brain splat: on real person fiction

[avawatson]

I started writing this post, then recorded it for a fan medley for threepatch, and now here I am back to the working on the lj post. So yes, let me just shoot myself in the foot here poke at you guys about how you feel about this.

I don't pretend to have thought this through exhaustively and I don't pretend to be capital C correct about a damn thing. But here are my thoughts, muddled and decidedly uncogent as they are.

It'd be nice if I had a very high moral high ground to stand on (as, in fact, many people do see RPF as an issue of morality), and I'd feel a lot more secure if I, in fact, I saw things in black and white and felt things in black and white, and I were able to say, with conviction, "Yeah, you know what, there's a line I will not cross and this is it. No RPFs, none, and that's it, that's a squick, it's morally wrong."

But I don't have that line. I mean, not there, anyway. It's not a squick. And if it's morally wrong, I don't feel it sharply and instinctively like I feel other things are morally wrong. Is that...wrong?


I don't seek out RPF; it's not what I'd call my thing. But sometimes a rec will just wind up in my lap somehow, or I'll search out a fic author I enjoyed and find RPF in the back catalog somewhere. I believe this is how I found Daasgrrl's "In His Image" (where John gets with Benedict Cumberbatch) and Pennydreadful's "Mirror, Mirror" (where Sherlock brings home Benedict for John to enjoy because John's a kinky fuck). And as you can see, neither of those are RPF in the sense of OFC/OMC and Celebrity get together. Both are cases where fictional fandom universes and the actor ones collide. And I say actor universe, because I don't much consider that to be my universe; it's its own thing. And I don't know if that matters, except that it does to me. I'm not interested in reading what I would inevitably infer to be the author's stand in having adventures with or dating these people. I am vaguely interested in seeing the fictional fandom universe characters deal with people who I have a fuzzy sense of because they're celebrities who I follow. The actors are kind of like OCs who I didn't need a lot of backstory to flesh out, because they already live in my head. They're ready constructs of people; I don't really know them, but it sort of feels like I do. They're easy to pick up as characters and move around in my head, and therefore in fic...I can see my way to reading about them, or not.

But seeing the actors with some random OC? I'm not really interested, no. I mean, no thank you. And I don't think I'd jump on real person ships either really, like Martin/Ben (freebatch). Again, not because it's a squick or it's morally repugnant to me, but because it's just not particularly of interest. It'd very much be like reading things in other fandoms. Yeah, I could...but why? It'd be like giving me the choice between One Direction bandfic and reading Roane's Pull the Stars from the Sky. Of course I'll pick the one that features my otp.

I do have a problem with fan works being shown to the actors when they didn't in any way solicit them, when they are obviously uninterested and actively disturbed and uncomfortable. But on that front, I don't see a huge difference between making them uncomfortable by showing them porny fanart with their face on it and RPF. I think neither one should be shown to the person, but why am I supposed to be repulsed by the very existence of one and not the other?

And I'll go ahead and say here that I think that that distinction (or lack thereof) is why Amanda Abbington has said the (rather controversial) things she's said about nsfw/gay fanart with Martin's likeness on it and why she doesn't want her children to ever find it. I think, for her, there's hardly any difference, and I guess I can appreciate that on behalf of small children who might find that confusing. But the adult decision I've essentially made is that if we're free to create art with their likeness, if we want to live in a world where the creation of said art is encouraged (even if it's not encouraged to bring to the attention of the actors/creators, because the fourth wall is for the protection of both the fans and for them), then I'm not sure why fictionalized RPF is so incredibly off limits as well. My brain just doesn't quite grok it with the way that I've been presenting myself the argument. So I wonder if anyone out there can help me think it through.

Comments

[mildred-bobbin.livejournal.com]

I've got to say I'm pretty much with you on my feelings towards RPF. I'm not interested in Actor/OFC (or OMC), but I've read about 4 RPFs between the actors (one withe zombies) or with an actor and a character from the show. I feel vaguely guilty about it but I also realise the characters I'm reading about are no more the real person than the fictional characters we use from canon, I don't pretend to know who they really are or think this is really how they'd behave. Real people are written about or incorporated in films or tv shows all the time (and as Snogandagrope pointed out, in the tabloids), I do wonder why it's such a no no when it's done by fans (is it because it's about sex? but then there's been movies/books/magazine articles made about real people that involve their romantic and/or sex lives too...).

[avawatson]

It's been this odd bit of relief (in that way that I wasn't sure I was even looking for relief) that more people than I thought are on the same page as me on this. And it may be self-selecting and all, but I feel like I'm in good company, you know? :)

That's a good point you made about something about fan involvement that makes it seem dirtier, as opposed to when tabloids or TV shows do it for money. I guess it just seems so much more prurient and lurid when the idea is that (maybe) we'd do this and think this even if it weren't for economic gain (because let's face it; we're not profiting, and if anything we're buying it). Like, blame the demand and not the supply, because the demand is where we've run out of excuses: this is just plain what we want, and now that we're staring desire in the face, the inclination is to judge.

(Apologies if that doesn't make much sense...)

[mildred-bobbin.livejournal.com]

No, it does make sense and I think you're right, because even if people didn't write down these fantasies and share them, they'd still be thinking about them, still getting off on them.

I mean, even though I wouldn't ever bother writing it, I still sometimes have happy little day dreams speculating about actor x and y. I would squee if a certain actor turned out to be dating a certain actress.

It's there. And desire is something people get judgey about.

[splix.livejournal.com]

I felt guilty/anti about RPF in the early 2000s, but then I read this book by Michael Korda called The Immortals which was about the affair between John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe. It was very explicit, and I figured hey, if this guy can make a ton of money by speculating about the sex lives of real people, I don't see why I'm making such a fuss about it. I guess you could make the argument that it's different when it's about dead real people, but frankly I think that's splitting hairs.

I'm not interested in Actor/OC because I don't want to read self-insert, and I'm not a tinhatter even though I think it would be *lovely* if the objects of my affection hooked up, and I'd eat my own shoes before I'd talk to a celebrity about fanworks, but otherwise I'm pretty live-and-let-live.

[avawatson]

I feel like I've heard of that book, actually. Fascinating stuff, that whole genre (speculative history?). It takes the tone of anything from biography to League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

I'm finding that relatively unruffled, unbothered, live-and-let-live attitudes is a lot more common than I would have thought about RPF. I rather thought people had strong feelings one way or the other, so it's really neat to find people coming out and just plain agreeing with me. I guess I'm not saying anything that controversial after all. :)

[violethuntress.livejournal.com]

I just wanted to say I have almost exactly the same reaction as you wrt the RPF issue--thanks for laying it all out so well! I've actually only read 2: splix's (amazing) Method Act, and strangely a very smutty BC/MF/AA one shot based on a picture (damn! It was an author I liked but can't remember who now...). It really doesn't bother me, and I totally agree with your fanart analogy. I'm not famous at all (!) , but I do teach, so hundreds of people watch me for hours each week. I often think: how would I feel if a student wrote a story about me hooking up with another prof? And like honestly? It doesn't bother me at all, because how does it affect me or my life? They don't really know me as a person, so they're not disclosing real details about my private life. And as long as that's clear, and other students don't think it's *real*,who cares? (I find it preferable actually to horrible online 'reviews' tbh!).

Maybe it's different if its about young / teen celebs who don't have a mature sense of self yet? I dunno. But I really see nothing wrong w it when it's all adults involved.

[avawatson]

I take it as a huge compliment when you tell me that I've laid out something well, really and truly. :)

I had a conversation with LSiT over twitter after I posted this in which she said that if she were to ever get famous, she'd be sort of disappointed if there weren't RPF/fic out there that she wouldn't approve of or ever want to read. It's just...part and parcel of a certain level of visibility. It's almost a compliment really, if that's not going too far with it.

I find it fascinating that you, as a teacher, have had these thoughts as well. It strikes very very close to home with me (as far as my own mental innerworkings go), and it's comforting that you've actually come down on the side of: it really wouldn't affect you, this fictionalized idea of you, the one we all understand is a fictionalized idea of you, from writer to reader. And yeah...I've never even come near the idea of things like personal details being released in this way though, and maybe that might turn me off from the genre if I ever did find out such a thing happened. But I feel like fans care a lot about things like that -- like with pictures of Martin and Amanda's kids and how they really aren't cool to post anywhere simply because they've asked the fandom to respect their wishes.

(Sorry about bad professorial reviews btw! Those sites freak me out; I once looked up my dad, and what a poor poor poor idea that was.)

[hernerdiness.livejournal.com]

My feelings are similar. But I think in a sense, the actors ARE characters. We don't know who they really are. They have a public persona that they put out there, and I assume that's the character that people write RPF about. (Admittedly I haven't waded much deeper into RPF than Method Act either.)

Now I'd probably be a LOT more squicked out if the RPF was really invasive about the actor's personal, private matters. That's a breach of privacy.

[avawatson]

I definitely know what you mean about actors as characters. That feels like a very real barrier between actors and the public, and one that's necessary and healthy for all involved; it'd be madness if it were otherwise, but some actors seem a lot more comfortable taking on that role than others. I personally have yet to find any of this RPF that people reference that's invasive to the point of crossing lines for me...but then again I don't swim in RPF circles to begin with. I barely know the ethics of that sort of thing once you're actually trading in true RPF.

And I don't know if that's some form of snobbery of me, talking about "true RPF" because I think of that generally as the "Benedict x reader" stuff or the freebatch real person shipping stuff, like actor!Benedict and actor!Martin and actor!Amanda putting the kids to bed and getting it on behind closed doors. I'm not interested in that stuff, and I wonder if it's a form of snobbery on my part that that's what I consider "true RPF" and what I digest -- this actor/fictional world crossover stuff to be "pseudo" RPF. Anyway, pardon the tangent, it's just been something rolling around in the back of my head for a few days.

[hernerdiness.livejournal.com]

Particularly in the BC and MF fandoms, it's interesting how many Freebatch-based ships there are... Johnlock, Khan/Arthur, Smaug/Bilbo. So how much of that is just shipping them aesthetically as a couple versus their personalities?

[avawatson]

There be murky waters there; hard to say. I definitely know someone who isn't into freebatch in the actor/actor pairing at all really, but loves the cracky Guixon, Smaugbo, Kharthur pairings. So for that specific person, I'd guess it's an aesthetic thing? But at the same time, she's not that into Johnlock so...who knows. There's just something she enjoys about imagining the chemistry in her own brain, something about spinning out stories of her own. I certainly enjoy the pure crack of those ships, but not to the point where I read about them or seek them out. I treat it much like I do random Sherlock AUs like fawnlock and greaserlock...but yeah, I don't know. At this point, I think it just has a life of its own. But hell if comments like Benedict's "pfft there's fanfiction being written right now with me handcuffed to John Watson in space" don't get the fandom revving up rather than settling down. It's just the nature of fandom to push the envelope.

[frodosweetstuff.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, interesting!

I can safely say I have never ever read any Freebatch fics and I doubt it will ever happen. However, I have in the past read tons of RPS in another fandom and loved it. Which leads me to believe that it all depends on the actors in question and their slashability because I cannot say that I had some kind of moral epiphany that made me give up RPS (although I also think that I possibly grew out of it, to a certain extent).

In my previous fandom, my RPS OTP were the actors who portrayed my FPS OTP and many themes from the fictional world also happened to fit the real world characters. We all felt that the actors had an equally strong bond as the characters and shared a lot of character traits. The actors also talked a lot about each other in interviews in ways that made it hard not to slash them (I mean, if Martin ever said that holding Benedict in his arms was a sacred experience and then went on to wax lyicral about his eyes, I might change my mind about Freebatch...) And then there were the RL kisses (yes, plural!), well documented in pic and vid. *swoons* :)

My first reaction to discovering RPS way back when was a clear 'no, I'll never read that' but somehow it just felt so right when I did read some fics. (Of course, you always need to make a distinction in your head between the actors as real persons and the actors in the fics - they are not the same, but some people get too invested in the fictional side and that's when a tinhat is born...)

I don't see a similar connection or bond between Martin and Benedict and maybe that is why I never felt the urge to read Freebatch. All I see is two people who get along very well but I'm not even sure they are good friends privately.

What made the RPS-reading a lot more trouble-free back then was that both actors from my OTP said publicly that they are fine with being slashed. So the situation is very different from what we have in the Sherlock fandom with Amanda's quite hostile and awful comments (especially considering she was making Johnlock innuendo-filled tweets in the early days!) - and Benedict seems very uncomfortable with the whole idea, too, although I strongly suspect he doesn't really understand slash (possibly that is true for Amanda as well).

One thing that I find important about RPS fandoms is that they adhere to the old saying of "what happens in the fandom stays in the fandom". That makes things easier for everyone involved.

So, to cut a long story short - if there isn't a clearly visible bond between the actors, why slash them? I mean, I'm into Johnlock because I can see they have something - it may only be platonic love or just a very strong friendship but there is something there. And if that's not existent between the actors, there is little to build a pairing on.

Hope any of this makes sense to you!

[avawatson]

I had this long reply written out and then Chrome crashed and LJ of course does not save replies. Cue sadface that lasted for approximately two days. Sigh.

So what I wanted to say was -- of course this makes sense to me! We're all so apologetic but I think we make a lot of sense to one another. And really, maybe what you said makes sense to me because I know the fandom and the actor bff++ "wait are you really doing that omg you really are" pictures and publicity and general camaraderie that you referred to...without actually being in that fandom. And if I know that and see that, well, I can barely imagine the squee of someone who's in that fandom. I hadn't even known they'd okayed RPF specifically, but that's awesome. I really wish all actors had that sort of relationship with and understanding of fandom.

And I'm with you on the Benedict and Martin relationship. It doesn't strike me like sexual chemistry but professional -- professionally very very good even, but still based in what chemistry they have together as actors, not so much as people, though they certainly get along. Benedict doesn't talk about Martin too terribly different than he talks about his other colleagues; his press junkets are always about how he greatly admires the people he signs up to do projects with. He's rather a consummate professional in that way, always has something good to say about other people.

But I will say this about Freebatch/Johnlock and the way Benedict interacts with the whole shipping thing generally. I read disgust in his microexpressions when he's fending off gay speculation and the slashing quadrant of the fandom. Not exhaust from too much press junkets necessarily, and not straight up homophobia, but I think he has problems conceiving as BBC Sherlock as not him in some ways, and why would anyone want to see him and a man (even if it is John) banging? Why are we focused on the prurient and the lurid? Don't we have better things to do? I personally feel like no one's ever sat down with Benedict and laid it out to him that queer representation is important to them, important to the canon and subtext of the entire ACD canon, and BBC Sherlock is playing with those tropes even when Benedict isn't trying to engage them. The show's shot like that, the show is written like that, like a romance, and it's not our perverted little minds (though it is a little bit).

But yeah, what I was getting at -- I see a little bit of eye rolling ugh in him, when he's tired and not on guard and not wanting to field this question just now in a long day of press interviews, in a way that I don't see Martin show. My guess is that Martin just has better control over that generally and probably doesn't sign up to do the punishing press junket marathons that Benedict does, but I mean...yeah, anyway, I'm rambling. All I'm really saying is that Freebatch doesn't do much for me either, though I use the term Freebatch loosely to refer to their friendship and professional relationship (which I still find very heartwarming to think about it; we wouldn't have Johnlock without it).

I do have one friend who slashes Freebatch cross-fandom pairings (Khan/Arthur Dent, Peter Guillam/Hector Dixon, etc), so you might draw the conclusion that she's just into the actor pairing aesthetically and the two actors' chemistry together generally, but Johnlock doesn't do much for her. And she isn't so much into the real person ship of Freebatch. I think she's drawn to the cross-fandom stuff becauseshe builds up all these angsty worlds in her head where they find each other and are with each other against all odds...and I dunno, it's something about the cross-fandom pairing that really does it for her. On a level that's not just "haha I love fandom crack" sort of way. It's practically OTP levels for her, and I can't say I can explain it except that obviously so much of it is happening outside of the canon/text. It's downright fascinating what we ship and why.

Aaaaand so much rambling. Sorry. :)

[frodosweetstuff.livejournal.com]

Sorry for the late reply! RL has been hectic.

I had this long reply written out and then Chrome crashed and LJ of course does not save replies. Cue sadface that lasted for approximately two days. Sigh.
Oh noooooooooooh. I sooo hate it when that happens. *feels your pain*

I really wish all actors had that sort of relationship with and understanding of fandom.
Yes, that would be great but I think it's the exception rather than the norm.

<It doesn't strike me like sexual chemistry but professional -- professionally very very good even, but still based in what chemistry they have together as actors, not so much as people, though they certainly get along. Benedict doesn't talk about Martin too terribly different than he talks about his other colleagues; his press junkets are always about how he greatly admires the people he signs up to do projects with. He's rather a consummate professional in that way, always has something good to say about other people.
THIS. THIS SO MUCH. I am so happy that I'm not the only one who interpets what he says in interviews that way. :)))) It's PR work and of course he will only say the most complimentary things about his colleagues and the finished product. That's not to say he doesn't like Martin but I think it's very hard (or even impossible) to judge from his interviews how close he and Martin are.

I read disgust in his microexpressions when he's fending off gay speculation and the slashing quadrant of the fandom. Not exhaust from too much press junkets necessarily, and not straight up homophobia, but I think he has problems conceiving as BBC Sherlock as not him in some ways, and why would anyone want to see him and a man (even if it is John) banging? Why are we focused on the prurient and the lurid? Don't we have better things to do?
YES!!!! I have thought for so long that he thinks any references to slash mean that we all think he plays Sherlock as gay and that all the fuss that is made about the romantic undertones etc of the series are all sensationalist and people pointing the finger and shuddering in disgust when that couldn't be further from the truth.

I personally feel like no one's ever sat down with Benedict and laid it out to him that queer representation is important to them, important to the canon and subtext of the entire ACD canon, and BBC Sherlock is playing with those tropes even when Benedict isn't trying to engage them. The show's shot like that, the show is written like that, like a romance, and it's not our perverted little minds (though it is a little bit).
Yes yes yes again! :)))
And not just queer representation - also the reasons why women, both queer and straight, are drawn to male/male pairings. After all, he has expressed support for feminist ideas, so if only he understood better I think he would be much happier with it all.

My guess is that Martin just has better control over that generally and probably doesn't sign up to do the punishing press junket marathons that Benedict does, but I mean...yeah, anyway, I'm rambling.
Martin is definitely different - I tend to think it's because he doesn't care as much and is less affected.

All I'm really saying is that Freebatch doesn't do much for me either, though I use the term Freebatch loosely to refer to their friendship and professional relationship (which I still find very heartwarming to think about it; we wouldn't have Johnlock without it).
Oh yes, if they didn't fit so well together as actors Johnlock would be almost impossible to envision. :)

Part 2

[frodosweetstuff.livejournal.com]

I do have one friend who slashes Freebatch cross-fandom pairings (Khan/Arthur Dent, Peter Guillam/Hector Dixon, etc), so you might draw the conclusion that she's just into the actor pairing aesthetically and the two actors' chemistry together generally, but Johnlock doesn't do much for her. And she isn't so much into the real person ship of Freebatch. I think she's drawn to the cross-fandom stuff becauseshe builds up all these angsty worlds in her head where they find each other and are with each other against all odds...and I dunno, it's something about the cross-fandom pairing that really does it for her. On a level that's not just "haha I love fandom crack" sort of way. It's practically OTP levels for her, and I can't say I can explain it except that obviously so much of it is happening outside of the canon/text. It's downright fascinating what we ship and why.
That's very interesting! Funny that Johnlock is the pairing that doesn't work for her - but maybe it is too obivous for her and she likes to dig deeper?
Yes, the question of what we ship and why is very interesting! :))))

Aaaaand so much rambling. Sorry. :)
No need to be sorry!! This was great! :)))))