What Xena did during her summer vacation
| News Media Commentary | |
|---|---|
| Title: | What Xena did during her summer vacation |
| Commentator: | Amy Harmon for "The New York Times" |
| Date(s): | August 18, 1997 |
| Venue: | |
| Fandom: | Xena, multifandom |
| External Links: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
What Xena did during her summer vacation is a 1997 article by Amy Harmon in "The New York Times."
It has the subtitle: "Online TV fans avoid rerun doldrums by writing episodes for favorites."
Some Topics Discussed
- fans don't have to suffer through summer re-runs and no new content, as they can create their own
- stumbles with the phrase "photocopied pamphlets" to describe print zines in the 1970s, and refers to Star Trek fans as "notoriously cultish"
- mentions Gossamer Archive, but not by name
- a fan named Betsy Vera is interviewed about the 800 addresses for fan-fiction Web sites and e-mail lists she has compiled
- the anonymity of the internet makes it easier for some people to be fans
- it quotes Henry Jenkins and uses his famous statement: "Fan fiction is a way of the culture repairing the damage done in a system where contemporary myths are owned by corporations instead of owned by the folk."
- quotes from a fan, Jill Kirby, about her three websites that are "devoted to fiction about Buffy."
- fan, Nina Smith's, X-Files, ER, and Chicago Hope crossover novels, "A Dark Smear in the Sky" and "Black Sail"
- explains that some studios have threatened some sites, but mostly have left fans alone
- touches upon slash but doesn't dwell
Excerpts
Unfettered by formula or the strictures of internal consistency, fan fiction traces its roots to the photocopied pamphlets passed around in the 1970s by the notoriously cultish Star Trek devotees at conventions and through the mail.
But the recent outpouring of digitized fan scribbling - one X-Files Web archive has accumulated 6,000 stories in its 18 months of exist ence - seems to signal the genesis of a cultural movement with a much broader appeal.
"You're getting a lot of the people who wouldn't be caught dead near a convention," Vera said. "It's different if you do it on the Web."
As much a template for communication as it is a creative outlet for excess enthusiasm, on line fan fiction is a new testament to television's role as a common language in a society becoming both more global and more fragmented. It also reflects the power of the Internet as a grass-roots publishing platform, making every viewer a potential contributor.
So for, the fan-fiction phenomenon has unfolded with the forbearance of the television industry. While several studios have threatened to press charges against people who set up Web fan-club sites that use pirated pictures and trademarked logos, the networks have allowed fiction sites to proliferate in peace.
"As long as somebody's not out there trying to make money with it, I don't think anybody wants to shut them down," said a spokesman for 20th Century Fox, which produces The X-Files. [1]
"The thing that scares all of us is that NBC is going to call us up and say,'Cease and desist,'" said a writer in New York City who asked to be identified only her nom de 'Net, Kitt Montague.
Standard fan-fiction form nods to copyright law by acknowledging up front that others own the characters. But several TV producers, worried about potential liability, said they avoid reading fan fiction, in the same way they ignore unsolicited scripts, so an amateur writer can't later con tend that a story was stolen. Professionals who do acknowledge sneaking an occasional online peek evince a faint hostility toward Internet scribes.
"I've seen some fan fiction from certain female Internet users that seems to be elaborate fantasies involving them and one of the characters," said Rene Balcer, executive producer and head writer for Law & Order.
The vast majority of fan-fiction writers are women, and most are younger than 40.
"Most people think of television as mindless consumption, and I like the fact that there are people turning around and using it as a springboard for all sorts of personal creativity," [Nina] Smith said.
It is in crossovers and other fan-generated genres such as "slash" - in which the sexual orientation of all the main characters has been switched (the police officers from Starsky & Hutch are a favorite topic here, as are Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock from Star Trek) -- that fanfiction begins to depart markedly from its source material.
The creative chaos has given rise to use of the term "canon" to distinguish events that were portrayed on within the alternate universe of electronic fan fiction.
"If you read enough," posted one reader to a fan-fiction discussion group, "they blend."
Consider the case of Sheryl Martin, a security guard in Toronto. She created a character named Jackie St. George, who accompanies FBI agents in her X-Files fiction.
"I get e-mail saying, "Which show was she on?" Martin said of Jackie, about whom she has written about 200 stories. "That to me is the ultimate flattery."
Fan Comments
While reading thru the New York Times at work, Monday's Aug. 18, I was surprised to see an article "What Xena did during her summer vacation" on its front page. This article is about fanfic for various media shows and lists file names for five of the most popular sites, especially the members.aol.com etc etc with its gen & slash version. This article reprinted in the entertainment section of Sunday's Houston Chronicle and has probably been reprinted in many other papers. Does anyone still think fanfic, even slash is underground? [2]
References
- ^ No, that comes later with Viacom Crackdown.
- ^ from Strange Bedfellows (APA) #19 (November 1997)