Question for you fine folk...

[chatastic]

What's the appeal of "real person" fics

Comments

[elektrawwf]

I think a lot of it happens when fans confuse 'characters' with the actors who play them. eg: a good number (if not all) of the Gerry/Emmy 'fics were written after the POTO movie.

Personally, I don't like reading them. I think they're disrespectful to the actors.

[chatastic]

I think that's huge-- that "Gerry" has the same qualities somehow as "the Phans," which then sort of makes it less "real" to the writer?

[stars_fell]

I hate them. Hate hate hate. Especially when the subjects are people I like and admire, or even know, because you just know the authors are making assumptions about their personalities, and they aren't always kind. Or right. I recently found a RPF Phantom/CSI crossover that probably destroyed my molars from all the teeth-grinding I was doing over what the author was doing to poor Ted Keegan. Never mind all the other real people and the awful prose.

I think it must come out of the way the authors want to see their favorite actors/musicians/etc, or a need for self-insertion, or both.

[my_daroga]

They don't really bother me; maybe because I have no empathy (?!) or maybe because it seems to me that they come out of the idea that public figures are just as much *characters* (to us) as the people they play. That's how the media sells them to us, after all: everything's scripted, airbrushed, and larger than life. I definitely feel, also, that it "comes out of" popslash and other areas where the "need" for fanfic was there, without the framework of a fictional world. The music videos, the selling of that image, stood in for the fictional world, and we just happened to acquire "characters" like Nick and Justin and Britney--they're not real in the sense that they are at all like real people. So in fanfic, they're treated like characters, but with that label of "real person fic

[chatastic]

Mmm, I like the way you articulate that: Brit and Nick and Justin become characters, not people.

Okay, that makes sense to me. Thanks!

[my_daroga]

You're welcome! I'm glad.

[wendelah1]

I am sorry to be commenting here on a year old post, but your journal is flocked, so I am kind of stuck. This is an interesting question. I don't know why most people read or write RPF. I can only tell you why I have, on occasion read, and once, written it. I have very little interest in actors as people apart from their roles. I don't read People Magazine or any of the other celebrity mags. I don't think there is anything wrong with it, but it isn't my cup of tea. I do read the recs at crack_van. In January, they had recs from SciFi RPF, which I read, since I actually knew who all of the actors were, unlike bandom, where I don't know the musicians, etc. Because I am old. I just read them for entertainment, not because I think anything written in them is real. There is a lot of fan fiction that fits into that category for me, including most slash. It doesn't seem real, but it is fun to read. In case you were wondering, in most fandoms, I am a noromo. I very rarely ship pairings. It is just not part of who I am, I guess. But I read everything,

[chatastic]

This journal is a lot of me being emo and otherwise not terribly interesting, but you're welcome to friend.

[wendelah1]

I did, because it is hard to get to know someone if you can't read their journal. Journals are supposed to be emo, right? My journal is kind of a mixed bag. There is a lot, a lot, a lot of X-Files stuff. Some of the more normal, ie not in fandom, people on my flist think I am a little bit nuts. They keep coming back, though. You may or may not get sucked back into the fandom, but if you do, you can't blame me. Okay? Blame Lid. She is way more entertaining and full of XF Squee.

I think I did an introductory post I will try to find so I can link you to it: Here. Welcome!