Politicizing Texts

(I'm not sure what the post is for this week, but a few students have posted. So I'm just going to talk about a couple of the articles.)

I agree that fan fiction is a space that allows for societal views and political messages to emerge, sometimes. Some fans, I believe, simply write what they think is "cool" or continuations/elaborations on well-developed story ideas. But, sometimes a crafty writer partakes in the fan fiction and uses the story already formed (through comics or series or what have you) and uses that space as a forum for his/her sociopolitical ideas about what the text does or could mean in a larger sense. This speaks to Sedgwick's conception of reading as for both "fascination and love." With fascination, fans might play with, reconceptualize existing material into new forms or with layers of subtextual meanings. With love, fans might continue existing stories or expand on minor characters. Also, this seems to relate to Charvat's remark about the "great literary bloom" (in the Romantic Fiction article) whereby readers developed a thirst for book-length reading. In this new media form and transtextuality, queering allows for a space of great reader appetite and audience participation because of how queering, by definition, takes an idea and deviates from the norm, or expected, or conventional. The question that these discussions have raised for me is - what about queering texts outside of fan fiction? We've seemed to have linked them in class, as do some articles, and I'm not sure if they have to be. To queer a text it seems there must first be an original text, and we've established it's more than derivational work, so it is fan work?

Fandom

Some theorists, like Barthes, have proposed that the audience is an author because they make meaning of a story the way they want to and can do. But, yet we sometimes look at fandom as an unacceptable embrace of audience as author because they are "messing with" the original text. But, in their interaction with the text they are making not only meaning but additional textual material and expanded narratives, allowing them to be authors because of creation. Karpovich brings up a new aspect of audience authorship through the discussion of beta readers, who are often fans and who volunteer to act similar to a copy editor or script editor. Here the audience also can become an author because of their expertise. How fascinating....

Slash Fiction

Well, it seems slash fiction "slashes up" the real text by not only emphasizing indirect markers of roles and relationships that push the boundaries. In some ways, this is useful - when there are markers. But, when it seems fans take moments of a text and twist them to forcefully make a subtext explode into the audience's sensibilities, it seems horrific to me as a writer and reader.

But, this was the assignment so here goes....(what better thing to slash than a soap opera which often times has little respect as a field of writing anyway)...

Background: Rebecca is Gwen's mother, an over-sexed, no boundary woman, who calls Theresa all sorts of ethnically-attacking names, and wants her to stay married to Ethan. Ethan and Gwen were separated and during that time he returned to his life love, Theresa, who has since been suspected of getting eaten by sharks, to Ethan's horror and Gwen/Rebecca's exultation) Rebecca has been giving her daughter love-making advice to keep Ethan's attention.

Rebecca: If you want to keep Ethan, you have to make him happy. Get that tramp Theresa out of his mind.
Gwen: We are very satisfied together.
Rebecca: Obviously not, if he keeps trying to find her fish bait body.
Gwen: Well, I just don't know what else to do.
Rebecca: Here's my bag of goodies, use something from this.
Gwen: This is disgusting; I am not.
Rebecca: Do you want Ethan to be yours or not?
Gwen: Fine, how about this? (pulls out a nightgown)
Rebecca: Whatever. Just do something.
Time passes, Ethan comes home to Gwen in a revealing nightgown.
Gwen and Ethan enter into an intimate moment and Rebecca listens at the door.
Rebecca (to self): What is she doing? Whatever it is isn't working.
Gwen (in her head): I hope my mother was right about this.
Ethan: Theresa!
Gwen (to self): That's it! I'll never get Ethan.
Rebecca (to self): I can't let her lose him to that enchilada.
Rebecca opens door.
Rebecca: Gwen, move over. Watch me.
Rebecca jumps in bed and starts making out with Ethan.

The subtext draws on taboos and moralities of sex, particularly that of mother-in-law and son-in-law.

Collective Authorship

Wikipedia certainly serves as a "knowledge space," whereby individuals form their own community in the quest to share knowledge. Much like the often-cited fan communities and "soap talk," who rejoice in the sharing of their expertise in a particular field, the wiki space quickly turned into an outpouring of individuals interested in offering their tidbits to unlimited topics. Wikipedia is also in the transitional moment that Levy attributes to society at large: still novel and unresolved in relevant authorship and accuracy battles (such as those who continue to post even after their material has been removed). Furthermore, Wikipedia has expanded beyond the original shared knowledge of its individual contributors to extend to a collective intelligence whereby knowledge is combined with an end product of society's knowledge as informed by society's memory and experience. Through the developing informational space of Wikipedia, society is certainly "comparing, refining, and negotiating understanding" of just about any subject area. Personally, I think the form is important, however flawed. There's still a long way to go; and as an educator, I've refused student use of Wikipedia "facts" for academic use because of its limited restrictions on content. Though everyone is probably an expertise of something, I still value traditional, peer edited resources.

Multi-Mediated Texts

Many have discussed the transition from text, such as comics, to the Internet; but, one thing I have found interesting is the interactive role of the audience with television shows, and the transition television shows can take across other forms and media. For example, Passions is a soap opera. Shortly after it began airing in 1999, the soap had a call in and Internet space to vote off any characters the audience disliked. The character of Kay was changed because of this. The authorship of the show seemed to change as the audience had a more overt role, however brief, in the show (similar to American Idol, but the difference was that show was founded on audience votes, whereas soaps do not readily employ this interaction). Now Passions not only existed as a series of fixed plots and characters because the audience had a say (at least in the beginning). Even though the show was the highest rated among my age group, its network was facing financial trouble with its two soaps, so it went for greater audiences. Passions' website was revamped and advertised, and many characters created blogs to interact with audience members. The soap opera was no longer limited to its air spot, and it was reaching beyond the realm of a soap opera (a pre-made show that simply aired, nothing more). It was now showing daytime, online, and you could talk with your favorite actor/actress. Then, the show faced cancellation, and network sold the show. When the show moved, a new part was added: a call-in talk show. Now Passions had expanded its space of existence from a soap opera to a talk show. Audiences now didn't have to settle for conversing with their favorite soap stars, they could talk to the "actual" characters. The actors and actresses stayed in character throughout the talk show, answering fan calls about their characters, and interacting with other characters who were on the talk show that day. (Unfortunately, its new network was seeing the end of their contract with the show and pondering the fan-hated word "cancelled," and the talk show ended.) Passions lived as a script, a fixed television show, a fan-informed television show, an Internet space, and a talk-show. Certainly, its authorship shifted and transformed through those mediums. But, in general, I think because this show emerged in a technologically advanced time around and of the new millennium, its harder for us to say that, though Passions has changed mediums and may continue to do so, its still a network product than it is to take an iconic text (such as Sherlock Holmes or Peanuts) that is so readily identified with a particular author or medium and accept those authorship and medium changes as equally valid or acknowledged.

The Rights of Rights

Trademarking allows for a company to have sole branding rights to that which it markets its commercial product; copyrighting allows for individuals and companies to maintain exclusive rights to the wording of an idea or image. These rights do not last forever; they come with limits. Some, as our articles demonstrate, believe this legal entitlement leads to a monopoly of sorts over specific words and images unfairly, keeping it out of the culture's legal reach. Others believe that it's their work, and so they should be able to manipulate and guide what their work is associated with and how. In general, I think that after death, you should lose the rights, and your estate (others who were not the creators) should not be able to keep those rights for extensive or undetermined amounts of time. But, then examples like Disney and Elvis arise. As a fan of both, I believe in the purity of their images and agree that their companies and/or estates should be able to look out for the interests of those images, even after Disney and Elvis has died, or Mickey Mouse's trademark expired. Unfortunately, I don't have a strong legal or moral argument, but rather I am simply distrustful of what "just anyone" could and would do to the images that Disney, Elvis, and the like worked so hard to create. Then again, they were created because of the people's response to them, hence making them more significantly a cultural product than merely an individual's vision and execution of that vision. So, sure a work should not be forever the sole property of a family line, but sometimes I'm grateful that estates can maintain rights for years after the holder's death and that companies can petition for continuances of their copyrights and trademarks to ensure the "safety" of their work.

The Corporate Authorship

Often times we think of an author as just that AN author. But, what about when the author gives his work to others for assistance. Disney is a perfect example of that. About nine years after his construction of "Disney," he stopped completing all of the drawings himself and took a supervisor role in the work. Once "Disney" became more of an enterprise and the company transformed into an organization of divisions, Walt still had involvement in all of the stages of production. During these two notable shifts in the company's progress, Disney's authorship as the man shifted into Disney's authorship as the company. In the reading, a poignant metaphor emerges about corporate authorship. Disney the man is likened to Santa, and the company is compared to Santa's workshop. Elves sustain the labor, while Santa oversees. The essential elements of corporate authorship becomes vision, supervision, and accountability. Ultimately, Walt, like Santa, envisioned the "look" of Disney, ensured its production, and took responsibility for its outcome. In a time when the development of the child as a social, intellectual, and moral being and the influence of parents consequential were at a height, Walt created and distributed cartoons and films that portrayed those anxieties. Furthermore, when film was under fire about its lifelong influence over young impressible minds, Walt altered the work and defended the work as needed. Though his role is vital in the success of the corporation, Walt was not the only author. Disney, the entity, or Santa's workshop, was ultimately the author of the work as it became a force of its own.