criticism in fan fic?
I'm not really into the fan fiction scene. My only brush with it was when I was much younger, reading fan-fic and parodies based on Star Trek: The Next Generation on various electronic bulleting boards. (I don't think slash existed back then, or if it did, people didn't admit to writing it - I'm pretty sure I would remember stumbling across any spicy scenes involving Klingon rituals and Picard's shiny dome.) Possibly I'm missing out. Regardless, self-described "academic/fan" Henry Jenkins has a lengthy and excellent article on his blog.
Jenkins looks on fan-produced works as criticism, not simply 'brand extension'. He argues that just as if the fan had written a critical essay on Harry Potter, which would be legally protected as 'Fair Use', so a fictional account set in the Harry Potter universe can also serve as criticism, and this should also be protected. And once you realize that the only legitimate arbitrator of whether or not a piece of fan fiction is intended in a critical light is the author, you have to admit that fan fiction should probably enjoy far greater legal protection than it currently does.
I have to admit, I find the idea of writing a piece of fan fiction that is critical of the "official, canonical work" pretty fascinating. Take the Boy Wizard for instance. Love the books, sure. But my major complaint about them is that Harry is the very worst kind of fictional hero, a hero who is heroic and noble apparently just because they were "born" that way, rather than because of their strength of character or moral choices. Discussions of morality in conjunction with HP can get a little dicey - people assume you want to go witch-burning or something. No, but if you flip through the books they are a catalogue of Harry doing things just because his friends were doing it, or because his emotions overwhelmed him, or even because he just stumbled into it by accident. Lenora Rose points out that in The Half-blood Prince Harry attempts to use the so-called "unforgiveable curse" and the only reason he does not succeed is because he's magically blocked. That is, as she puts it, a pretty shoddy moral lesson.
I think it would be pretty intriguing to do a piece of fan-fic where Harry's lack of a moral compass "lead him to the dark side", so to speak. That would be some cool criticism. Or perhaps such a thing already exists, and I'm just late to the party.
Jenkins looks on fan-produced works as criticism, not simply 'brand extension'. He argues that just as if the fan had written a critical essay on Harry Potter, which would be legally protected as 'Fair Use', so a fictional account set in the Harry Potter universe can also serve as criticism, and this should also be protected. And once you realize that the only legitimate arbitrator of whether or not a piece of fan fiction is intended in a critical light is the author, you have to admit that fan fiction should probably enjoy far greater legal protection than it currently does.
I have to admit, I find the idea of writing a piece of fan fiction that is critical of the "official, canonical work" pretty fascinating. Take the Boy Wizard for instance. Love the books, sure. But my major complaint about them is that Harry is the very worst kind of fictional hero, a hero who is heroic and noble apparently just because they were "born" that way, rather than because of their strength of character or moral choices. Discussions of morality in conjunction with HP can get a little dicey - people assume you want to go witch-burning or something. No, but if you flip through the books they are a catalogue of Harry doing things just because his friends were doing it, or because his emotions overwhelmed him, or even because he just stumbled into it by accident. Lenora Rose points out that in The Half-blood Prince Harry attempts to use the so-called "unforgiveable curse" and the only reason he does not succeed is because he's magically blocked. That is, as she puts it, a pretty shoddy moral lesson.
I think it would be pretty intriguing to do a piece of fan-fic where Harry's lack of a moral compass "lead him to the dark side", so to speak. That would be some cool criticism. Or perhaps such a thing already exists, and I'm just late to the party.
posted by braun at 8:39 AM
3 Comments:
I must say, that is one of the strangest arguments I can recall. What is Mr. Jenkins taking to so alter his reality?
Seriously, I cannot buy FanFic as criticism which is therefore free of Fair Use legal restrictions. FanFic is, without doubt, writing (words...ink...paper = writing) and copyright laws will apply.
Satire and parody are both a form of criticism; but they are forms of writing, too.
Well, I think it's a pretty original argument at least. But I think perhaps he's right. Who's to say what can and can't be criticism? Do we let the government and the law make that decision? If I want to write a serious story that is in the spirit of criticism, who's to say it isn't? And how do you tell the difference between a story that is and a story that isn't?
Anyways, I find the whole thing very interesting.
Well, braun, I suppose one could write a story that is a criticism. The satire and the parody can both do this. They are, however, stories.
To me the only *potential* difference between those forms of criticism and a fanfic is that a fanfic is a story written using the world of another's creation. Pure and simple.
If Jenkins is talking about parodying *in the style of* some author, that's probably okay as a vehicle for criticism (although I bet opinions would vary based on what he actually *borrowed*.)
But parody using the characters, place names, fictional histories, etc. of another author--that would be plagiarism, not Fair Use. There is no unique creative effort except for using the pre-existing stuff like paper dolls.
Regardless of how you define the criticism in terms of what it IS, you still have the author's rights to his/her creative efforts to consider. And that makes use of the fictional world for a story copyright infringement and not fair use if there is any effort to publish. Fair Use quotations and excerpting are for things such as literary criticism, literary discussions and for promotional purposes, or use of the text as in illustration/example.
I just don't buy the argument that Fair Use covers using the fictional world and calling it a critique.
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