Media references to fanfic, the week ending 1/14/17

[wneleh]

In Copyright in Klingon for The Washington Post, David Post wrote A significant copyright tussle over the appropriate scope of “fan films” - and, by extension, fan fiction and the whole genre of “fan-generated” works - has erupted in the Central District of California.

In 'Why I Will Miss Obama-as-Dad Most of All' for New Republic, Rumaan Alam

Comments

[klangley56]

Hello:

First, I'd like to take the opportunity to thank you for continuing to take on this task of gathering and posting fandom-related links." Don't think it is unappreciated!

While I am here, I have a comment regarding this editorial that was linked to (I can't see a place on the editorial page to respond to the editorial directly):

From an editorial in The Independent Florida Alligator: much of the sci-fi culture we see today - conventions, fan fiction, online forums - was sparked by female fans.

"A lot of basis of the science fiction community came out of “Star Trek.” Most of these things were largely driven by women. One example being that the first few conventions were attended mainly by women. The whole idea of a passionate science fiction fan base came from a show that highlighted scientific exploration and a diverse future population - one that featured the first interracial kiss on daytime television in the U.S. and one with actors who are now outspoken about diversity and progress.

And yet, somewhere along the way, science fiction fans were reduced to that intelligent, white male stereotype, and for some reason, it stuck. It’s not clear when that happened, but the common notion of science fiction now depicts a white man saving the galaxy, possibly accompanied by a cool black friend or a hot, mysterious woman."

Organized science fiction fandom began in the 1930s, including the first science fiction fanzines and the first science fiction conventions. And for several decades, SF fandom was, in fact, primarily the province of white males (as was science fiction writing-such women as had achieved publication tended to disguise their gender with the use of male pseudonyms and initials).

That is where the stereotype of white male fans sprang from.

Star Trek, naturally, was of interest to the SF community, and in 1966 the first pilot was shown to the attendees at Worldcon (known that year as Tricon). From there, it was female fans who created the first Star Trek fanzines, and it was both female and male fans who put on the first Star Trek cons.

After ST fandom established itself-and then later expanded to Media fandom-it has been my experience that the majority of fans producing the zines were female. Con attendance varied-at "pro" or "actor cons" the attendees were mixed. At smaller cons (by fans and for fans), the attendees were primarily female.

With online forums and fiction, it is a little harder to tell, since most folks have a user name that may or may not indicate a gender. My sense still is that it is women creating the fan fiction and fan art that is posted online, and mostly women who are doing the discussing in the various online forums as well. (Although I do seem to see a greater presence of male fans on Facebook--in my limited experience there.)

Just my perceptions, based on my experience of and history with fandom.

[wneleh]

Your views and experiences match mine.

I've never gone to pro cons, but I've been going to fan-run cons of from 100 to 5,000 since ~1981, most recently last weekend. In general, the more hard-SF, the more male; and events/panels focused on fanfic are very female; but within these extremes there's always been a lot of mixing.

Even at fan-run Star Trek cons in the 1980s, the crowd in general didn't strike me as being majority male or female, but the sellers of zines were all women - in fact, that's my enduring memory from those cons, middle-aged women with paper books they'd made themselves that they were very selective about showing peppy-teen-me...