SLAYAGE NOTES - Day Two, Panel Two
Fandom Panel
Jennifer K Stuller - Numfar! Do the Dance of Seduction!
· Whedonverse Burlesque - performance of fanfic
o Numfar - Joss Burlesque-ing himself
· Nerd-Burlesquers - result of total media subversion
o Jenkins Textual Poachers; Now: active participants
· Cosplay - exploration of character through performance
§ Nicholle Lamerichs - new narratives created
· Becomes part of the text -> transforms into the text
o Whedonverse IS Burlesque
§ What Whedon wanted (“Bring your own subtext”)
§ Dollhouse- celebration of perversion because it is passionate
· Full expression of performance
§ Jessica Obrist
§ Feminist and Subversive
· Female is fetish
· Returning the Gaze - controls the gaze to reclaim female body
§ Re-Humanizing the Body (Dollhouse)
o Whedonverse females strong - Burlesque is all about strong females
§ I’M GOING TO BE PERFORMING
Kelsey says: Remember how I said I didn’t vote for the “Disability Narrative” presentation because there was one I wanted to get more love? And remember how I said I have a crush on Casey’s geek-brain? THIS WAS MY FAVORITE PART OF SLAYAGE BAR NONE. I WANT TO BE JEN WHEN I GROW UP!!! No joke! She was at the same table with me during the banquet. She’s from Seattle. She presented at ComiCon, flew home for a night, took the train to Vancouver, presented at Slayage, and then three weeks later helped run GeekGirlCon. I WANT TO BE HER. And yes, we are facebook buddies. And yes, she did perform in a Nerd-Burlesque. AS JOYCE! FROM BAND CANDY! SHE WAS BANDCANDY!JOYCE! IN A BURLESQUE!
You know you want to be her, too. She totally befriended me, came to my panel, and gave me a big hug when I left. I love her like pancakes.
Bertha Chin - “Worthy of Whedon”: (Creating) Boundaries of Quality within Multi-Whedonverse Fandom
- Social hierarchy in Fandom (dirty word in scholarship
- Cultural and symbolic capitals, and fan’s construction quality (fanfiction)
- Fan discussion of Dollhouse casting: “Is the cast worthy of Whedon”
o Preservation of the Whedon-brand
- Hierarchy is the state of fandom
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[Personal Reflections are Personal]
Kelsey says: This was just uncomfortable for me to sit through. I pretty much lead the discussion at the end. One of the arguments that she made was that it’s harder to get BAngels and Spuffys to talk to each other than cross-overs through fandoms. I’m not really sure why she felt that was an argument. It had very little follow-through. Most of this had very little follow-through. She was unable to answer a lot of the questions afterwards… questions that I ended up answering. (Ex: she didn’t know about AO3.) Anyway, it’s awkward to be sitting in a room, hearing about your world from such an objective, academic POV, with no personal involvement. It’s one of my issues with Pop Culture scholarship in general: too much Social Science, not enough Anthropology. I felt like either she was an interloper on my world and explaining it back to me awkwardly; or like I was an interloper in their world, trying to explain a small segment of a huge world that I only know a little bit about. It was just uncomfortable. I don't know how else to explain it.
Derrick King - “Us Together, Without the Magic”: The Sexual Politics of Willow/Tara Fan Fiction
· Queer sexual representation - canon ship should be paid attention too
· Form and narrative style
· The Kitten board
· Not Queer in the source text? Yes
Kelsey says: Okay, so it seems like I took no notes. That’s because Derrick and I had geek-bonding, so during his presentation I was all with the big smiles and the thumbs up in the front row. Basically, I was playing cheerleader during this one, rather than actually listening. He’s a sweetie pie and needed a cheerleader. I am not ashamed. Cheerleaders are important.
Another short post so that all the Featured Speakers can be in a massive post tomorrow!