Fangirl Chat 17: An Oral History of Fandom with Maggie Nowakowska
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| Interviews by Fans | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Fangirl Chat 17: An Oral History of Fandom with Maggie Nowakowska |
| Interviewer: | Fangirl |
| Interviewee: | Maggie Nowakowska |
| Date(s): | August 11, 2014 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom(s): | Star Wars |
| External Links: | Fangirl Chat 17: An Oral History of Fandom with Maggie Nowakowska « FANgirl Blog, Archived version |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Fangirl Chat 17: An Oral History of Fandom with Maggie Nowakowska is a 48-minute interview with Maggie Nowakowska for
Introduction: "After meeting Maggie Nowakowska at last year’s GeekGirlCon, I wanted to make sure her memories of fandom in the pre-internet age weren’t lost. What was it like to be Star Wars fans before message boards? Definitely different, but when you hear some of the people she has met and things she had a chance to participate in, you might be wishing for a time machine to take you back to the good old days."
Topics
- seeing the movies for the first time
- communicating by letters and the phone
- the movies as the "Golden Book version" and fanfiction as the real stories
- what it was like to be a female fan at that time
- the conflict between SF and ST fans, and ST and SW fans
- Westercon '76 masquerade controversy, some male judge complained about not enough "skin" showing
- Star Wars was a fringe fandom at the time
- the established nature of alternative universe in SW fanfic bumps up against The Empire Strikes Back's canon
- fans had three years to establish their fiction worlds before the second movie attempted to Joss them
- having lunch with Larry Kasdan
- Leia as a Jedi?
- the suckiness of the "expanded universe" novels
- understanding the reason behind the fascination and deluge of special effects in the later movies, but wishing it were different
- pre-Creation Con, and the differences in access to TPTB
- newly-accessible VCRs at cons and the pros and cons: easier to know canon, but cut down on storytelling and community
- the first Star Wars movie you saw is what Star Wars is for you
- fans' conflict about the basic nature of Han Solo
- the cyclical nature of fannish discussion
- spoilers for stories and the pros and cons of warnings
- Maggie's use of editors
- fandom in the 1970s as a platform for women to broaden their experiences and skills
- the controversial nature of ending of "Return of the Jedi," and other "difficult" subject and how they relate to things in fans' personal lives
- Maggie's disappointment that more young women don't participate in fannish discussion today
- George Lucas' original understanding of fandom being one of fans talking about specs and articles and discussion, and that he didn't expect all the women writing the stories, and this befuddled him