Adapted from a Conversation with wisdomeagle

[alixtii]

The concept of canon whoredom requires, if not a single privileged meaning (which the authorial intent people of course have, or at least claim to have), then a set of privileged meanings which exclude a set of other meanings. One can see me working towards this in some of my earlier meta in which I try to perform a conceptual analysis of what

Comments

[slashfairy]

wow.

just. wow.

i'm not academically trained/educated this way (a BSN in nursing doesn't get into Wittgenstein much, sadly, though now i'm curious) but I can follow what you're saying from my women's studies work.

and, wow.

thank you for thinking it out and writing it out.

[elspethdixon]

Hmmm... I don't know that "canonwhoredom" or supporting a single (or small number) of privileged readings of canon is necessarily a gendered trait, though. I've seen plenty of female fans do it (in a sense, it's what some of the HP ship wars were about), and I certainly do it myself when it comes to Marvel comics (and I'm a woman). I'll be the first person to point out that, no, ficwriter, you've got Iron Man's age off by six years, or that Daredevil's powers work like such-and-so -- and cite issue numbers as evidence.

This makes me something of an anomaly in lj comics fandom, though, since it leans heavily toward DC, and most DC writers prefer to keep only a tenuous connection with canon (to be fair, their canon is much less consistent than Marvel).

[elspethdixon]

That's a good point. I can't be fannish for something unless there's at least one character I can feel an emotional connection with, so I'm always character oriented. My level of canonwhoredom depends on the fandom -- I don't really care about canon in fandoms where I haven't seen the show and am just reading the fic because it contains hurt/comfort. But anything where I actually like and care about the source material (i.e. anything I'm motivated to write fic for, instead of just lurk)... there, I try very hard to make my fic line up with my interpretation of canon, and can't read or enjoy fic that doesn't.

This includes all fic that conflicts with my OTPs, because I don't OTP a ship unless I think it's supported by canon.

[ravenclaw_devi]

It may not be exclusive to one gender, but there is such a thing as the stereotypical fanboy - you know, the kind of fan who will have lengthy debates on subjects like "Dante vs. Vincent Valentine - who would win?"

Whereas someone (male or female) who approaches a hypothetical Final Fantasy VII/Devil May Cry crossover from a characterisation-focused viewpoint would say, "They wouldn't fight in the first place because they're both good guys." Yes?

[jonquil]

Wow. Phrases mutate as they move across fandom.

When I see "canonwhoredom", I think of somebody who'll read fic in any fandom. This may be my fuzzy mind.

[alias_sqbr]

I think you have a bit of a false dichotomy: I tend to be fairly picky about technical details and incredibly picky about character consistency. Basically my suspension of disbelief tends to be pretty shaky, and I need a fair amount of continuity (wth both characters and setting) to engage with the material. This also means I pretty much no interest in AUs that aren't of the "what if we changed this one detail" variety.