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The Mainstreaming of Fannish Behaviour
Jan. 7th, 2006 08:29 amDid you read the article this week about the upcoming episode of Cold Case which is based on a selection of Springsteen songs? The episode, news articles report, was written around, or based on, Springsteen songs through the ages.
Is this the commercial equivilent of songfic?
If someone told you they wrote a story about her family being the inspiration for The Graduate, and that in the movie version she'd be played by Jennifer Aniston, would you say "self-insertion, Mary-Sue"? Would you say "meta"? Would you say "Hey, that's in a theater near me right now!"
The person who wrote in to Since You Asked on Salon Magazine this week admitted to an obsession with celebrity gossip and perhaps an over-reliance on IMDB. The advice columnist responded by saying, Perhaps you could embark on something akin to fan fiction, using the gods and goddesses of our media world as characters in tales of your own creation.
Cary doesn't seem to be aware of the term RPF (real people fanfic, as I am sure some of you are aware), but could her suggestion be read as anything else?
Of course, movies that refer to other films are nothing new - remember Scream? And Miami Vice built a story around Glen Frey's Smuggler's Blues back in, what, 1984? 1985? And I've read novels with celebs are characters - one of my favorite books is Peter Lefcourt's Di and I, about a screenwriter who falls in love with - and runs off with - Princess Diana.
It's not something new to the mainstream. In my estimation (and YMMV) it isn't edgy or subversive, but I know others may disagree. If you still think that it is, why do you think so? In what context is it, because I am sure there are some. Is it the NC-17 arm of things that would still be deemed "unmentionable-in-public"? Or is it sort of like ordinary sexual behaviour before Kinsey - people didn't know what was normal, so they fretted that everything they did was abnormal, wrong, edgy or unmentionable?
Wow, I think this is the most meta I've posted in a year. Or at least six months. Anon posting is on, IPs are being logged but I promise not to check on anything that isn't a full-on threat of death or serious violence.
An ex-jock sits around a bar talking about his athletic glory days as we hear "Glory Days." Four high school friends skip school and drive around listening to "No Surrender," a song about skipping school and driving around. A couple enters an unhappy marriage to the sounds of "Brilliant Disguise," a song about a young couple keeping secrets from each other. The husband leaves the wife and steals a car as we hear "Stolen Car," a song about... well, you get the idea. Though "Cold Case" takes place in Philly, the plot veers off to the Jersey Shore just long enough so "Atlantic City" can pump up a scene about a mob shooting.
Is this the commercial equivilent of songfic?
If someone told you they wrote a story about her family being the inspiration for The Graduate, and that in the movie version she'd be played by Jennifer Aniston, would you say "self-insertion, Mary-Sue"? Would you say "meta"? Would you say "Hey, that's in a theater near me right now!"
The person who wrote in to Since You Asked on Salon Magazine this week admitted to an obsession with celebrity gossip and perhaps an over-reliance on IMDB. The advice columnist responded by saying, Perhaps you could embark on something akin to fan fiction, using the gods and goddesses of our media world as characters in tales of your own creation.
Cary doesn't seem to be aware of the term RPF (real people fanfic, as I am sure some of you are aware), but could her suggestion be read as anything else?
Of course, movies that refer to other films are nothing new - remember Scream? And Miami Vice built a story around Glen Frey's Smuggler's Blues back in, what, 1984? 1985? And I've read novels with celebs are characters - one of my favorite books is Peter Lefcourt's Di and I, about a screenwriter who falls in love with - and runs off with - Princess Diana.
It's not something new to the mainstream. In my estimation (and YMMV) it isn't edgy or subversive, but I know others may disagree. If you still think that it is, why do you think so? In what context is it, because I am sure there are some. Is it the NC-17 arm of things that would still be deemed "unmentionable-in-public"? Or is it sort of like ordinary sexual behaviour before Kinsey - people didn't know what was normal, so they fretted that everything they did was abnormal, wrong, edgy or unmentionable?
Wow, I think this is the most meta I've posted in a year. Or at least six months. Anon posting is on, IPs are being logged but I promise not to check on anything that isn't a full-on threat of death or serious violence.
