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...).

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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!