's been doing a lot of advocacy work in that direction, and a lot of the attention

we've been getting is due to her promotion.

[8.10] Q: Based on the assumption that if an old school OSS developer wants a blog, they've already installed a selfhosted solution, is it fair to say they're more interested

in your process than your product?

[8.11] MS: Adamk in particular has been evaluating Dreamwidth as a potential new

home for the use.perl.org (http://use.perl.org/) content. Although DW is not yet

suitable for what they need, we've started talking about it. At this point, I think the

interest is more on the product, but Skud is doing a lot to advocate for the process

we're using and attracting more awareness to what Dreamwidth is bringing to the

table for OSS.

[8.12] We have a ways to go. I don't want this to be construed as "hey, look, we've

solved it!" because by no means is that the case, but we are fairly unusual in the world of development methodologies, and I hope that over the coming years, we can refine

it and educate others on things that we have found to work.

[8.13] DP: I think one major benefit, in terms of the overall end goal, is that we

don't view our way as having totally solved it. We know that we're going to be

iterating as we go.

9. Personal identity

[9.1] Q: One of the big concerns of some parts of fandom is separating the fannish

identity from the legal identity—that is, work or family responsibilities. Both of you are

now selfemployed or transitioning to selfemployment, and you have drawn your

significant others into working for the business, but I know you also both maintain

separate staff and personal accounts, if not identities. Why are you keeping them

separate? How willing are people to respect that separation?

[9.2] MS: I don't feel that either of us have a very strong separation of identity,

honestly. On my "mark" account, I send them to my other identity; I say "hey, go read xb95."

[9.3] DP: For me, part of the reason for maintaining two separate accounts is just so that people have a sense of when we're speaking ex cathedra, so to speak. If people

have an issue with the fact that half of the site ownership is writing porn in her spare

time, they're probably not going to be the type of people who are going to be happy

on DW in the first place.

[9.4] MS: I also think that maintaining the separate accounts will be useful for

separation of work and personal time. Just like they suggest you maintain an entirely

separate room of your house if you actually work from home, I think it's useful for me

to be able to be logged in as xb95 and not see official journals, people sending me messages, responding to comments officially, and so on.

[9.5] DP: Yes, absolutely. I know that I can go to my alternate account and just see offduty stuff. It was always really hard for me, when working for LJ, to load my LJ

friends page and see people criticizing something that I'd done or something I was

involved with, or just people snarking about LJ in general. Having two accounts helps

me maintain as much of that emotional separation as I can. Obviously I'm still going to

run into people critiquing my baby, but if I'm viewing it in an entirely separate

account, it helps me make the internal transition.

10. Conclusion

[10.1] Q: Was there anything you wish I had asked about—anything you would like

to let the readers of TWC know about Dreamwidth?

[10.2] DP: I think one of the things that I find most interesting about DW is that in a lot of ways, we're an experiment, businesswise. We're explicitly trying to overturn a

lot of the things that "everybody knows" about business on the Internet. Our goal isn't to make it big and sell out to another company, or make an initial public offering for

millions.

[10.3] Mark and I are both going into this viewing it as something that we want to

support ourselves for as long as market conditions make that possible. So in many

ways, that attitude and that idea is informing a lot of our choices. We're designing for

the long haul. I see a lot of people saying that our business stance is idealistic or

overly optimistic, that "of course" we'll sell out or plaster ads all over the site when economics make it necessary, and that perception is something I want to combat.

[10.4] We built everything on the assumption that we never, ever, ever want to take

money from anyone but our users, because we both think that the minute you go to

outside funding sources, you give up an element of control over the project that we're

not comfortable giving up.

[10.5] MS: I want to say, Dreamwidth is not a side project, it's not a clone, it's not a flybynight little thing we thought up one afternoon. There have been thousands and

thousands of personhours put into this project. We are here to build a stable, solid

foundation, a useful service, and a vibrant, varied, diverse community.

[10.6] This is our business, this is our careers, this is our baby. We know the costs,

we know the technical requirements, and we did all of our business design based

around the notion of paying ourselves a living wage for the rest of our careers. We're in this for the long haul.

11. Notes

1. Strikethrough was a 2007 incident in which many LiveJournal user accounts were

deleted without warning. LiveJournal initially claimed that these users had violated the

terms of service, but they later restored some accounts and admitted that their criteria

for deletion were overbroad and not a reasonable interpretation of the terms of service

then in force. (http://fanlore.org/wiki/Strikethrough)

2. The 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA; http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi

bin/toGPO/http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgibin/getdoc.cgi?

dbname=105_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ304.105.pdf) is a United States law that

governs the rights and responsibilities of Internet service providers in relationship to

intellectual property holders.

3. "The Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) is a nonprofit organization

established by fans to serve the interests of fans by providing access to and preserving

the history of fanworks and fan culture in its myriad forms"

(http://transformativeworks.org/about/believe). OTW sponsors the Journal of Transformative Works and Cultures.

Transformative Works and Cultures, Vol 3 (2009)

Interview

Interview with Chris Bouchard

E. L. Dol ard

University of Chester, Chester, United Kingdom

[0.1] Abstract— Interview with Chris Bouchard, conducted by Emma Dollard.

[0.2] Keywords— Adaptation; Appropriation; Fan film; Filmmaking; J. R. R. Tolkien;

The Lord of the Rings; The Hunt for Gollum

Dollard, E. L. 2009. Interview with Chris Bouchard. Transformative Works and

Cultures, no. 3. http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2009.0168.

doi:10.3983/twc.2009.0168

1. Introduction

[1.1] Chris Bouchard is the director and executive producer of The Hunt for Gollum, a 40minute independent film inspired by The Lord of the Rings. The film is available on the Internet for free viewing at http://www.thehuntforgollum.com.

[1.2] The Hunt for Gollum was released on the Internet on May 3, 2009. The film

follows Gandalf and Aragorn's search for Gollum after he was released from Mordor. In

J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Aragorn explains this quest in the chapter entitled "The Council of Elrond." Aragorn and Gandalf searched for Gollum for some time before Gandalf went to Gondor looking for proof that Bilbo's ring was the One

Ring. This left Aragorn to track Gollum through the Wild alone, and eventually capture

him.

[1.3] Bouchard's combination of Tolkien's text and Peter Jackson's visual

interpretation of Middleearth is an impressive accomplishment, given the low £3,000

budget and parttime filming. The accomplished feel of The Hunt for Gollum is aided

by the performances of professional actors, particularly Adrian Webster as Aragorn,

and by the collaboration with the makers of sister fan film Born of Hope

(http://www.bornofhope.com/) for props and costumes.

[1.4] Chris was interviewed via email by E. L. Dollard.

2. The making of The Hunt for Gollum

[2.1] Q: What led you to decide to adapt The Hunt for Gollum? Did you explicitly look for a gap in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film?

[2.2] CB: Yes. Once I realized that such a film might be possible, I started looking for passages in the books and appendices that had been left out. I had seen how the

other big fan film, Born of Hope, was already in the planning stages and talked to

them about collaboration. [ Born of Hope is another Lord of the Rings–inspired film, still in production, to be distributed freely on the Internet at http://www.bornofhope.com].

Luckily they were open to it, and so I already had lots of costumes in place. Eventually

I settled on The Hunt for Gollum, purely because it was a prequel, and it had the three characters that really interested me in The Lord of the Rings.

[2.3] Q: Did you find it difficult to accommodate the differing levels of viewer

knowledge of the text, or did your adaptation of Tolkien's text work because viewers

would already be familiar with Jackson's film?

[2.4] CB: I didn't want to repeat information from the films, so I assumed the

audience would already have seen them and tried to give them more information. My

editor, Lewis, and I had lots of discussions as we were editing the film together and

rescripting some scenes about how to stay true to Tolkien's world, but we also wanted

to make sure fans of the films would find something they could connect with.

[2.5] Q: The film is remarkably consistent with Jackson's vision of Middleearth. Do you think that Jackson's The Lord of the Rings is inescapable stylistically?

[2.6] CB: For a short film such as this, it seemed sensible to stick to the world as had already been established. For starters, this saved us budget and time on the design

and art department stages. Jackson and Co. created a wonderfully rich world, so why

change something that works just for the sake of change?

[2.7] Q: What was the most challenging aspect of filming The Hunt for Gollum?

[2.8] CB: Organizing a cast and crew of over 100 volunteers, plus learning a lot of

the processes as we went along. Many of the crew hadn't even worked on a film

before, so it was a case of trial and error a lot of the time. Also, this is my first proper film, so polishing it to completion in the edit suite, with all the CGI and sound, was a

long and rather arduous experience.

[2.9] Q: How was Gollum created in the film?

[2.10] CB: We used every trick we could dream up. In the wide shots, where Gollum is far away from the camera, that's either Matt or Chris done up in a mask with

makeup to look like Gollum, and crawling around either in North Wales or in front of a

makeshift green screen I put up on the rooftop of my flat. The shot at the end when

you see his face was done at the last minute by a small team of very talented CGI

artists. There were several moments when I thought we wouldn't be able to achieve

that shot and nearly gave up.

[2.11] Q: Did you find it difficult to "create" Middleearth in only 40 minutes of film?

[2.12] CB: It was tricky to get the length and pacing right. The script was only 25

pages long (25 minutes), but the rough cut turned out to be 55 minutes. We had to

ruthlessly cut down the scenes so that it didn't feel too slow, but still showed the

richness of the world. I called on help from friends and Lord of the Rings fans in the editing stages, to ensure that the edit and pace of the film were about right before we

released it. When you've been working on the same project for almost 2 years, the

hardest thing is to watch it with fresh eyes and imagine how a real audience would see

it.

[2.13] Q: What parts of the film are you most pleased with?

[2.14] CB: I rather like the scenes with Gandalf in them, purely because it was a rare chance to get the actors together in a film that's mostly just Aragorn wandering

around by himself. I suppose I'm quite proud of the fight scenes, as they were a huge

technical challenge.

3. Fans, adaptation, appropriation

[3.1] Q: Could you tell us more about the scriptwriting process? You said it was

originally conceived as longer than 25 pages. Who wrote the script, and how much did

the script writing and the approach to the story influence and shape the final film?

[3.2] CB: I adapted the script myself, although I had lots of help and input from my coproducers and editor Lewis Albrow, who helped restructure the story, which we

developed constantly during the final year of production. I originally wrote it as a 15page script, trying to keep things simple on our microbudget, but as things went on, I got more ambitious, and new ideas were incorporated. So the script went through

about 20 versions, and then we changed around the order of scenes a lot in the edit,

experimenting and eventually even reshooting a couple of scenes to fit the new

structure. The ending of the film changed substantially while we were editing the first

scenes shot, and the final Black Rider fight was only added to the script at the last

minute when I realized we might be able to pull it off. Originally the Orc attack was

halfway through the film (before Aragorn captured Gollum), but we decided ultimately it was better to save up the Orcs until near the end. At one point, I had a rough cut at

55 minutes, but Aragorn spent most of that time alone, tracking, and we realized it

was dragging, so we brutally chopped it down to 38 minutes a few weeks before it was

released.

[3.3] Q: One remark by reviewers is that the cinematography really strives, and in

many cases succeeds, to match that of Jackson's films. Can you talk about why, in the

context of a fan work, this would be considered high praise? Why do you think viewers

of Gollum would prefer an homage rather than a wholly new look or style?

[3.4] CB: As a fan, I wanted to see more of Peter Jackson's trilogy, so that's what I set about trying to achieve. Most of the viewers seem to have wanted the same thing.

However, our cinematography is not yet quite up there with featurefilm quality, so we

had to cut many corners, and use whatever natural light Mother Nature provided.

Everything was done on the bare minimum, with the cheapest HD cameras we could

borrow; however, there are tricks to try to make digital look more cinematic, and on

every shot, I was thinking about how to avoid the home video look.

[3.5] Q: Fan films have been described as essentially derivative by nature. Do you

think this is a fair assessment?

[3.6] CB: Certainly. Fan films are designed purposely for audiences to experience an extension of an already established world. If they did not derive their

stories/characters/worlds from those existing works, then they would not be able to

reach out to an audience on the Internet and would not be recognized at all. Of course

there's the opportunity for filmmakers to put their own mark on the way things are

shot and made, how the stories are told, but the main aims are to please the existing

fan base and to do that you have to remain true to the world of the original works.

[3.7] Q: Do you see yourself as part of a process of adaptation (the conscious

transformation of material into a new medium such as book to film) or appropriation

(the act of knowingly or unknowingly making reference to a specific text such as

Jackson's 'nod' to Bakshi's animated The Lord of the Rings

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077869/])? Do you think that your work is in a lesser league because it is an amateur/fan effort—not just because of lack of resources, but

also because of your own more fannish perspective?

[3.8] CB: With this film, it was definitely a process of adaptation, and this was

intended from the outset. The film industry doesn't recognize nonprofit films, fan films,

or media as being in the same league simply because they don't generate any

revenue. I don't think of the film as being in the same league as Hollywood feature films because it is a fan film. It can't stand alone.

[3.9] Q: Was it a difficult process to draw the narrative together? The story of

Gollum's capture by Aragorn is relayed in a number of places from The Fellowship of

the Ring to The Unfinished Tales to the appendices. What was the most challenging aspect of adapting the story to film?

[3.10] CB: I suppose the difficult thing was to make it interesting when most of the film was Aragorn traveling alone. So characterization was difficult, as was pacing it to

keep it interesting. Also, there's so much background history and information to get

across that it was difficult to balance that with elements of characterization. Plus

getting it all into a short film was tricky. It could have been feature length if we'd

added a few more characters. The other difficult thing was writing for a budget;

Gollum had to remain in the sack because a fully CGI Gollum in multiple shots would

have been impossible. So that limited the dialogue we could write between Aragorn

and Gollum, which was a shame.

[3.11] Q: What led you to the changes you made to Tolkien's story? I'm particularly

interested in the places where The Hunt for Gollum diverges from Aragorn's account in

"The Council of Elrond," such as Aragorn's conversations with Gollum—which I

personally found to be engaging and compelling, but which do not appear in Tolkien.

[3.12] CB: It was hard to imagine these conversations, and it was difficult on set

because most of the time, Adrian was acting with an immobile sack. I decided that

Aragorn would have attempted to talk to Gollum, first because Aragorn is an intelligent

man and knows much of Gollum's state of mind. If he were taking the creature on a

long journey, I imagine he would have been curious and tried his hand at questioning

Gollum. I only wish we could have perhaps taken this a lot further, as Gollum is a

fascinating character, and in some ways, there are parallels with Aragorn. Both are

lonely and lost, and their fates are tied up with the Ring. Gollum is obsessed by it and

Aragorn's forefathers once possessed it. I wish we could have taken that further, but

we ran out of time and money.

[3.13] Q: Can you discuss process of filling gaps, as opposed to any other possible

strategies that a fan filmmaker might take? We are interested in the different

approaches that your movie and the companion production Born of Hope take.

[3.14] CB: Filling the gaps was the fun, creative challenge of writing the script, I drew on my own love of the books to imagine what might have happened, based on

Tolkien's incredibly deep development of the characters we were using. I was always

careful to try to please the fans, sometimes at the expense of showing more

interesting character arcs. For example, we could have had Aragorn refuse the journey and give him an arc of overcoming his selfdoubt. While this would have been more

dramatic, it wasn't true to the original, so I rejected it to avoid losing the fan base,

while knowing the narrative arc of the short film would be weaker as a result. Born of

Hope does not have key characters from the original films to write about, so they've had more freedom. There are many differences in that Born of Hope is actually a

featurelength film, with a large cast of Rangers, so it's got the opportunity to have a

lot more interesting character stuff going on. Plus the books give very little detail, so

producer Kate Madison has been more creative with fleshing out an original narrative

and adding additional characters, while still remaining true to the events Tolkien

specified.

[3.15] Q: How much collaboration did The Hunt for Gollum and Born of Hope have, apart from your project borrowing costumes? Were there discussions between the two

groups? Did you share or exchange ideas? Do you see yourselves as supplementing

one another?

[3.16] CB: There was some collaboration in that I did some camera work on their

shoots and we shared some equipment, and Kate Madison helped with wardrobe and

production management on some of our shoots too. We also ended up using the same

locations for forest scenes—getting permission is very difficult if you don't have

money, so we shared our research, and at least 20 crew members, artists, and

technicians have worked on both productions. At the same time, there was a healthy

sense of rivalry happening, with each of us trying to outdo each other in terms of

ambitious shoots and largescale fight scenes. Born of Hope has gone for something

far more ambitious than The Hunt for Gollum, both in terms of length and scale. They have orchestrated fight scenes on a scale I've never seen on a volunteer film.

[3.17] Q: Obviously, one the biggest issues surrounding fan films such as The Hunt for Gollum is the issue of copyright. There have been any number of highprofile fan films in the last year, and even Be Kind Rewind took it as a central theme. ( Be Kind Rewind [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0799934/] is a 2008 film where the main characters attempt to recreate a homemade version of hit movies such as

Ghostbusters. ) How important do you think it is that filmmakers have the freedom to appropriate texts and rework them?

[3.18] CB: I think it's very important, purely as a learning experience. It's so hard to establish oneself as a filmmaker in the industry, especially if you don't have contacts

or family there already. So making a fan film can be a way to showcase skills and

talent that would otherwise have been undiscovered.

[3.19] Q: Again on copyright: could you talk about your relationship (if any) with the Tolkien estate, which is disclaimed on The Hunt for Gollum's Web site?

[3.20] CB: Tolkien Enterprises reached an understanding with us, but I can't

comment further than that on the details.

4. Cast, crew, audiences: A gender divide?

[4.1] Q: How did you come to be involved in cinema? As a filmmaker, who do you

think has particularly influenced you?

[4.2] CB: I was studying engineering and music at university and joined a

filmmaking society that made digital short films. I got addicted to it there and haven't

stopped since. Influences: lots of people. Some of the filmmakers I've worked with are

Shane Felux and Adam Dymond. And from the wider world, there are the directors I

admire: Ridley Scott, and of course Peter Jackson.

[4.3] Q: Some of your early work in film has been as a composer. What led you to

move across to directing? As a composer, were you particularly conscious of the effect

of the soundtrack in the film?

[4.4] CB: I think that as soon as I got the opportunity to play around with a camera and edit software, I was nurturing a desire to direct a film. Before that, I'd been

musically trained and found film music an interesting way to take part in the

filmmaking process. Coming from that background, I did try to put more thought into

the soundtrack, and initially I wanted to compose it myself. However, I soon realized

that I'd never have time to do that as well as finish the editing and the rest of the

postproduction; composing for film is incredibly slow. So I got Adam Langston and

Andrew Skrabutenas to kindly lend their musical talents to the score. Luckily they let

me be involved and went to great pains to understand what I wanted for the film.

[4.5] Q: The cast and crew of the fan film are clearly mostly men (while we

understand Born of Hope has a higher percentage of women in the cast and crew). Of

course the plot you chose to emphasize, the gap you chose to fill, was male centered,

but why are women, traditionally associated with fan works, so absent?

[4.6] CB: While you're right, our cast was five men and one woman, our location

crews were almost a 50/50 malefemale split. There are a lot of female Lord of the

Rings fans out there, and talented producers, crew, costume, and makeup artists. To

be fair, the postproduction team was more male dominated.

[4.7] Q: Again on gender, this time looking at the audience. When shooting Gollum,

did you have a specific audience in mind for your film—hardcore fans, industry pros,

or others? Were you keeping in mind the need to make it accessible to a wider audience? If we look at this in terms of gender, was there a difference in your mind

between a female and a male audience? This is interesting because both genders

share their love of the source text, but—if I may generalize and simplify a bit—it

appears that most of the male fans see their transformative work as a means to an

end, like a step up to a professional position, whereas most female fans see the work

as a gift to their fan community and as an end in itself.

[4.8] CB: I was hoping to make it accessible to the widest audience possible—the

fans. I aimed to please fans of the films without alienating fans of the books. In terms

of gender, I didn't really think about it at all, apart from deciding to expand the

love/dream scene with Arwen at the request of my female coproducers. The scene was

actually written by my coproducer, Julianne HoneyMenal. I love the way it turned out.

5. What's next

[5.1] Q: Did the people who worked on the fan film see this as a kind of entrée into the professional world of filmmaking? A few seemed to be in the industry. What was

their motivation for doing a fan work? How many of them selfidentify more as fans

than as movie professionals?

[5.2] CB: Definitely. For most of the crew this was their first film, their first

ambitious film, or their first chance to do something they haven't done before. So it

was an opportunity to get experience, learn the filmmaking process firsthand,

network, and express themselves creatively. Plus it's another credit to add to their CVs

and show reels. Most of the crew would probably not selfidentify as fans but saw it as

an opportunity to contribute to an unusual largescale production. But the core

contributors were hardcore fans as well as skilled artists, and that showed through in

their work.

[5.3] Q: On the basis of your experiences, would you make another The Lord of the Rings fan film, and if so, what would you most like to film?

[5.4] CB: If I had the money to make another fan film, then I'd probably want to do

The Scouring of the Shire. I really missed that last chapter from the trilogy. Anyway, I've no intention of doing another fan film. Instead, I'm starting work on an original

feature film. Hopefully I can make something that gets distribution in a more

conventional way, although we are looking at the Web as a possible launch platform.

[5.5] Q: If you didn't think The Hunt for Gollum would attract the interest of pros, would you have made the film anyway? You say you have no intention of making

another fan film. Why not? Generally fan writers, artists, filmmakers, and vidders do not stop at one effort.

[5.6] CB: The Hunt for Gollum actually hasn't attracted very much interest from the film industry. It hasn't been mentioned in any industry papers I'm aware of. The

awareness in the general press is higher. Why not make another fan film? Money! It's

a ridiculously expensive hobby. I've invested 2 years of hard work and funded the film

myself. If I am to continue making films, I need to do something that will recoup its

investment. So an original feature film will be my next move.

Transformative Works and Cultures, Vol 3 (2009)

Book review

Camgirls: Celebrity and community in the age of social networks, by

Theresa M. Senft

Adriano Barone

Milan, Italy

[0.1] Abstract— Theresa M. Senft. Camgirls: Celebrity and community in the age of social networks. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2008, $29.95 (150p) ISBN 9780820456942.

[0.2] Keywords— Ethics; Gender; New media; Online social networks

Barone, Adriano. 2009. Camgirls: Celebrity and community in the age of social

networks, by Theresa M. Senft [book review]. Transformative Works and Cultures,

no. 3. http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2009.0120.

Theresa M. Senft. Camgirls: Celebrity and community in the age of social networks.

New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2008, $29.95 (150p) ISBN 9780820456942.

[1] Camgirls: Celebrity and Community in the Age of Social Networks discusses, in

the words of its author, "what it means for feminists to speak of the personal as

political in the age of networks" (115). The book defines politics as "leveraging of power between connected entities" (5): therefore the dialectical nature of

communication on the Web makes it an inherently political medium. Senft then acutely

notes that common assumptions about these two categories—political and personal—

make commentators forget to analyze and understand the political values of personal

blogs and of other online network/communitybuilding tools, exemplified here by

Webcamming (that is, dramatizing one's life and views on the Web with a camera),

and focus by contrast on apparently more openly political expression on the Web.

[2] After this framing introduction, the core of the book is divided into five chapters,

each of which identifies different issues regarding Webcamming. Through case

histories with which the author was personally involved, Senft shows how ordinary

notions related to ethics, feminism, and personal and political issues on the Web are

based on false assumptions and are proven, to different levels and extents, to be

wrong.

[3] Chapter 1, "Keeping It Real on the Web: Authenticity, Celebrity, Branding,"

considers the ideology of publicity, which for camgirls (that is, girls who practice

Webcamming) translates into essentially three strategies: theatrical authenticity, selfbranding, and celebrity. The most interesting point here is a critique of the concepts of selfbranding and microcelebrity (as opposed to "real" celebrity): the desire and the practice to present oneself to others over the Web using tools typically associated with

celebrity promotion—with the key difference that "on the web popularity depends upon

a connection to one's audience, rather than an enforced separation from them" (26).

[4] According to sociologist Erving Goffman, identity amounts to little more than a

series of performances directed to particular audiences in our lives. Hence, the

difference between real celebrities and people such as those camgirls engaged in

microcelebrity practices lies in the ways in which members of these groups address

their respective audiences. The chapter also suggests that celebrities are commodities

masquerading as people, while those engaged in microcelebrity are people

experimenting with branding themselves as commodities, a point that the author

discusses in chapter 2. The issues at stake are particularly significant, but

unfortunately, Senft's book does not deal further with the concept of microcelebrity,

only focusing on selfbranding; microcelebrity is announced as the subject of an

upcoming volume still being written.

[5] The end of chapter 1 transitions to themes developed in the rest of the book: the

idea that the Web can be a tool to practice micropolitics, meant as "conversations and

actions in nonpolitical arenas that set the stage for macro politics by rendering people

receptive or unreceptive to certain messages and plans of action" (31).

[6] Chapter 2, "I'd Rather be a Camgirl Than a Cyborg: The Future of Feminism on

the Web," demonstrates how the concept of selfbranding is not an exhaustive

depiction of Webcamming. The inherently transformative online aesthetic of the

"grab," which allows viewers/consumers to take what they want and rework or discard the rest, makes Webcamming a relentlessly confrontational activity. Webcam girls

don't simply sell a product; they also engage in a very specific kind of emotional labor,

which prompts speculation on how much a camgirl can have in common with other

first and third world emotional laborers who don't broadcast on the Web. This

speculation is formulated via the concept of strategic essentialism, a practice through

which individuals create new names for themselves, generating feelings of affinity and

at the same time antagonism toward other individuals, thus acknowledging all

identities to be inaccurate and/or incomplete. Particularly relevant here for its

implications with regards to transformative culture, the concept of grabbing implies

both that a casualty principle is at work in the production of camgirls' Web site

materials, but also that consumers play an active role in choosing, collecting,

interpreting, and putting back into circulation on the Web these same visual materials.

[7] Chapter 3, "Being and Acting Online: From Telepresence to Teleethicality,"

assumes that forestalling ethical action in mediated environments like the Web is very

dangerous and advocates for such a danger to be avoided by "teleethicality": that is, to "engage, rather than forestall action in our mediated communities, despite the

potential for fakery and fraud" (56). This means that physical interaction with an

individual known only on the Web should be taken into consideration by members of

network communities, since usually viewed and lived experiences are considered to be

mutually exclusive (the author reports the case of an attempted suicide, watched by

more than 1,000 viewers, without anybody but two of them calling 911 as a "concrete"

reaction).

[8] The author makes explicit here the book's overall prescriptive approach to ethics.

Contrary to her promise of a descriptive position in her introduction, Senft is not

distanced from the phenomena under examination, and she shifts from analysis to

activism. The same happens in chapter 5, which urges "reflective solidarity," and in the conclusion, where the author concludes with five recommendations ("Emphasize

the Cultural," "Respect the Local and the Strangers," "Think Heretically," "Take Ethical Action," and "Seek Solidarity with 'Friends' and Friends"). Such recommendations are not theoretical but rather grounded on the personal experiences reported in the text,

where they provide a sort of manifesto. By repeatedly quoting Donna Haraway's 1985

"Cyborg Manifesto," Senft wants to update her message for a contemporary feminist

audience. This is a perfectly acceptable aim, but it sacrifices the theoretical aspects of

the book as initially formulated.

[9] Chapter 4, "The Public, the Private and the Pornographic," follows logically from the need to derail, through teleethical strategies, the process by which camgirls

become virtualized and considered as pornographic icons. Senft refers to Haraway's

usage of the word cyborg in discussing a pornographic ideology, defined as the belief that specific, feminized bodies ought to be scapegoats for shifting relationships

between public and private in a culture—even if this definition seems to describe a

social interpretation of the phenomenon, and not the phenomenon per se.

[10] One of the most interesting observations made in this chapter is the notion that,

throughout history, women have responded to their exclusion from the public sphere

by establishing counter–public places where democracy is regularly critiqued and

strengthened. Camgirls specifically resist the intimate public sphere through

performance, creating networks through what is called "strange familiarity"—that is, the familiarity arising from exchanging private information with otherwise remote

strangers. Senft points out two limits of feminist porncamp on the Web, the most

cogent one being the fact that camp loses much of its force as a result of the

appropriative aesthetic of the grab—which blurs the boundaries of the supposed counter–public space in which the Webcam performance takes place.

[11] Chapter 5, "I'm a Network: From 'Friends' to Friends," examines the concept of community building, focusing on what the author calls "networked reflective

solidarity": a political identification and alignment with the other, performed by

acknowledging not identity but difference. As Senft explains, "In reflective solidarity, I acknowledge that others are knowable to me only via conjecture or fantasy, yet I

chose to believe in them and the affinity we share, and I vow to listen to them" (108).

[12] Here, the concept of dialectic confrontation is again taken up when talking about

both identity performance and community/network building, and through them

elaborating the notion of ethical narcissism, which further strengthens the idea of "the personal is political" already stated in the introductory chapter. According to the

concept of ethical narcissism, if the author of a blog (or any other personal space on

the Web) accepts the possibility of interaction with a network, as opposed to a purely

nonconfrontational exposition, the narcissistic practice of personal blogs can become

ethical in the sense that it becomes dialectic and creates the opportunity to spread a

dialogue beyond the established network in which it was originally formulated.

[13] Camgirls is an innovative take on the ethics of rules building in online

communities. The book makes a strong point of showing the fallacy of naive beliefs in

the notpolitical nature of narcissism and pornography, two positions stereotypically

associated with camgirls and in general with developing personal spaces online.

[14] The overall conclusions are twofold. First, teleethicality allows women to have a

stronger political impact on the Web, and it helps build a larger and more significant

arena for micropolitics. Second, activism can spring from spaces not designed for

political action but that end up facilitating it, such as Web communities based on the

ostensibly personal practice of Webcamming. However, Senft opts not to overtly

theorize these conclusions and ties up her prescriptions only by their being based on

multiple observations of her personal experience. Since Senft is writing two more

essays on microcelebrity and teleethicality, it is to be hoped that reading Camgirls

together with the next volumes will provide a more organic, theorized, and complete

vision. In any case, the book stands out among studies on Web communities because

it provides an ethical theorization of community building online filtered through a

feminist point of view.

Transformative Works and Cultures, Vol 3 (2009)

Book review

Introduction to Japanese horror film, by Colette Balmain

Alessia Alfieroni

Dublin, Ireland

[0.1] Abstract— Colette Balmain. Introduction to Japanese horror film. Edinburgh University Press, 2008. £16.99 (214p) ISBN 9780748624751.

[0.2] Keywords— Film; Ghost; Horror; Tradition; Japanese horror

Alfieroni, Alessia. 2009. Introduction to Japanese horror film, by Colette Balmain

[book review]. Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 3.

http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2009.0121.

Colette Balmain. Introduction to Japanese horror film. Edinburgh University Press,

2008. £16.99 (214p) ISBN 9780748624751

[1] Author of several articles and books about films with a particular focus on Asian

cinema and culture, Colette Balmain here gives us an overview of the development of

the horror genre in Japan. As she argues in the introduction, notwithstanding the

universality of horror, it also exhibits features that are culture bound. Applying major

theoretical points to a variety of interesting examples from Godzilla ( Gojira, 1954) to Juon: The Grudge (2003), Balmain highlights the differences between Western and

Japanese horror movies. Balmain's contention is that on one hand, U.S. horror films

are mainly based on the fear of "otherness," usually personified by a monster, as they are built on what is described as the "twin processes" of repulsion of the unknown and the "desire to know" (4), but on the other hand, Japanese horror films represent the rejection of the social transformation that Japan had undergone after World War II.

The war and the country's forced modernization, as well as its consequent economic

success, had a devastating effect on Japanese society and its national identity.

[2] Even though this book is primarily oriented toward an audience with film and

media background, it can be appealing to anyone who is interested in Japanese horror

movies and Japanese anime and manga. In fact, through sustained references to

Japanese mythology and folktales, it provides the reader with a deep insight into

Japanese culture and the Western influence on its evolution. This book can actually be

considered an original analysis of a transversal type of transformative work because it

showcases the continuous crosscultural influences between the United States/Europe

and Japan that are elaborated and incorporated in each country's movie production. Of particular interest are the author's frequent comparisons with American horror that

underline Western and Eastern cultural differences and how they are reflected through

a film genre that has universal connotations. Thus, the book successfully overcomes

Western readers' possible biases and allows them to fully understand the intrinsic

meaning of symbols and archetypes that permeate the Japanese horror genre.

[3] Introduction to Japanese Horror Film is structured in two parts. In part 1,

composed of four chapters, the author analyzes the origins of Japanese horror cinema,

while in part 2, she focuses on Japanese horror as a genre and on its key motifs, such

as the vengeful virgin, the monstrous mother, the demonic child, and supernatural

killers.

[4] Chapter 1, "Laying the Foundations," provides the historical and cultural context behind the development of early Japanese cinema. The author characterizes the

Japanese studio system as highly influenced by the power of directors who could

choose the team of people whom they trusted and would be associated with for most

of their career. In the same way, traditional Japanese art forms, such as theatre, had

a great impact on film structure and theme. As a result, films borrowed the Kabuki

theater's taxonomy of two main genres: the jidaigeki, "historical dramas relating the tragedy of following society's rules," and the gendaimono, a portrayal of

"contemporary situations in which choosing personal happiness over filial and feudal

loyalty often led to suicide" (15). In this way, the author introduces the concept of ie, the "system of obligations and duties that determined relationships" (8) in Japanese society, and explains how the imposition of Western democratic ideals, such as

censorship and endorsement of individualism, affected Japanese society. Although

Hollywood cinema deeply influenced Japanese films, especially after the occupation,

encouraging more realistic dramas instead of the traditional stereotyped models set by

Kabuki theatre, it also pushed Japanese cinema to redefine itself through the

self/other opposition. Thus, the threat of Westernization induced Japan to construct

films around the theme of Japanese nationhood.

[5] In chapter 2, "Horror after Hiroshima," Balmain explores the rise in popularity of the horror cinema in relation to the "physical devastation and psychological trauma"

left by the war. As she argues, "the horror film provided one of the most suitable

mechanisms through which to express apprehension and concern over the changing

nature of Japanese society" (31). Balmain analyses the two most important postwar

movies of Japanese horror: Godzilla and Tales of Ugetsu ( Ugetsu Monogatari, 1953).

Both films deal with a disruption of the balance between man and nature and between

man and society that can only be restored through the female figure. Godzilla

introduces the reader to the concept of apocalyptic destruction (so well known to all

manga readers), a clear reference to the atomic bomb. The monster represents destruction, disease, and death as the only possible outcome of man's violence and

attempt to overcome nature; thus it "can be interpreted as a physical manifestation of

the disruption of wa, the harmony between man and nature" (38). Because the male element is here strongly associated with the disruption of this fragile balance, it is up

to the female element to restore harmony—hence the importance of the female

element, the tragic young heroine who through her sufferings redeems men's bad

deeds. Tales of Ugetsu instead "expresses fears around modernization" (31) caused by the introduction into Japanese society of consumerist values. The author highlights

how the film condemns the introduction of Western individualistic values that lead men

to develop "unrestrained appetites" (45), thus failing to fulfill their duties to the ie system. The protagonist abandons his wife and child, thus disrupting the balance

between man and society on which the ie system is based. Again, the female element

is the only one that can restore the lost harmony as the man's abandonment and

failure as a member of family/society is expiated through his wife's suffering and selfsacrifice. The analysis of this movie also introduces the reader to the figure of the yuurei: the vengeful ghost, mostly female, dressed in white and with "long unbound black hair" (47).

[6] Chapters 3 and 4 conclude the overview on the origins of contemporary Japanese

horror cinema by exploring the main motifs of its early days. Expanding on the

previous chapter, where the yuurei figure was presented, the author introduces us to the figures of the deceitful samurai, the wronged woman, and the vengeful ghosts that

characterize the prolific production of Edo Gothic and Pinku Eiga films in the '50s and

'60s.

[7] Describing the family unit as a microcosm of the ie system, Balmain shows that

the deceitful samurai embodies the man's selfish desire for individualistic assertion,

abandoning or killing his wife, as in the Ghost Story of Yotsuya ( Tokaido Yotsuya Kaidan, 1959). By neglecting his social obligations toward his family, the samurai

engenders a threat "to the very structure of Japanese society" that is traditionally based on the "ties that bind men to women and parents to children" (55). The

abandoned/killed wife thus becomes the wronged woman, victim of the man's selfish

desire. The author interprets the figure of this vengeful ghost as "the symbolic

outcome of the loss of traditional and premodern values" (54). Although these spirits

appear to be vengeful only toward those who were "wrong" to them, Balmain points

out how in the erotic ghost story, a subgenre of Pinku Eiga film, "the revenge of the wronged women is not just limited to those who committed offences against them, but

is taken generally against Japanese paternalism as a whole" (75). In the erotic ghost

story, the author shows how scenes of romantic passion are used in juxtaposition with

scenes of carnal desire, thus again providing a "mechanism of articulating cultural

anxieties at a time of rapid transformation in Japan's socioeconomic structure" (72).

The theme of metamorphosis is tightly linked with the female figures who, through

their monstrosity, drift away from tradition. It is interesting as well to notice how

certain key archetypes of the modern Japanese horror movies are already present at

this stage. Not only do we find the ghost of the wronged woman with unbound black

hair, but also the well, where the willbe ghost is thrown, and the cat, a supernatural

creature that can assist those who died violently in their search for vengeance and

justice.

[8] In the second part of the book, the author tackles the topic of horror as a genre,

clustering it into five subgenres, according to the identification of similar patterns in

the movies she analyzes, including raperevenge, zombies, haunted houses and family

melodramas, serial killers and slashers, and techno horror and urban alienation.

[9] In the chapter on raperevenge film, Balmain describes the evolution of the rape

fantasy movies in Japan. She starts her analysis with a description of the late '70s

series, Angel Guts ( Tenshi no Arawata, 1979–94), which is a useful starting point to discuss the emergence of the more recent raperevenge genre in Japanese horror

films. As she emphasizes, rape in Japanese society has not been considered a crime

until recently. This attitude lies in the Japanese ideal of female obedience and

submission that sees the woman as to be blamed for the violent expression of male

desire. As the author states, the '70s saw a common trend in American, European, and

Japanese films where acts of violence toward women by men are portrayed as

homosocial, nearly homosexual, bonding activities. In Japanese movies specifically,

rape becomes a sexless act of cruelty committed on the woman's body, whose main

role is to reestablish the power relationship (dominationsubmission) between men

and women. Therefore, rape is "only significant within the main narrative theme of the

male alienation in the modern industrial Japan" (101). The protagonists of raperevenge films such as Freeze Me (1999) and Audition ( Ōdishon, 2000) establish a pivotal point of further development of the wronged, abused woman as they transform

themselves into "avenging angels who mutilate the male body, transposing it into a

series of body parts, the narrative position originally occupied by the woman" (107).

Roles are subverted, and as the author points out, both films suggest the existence of

an abyssal gap between man and woman as they "expose the contradictions with the

Japanese society in which the commodification of sex exists side by side with its

traditional discourse on appropriate femininity" (111).

[10] In chapter 6, Balmain provides a description of the zombie genre that retains in

Japan its own specificity. Zombie movies have emerged in Japan after the release of

the popular video game Resident Evil (1996) and in the aftermath of the collapse of

the economic bubble of the '90s. They can be seen as a "type of countercultural and

subcultural resistance to traditional Japanese structures and cultural forms." As representatives of the "trend towards the superflat aesthetic," they are the mirror of an angry youth cinema that criticizes Japanese modernity and the rising obsession

with the consumption of luxury goods. As the author argues, "the zombie film

articulates the adolescent struggle for identity in a society built upon knowing one's

place in the larger structure" (127). Thus, this battle for selfdetermination seems to lead to an apocalyptic future of destruction of the worldsociety as people know it.

[11] "Haunted Houses and Family Melodramas" focuses on how the domestic space,

which is considered sacred and safe, becomes instead the source of horror and

dreadful acts. The threat, as the author underlines, does not come anymore from

outside, but is "inside and knocking on the door of the last bastion of Japanese

patriarchy: the family as embedded within the wider community" (129). The author

opens her analysis with a discussion of the monstrous mother, who embodies the

"patriarchal fear around female power" (133), to introduce an indepth analysis of two movies, Dark Water ( Honogurai mizu no soko kara, 2002) and JuOn: The Grudge (2003). Dark Water represents the way in which society has been contaminated by

modernity: the figure of the monstrous mother reflects the presence of an extreme

mother complex that develops as a result of the "absent father" and the "the

competitive education system which gave rise to the 'education mother'" (129).

Modernity, in fact, affects the nuclear family and diverts the mother from her

obligations toward the child. Hence, the death of a child as a result of a neglectful

mother's behavior inspires the figure of the "vengeful foetus" that can only be

appeased through selfsacrifice of a mother (137–47).

[12] JuOn: The Grudge, whose comparison with its American remake is the core of

the author's conclusion, utilizes the traditional Japanese figures of the wronged woman

together with that of the vengeful fetus. Balmain points out how the movie expresses

society's fears of the growing episodes of violence in domestic environments as a

result of growing feelings of isolation and alienation. The concept of domestic violence,

she argues, threatens "not just the notion of patriarchal privilege within marriage, but also the very construction of Japan as a [safe] nation" (145), in contrast to the

decadent and dangerous Western countries. The family home thus can be considered a

microcosm of Japanese society. Even though, throughout the movie, the female yuurei

acts as a dreadful figure, it is rather the male figure of the husband who is infected

with anger and a grudge toward the house and all those in contact with it.

[13] In her analysis of the genre of serial killers and slashers, Japanese style,

Balmain points out how "Japanese 'monsters,' whether psychological or supernatural,

are substantially different from those that proliferate in the mainstream (American)

horror" (165). Japanese serial killer and slasher movies focus on "unmotivated, or

sexually motivated, crimes" that cannot be simply investigated through the "poppsychoanalysis" that is used in American horror or thriller movies. Balmain argues, in fact, that the Japanese serial killer can be identified as a "pathological symptom of

modernity" (166). Thus, the emergence of the Japanese psychopath is to be blamed

on the breakdown of the societal structure that recognizes individuals through a

collective identity, and consequently, these films defy traditional beliefs around gender

roles in terms of sexual behavior and position in society. As the author suggests, the

horror of such movies originates in their "refusal to construct an identifiable subject rather than the actions of that subject" (167).

[14] The last chapter is "Techno Horror and Urban Alienation." The author includes in this section her analysis of movies such as Ring ( Ringu, 1998), One Missed Call ( Chakushin ari, 2003) and Pulse ( Kairo, 2001), which have enjoyed a worldwide success thanks to their American remakes. As Balmain shows, these films associate

technology with isolation, alienation, and finally death; indeed, sometimes this process

is portrayed as the apocalyptic doom toward which humanity is moving. The emptiness

and isolation of the individual in the society is mirrored by the progressive disruption

of the family. Parents' neglect of their familial duties generates the figure of the

abused child, who transforms into the "vengeful yuurei archetype of conventional Japanese horror" (174), perfectly embodied by Sadako in Ring.

Transformative Works and Cultures, Vol 3 (2009)

Book review

Pride and prejudice and zombies: The classic Regency romance—Now with

ultraviolent zombie mayhem!, by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

Craig B. Jacobsen

Mesa Community Col ege, Mesa, Arizona, United States

[0.1] Abstract— Jane Austen and Seth GrahameSmith. Pride and prejudice and

zombies: The classic Regency romance—Now with ultraviolent zombie mayhem!

Philadelphia, PA: Quirk Books, 2009. $12.95 (320p) ISBN 9781594743344.

[0.2] Keywords— Derivative novel; Jane Austen; Zombie

Jacobsen, Craig B. 2009. Pride and prejudice and zombies: The classic Regency

romance—Now with ultraviolent zombie mayhem!, by Jane Austen and Seth

GrahameSmith [book review]. Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 3.

http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2009.0181.

Jane Austen and Seth GrahameSmith. Pride and prejudice and zombies: The classic

Regency romance—Now with ultraviolent zombie mayhem! Philadelphia, PA: Quirk

Books, 2009. $12.95 (320p) ISBN 9781594743344.

[1] It is early 19thcentury England. Mr. and Mrs. Bennet have five unmarried

daughters, and though the Bennets are well enough off, at Mr. Bennet's death, his

estate will go to a cousin, Mr. Collins, upon whose mercy Mrs. Bennet and the girls will

be forced to depend unless the daughters can be made suitable matches. When rich

and attractive Mr. Bingley moves in nearby, the unsubtle Mrs. Bennet works to secure

a marriage for eldest daughter Jane. Bingley's boorish friend Mr. Darcy incites loathing

in Elizabeth Bennet through his callous nature and past mistreatment of Elizabeth's

friend, Mr. Wickham. Complications ensue, reversals are themselves reversed, Bennet

sisters imperil their reputations, and in the end, three Bennet daughters have been

matched with husbands. Oh, and there are some zombies. And ninjas.

[2] That is the basic plot of Seth GrahameSmith's Pride and Prejudice and Zombies,

and, minus the zombies and ninjas, of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. The

congruity is perhaps not surprising, but it is disappointing. GrahameSmith's revision

declines a thorough reimagining of Austen's work, an extrapolation of what would

happen if Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy met in an England beset by the walking

dead, and is instead simply what the title page admits: "The Classic Regency Romance

—Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem." With ninjas. The result of GrahameSmith's

fidelity to Austen's plot is an amusing parody of the original, Pride and Prejudice with a few scenes of martial arts battling and zombie killing that highlight the sublimated

conflict of the source novel.

[3] Regrettably, the derivative work's premise—that by the time Elizabeth and Darcy

meet, England has been fighting off a plague of zombies for more than five decades—

has far more potential than GrahameSmith exploits. An infection that causes both the

dead to rise from their graves and the living bitten to become zombies, a plague that

makes it unsafe to travel the roads and requires the fortification of London, ought to

have altered English society more significantly than it seems to have. The novel flirts

with exploring the implications of this fundamental change. For example, the Bennet

sisters have been trained in zombie killing by Shaolin monks. While the Chinese

connection (and the Japanese ninjas who also appear in the novel) may seem forced,

training in selfprotection hardly seems farfetched, given the circumstances.

However, in GrahameSmith's zombieriddled England, martial training and the

exertion required by it remain what they would have been in Austen's England:

markers of the Bennet sisters' unsuitability for marriage into respectable upperclass

families.

[4] Perhaps it is unfair to ask a book that clearly aims to be cute and goofy for a

rigorous reexamination of Regency society under pressure from zombie hordes, but

300 pages is a long way to stretch one joke, and GrahameSmith's work does so less

successfully than some other of contemporary derivative literature, like Jasper Fforde's

The Eyre Affair (2003), for example. The book never rises to the level of derivative works such as John Gardner's Grendel (1971) or even Gregory Maguire's Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister (2000), but in a side plot, GrahameSmith gives a glimpse of

what the book might have accomplished without becoming overly cerebral or

ponderous. As in Austen's original, in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Elizabeth

Bennet rejects the advances of her cousin, Mr. Collins, even though marrying him

would help ensure a secure future for her mother and sisters. In both the original and

derivative works, Mr. Collins's attention then turns to Elizabeth's neighbor and friend,

Charlotte Lucas, who cultivates his affection. In both works, Charlotte is driven by the

practical considerations that drive marriage in her culture: she must secure the best

marriage she can manage, regardless of romantic notions. Doing so means honestly

assessing her prospects and pursuing suitable opportunities. While Charlotte's actions

may seem mercenary and cold in contrast to Elizabeth's passionate emotions, they

reflect a realistic response to her cultural context. Given that Charlotte is judged to be

plain and aging, her pursuit of Collins makes sense. When GrahameSmith adds to this

Charlotte's awareness that she has been infected by a zombie bite, he integrates the

zombie plague into the already existing social pressures that guide the characters'

decision making. As the plot and Charlotte's disease progress, zombieism takes its

place alongside sex, love, and money as things not talked about in polite society, even when they are obvious. Charlotte's subplot hints at what might have been if the

zombies, and the idea of zombiness, were fully intertwined into the text as more than

excuses for action scenes as characters travel from one Austen scene to the next.

Sadly, the novel's central plot, Elizabeth and Darcy's relationship, remains largely

oblivious to the zombies at the door. Despite their oftmentioned martial prowess,

GrahameSmith's Bennet sisters are in the end married off, just as Jane Austen's are.

[5] Interestingly, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is likely of more interest to Jane Austen fans than zombie aficionados. The plotting, characterization, and much of the

description is Austen's work—so much so that the book would be more accurately

titled Pride and Prejudice (with Some Zombies and Ninjas). The zombie killing

interludes inserted by GrahameSmith don't detract from Austen's work; rather, they

highlight that wellcrafted scenes in which characters spar with words and react to

subtleties of manner can be far more suspenseful than campy fight scenes and copious

vomit. Although this may sound like the outofhand dismissal of a derivative work by

a faithful defender of the Austen original, it is not. A more ambitious work would have

been of interest both to Austen scholars examining the resilience of her work in the

hands of subsequent authors, and to scholars of derivative narratives interested in the

strategies used to craft such reimagined narratives. Unfortunately, there is likely more

of interest to scholars in the book's astoundingly successful viral marketing campaign

than in the text itself. The novel is a part of Quirk Books' Quirk Classics line, literature no longer protected by copyright deemed ripe for enhancement by the insertion of

zombies, robots, aliens, monkeys, and other miscellaneous elements (Quirk's followon, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, reworked by Ben H. Winters, appears this month). Originally slated for a print run of 10,000 copies, the leak of the striking cover

image and back cover blurb for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies led to its going viral, the book's appearance on the New York Times bestseller list, and 850,000 copies in

print. Hollywood rumor has production companies vying for the rights to adapt the

work. The book's success is a tribute to the power of viral marketing, enduring interest

in Austen, and the current zombie zeitgeist.

[6] Zombie literature needs powerful and enduring works: the history of zombie

narratives is dominated by important films and influential computer games. Booklength zombie literature has a sparse and inglorious history, with few texts that successfully exploit or explore the power of the zombie as metaphor. It can be done,

as a work like Max Brooks's 2006 novel World War Z (which history may regard as the

zombie genre's Dracula) demonstrates. Zombie narratives can make social

commentary without losing a sense of humor, as in the film Shaun of the Dead (2004), which implicitly equates the routinized lives of the urban working class with the

shuffling zombies invisible among them. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, coming as it

does in the midst of a zombie renaissance, simply misses the opportunity to be something more than a clever title and a striking cover image.

Document Outline

Transformative Works and Cultures,

No. 3 (September 15, 2009)

Editorial

Theory

Hanna Wirman, On productivity and game fandom

Praxis

Interview