Who has the power? Who makes the decisions?
I've been half-assedly following the explosion around Diana Gabaldon and her reactions to fan fiction, which include plenty of references to things that are TOTALLY COMPARABLE, like slavery and rape.
At the same time, I've been rereading Should We Burn Babar? It's one of my comfort-food kidlitcrit books. It's fairly low on jargon and pretty high on asking questions. Its ultimate response to the question in the title: No. There are good things in Babar. But there are also things we need to question, need to interrogate, need to bring multiple perspectives to, or else the flaws of the book outweigh the good things it brings into the world.
In short:
Literacy, though personal, develops socially. It is not an individual matter, as most educators would have it. Within circles of learners, often with a more experienced teacher, but also within a circle of peers, the ability to question and examine an issue, thought, idea, or feeling arises most naturally. It is also where the habits of sensitive reading and studying develop. (Kohl 98)
I'm a card-carrying member of the Author is Dead Society. When I beta or edit manuscripts, I assume that the author's opinion is the foremost priority, but once the story becomes a completed work- once it's posted on a website, available on a bookshelf, or being performed anywhere at all- it becomes an object, and the object isn't the writer's anymore. The audience's perception has just as much weight as the author's does. The book in a void doesn't matter; the importance comes from the interaction of the text with the reader.
(And of course that's influenced by all sorts of things; literature is by definition mediated, because at the very least every written work goes through the path of thoughts --> text --> drafts --> published text --> purchased text --> read text --> comprehension. But that's not really the point of this post.)
Obviously, there's no such thing as reading a text with no lens; just being in the world in a time and place gives you some. But there also isn't any one lens or combination of lenses that's "correct." I'm more comfortable reading Babar through a post-colonial and feminist and possibly Marxist lens, which doesn't invalidate the original text or the author's original intentions.
In Should We Burn Babar? Kohl suggests:
Another way to examine the book is to step outside of it and consider what is not in the text. (28-29)
Who or what hasn't been invited into the world of the story? Why aren't they there? What does their presence or absence mean?
That, right there, is basically the heart of all fan fiction. And it's also the heart of literary criticism. Lately, I haven't been particularly involved in the former (not for lack of trying), but I've been way involved in the latter, and this idea that the characters belong to her, which means she has the right to control how her audience perceives it, negates basically every possible critical approach to the text.
I don't think she has any obligation to read fic about her characters, or even to approve of it, and I see nothing wrong with her saying she doesn't want fic about her characters posted on the internet. But when she and her fans insist that people have the right to think anything they want about her texts until those thoughts are shared with other people, at which point it's like sexual assault and murdering kittens? Well, beyond all the perfectly logical and awesome things that I've seen brought up across the fannish interwebs, it's also propagating a strikingly anti-intellectual message that goes against everything that teachers, librarians, and- I thought- authors stand for.
My subject line, by the way, is from page 4 of Should We Burn Babar? It's the first and simplest question in interrogating a text- like Babar, or any of DG's books, or (say) a bunch of blog posts about the "morality" of fan fiction.
what? you noticed i miss grad school? but i've been so subtle about it!
At the same time, I've been rereading Should We Burn Babar? It's one of my comfort-food kidlitcrit books. It's fairly low on jargon and pretty high on asking questions. Its ultimate response to the question in the title: No. There are good things in Babar. But there are also things we need to question, need to interrogate, need to bring multiple perspectives to, or else the flaws of the book outweigh the good things it brings into the world.
In short:
Literacy, though personal, develops socially. It is not an individual matter, as most educators would have it. Within circles of learners, often with a more experienced teacher, but also within a circle of peers, the ability to question and examine an issue, thought, idea, or feeling arises most naturally. It is also where the habits of sensitive reading and studying develop. (Kohl 98)
I'm a card-carrying member of the Author is Dead Society. When I beta or edit manuscripts, I assume that the author's opinion is the foremost priority, but once the story becomes a completed work- once it's posted on a website, available on a bookshelf, or being performed anywhere at all- it becomes an object, and the object isn't the writer's anymore. The audience's perception has just as much weight as the author's does. The book in a void doesn't matter; the importance comes from the interaction of the text with the reader.
(And of course that's influenced by all sorts of things; literature is by definition mediated, because at the very least every written work goes through the path of thoughts --> text --> drafts --> published text --> purchased text --> read text --> comprehension. But that's not really the point of this post.)
Obviously, there's no such thing as reading a text with no lens; just being in the world in a time and place gives you some. But there also isn't any one lens or combination of lenses that's "correct." I'm more comfortable reading Babar through a post-colonial and feminist and possibly Marxist lens, which doesn't invalidate the original text or the author's original intentions.
In Should We Burn Babar? Kohl suggests:
Another way to examine the book is to step outside of it and consider what is not in the text. (28-29)
Who or what hasn't been invited into the world of the story? Why aren't they there? What does their presence or absence mean?
That, right there, is basically the heart of all fan fiction. And it's also the heart of literary criticism. Lately, I haven't been particularly involved in the former (not for lack of trying), but I've been way involved in the latter, and this idea that the characters belong to her, which means she has the right to control how her audience perceives it, negates basically every possible critical approach to the text.
I don't think she has any obligation to read fic about her characters, or even to approve of it, and I see nothing wrong with her saying she doesn't want fic about her characters posted on the internet. But when she and her fans insist that people have the right to think anything they want about her texts until those thoughts are shared with other people, at which point it's like sexual assault and murdering kittens? Well, beyond all the perfectly logical and awesome things that I've seen brought up across the fannish interwebs, it's also propagating a strikingly anti-intellectual message that goes against everything that teachers, librarians, and- I thought- authors stand for.
My subject line, by the way, is from page 4 of Should We Burn Babar? It's the first and simplest question in interrogating a text- like Babar, or any of DG's books, or (say) a bunch of blog posts about the "morality" of fan fiction.
what? you noticed i miss grad school? but i've been so subtle about it!