CoC in demand
So, I started thinking about just how many CoCs are underrepresented in fandom, sometimes vastly so (*cough* Gus on Psych * cough*), and it became rather depressing - and then I started wondering about the ones that aren't underrepresented, and why that is.
At which point thelana made a very interesting post about that, among other things. Her example of choice was Mohinder Suresh of Heroes, and she said some really smart things, but I kind of still wanted to make a post, listing the positive examples and trying to figure out what makes them tick for fans.
By "positive" I mean both the ones that are overrepresented (not many) and the ones who are about as appreciated as you'd expect a white person in the same kind of part to be. (As for the parts themselves, I feel that's often a huge problem, but it's beyond the scope of this post.
When it comes to overrepresentation, I only really found two cases among my personal fandoms.
Mohinder Suresh (Heroes)
I think thelana summarized this pretty well - he's gorgeous, he's shippable, and he's nerdy enough that fans can relate easily to him. (I think that particular aspect can also be seen from a class perspective - the academic middle-class has certain similarities worldwide.)
Buck Cross (The Young Riders)
The Young Riders fandom is different from most in that it's very gen- and OFC-het focused, so shippability doesn't really factor into it. Buck was a very pretty boy, though. If I'm to be mean, I don't think Buck's status as a POC matters much in context, since romanticizing American Indians is a tradition in Westerns of this type, and Buck being biracial also means that his background features mostly as exotic details. Buck is good-looking, he has angst potential, and while no one on this show will win any Nobel prizes, he does give off an impression of having something upstairs.
Moving on, there are those I see as having more or less the same fannish representation that I'd expect from their parts on the show. That is to say, a major character has lots of fic, a minor character has less fic but still some.
Betty Suarez (Ugly Betty)
UB isn't a big fandom, but of what there is, Betty is the leading character in almost every fic. Now, while America Ferrera is a beautiful woman, Betty obviously isn't coded as beautiful. She is coded as very nerdy and ”like us” while also a highly competent, likeable character - a combination that is rather rare, even these days. She's the main character of the show and easily shippable with at least three male characters and possibly a female one (Christina).
Sayid Jarrah (Lost)
Sayid's amount of fic varies, usually in line with how much he gets to do on the show. Generally, I think he gets fic because he's ten shades of win and played by a really good actor. *grin* Being a tad less biased, we once again have someone highly intelligent, who is also a romantic who seems to genuinely like women, even women who are not his love interests (unless Rousseau and he are having more fun than I thought. Which, in that case, I thoroughly approve of). The character also has a dark past, leading to potential darkfic and/or angst for those so inclined. He is brave and intelligent and has mad skills of all kinds. In other words, he fits into practically every genre, except possibly humour. While Naveen Andrews is obviously a good-looking man, I think it's the versatility more than the looks that appeal here.
Sun Kwon (Lost)
Sun gets less fic than Sayid, but she also gets less screen time- for someone so rarely featured on the show, she has a pretty decent amount of fic. I think Sun comes off as very likeable. She has a quiet courage and intelligence, and she often displays a common sense lacking in other characters. (I am thinking for instance of how Jack and Sayid ran around torturing Sawyer to get Shannon's inhalers, while Sun calmly found some natural remedies to use instead.) Apart from a semi-flirtation with Michael in the first season, her highest shippability is with her own husband, which could bring down her fic number a bit for those who like first-time. Bringing it up is the fact that, as someone put it, their offspring would be about the most gorgeous baby on the planet. She also has a decent amount of femslash, though that's (as usual) a rather small genre overall.
Martha Jones (Doctor Who)
Martha has nowhere near the amount of fic that Rose does (a quick search at A Teaspoon and an Open Mind gives 86 pages of Martha fic for DW and 9 for Torchwood, which is less than a fourth of Rose's numbers), but considering that she replaced a popular female character and has only had half the time on the show, I still think it's a pretty good run. (On Torchwood, she gets more fic than Rhys, who has most definitely had more screentime. On DW she gets more fic than Jack with the Ninth Doctor, but less than Jack with the Tenth.) Martha is very pretty. She is highly intelligent and easy for the fans both to relate to and admire. I often hear cries of delight from fans about how awesome Martha is. Martha's shippability with the Doctor is blocked by his on-screen mixed signals - he denies the possibility of a romance while still sticking his tongue in her mouth every chance he gets. There's still some shipper fic between the two of them, though. Jack is another shipper possibility, and I've seen the occasional Martha/Toshiko (on Torchwood).
Mickey Smith (Doctor Who)
Obviously, Mickey hasn't got nearly the same amount as either Rose or Martha. *grin* Like I said before, this list is relative, not absolute. Mickey is a minor character, often (especially at first) used as comic relief - and as such a character, he has pretty much the expected amount of fic - about the same as Jackie Tyler, more than one-off chars like Reinette or Donna. (And - if you count both seasons - about the same as Rhys on Torchwood, who's a similar character.) I think Mickey was largely neglected at first but gained more fans as the character progressed from wuss to "bravest human". The hints of a potential slash ship with Jake probably helped too.
Victoria Escalante (Zorro)
I felt a bit weird putting Zorro cast members on this list, but I figured if I count Betty Suarez, I couldn't very well leave them out. While Zorro himself gets booted for being played by a Canadian * g*, Patrice Martinez is most definitely Hispanic, and Victoria gets just the amount of fic you'd expect the main love interest to get. I think the romantic setting changes the context of race rather radically - while the show often discusses race in regards to American Indians, and also in regards to Blacks and Asians, there's no difference in attitude between Hispanic Spanish-speakers, Spanish Spanish-speakers, and Anglo actors masquerading as either. Guest actors playing Anglo/Nortern European characters are, if anything, treated as slightly lower in status. Victoria is good-looking and feisty, a character most of the fans like and happily write into fic if they're inclined to romance. (Misogyny towards female characters is mostly directed towards guest stars.)
Felipe (Zorro)
Same situation as above, except that Felipe is a much more minor character and that the amount of fic reflects that, while still being quite frequent. Shippability is limited but the potential for Mary Sues very high (what better way to write an OFC into the story than cosy it up with the sidekick?) and genres range from childhood fic (often angsty) to next generation Zorro fics. Felipe is good-looking, intelligent, and loyal, while still being undefined enough (for natural reasons, he's not very chatty about himself) to fill in as anything the fans want him to be.
Micah Sanders (Heroes)
Micah is a child on an ensemble show with a fandom that likes incest and serial killers. For the most part of the first season, there was next to no Micah fic, and that was no big surprise. Then Molly showed up. While still not what you'd call a pairing that ate fandom, the Molly/Micah future fics are quite common, with Micah also showing up in several Matt/Mohinder future fics as Molly's boyfriend or husband. I think Micah is spared the usual disdain children on TV tend to get because Noah Gray-Cabey gives off a very natural performance and is less "cute" than just plain appealing. (The same also being true of Adair Tishler as Molly, though the writing for her more often dips into potentially cringe-worthy stuff.)
Charles Gunn (Angel)
As far as I can tell (doing just a very brief lookover at su_herald, so it's not statistically sound) Gunn falls into the middle when it comes to amount of fic for regulars in the Angelverse. Angel, Wes, and Cordy are higher up, Fred at about the same level, and Connor and Lorne further down. Considering how many seasons he was a regular and how much of a role he played, he enters this list just barely. But there is still fic out there. This being the Jossverse, pairings are diverse, but above all, Gunn is shippable with Fred (canon) and Wesley (subtext). Seasons 2-4 are then the most suited for shipper fics, though season 5 is a possibility for more angsty fic. (And let's not forget the Birthday AU!) Gunn is good looking, but I haven't seen the kind of fawning over him that fandom favourites like Mohinder cause. His personality and personal history are pretty removed from your average fangirl's, though mimesere has pointed out his more geeky qualities. Like Sun, he often works as a voice of common sense on the show (especially in early eps), which could add to his appeal.
Clyde Langer (Sarah Jane Adventures)
While I was in the archive, I couldn't help looking for SJA fics - I hadn't seen enough before to make a judgement on whether Clyde was well-represented or not. There's not a whole lot of SJA fics in the archives, and Clyde has less than Maria or Luke, but not by much. I think the relative small cast in combination with the close bond between Luke and Clyde is a help here. Luke/Clyde is surprisingly common. (Where by "common" I mean "percentagewise of all SJA fic", not "I can find you a new fic every week.") There's also a bit of Maria/Clyde, and of course gen.
Finally, there are the characters that seem highly liked by fans but whose amount of fic doesn't quite mirror that fact.
Hiro Nakamura (Heroes)
So. People love Hiro. Yes, there's been some grumping about his storylines, and occasionally someone complains that he's too naïve and corny, but for the most part, Hiro is much loved. He's a nerd, he's genre-savvy, and he has a heroic outlook at life. While the rest of the cast do their best not to be superheroes, he embraces the idea, which of course is appealing to the nerd crowd called fans. :-) And there's fic out there, of course there is. There's Hiro/Ando, though their "practically married" status comes off as "non-sexual" to a surprising amount of people. While friendship is a staple of shipperfic, slash in particular, I think there's a particular kind of effortless friendship that can prove great resistance to shipping. I've heard the same kind of "oh no, they're too close, they're like siblings!" about Buck/Ike (TYR), Shawn/Gus (Psych) and - where I agree - Kenny/Lynda (Press Gang). Hiro/Charlie was a possibility for the hetters, though Charlie's death caused complications. Hiro/Adam has proven a reasonably popular pairing for season 2, whether early friendship slash or later hate slash. If the percentage of fic rises as much for each season, I'll soon have to move Hiro up the list. *g*
Toshiko Sato (Torchwood)
Looking at the Teaspoon archive, I discovered there was more Tosh fic than I'd thought, but she still has less than anyone else on team Torchwood. Meanwhile, she's highly liked by many fans, and has much fewer rabid haters than Owen or Gwen. I thnk Toshiko's shyness and fascination with machines (okay, nerdiness) is easy for many fans to relate to. She also hasn't been doing half as many or as horrible unethical things as the others, though it's arguable if she's any more competent. Shipping Tosh is a bit tricky since everyone she flirts with tends to end up dead (or undead), which I think my be one reason that there's not much fic; another being that she tends to stay on the sidelines quite often. Tosh/Owen is of course still an option, and several people have, as I've said above, expressed a liking of Tosh/Martha.
Monica Dawson (Heroes)
While people were bitching and moaning about how the new characters on Heroes meant less screen time for old favourites, Monica escaped nearly all the complaints - over and over again, people said that they liked her personality, her outlook, her power, etc. I think in the relatively dark world of Heroes, fans enjoyed seeing someone who genuinely liked her power. Monica isn't angst-free, but her storyline has been rather non-insane so far. People also praise her for being strong-willed, level-headed, and nice. And yet there's nearly no fic. What happened? My guess is that it's because Monica had so little contact with other characters this season. She mostly hung out with her family, Micah included - apart from a brief encounter with Mohinder and the Company, she had little to do with other Heroes.
Mr. Eko (Lost)
Again, lots of bitching about new characters, and again, an exception. Mr. Eko was lauded as cool, mysterious, layered, and sometimes hot. Yet, once again, very little fic, and once again I think the problem may be character interaction. Mr. Eko isn't very easy to ship, but beyond that, he's not very easy to write into a conversation/non-sexual relationship, because he's not the type to casually hang out with others much. Fascinating for plot-type stories and character introspection, but troublesome for other types of fic.
...And that's it, I guess. I mean, I'm sure there are examples in other fandoms, but I wouldn't know about that, obviously. As for analysis, that's the part of meta I always suck at. thelana has some good points, I guess. :-)
At which point thelana made a very interesting post about that, among other things. Her example of choice was Mohinder Suresh of Heroes, and she said some really smart things, but I kind of still wanted to make a post, listing the positive examples and trying to figure out what makes them tick for fans.
By "positive" I mean both the ones that are overrepresented (not many) and the ones who are about as appreciated as you'd expect a white person in the same kind of part to be. (As for the parts themselves, I feel that's often a huge problem, but it's beyond the scope of this post.
When it comes to overrepresentation, I only really found two cases among my personal fandoms.
Mohinder Suresh (Heroes)
I think thelana summarized this pretty well - he's gorgeous, he's shippable, and he's nerdy enough that fans can relate easily to him. (I think that particular aspect can also be seen from a class perspective - the academic middle-class has certain similarities worldwide.)
Buck Cross (The Young Riders)
The Young Riders fandom is different from most in that it's very gen- and OFC-het focused, so shippability doesn't really factor into it. Buck was a very pretty boy, though. If I'm to be mean, I don't think Buck's status as a POC matters much in context, since romanticizing American Indians is a tradition in Westerns of this type, and Buck being biracial also means that his background features mostly as exotic details. Buck is good-looking, he has angst potential, and while no one on this show will win any Nobel prizes, he does give off an impression of having something upstairs.
Moving on, there are those I see as having more or less the same fannish representation that I'd expect from their parts on the show. That is to say, a major character has lots of fic, a minor character has less fic but still some.
Betty Suarez (Ugly Betty)
UB isn't a big fandom, but of what there is, Betty is the leading character in almost every fic. Now, while America Ferrera is a beautiful woman, Betty obviously isn't coded as beautiful. She is coded as very nerdy and ”like us” while also a highly competent, likeable character - a combination that is rather rare, even these days. She's the main character of the show and easily shippable with at least three male characters and possibly a female one (Christina).
Sayid Jarrah (Lost)
Sayid's amount of fic varies, usually in line with how much he gets to do on the show. Generally, I think he gets fic because he's ten shades of win and played by a really good actor. *grin* Being a tad less biased, we once again have someone highly intelligent, who is also a romantic who seems to genuinely like women, even women who are not his love interests (unless Rousseau and he are having more fun than I thought. Which, in that case, I thoroughly approve of). The character also has a dark past, leading to potential darkfic and/or angst for those so inclined. He is brave and intelligent and has mad skills of all kinds. In other words, he fits into practically every genre, except possibly humour. While Naveen Andrews is obviously a good-looking man, I think it's the versatility more than the looks that appeal here.
Sun Kwon (Lost)
Sun gets less fic than Sayid, but she also gets less screen time- for someone so rarely featured on the show, she has a pretty decent amount of fic. I think Sun comes off as very likeable. She has a quiet courage and intelligence, and she often displays a common sense lacking in other characters. (I am thinking for instance of how Jack and Sayid ran around torturing Sawyer to get Shannon's inhalers, while Sun calmly found some natural remedies to use instead.) Apart from a semi-flirtation with Michael in the first season, her highest shippability is with her own husband, which could bring down her fic number a bit for those who like first-time. Bringing it up is the fact that, as someone put it, their offspring would be about the most gorgeous baby on the planet. She also has a decent amount of femslash, though that's (as usual) a rather small genre overall.
Martha Jones (Doctor Who)
Martha has nowhere near the amount of fic that Rose does (a quick search at A Teaspoon and an Open Mind gives 86 pages of Martha fic for DW and 9 for Torchwood, which is less than a fourth of Rose's numbers), but considering that she replaced a popular female character and has only had half the time on the show, I still think it's a pretty good run. (On Torchwood, she gets more fic than Rhys, who has most definitely had more screentime. On DW she gets more fic than Jack with the Ninth Doctor, but less than Jack with the Tenth.) Martha is very pretty. She is highly intelligent and easy for the fans both to relate to and admire. I often hear cries of delight from fans about how awesome Martha is. Martha's shippability with the Doctor is blocked by his on-screen mixed signals - he denies the possibility of a romance while still sticking his tongue in her mouth every chance he gets. There's still some shipper fic between the two of them, though. Jack is another shipper possibility, and I've seen the occasional Martha/Toshiko (on Torchwood).
Mickey Smith (Doctor Who)
Obviously, Mickey hasn't got nearly the same amount as either Rose or Martha. *grin* Like I said before, this list is relative, not absolute. Mickey is a minor character, often (especially at first) used as comic relief - and as such a character, he has pretty much the expected amount of fic - about the same as Jackie Tyler, more than one-off chars like Reinette or Donna. (And - if you count both seasons - about the same as Rhys on Torchwood, who's a similar character.) I think Mickey was largely neglected at first but gained more fans as the character progressed from wuss to "bravest human". The hints of a potential slash ship with Jake probably helped too.
Victoria Escalante (Zorro)
I felt a bit weird putting Zorro cast members on this list, but I figured if I count Betty Suarez, I couldn't very well leave them out. While Zorro himself gets booted for being played by a Canadian * g*, Patrice Martinez is most definitely Hispanic, and Victoria gets just the amount of fic you'd expect the main love interest to get. I think the romantic setting changes the context of race rather radically - while the show often discusses race in regards to American Indians, and also in regards to Blacks and Asians, there's no difference in attitude between Hispanic Spanish-speakers, Spanish Spanish-speakers, and Anglo actors masquerading as either. Guest actors playing Anglo/Nortern European characters are, if anything, treated as slightly lower in status. Victoria is good-looking and feisty, a character most of the fans like and happily write into fic if they're inclined to romance. (Misogyny towards female characters is mostly directed towards guest stars.)
Felipe (Zorro)
Same situation as above, except that Felipe is a much more minor character and that the amount of fic reflects that, while still being quite frequent. Shippability is limited but the potential for Mary Sues very high (what better way to write an OFC into the story than cosy it up with the sidekick?) and genres range from childhood fic (often angsty) to next generation Zorro fics. Felipe is good-looking, intelligent, and loyal, while still being undefined enough (for natural reasons, he's not very chatty about himself) to fill in as anything the fans want him to be.
Micah Sanders (Heroes)
Micah is a child on an ensemble show with a fandom that likes incest and serial killers. For the most part of the first season, there was next to no Micah fic, and that was no big surprise. Then Molly showed up. While still not what you'd call a pairing that ate fandom, the Molly/Micah future fics are quite common, with Micah also showing up in several Matt/Mohinder future fics as Molly's boyfriend or husband. I think Micah is spared the usual disdain children on TV tend to get because Noah Gray-Cabey gives off a very natural performance and is less "cute" than just plain appealing. (The same also being true of Adair Tishler as Molly, though the writing for her more often dips into potentially cringe-worthy stuff.)
Charles Gunn (Angel)
As far as I can tell (doing just a very brief lookover at su_herald, so it's not statistically sound) Gunn falls into the middle when it comes to amount of fic for regulars in the Angelverse. Angel, Wes, and Cordy are higher up, Fred at about the same level, and Connor and Lorne further down. Considering how many seasons he was a regular and how much of a role he played, he enters this list just barely. But there is still fic out there. This being the Jossverse, pairings are diverse, but above all, Gunn is shippable with Fred (canon) and Wesley (subtext). Seasons 2-4 are then the most suited for shipper fics, though season 5 is a possibility for more angsty fic. (And let's not forget the Birthday AU!) Gunn is good looking, but I haven't seen the kind of fawning over him that fandom favourites like Mohinder cause. His personality and personal history are pretty removed from your average fangirl's, though mimesere has pointed out his more geeky qualities. Like Sun, he often works as a voice of common sense on the show (especially in early eps), which could add to his appeal.
Clyde Langer (Sarah Jane Adventures)
While I was in the archive, I couldn't help looking for SJA fics - I hadn't seen enough before to make a judgement on whether Clyde was well-represented or not. There's not a whole lot of SJA fics in the archives, and Clyde has less than Maria or Luke, but not by much. I think the relative small cast in combination with the close bond between Luke and Clyde is a help here. Luke/Clyde is surprisingly common. (Where by "common" I mean "percentagewise of all SJA fic", not "I can find you a new fic every week.") There's also a bit of Maria/Clyde, and of course gen.
Finally, there are the characters that seem highly liked by fans but whose amount of fic doesn't quite mirror that fact.
Hiro Nakamura (Heroes)
So. People love Hiro. Yes, there's been some grumping about his storylines, and occasionally someone complains that he's too naïve and corny, but for the most part, Hiro is much loved. He's a nerd, he's genre-savvy, and he has a heroic outlook at life. While the rest of the cast do their best not to be superheroes, he embraces the idea, which of course is appealing to the nerd crowd called fans. :-) And there's fic out there, of course there is. There's Hiro/Ando, though their "practically married" status comes off as "non-sexual" to a surprising amount of people. While friendship is a staple of shipperfic, slash in particular, I think there's a particular kind of effortless friendship that can prove great resistance to shipping. I've heard the same kind of "oh no, they're too close, they're like siblings!" about Buck/Ike (TYR), Shawn/Gus (Psych) and - where I agree - Kenny/Lynda (Press Gang). Hiro/Charlie was a possibility for the hetters, though Charlie's death caused complications. Hiro/Adam has proven a reasonably popular pairing for season 2, whether early friendship slash or later hate slash. If the percentage of fic rises as much for each season, I'll soon have to move Hiro up the list. *g*
Toshiko Sato (Torchwood)
Looking at the Teaspoon archive, I discovered there was more Tosh fic than I'd thought, but she still has less than anyone else on team Torchwood. Meanwhile, she's highly liked by many fans, and has much fewer rabid haters than Owen or Gwen. I thnk Toshiko's shyness and fascination with machines (okay, nerdiness) is easy for many fans to relate to. She also hasn't been doing half as many or as horrible unethical things as the others, though it's arguable if she's any more competent. Shipping Tosh is a bit tricky since everyone she flirts with tends to end up dead (or undead), which I think my be one reason that there's not much fic; another being that she tends to stay on the sidelines quite often. Tosh/Owen is of course still an option, and several people have, as I've said above, expressed a liking of Tosh/Martha.
Monica Dawson (Heroes)
While people were bitching and moaning about how the new characters on Heroes meant less screen time for old favourites, Monica escaped nearly all the complaints - over and over again, people said that they liked her personality, her outlook, her power, etc. I think in the relatively dark world of Heroes, fans enjoyed seeing someone who genuinely liked her power. Monica isn't angst-free, but her storyline has been rather non-insane so far. People also praise her for being strong-willed, level-headed, and nice. And yet there's nearly no fic. What happened? My guess is that it's because Monica had so little contact with other characters this season. She mostly hung out with her family, Micah included - apart from a brief encounter with Mohinder and the Company, she had little to do with other Heroes.
Mr. Eko (Lost)
Again, lots of bitching about new characters, and again, an exception. Mr. Eko was lauded as cool, mysterious, layered, and sometimes hot. Yet, once again, very little fic, and once again I think the problem may be character interaction. Mr. Eko isn't very easy to ship, but beyond that, he's not very easy to write into a conversation/non-sexual relationship, because he's not the type to casually hang out with others much. Fascinating for plot-type stories and character introspection, but troublesome for other types of fic.
...And that's it, I guess. I mean, I'm sure there are examples in other fandoms, but I wouldn't know about that, obviously. As for analysis, that's the part of meta I always suck at. thelana has some good points, I guess. :-)