![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
So I've been tripping across this thingy about some organization that wants to legalize fanfic, or something like that, and the fanfic debate is screaming at full pitch.
Full disclosure: I am guilty of fanfic in my previous life. I've started, but never completed, fanfic based on a certain TV show that's currently enjoying a rather popular revival and, of course, I wrote Duran Duran fic back in the day and more recently than that. So I understand something of the impulses that drive one to write it, and I don't necessarily condemn the practice.
But the more I think about it, the more I think that there is a certain effect that comes from it, and it's one that people don't realize or can't seem to fully articulate.
One of the arguments against fanfic is that it somehow does damage to the original work. On its face, these seems like an absurd notion--how on earth can, say, a book be 'damaged' this way, short of someone physically scribbling in the margins? The book remains what it is, regardless of what people choose to write about it. Right?
This hinges on an assumption that I seriously question--the notion that art is somehow an objective experience. I maintain that art is as much subjective as objective.
I have a theory about music. (I'm not changing the subject, really.) I call it the Fifth Beatle Theory. Short version--the Fifth Beatle is the listener. A Beatles song is nothing but sound vibrations in air until it hits someone's ear and an emotional response is elicited--for good or ill. This makes art, in a sense, participatory. You aren't just reacting to the sound vibrations, you're reacting to the parts of yourself that are moved by these vibrations.
This is why one person's art is another person's shite. Or, as I like to say in the Duranie world, why one Duranie's Medazzaland is another Duranie's . . . Medazzaland. (For the non-Duranies reading, Medazzaland was the last album Duran Duran did for Capitol Records. It bombed so catastrophically it has not been released in the UK to this day. I personally think it's one of the most brilliant things they've done. So go figure.)
Consider--why are people so determined not to see any 'spoilers' about, say, a character dying? Knowing or not knowing won't change whether or not it happens--that's fixed in the work. But what it does change is the experience of the work. Art isn't just about what's on the canvas, or on the page or on the speakers. It's about everything you bring to the table when you engage with it.
Therefore, in that sense, fanfic changes things. Whether this is a good or bad thing is a whole other debate, and it's one I don't feel like getting into right now. I will say that I question whether it is an entirely good thing and leave it at that.
(I welcome civil discussion in this entry, but if random people show up to insult me, I am within my rights to show them the door. Thank you.)
Today I took pleasure in the Godiva chocolates that the guy upstairs brought to my workplace to thank us for holding on to his UPS packages those times that the delivery arrived while he was away.
Today I learned how to order an article from a subscription service for my boss.
Full disclosure: I am guilty of fanfic in my previous life. I've started, but never completed, fanfic based on a certain TV show that's currently enjoying a rather popular revival and, of course, I wrote Duran Duran fic back in the day and more recently than that. So I understand something of the impulses that drive one to write it, and I don't necessarily condemn the practice.
But the more I think about it, the more I think that there is a certain effect that comes from it, and it's one that people don't realize or can't seem to fully articulate.
One of the arguments against fanfic is that it somehow does damage to the original work. On its face, these seems like an absurd notion--how on earth can, say, a book be 'damaged' this way, short of someone physically scribbling in the margins? The book remains what it is, regardless of what people choose to write about it. Right?
This hinges on an assumption that I seriously question--the notion that art is somehow an objective experience. I maintain that art is as much subjective as objective.
I have a theory about music. (I'm not changing the subject, really.) I call it the Fifth Beatle Theory. Short version--the Fifth Beatle is the listener. A Beatles song is nothing but sound vibrations in air until it hits someone's ear and an emotional response is elicited--for good or ill. This makes art, in a sense, participatory. You aren't just reacting to the sound vibrations, you're reacting to the parts of yourself that are moved by these vibrations.
This is why one person's art is another person's shite. Or, as I like to say in the Duranie world, why one Duranie's Medazzaland is another Duranie's . . . Medazzaland. (For the non-Duranies reading, Medazzaland was the last album Duran Duran did for Capitol Records. It bombed so catastrophically it has not been released in the UK to this day. I personally think it's one of the most brilliant things they've done. So go figure.)
Consider--why are people so determined not to see any 'spoilers' about, say, a character dying? Knowing or not knowing won't change whether or not it happens--that's fixed in the work. But what it does change is the experience of the work. Art isn't just about what's on the canvas, or on the page or on the speakers. It's about everything you bring to the table when you engage with it.
Therefore, in that sense, fanfic changes things. Whether this is a good or bad thing is a whole other debate, and it's one I don't feel like getting into right now. I will say that I question whether it is an entirely good thing and leave it at that.
(I welcome civil discussion in this entry, but if random people show up to insult me, I am within my rights to show them the door. Thank you.)
Today I took pleasure in the Godiva chocolates that the guy upstairs brought to my workplace to thank us for holding on to his UPS packages those times that the delivery arrived while he was away.
Today I learned how to order an article from a subscription service for my boss.
