The Lucasfilm Porno Flap: The story of George Lucas' ban on smutty Star Wars fanfiction

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Title:	The Lucasfilm Porno Flap: The story of George Lucas' ban on smutty Star Wars fanfiction
Creator:	lunaterra
Date(s):	September 23, 2021
Medium:	Reddit
Fandom:	Star Wars, Star Trek: TOS
Topic:
External Links:	The Lucasfilm Porno Flap: The story of George Lucas' ban on smutty Star Wars fanfiction, Archived version
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The Lucasfilm Porno Flap: The story of George Lucas' ban on smutty Star Wars fanfiction is an essay about George Lucas' stance on fanfiction with sexual elements.

The essay has extensive use of Fanlore's material and research and includes many wikilinks to this site.

Some Topics Discussed

• fanzines
• Star Trek and Star Wars fandom rivalry
• the differences between George Lucas and Gene Roddenberry and their fandoms
• the Open Letters to Star Wars Zine Publishers (1981), the attempts to control fandom and fanworks
• a lot of other stuff

Fan Comments

[Pengaana]: Holy shit, what an amazingly put together read!! As someone who enjoys fandom and fics now I’ve always been incredibly curious what fandom was like before the internet. By the time I was being introduced to the notion of fan communities the internet was (while still young) old enough to at least have online communities (Geocities pages and online forums) where I could interact with fan content. Thank you for all the work put into this write-up.

[wiseoldprogrammer]:

“Social media” back then consisted of newsletters, APA’s (Amateur Press Association), and very heavily on word of mouth. I used to attend “zine parties”, where people would bring their piles of fanzines and let everyone look at ‘em. And of course there were conventions, most notably MediaWestCon, the annual get-together where publishers premiered their new stuff.

It still boggles my mind when I post a story on Ao3 and see hundreds of hits in a short time frame—back then, you got very little feedback unless someone reviewed the zine or had an LoC that mentioned your work.

I still remember working a table at MWC and talking to a woman whose luggage had been lost by the airlines—including her insulin. I immediately offered to drive her to the nearest pharmacy, but she said no. The cost of the insulin might put too big a dent in her “zine money”. I’m not kidding, either.

I got into fandom around 1983-a bit too late for all this, but trust me I had my own misadventures.

[IHatha oat]: The best part about this, to me, is that you could replace “zine money” with anything and it still ring true for certain people. Anime merch, figures, BL doujinshi etc. etc.

I find it so endearing in a way.

[Jakegender]:

Oh no, the gay fic is gonna taint the good image of... checks notes Admiral Piett. Who the hell even is that?? Some background character with like 2 lines? they probably could have just changed it to Admiral Riett and they'd be none the wiser.

[risqueandreward]: He's the Imperial officer who gets promoted to admiral after Darth Vader strangles the previous officer to death with the Force. Y'know, a good wholesome backstory.

[Walking the Dead]: Gays? In my spaceship? It's more likely than you think.

[agayghost]: fandom's always been the same lol

[Gamiac]: Holy shit, one of the earliest stories in SW fandom is a fucking Han Solo CBT story.

[ghostemoj1]: I own a copy of the zine Collected Circle of Fire I (first in a planned series that didn't occur) which includes the naughty version of Slow Boat to Bespin. It is very light and very nearly PG by modern standards, so it's always been a delight to me that it contributed to so much frenzied pot-stirring.

To add on to this: IIRC, Lucasfilm's primary concern was maintaining Star Wars' profitability as a toy franchise.Roddenberry really embraced the fans in part I think because the original series was never a real blockbuster; it was the very dedicated fanbase (including professional writers and scientists!) that kept Star Trek afloat for so long. Versus Star Wars was an immediate record-breaking hit: Lucasfilm never NEEDED the hardcore fans, the sort that would make fanzines just to circulate letter columns and discuss who everyone thought would be "the another" Yoda mentions in ESB (Han Solo was the most popular guess).

It's also important to keep it in context with George Lucas' opinions on sexual content in Star Wars, which he considered a fairy tale series: no one can have sex on-screen. It can't even be implied. Kisses would have to substitute. And while the 1970s and early 1980s certainly weren't as prudish (relative to the modern era) as say the 1950s, this was still an era when romance novelists had to deal with strict censorship guidelines that often dictated a woman couldn't even initiate a romantic or sexual encounter.

So what you get is a traffic jam of a preexisting science fiction fan culture, one in which fans might argue about sexual content in fanworks but in general it was permissible particularly given the countercultural direction of science fiction and science fiction fandom - and a man and a company that are hyper-focused on maintaining a specific appearance and a specific profitability - broader cultural mores (the company) coming up against a much smaller movement (the fans) - and then the inevitable clash when the conservative company decides to crack down on something they think threatens their IP.

But really, this all just informs what I think actually happened, which is that Lucas wasn't comfortable thinking of any of his Star Wars characters having sex and he or his company was shocked that anyone would think of them having sex.

[risqueandreward]: "Look, the Empire will endorse executing billions of people with the Death Star right in front of everyone's eyes- but being gay? Too far."

I'd love to go back in time, grab some of these executives, and make them browse something like AO3.

[majesdane]:We're terribly sorry, but we cannot authorize homosexual expression of love among the characters created by George Lucas.

This line sticks out to me as being particularly hilarious. "Sorry, but no gays :( please still give us money though." LOL. And now Disney's learned that they can profit of The Gays (tm) so they will do the bare minimum of inclusivity! (Assuming it can be deleted from international versions as need be, of course.)

[...]

If only LF had known then what the internet would become ... could have spared themselves a lot of time and energy.

Also, this reminds me (as all author on fanfic drama does) of Diana Gabaldon's stance on fanfic, which includes such hits as:

"Like someone selling your children into white slavery"

"I think it's immoral, I know it's illegal"

Although it's even funnier coming from her, complaining that fanfic is all about sex, considering her Outlander series is full of raunchy sex scenes (among other not so nice things) ...

[HollowIce]: The Outlander author condemns fanfic writers? That's almost as rich as Anne Rice's lawsuit threat.

[BobTheSkrull]: Honestly, what is it with authors comparing their characters to their children? George R.R. Martin did the same when he criticized fanfiction, but given what typically happens to his characters, I would be highly suspect of that statement.

[RedRobin101]: It's kind of crazy how things have shifted on the questionable legality of fanfiction. I remember as a kid seeing the Anne Rice crusades and almost every fic having a disclaimer for not owning the characters--and now we've got books making billions that are just fanfic with the serial numbers filed off.

I wouldn't say it's accepted but I do think most companies have just decided to begrudgingly ignore it at this point.

[Hellioning]: Ah, the good old days when we conflated the existence of gay people with porn.

...Now. Now is the good old days. People still do that.

Anyway, nice writeup. Always fun to see fandom history.

[risqueandreward]: The roots of modern fandom owes a lot to K/S shippers.

[MightyMeerkat97]: Ironically, one of the semi-canon stories in the official From a Certain Point of View anthology (celebrating 40 years of A New Hope) heavily implies that Grand Moff Tarkin was having a Sugar Daddy affair with one of the male stormtroopers that Luke and Han mugged for their disguises, and relationships like this between high-ranking Imperial officers and members of the Stormtrooper Corps were common enough that said stormtrooper knew to put on a wide-eyed farm-boy persona because it would make him more appealing. This really raises the question of just how much action Luke could have gotten on board the Death Star in the short time he was there.

[KickAgressive4901]: Drama with a vintage twang. Delicious.

Gene Roddenberry may not have been the most exemplary of human beings, but I am thankful for what he allowed his fandom to become, and much of that has filtered down into the present day.

[scolfin]: As a possibility-important bit of context, Star Trek was similarly hands-off with its merch (as long as you gave them a bit of cash, and they clearly hadn't checked how much they could charge), leading most infamously to the Spock Helmet. Even the Animated Series had obviously limited supervision. In contrast, Star Wars largely developed modern merchandising, with a large part being its disciplined approach.

You can see the differences in fan-work treatment being largely just one facet of their differing approaches to derivative products in general.

[funkybullschrimp]: Gotta love imperial officers innocence lmao, of you know anything about star wars ya gotta laugh at that.

Also, this post is a deeply sad reminder that homosexuality was not accepted till very recently and before then people we still consider Heroes and geniuses probably disliked the very concept.

[gnome idea what]: The idea that a company might make a serious attempt at policing fan content boggles my mind, as someone who grew up in the internet era. They can't even keep people from pirating their content, so sending lawyers after people using their content as the foundation for smut sounds ridiculous.

[Professional-Dog9383]: You have to remember homosexuality was officially classified as a disease until 1973 in the US, and to the goddamn 1980's in Europe. Star Wars gay fanfic would have quite literally been "sick filth" in many peoples' minds.

[robot cook]: Damn that was one hell of a write-up! Fandom history is always great to know and share tbh.

As a modern fan I think we can thank the OTW (organisation for transformative work) for all the work they do for us and the legal help they offer to avoid those kind of situations arising again

[purplewigg]: Whenever I hear about early fandom and that first generation of Spirk shippers/zine editors, I always get flashbacks to this Tumblr post. We have it so easy nowadays

[al28894]: Goddamn, it's always wild to see just how much erotica and LGBTQ+ content has been accepted over the last 40+ years. Some of the anti K/S responses would be laughable nowadays, to say nothing of the current mass-popularity of shipping!

[Liwett]: Incredible write-up! It's so interesting to see that fandom vocab is so old (even though it sometimes evolves), and sad to see that the debates remain the same hahaha.

The Slow Boat illustration is so wholesome tbh! I'm actually interested in reading the fic now lol

["LordLoko]: "In less formal terms, my decision to retire was influences by a comment from a friend. 'Remember the Clone Wars?' she asked. I nodded. She ended, 'The Clones won.'"

Reminds me that the whole fandom thought that in the "Clone Wars" the clones were the bad guys.

[freckleburger2]: I knew there was a reason I vastly preferred Star Trek to star wars. I wonder if anyone has ever tried to talk with Lucas about his views on gay relationships today, in relation to lucasfilms' past prohibition on gay fanfic.

[somadrop]: In the vast old west of the newly accessible internet, I read about a billion people who would argue that the K/S slashers were the perfect, shining example of what fandom was meant to be. I knew there was a lot of history there, and that it was important, but I was a kid at the time so even though Netscape let me peer into these crazy conversations, I wouldn't really piece together what the hell it all meant until I was much, much older. And by then I was writing my own slash on fanfiction.net!

I really live for writings like this. They help us view things with better context.

[Freezair]: This is a wonderful write-up! The links to all those old zine covers and illustrations are fantastic, too. There's something weirdly charming about that sexually explicit one--like, it's porny, but through that 70's comic filter it almost turns... cute.

And hey, all those fanzines being preserved in the end is a delightful little happy ending. Long live fanfic!

[Average Joe]: I understand the desire to protect intellectual property and sell toys, but the attitude that "being gay is worse than being a member of an army that destroyed an entire inhabited planet" is pretty awful.

[humanweightedblanket]: It's fascinating to me to see how much some fans at the time felt connected to Lucas personally. We talk a lot about fan culture now as fans feeling intense connection to their fav characters, actors, and writers as a feature of the internet, but this seems to say otherwise. Or perhaps some fans felt like they wouldn't get more sci-fi if the controversy hit the news?

This whole turn of events is in other ways so vastly different than the fan landscape now. I can't imagine a company trying to tell fans that they can't make transformative works. Fantastic writeup, OP!

[agent-of-asgard]: Amazing write-up! So nice to see the words of the early trailblazers fighting for the rights of fandom. There's really nothing new under the sun...

Tumblr, free the female-presenting nipple!

[shadowmend]: What an excellent and thorough write-up! I'd known about K/S fanzines, but it never even occurred to me that those fans would naturally gravitate towards Star Wars, too.

Though, I think the happiest part about the ending is how many of those fanzines survived to be archived. It's always great to see fandom history preserved like that.

[McCheesington]: Amazing write-up and a great look into a side of one of a franchise I thought I knew a lot about lmao. I guess treading the line of understanding fans' desired to explore their universe in their own way and 'protecting' your own brand is a tricky one, even if Trek seemed to do it quite well?

[neverjumpthegate]: Great write up. Do you thinkLucasfilms trying to keep a hold on it's transformative works fandom hurt it in the long run? It's constantly talked about how Star Wars isn't as big internationally as other fandoms.

[lunaterra, the original poster]: That's hard for me to say; I think someone who's more ingrained in Star Wars fandom would give you a better answer.

What I can say is that the fandom had more issues beyond just LF's meddling. The adage that nobody hates Star Wars more than Star Wars fans seems to have been just as true in the 70s and 80s as it is today. SW letterzines and LOC columns had frequent bickering and name-calling over various issues and it wouldn't surprise me if that kind of atmosphere drove people away as much as the perception that Lucas wanted to control fan activities.

[minneapple79]: Great writeup, very thorough. I love reading about fandom pre-internet. This one has a little bit of everything.

[aisecherry]: I knew a little of this but not un nearly so much detail, loved getting the full tale here! thanks for an awesome writeup fanfiction is wild.

[SameOldSongs]: There is something oddly comforting in knowing Tumblr drama existed in the 80s. Thank you for this fantastic write-up.

[AmbitionLower7456]: this write up is so good, where would we as fandom be without the women who made k/s zines

[detergentbubbles]: Man, I'll have to remember this write-up when the best of 2021 nomination thread starts. Really well-written, a lot of useful context, and lots of links to source material...this is what other posters should aspire to!

[recycled usrname]: I am not deeply involved in any Fandom, but I really enjoyed your writeup. The history of Fandom is very interesting, and it seems like there is enough here for a well researched documentary or a history book.

[Okami G]: I absolutely adore these bits of OldFandom drama.