yourlibrarian ([info]yourlibrarian) wrote in [info]fanthropology,
@ 2006-11-14 21:45:00
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Sports, soap operas and literary criticism
I came across this story this weekend on the creation of fantasy soap leagues. In reading the report it strikes me as more of a drinking game given the rather odd fit onto a competitive framework. But maybe that's because I don't understand fantasy sports (or perhaps soap operas) that well?

The concluding line also caught my attention:
SoapNet will offer no real prizes or money for its league, but its designers think winning the title of "Queen of the Fantasy Soap League" will be enough for hard-core soap fans.

"We find that women just want a shout-out," Salmon said.

In part I wondered whether the phrase about women was a slip of the tongue, (as in Salmon meant "our players") or not. I was also led to wonder whether or not fantasy sports would have caught on at the level which it has had there not been the legitimizing effects of money involved.

On a possibly unrelated note, Henry Jenkins' latest blog post takes on the task of analyzing slash as literary criticism by using his own reworking of "A Christmas Carol."

But from an academic perspective, the fact that I used a fictional form rather than an analytic essay to construct this argument might have seen nonconventional.

It made me wonder how many agree with the idea that fan fiction is not fiction so much as it is critical analysis using the fiction format.

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[info]jeppa
2006-11-14 10:23 pm UTC (link)
I think some fan fiction is definitely critical analysis using a fiction format, and that perhaps you could argue that fandom communities are about criticism more than passive consumerism in general, but I don't think that every fic can be considered lit crit :D

Oh, so much love for Henry Jenkins ♥

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[info]egretplume
2006-11-14 10:27 pm UTC (link)
I agree that some fan fiction includes a critical impulse, because its very existence implies that the original text was lacking in some way, and needed supplementation.
But it's not really analysis.

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[info]angrybabble
2006-11-14 10:39 pm UTC (link)
I write fanfic almost entirely to explain or show my impressions of character personalities and relationships, as well as why/how plot events occurred (especially things left out or unclear in canon). Actually, just the process of writing the fic helps me understand the canon better, just as the act of writing an analytic essay makes you think of new things that you didn't even have in mind when you began writing it. Often I won't finish my fics or show them to anyone, or I may decide to write an essay instead, but just beginning the process of stirs up a lot of thoughts. And fics are more engaging and fun to read for the audience, meaning your idea may find more readers as a fic.

Also: I can add in porn! :D Because like salt, electric guitars, or puppies, porn is a fully unnecessary element which makes things more fun.

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[info]izhilzha
2006-11-15 12:04 am UTC (link)
It made me wonder how many agree with the idea that fan fiction is not fiction so much as it is critical analysis using the fiction format.

I disagree that it's not fiction, but it's certainly true that some fanfic (especially missing scenes, epilogues, and other episode/source-related pieces) functions as critical analysis.

I know there are fics I've written because it seemed more natural to explore the idea using fiction than to write an essay about it.

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[info]shay_renoylds
2006-11-15 12:15 am UTC (link)
The problem, I think, with the way that quote ("women just want a shout-out") works is that it goes out to instill a sense of marginalization to this primarily female fantasy 'sport' -- the "male" target games win some prizes, etc. (even if they are just online) -- but the women are expected to be happy with being acknowledged...and obviously they should be happy with that. There are a variety of marketing reasons inherent to that (often women aren't acknowledged as a target demographic in the video game world)... though this is a marginalized fan based anyways, so that may have something to do with it. ^_^

For Jenkins, the quote is interesting...
But from an academic perspective, the fact that I used a fictional form rather than an analytic essay to construct this argument might have seen nonconventional.

It's definitely an interesting construct, but I'm not sure if that all fic is that -- as Jenkins himself discusses it's such a large genre that it's impossible to even begin to discuss it as one gigantic theoretical construct.

There are a great deal of people who use fan fic as a way for critical analysis, and indeed, Jenkins was discussing how he integrated the lines from the text itself -- but there's so much more out there in the way of what it discusses. Fic can be anything from critical analysis of the text in question, to analysis of gender norms (especially with slash), to just a way to get some more experience writing with a chance for an automatic audience.

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[info]yourlibrarian
2006-11-15 12:35 am UTC (link)
women aren't acknowledged as a target demographic
That's certainly true in the case of television ratings as well, since it is relatively easy to attract female viewers to a show unless it is very exclusively targeted to male interests. I wonder, for example, if that's one reason that Friday Night Lights is struggling. That despite the show's structural format, the subject of the show keeps women from tuning in. By comparison it's difficult to get young male viewers for many shows.

Your reading of the quote was similar to mine though. What also disturbed me about the story was the effort to map something women are interested in onto something men are doing -- seemingly ignoring the fact that women already do engage with the material in their own ways. Perhaps this is something that will really catch on though, who knows?

there's so much more out there in the way of what it discusses
Yes, I think there's an awful variety of fic and motivations for writing it. I did find the whole discussion, which I've heard before but not often, interesting in the way it rejects the idea of a left brain/right brain approach to a text and shows that there can be an integrated response.

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[info]anna_wing
2006-11-15 02:00 am UTC (link)
Sometimes it is. I know of someone writing a novel about Denethor and Finduilas as a response in fictional form to Tolkien's argument in "The Lord of the Rings". Jacqueline Carey's two-novel sequence "Banewreaker" and "Godslayer" are certainly fictional responses to Tolkien's underlying worldview. Similarly, Carole Nelson Douglas' novels about Irene Adler are murder mysteries, historical novels and commentary and response to Conan Doyle. These are professional fan fiction, but fan fiction nonetheless.

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[info]lordsmerf
2006-11-15 02:28 am UTC (link)
I think it's extremely difficult (impossible?) to separate 'pure fiction' from 'fiction and criticism'. The vast majority of fiction shows some of the roots of the author. You can see in modern fantasy that many people have read Tolkein, for instance.

Does that make their fiction some sort of response to Tolkein? I guess in some ways it is and in some ways it isn't. A lot of fiction can be read as criticism (that is, we can look at it and go, 'Aha, here's a response to this idea from this other work of fiction.') It's just that with fan-fiction we don't have to guess at all the influences.

I can read some generic fantasy novel and only be able to guess that there's influence from Tolkein and that certain aspects of the fiction are responses to Tolkein's work. But with fan-fiction I know that the author has read the canon, so I can analyze with more surety.

Thomas

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[info]yourlibrarian
2006-11-15 02:51 am UTC (link)
I think that your point and that of the poster above, that all literature is in some way a response to that which came before it is quite true. However I think that there's a distinction between writing which responds to its context as a piece of literature in a larger body of work, and writing whose specific aim is to examine and critique another text. Because it seems to me that such writing is quite unlikely to be able to stand alone without the other text for support.

For example, I interpret the commonly seen element in fan fiction of character bashing (or relationship bashing) as an example of criticism run amok. In such cases the author's priority for criticism overtook the literary aspect altogether, resulting in a piece of work many find unsatisfying. At the same time those who share the same critical view may well seek out such writing because the main point is not to explore characters or a storyline but to validate a particular belief. The same tendency to be "preachy" can also dampen interest in commercially produced stories *cough*Studio60*cough*. My feeling is that it's because didactic writing tends to veer away from the openess for interpretation found in art, thus denying an audience's expectation to find themselves somehow in the text.

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[info]lordsmerf
2006-11-15 03:02 am UTC (link)
Good point, and something I'll have to think on for a bit. I guess my problem is that it seems clear that you can write a piece of fiction with the express intention of it serving as criticism, or you may write it as fiction first. Either way the reader may read it as fiction (and see no criticism) or read it as criticism (even if the author didn't intend it to be so).

It might be that such cases are rare though and that most of the time it's pretty obvious...

Thomas

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Fantasy game vs. drinking game
[info]coinop25
2006-11-15 04:19 pm UTC (link)
In reading the report it strikes me as more of a drinking game given the rather odd fit onto a competitive framework. But maybe that's because I don't understand fantasy sports (or perhaps soap operas) that well?

No, I'm inclined to agree that it's more like a drinking game shoehorned into a sports model (http://doombot.com/2006/11/13/fantasy-everything). I think some companies are just waking up to the fact that super-enthusiastic fans are worth a lot of money, and it hasn't occurred to them yet to come up with their own model for engaging with those fans, so they're trying to borrow other models that might not fit as well.

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Re: Fantasy game vs. drinking game
[info]yourlibrarian
2006-11-15 04:52 pm UTC (link)
Good to know I'm not completely off-base with that impression! I suppose calling it what it is would seem to be pandering tothe Cosmpolitan Moms.

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