if you make it clear that your RPF isn't true, there's pretty much no way you can successfully be sued for libel, which means that the legality of RPF is actually much clearer than the legality of FPF
That actually makes sense (which is a sad comment on the current state of copyright law). It would be nicely ironic if RPS turned out to be more legal than regular fic, since so many fans consider it more morally questionable than copyright violation. It doesn't seem to stop anti-RPS people from telling RPS writers that they're committing libel/slander/invasion of privacy/sins against the Gods of fandom/whathaveyou, though. On the other hand, I'm not sure I buy the "celebrities make themselves fair game for pr0n by becoming public figures" argument, either.
To me, it's just another example in which fans tend to believe that fannish products are less legitimate and "naughtier" in some way than published-for-profit texts (even when the for-profit texts are strikingly similar to fannish products).I've never really understood why things
( ... )
Honestly, I think a lot of it is because I could care less about the living celebrities that get written about... I liked Lord of the Rings like most geeks who didn't hate it, but the actors are not the Fellowship and thus are not one tenth as cool.
That's pretty close to my opinions on the subject, as is your comment about people being fair game for fiction so long as they've been dead long enough that nobody who knew them personally is around to get offended on their behalf. I feel... creepy.. when I ponder writing about current or near current people (which is why that Walk the Line plotbunny never got written). Even reading autobiographies of still-living people creeps me out a bit, since, while I'm reading, I project myself into the POV character. Hawkeye can bang BJ and Trapper seven ways from Sunday while I read along gleefully, but reading Alan Alda's autobiography for my mom's book club felt... wierd. And it didn't even have any sex in it ^_^.
"Lawrence of Arabia," the Peter O'toole version, is not only RPF but RPS (if
( ... )
One of my friends has been making serious attempts to pimp me into that series (she's sending me some issues right now), and she's suceeded in getting me to read the wikipedia rundown and squee in anticipation. There are cyborgs! There are people with glowing red eyes! There's canon Manly!Love! (with Interesting Scars and a guy whose superpowers seem to involve glowing with heroic golden light). There's a naked girl who appears to be made entirely of silver metal! There's a truly excessive amount of violence! It's as if the entire thing was written with my subconscious in mind. There also appears to be more crack than you can shake a giant spaceship at, and occasional political commentary, but I'm good at ignoring political commentary.
When writing/reading historical fiction I generally go by how long the participants have been dead. I tend to feel better about it if they and their immediate family are all deceased. Of course, as I've noticed once or twice, there are still people out there capable of taking deep and personal offense at a non-vanilla portrayal of a long-dead historical figure (aka the infamous "Okita wasn't gay, he murdered people!" debacle) but let's face it, those people need lives!
You raise a very interesting point, though, regarding RPF writing about characters who have been more "officially" RPF'd before. Especially when it is, as it were, second-hand. Take the Musketeer fandom, for example - I feel guiltless when writing about d'Artagnan even though he was a historical figure, because the person I'm slashing with Athos ficcing is filtered, in a manner of speaking, through Dumas and Courtilz before him and probably has very little resemblance to the actual Charles Castelmore d'Artagnan
( ... )
the infamous "Okita wasn't gay, he murdered people!" debacle
Bwuh? What exactly does one half of that statement have to do with the other half?
I'll buy arguments like "X couldn't have been gay; look, he had a wife and kids," but one's level of badass-ness has nothing to do with one's sexuality. Of course, that doesn't mean I haven't seen "Ick. Alexander the Great couldn't have slept with Hephaestion and kissed his slave boy in public; he was a great general! Why do you have to make him gay!" before.
You raise a very interesting point, though, regarding RPF writing about characters who have been more "officially" RPF'd before. Especially when it is, as it were, second-hand. Take the Musketeer fandom, for example - I feel guiltless when writing about d'Artagnan even though he was a historical figure, because the person I'm slashing with Athos ficcing is filtered, in a manner of speaking, through Dumas and Courtilz before him and probably has very little resemblance to the actual Charles Castelmore d'Artagnan. Just as Dumas'
( ... )
the infamous "Okita wasn't gay, he murdered people!" debacle
Bwuh? What exactly does one half of that statement have to do with the other half?
Apparently a great deal, in the eyes of a certain Shinsengumi fanboy who for reasons of homophobia wanted to insist that a) despite the many texts and poems and so forth from the era which praise "manly love", samurai were actually almost never gay, and when they were they were duly socially censured as gays have ever been and ever must be for the sake of humanity's future... well you get it, and b) men who pursue Very Manly Occupations like killing other people for pay/idealism are for some reason immune from other Very Manly Occupations like gay sex. Something like that.
Historical fiction is a lot like fanfiction, in a way: you have a certain set of facts to work with (canon), a bunch of common assumptions and myths that haven't really been proven (fanon), and then you have your ship wars ("Jefferson slept with Sally Hemmings!" "OMG, no he didn't!" "Yes he did; we can prove it!").It
( ... )
I once met someone who insisted Richard III of England was a much better king (and Henry VII a correspondingly greater bastard) than is popular opinion... but most people haven't studied the era, they just take Will Shakespeare's word for it.Except there's a fair amount of research that shows that Richard III was pretty much sandbagged historically by the following reign. I have not doubt he was both bad and good. History alone knows how he really was, we'll never really know. And Henry was a Bastard in a lot of ways. Dood killed several of his wives on rumour alone. And other reasons
( ... )
Yes, these are the issues I've long pondered too. I really don't think there is a clear line of "okay" and "not-okay", and I think part of the reason the line has become so blurred is because of the way the ideology of capitalism seems to encourage people and institutions to sell everything damn thing to us, including history and current events. It's all entertainment now
( ... )
The one thing that does make me uncomfortable is the idea that the private people behind the celebrity construct might not understand that rpf isn't about them.
I think that right there might be the source of some of my uneasiness with actorfic and/or popslash. I'd be flattered and thrilled to find that someone had written fanfiction for some of my original fic , but finding a story about me would probably creep me out, especially if it had sex in it, and I'm already familiar with the concept of RPF. Of course, I'm also not a celebrity, don't have a publicity agent or anything else, and would probably be far more disturbed to find myself on the cover of the National Enquirer than in the bowls of adultfanfiction.net.
The probability of the actor in question ever finding my particular (hypothetical) story about him would be slim-to-none, but if s/he has been dead since before I was born, it's altogether impossible, and there's far less guilt involved.
Comments 39
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That actually makes sense (which is a sad comment on the current state of copyright law). It would be nicely ironic if RPS turned out to be more legal than regular fic, since so many fans consider it more morally questionable than copyright violation. It doesn't seem to stop anti-RPS people from telling RPS writers that they're committing libel/slander/invasion of privacy/sins against the Gods of fandom/whathaveyou, though. On the other hand, I'm not sure I buy the "celebrities make themselves fair game for pr0n by becoming public figures" argument, either.
To me, it's just another example in which fans tend to believe that fannish products are less legitimate and "naughtier" in some way than published-for-profit texts (even when the for-profit texts are strikingly similar to fannish products).I've never really understood why things ( ... )
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(The comment has been removed)
That's pretty close to my opinions on the subject, as is your comment about people being fair game for fiction so long as they've been dead long enough that nobody who knew them personally is around to get offended on their behalf. I feel... creepy.. when I ponder writing about current or near current people (which is why that Walk the Line plotbunny never got written). Even reading autobiographies of still-living people creeps me out a bit, since, while I'm reading, I project myself into the POV character. Hawkeye can bang BJ and Trapper seven ways from Sunday while I read along gleefully, but reading Alan Alda's autobiography for my mom's book club felt... wierd. And it didn't even have any sex in it ^_^.
"Lawrence of Arabia," the Peter O'toole version, is not only RPF but RPS (if ( ... )
Reply
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You raise a very interesting point, though, regarding RPF writing about characters who have been more "officially" RPF'd before. Especially when it is, as it were, second-hand. Take the Musketeer fandom, for example - I feel guiltless when writing about d'Artagnan even though he was a historical figure, because the person I'm slashing with Athos ficcing is filtered, in a manner of speaking, through Dumas and Courtilz before him and probably has very little resemblance to the actual Charles Castelmore d'Artagnan ( ... )
Reply
Bwuh? What exactly does one half of that statement have to do with the other half?
I'll buy arguments like "X couldn't have been gay; look, he had a wife and kids," but one's level of badass-ness has nothing to do with one's sexuality. Of course, that doesn't mean I haven't seen "Ick. Alexander the Great couldn't have slept with Hephaestion and kissed his slave boy in public; he was a great general! Why do you have to make him gay!" before.
You raise a very interesting point, though, regarding RPF writing about characters who have been more "officially" RPF'd before. Especially when it is, as it were, second-hand. Take the Musketeer fandom, for example - I feel guiltless when writing about d'Artagnan even though he was a historical figure, because the person I'm slashing with Athos ficcing is filtered, in a manner of speaking, through Dumas and Courtilz before him and probably has very little resemblance to the actual Charles Castelmore d'Artagnan. Just as Dumas' ( ... )
Reply
Bwuh? What exactly does one half of that statement have to do with the other half?
Apparently a great deal, in the eyes of a certain Shinsengumi fanboy who for reasons of homophobia wanted to insist that a) despite the many texts and poems and so forth from the era which praise "manly love", samurai were actually almost never gay, and when they were they were duly socially censured as gays have ever been and ever must be for the sake of humanity's future... well you get it, and b) men who pursue Very Manly Occupations like killing other people for pay/idealism are for some reason immune from other Very Manly Occupations like gay sex. Something like that.
Historical fiction is a lot like fanfiction, in a way: you have a certain set of facts to work with (canon), a bunch of common assumptions and myths that haven't really been proven (fanon), and then you have your ship wars ("Jefferson slept with Sally Hemmings!" "OMG, no he didn't!" "Yes he did; we can prove it!").It ( ... )
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I think that right there might be the source of some of my uneasiness with actorfic and/or popslash. I'd be flattered and thrilled to find that someone had written fanfiction for some of my original fic , but finding a story about me would probably creep me out, especially if it had sex in it, and I'm already familiar with the concept of RPF. Of course, I'm also not a celebrity, don't have a publicity agent or anything else, and would probably be far more disturbed to find myself on the cover of the National Enquirer than in the bowls of adultfanfiction.net.
The probability of the actor in question ever finding my particular (hypothetical) story about him would be slim-to-none, but if s/he has been dead since before I was born, it's altogether impossible, and there's far less guilt involved.
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