The Shape of Water

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Fandom
Name: The Shape of Water
Abbreviation(s):
Creator: Guillermo del Toro
Date(s): 2017
Medium: film
Country of Origin: USA
External Links: Wikipedia, IMDB, Official Website
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An early fannish interpretation of the film poster by nipuni (July 20, 2017)

The Shape of Water is a 2017 American romantic dark fantasy drama film directed by Guillermo del Toro. In 2018, it received Best Picture at the Academy Awards.

Canon

There are three canon sources: the film, the novel, and the Making Of book.

The Shape of Water film

The Shape of Water is a fantasyfilm inspired by classic horror tropes. It is director Guillermo del Toro's 'fairy tale for troubled times'. In some ways, it is a fanwork itself, re-interpreting The Creature from the Black Lagoon as a romance and social commentary on conservative American society. Wikipedia sums it up as "Set in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1962, the story follows a mute cleaner at a high-security government laboratory who falls in love with a captured humanoid amphibian creature."

The Shape of Water novel

The Shape of Water novel is co-authored by Guillermo del Toro and the horror writer Daniel Kraus. Daniel Kraus' approach, and his role in developing the Shape of Water concept, are described in this interview. Kraus notes that the novel "was a companion and it could be different. But I will say it's not wildly different."

The 'Making Of' book

In 2018, a detailed 'making of' book was also published: Guillermo del Toro's The Shape of Water: Creating a Fairy Tale for Troubled Times .[1] This book contains additional backstory material, especially detailed character profiles for Giles Dupont, Zelda Fuller, and Dr. Robert Hoffstetler.

Fandom

The movie received a lot of attention in fandom for the canon couple being a human/monster pairing. It remains a relatively small fandom and has a lot of overlap with the teratophilia community.

Most art and fic focuses on the central pairing, Elisa Esposito and the Asset. There is a steady trickle of crossover works linking The Shape of Water to del Toro's Hellboy films and the related comics.

Shape of Water archetypes and imagery are often used as the basis for AUs in other fandoms. These AUs recast different characters in the role of the Asset, the rescuer, and others. The Shape of Sheith fanzine is one example.

When the movie received two Academy Awards in 2018, nazrigar wrote:

Untitled by nazrigar (March 12, 2018)

A week ago this day, Guillermo Del Toro won the Oscars for both Best Director AND Best Picture for The Shape of Water.

As a monster fan ever since childhood, you have NO idea how much that means to me, doubly so because I LOVE Guillermo Del Toro’s work. To see a film that is, essentially, part of The Creature of the Black Lagoon’s legacy to nab THE top prize in Hollywood is nothing short of phenomenal, in a genre where movie monsters have been a staple since the beginning; from the era of Karloff’s Frankenstein and Lugosi’s Dracula all the way to the Xenomorph and the Predator and BOTH Clash of the Titans (the old one is still better). And at long last, after all these decades, a monster movie nabs the Oscar.

Thank you Guillermo Del Toro, you never cease to amaze us, and inspire us to create and imagine.[2]

Fanworks

Fanart

Zines

Meta

Fest and Exchanges

Archives and Communities

References

  1. ^ See: Guillermo del Toro's The Shape of Water: Creating a Fairy Tale for Troubled Times, Archived version
  2. ^ See: Untitled, Archived version tumblr post by nazriga, March 12, 2018
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