Meta: What About RPF?
I was asked to write on this question and I'm posting my response publicly here. Linking etc., is fine, assuming anyone would care to. ;)
I will warn you I wandered a bit in my answer.
What are your lines in RPF? What won't you read?
Alright. Here's the thing about RPF for me. There are two sort of stances on this one is legal and the other, for lack of a term that actually makes sense, we'll call convention. I don't think it's actually a moral or ethical issue, per se, it's something else that I don't precisely know how to define.
On the legal side, things are pretty clear--writing fictional stories about real people is protected. In fact, it's got clearer and tighter legal protections than any other kind of fan activity, as long as you clarify that your tale is fiction. Many authors have made careers writing stories about real people doing things that they never did, the Jane Austen detective mysteries, which are pretty popular right now, are a good example.
The area where you can, potentially, run into a problem is with the very real tendency of fanfiction to be focused, generally in great detail, on the sex lives of characters. I can see where writing a story about Gerard Way being an undercover CIA agent is cool, but writing a story about his sex life with cucumbers wouldn't be (**did not/will not write that, ever, just for clarification). That said, as long you clearly indicate that it is fiction, it is still protected.
So, where is the boundary? Why is there a taboo about writing real-person fiction? Every successful writer I know, every person I've heard talk about their writing, has looked to the people that they know or have met for inspiration: this character is a loose interpretation of Sally's looks and personality, but I'm going to call her Amanda in my story. It happens all the time.
The difference in RPF is that instead of changing Sally's name to protect the innocent, and perhaps giving her character a different profession, we're keeping the names (professions are 50/50 in bandslash in particular).
Of all the people in bandom, I have met one, and I'm saying "met". I don't know him, I can't talk about him in any personal detail. So when I write about him what I am doing is saying: I have this character who is short, tattooed, energetic and a kick-ass guitar player, I'm calling him Frank Iero because I think Frank Iero is all these thing as well.
I don't feel that I am writing about the person Frank Iero, I'm writing about the character Frank Iero as I perceive him.
My Dad's a photographer and for years I would act as his assistant. There's a tradition of doing these group photoshoots with models that benefit new models and photographers--the models want prints, the photographers want experience/models.
The thing about these mass shoots is that you might have one model and ten photographers simultaneously taking her picture. After the shoot they'll sit around and compare their pictures and, despite the fact that all the photos are obviously very similar, they're also all very different. Each photographer had a slightly different angle, camera settings, perspective, experience, skill level, etc., resulting in a slightly different picture.
RPF is kind of like that. The people in the bands are obviously themselves, but when it comes to ficcing them, they're just models. They're standing, holding a pose, and we're all the photographers taking pictures of them according to our own skill levels, perception, etc.
When you're taking pictures of a model, you're not taking pictures of Laurie, the girl who walks her dog and eats Cheerios for breakfast, you're taking a picture of a swimsuit model, or a department store catalogue model, or a fetish model, or whatever. The only thing that Laurie, the person, brings to that picture beyond her form is her ability to embody the thing she has to portray that day.
I don't think that writing stories about, picking on MCR again, Gerard in any way reflects on Gerard Way the person, it's simply Gerard Way insofar as he embodies the character I'm trying express.
If we were actually writing about these people, not the characters, we would all be writing the same stories because, as people, they are simply who they are--there's very little room for interpretation. But as characters they are infinitely diverse and varied.
We pick up on characteristics that they have, sure, and those characteristics tend to reappear and consistently be markers of who they are, but those are simply signifiers, they are not the sign. [Breaking out some Literary Theory now ;).]
My writing about a person that is short, energetic, tattooed and a kick-ass guitar player named Frank signifies Frank to us in bandom, but it no more makes that character the person Frank than it would if I wrote a story about a short, energetic, tattooed, hitman named Frank. Frank is no more a hitman because I wrote it than he is gay or anything else. I cannot change the reality or experience of Frank the person's life because of how I manipulate the the reality or experience of Frank the character.
The biggest issue with RPF isn't actually in the writing of it, or the morals of it, because if you're really investigating it, the fact is that they're just loose characters, just sketches, based on a handful of identifiable traits and quirks that we've collected. Just because the names and descriptions are frequently the same does not mean that bandom=RL.
The problem lies in the fact that a lot of people don't get the disconnect.
It happens in every fandom, people who think that David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson are really together because Mulder and Scully are. Ladies and gentlemen, we are not who we play on television, or stage, or in the movies, or on the internet.
We are not who you believe us to be, we are all infinitely more complex than that.
I worry about people who take the fact that the fourth wall in bandom is more like a fringe curtain and do their best to decimate it. Not because I don't think that the bands are aware of bandom (because all of them have admitted to seeing, if not reading, the fic), but because in the minds of some people if you believe that the fanon is true, it will, eventually, be true. That's my line insofar as I have one.
I don't care if Pete Wentz reads my Pete/Patrick story. I really kind of don't, but I do care if MaryBethSueRogers writes a story and believes it to be true to the point that she's threatening Pete Wentz because he's cheating on Patrick with Ashlee. You know what I mean?
It's always been a problem in fandoms--since the very beginning--people who couldn't hold those walls in their own minds. I don't really know why that is because I can see Janeane Garofalo in The Matchmaker and also in The Truth About Cats and Dogs and I have no problem whatsoever holding her character in those two movies and her identity as person all separate. If we can do that, I don't know why some people can't keep the division between the person and the character separate. ~shrugs~
In fact, we do even more complicated things than that. Take Everybody Loves Raymond. I actually very nearly detest this show, but it's a good example. It's a show, conceived of and originally written by Ray Romano, about a character named Ray that has the same appearance, characteristics, etc., as Ray Romano. There are some slight differences--i.e. his profession, but it is, in many ways, almost the definition of a Gary Stu in fanfic. Ray Romano, depending on how you want to define it, is almost creating his own RPF starring himself in that case. It is different, I know that, but it's very similar.
It's a classic thing that happens in television, in comedy in particular, and it's something that we're all acquainted with and know how to process. Is that so very different from bandom? We're creating characters based on what little we know of these people and we're manipulating them for our own story-telling needs, but that isn't really so different from what people have been doing since the dawn of the written medium.
I do have an issue privacy when it comes to these people and protecting their privacy. As characters we pretty much have license to do as we will to and with them, but as people they are entitled to their own lives, loves and mistakes. I have little-to-no patience for people who literally stalk them and pry for information. Most of them, frankly, already give us ridiculous levels of access to their thoughts and activities, it's more than a little worrying that that isn't enough for some people.
Other than that, my limits in RPF are just my limits in any sort of reading--nothing too violent, gory, no infidelity, no real S&M, etc. I'm actually pretty vanilla. ;)
I will warn you I wandered a bit in my answer.
What are your lines in RPF? What won't you read?
Alright. Here's the thing about RPF for me. There are two sort of stances on this one is legal and the other, for lack of a term that actually makes sense, we'll call convention. I don't think it's actually a moral or ethical issue, per se, it's something else that I don't precisely know how to define.
On the legal side, things are pretty clear--writing fictional stories about real people is protected. In fact, it's got clearer and tighter legal protections than any other kind of fan activity, as long as you clarify that your tale is fiction. Many authors have made careers writing stories about real people doing things that they never did, the Jane Austen detective mysteries, which are pretty popular right now, are a good example.
The area where you can, potentially, run into a problem is with the very real tendency of fanfiction to be focused, generally in great detail, on the sex lives of characters. I can see where writing a story about Gerard Way being an undercover CIA agent is cool, but writing a story about his sex life with cucumbers wouldn't be (**did not/will not write that, ever, just for clarification). That said, as long you clearly indicate that it is fiction, it is still protected.
So, where is the boundary? Why is there a taboo about writing real-person fiction? Every successful writer I know, every person I've heard talk about their writing, has looked to the people that they know or have met for inspiration: this character is a loose interpretation of Sally's looks and personality, but I'm going to call her Amanda in my story. It happens all the time.
The difference in RPF is that instead of changing Sally's name to protect the innocent, and perhaps giving her character a different profession, we're keeping the names (professions are 50/50 in bandslash in particular).
Of all the people in bandom, I have met one, and I'm saying "met". I don't know him, I can't talk about him in any personal detail. So when I write about him what I am doing is saying: I have this character who is short, tattooed, energetic and a kick-ass guitar player, I'm calling him Frank Iero because I think Frank Iero is all these thing as well.
I don't feel that I am writing about the person Frank Iero, I'm writing about the character Frank Iero as I perceive him.
My Dad's a photographer and for years I would act as his assistant. There's a tradition of doing these group photoshoots with models that benefit new models and photographers--the models want prints, the photographers want experience/models.
The thing about these mass shoots is that you might have one model and ten photographers simultaneously taking her picture. After the shoot they'll sit around and compare their pictures and, despite the fact that all the photos are obviously very similar, they're also all very different. Each photographer had a slightly different angle, camera settings, perspective, experience, skill level, etc., resulting in a slightly different picture.
RPF is kind of like that. The people in the bands are obviously themselves, but when it comes to ficcing them, they're just models. They're standing, holding a pose, and we're all the photographers taking pictures of them according to our own skill levels, perception, etc.
When you're taking pictures of a model, you're not taking pictures of Laurie, the girl who walks her dog and eats Cheerios for breakfast, you're taking a picture of a swimsuit model, or a department store catalogue model, or a fetish model, or whatever. The only thing that Laurie, the person, brings to that picture beyond her form is her ability to embody the thing she has to portray that day.
I don't think that writing stories about, picking on MCR again, Gerard in any way reflects on Gerard Way the person, it's simply Gerard Way insofar as he embodies the character I'm trying express.
If we were actually writing about these people, not the characters, we would all be writing the same stories because, as people, they are simply who they are--there's very little room for interpretation. But as characters they are infinitely diverse and varied.
We pick up on characteristics that they have, sure, and those characteristics tend to reappear and consistently be markers of who they are, but those are simply signifiers, they are not the sign. [Breaking out some Literary Theory now ;).]
My writing about a person that is short, energetic, tattooed and a kick-ass guitar player named Frank signifies Frank to us in bandom, but it no more makes that character the person Frank than it would if I wrote a story about a short, energetic, tattooed, hitman named Frank. Frank is no more a hitman because I wrote it than he is gay or anything else. I cannot change the reality or experience of Frank the person's life because of how I manipulate the the reality or experience of Frank the character.
The biggest issue with RPF isn't actually in the writing of it, or the morals of it, because if you're really investigating it, the fact is that they're just loose characters, just sketches, based on a handful of identifiable traits and quirks that we've collected. Just because the names and descriptions are frequently the same does not mean that bandom=RL.
The problem lies in the fact that a lot of people don't get the disconnect.
It happens in every fandom, people who think that David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson are really together because Mulder and Scully are. Ladies and gentlemen, we are not who we play on television, or stage, or in the movies, or on the internet.
We are not who you believe us to be, we are all infinitely more complex than that.
I worry about people who take the fact that the fourth wall in bandom is more like a fringe curtain and do their best to decimate it. Not because I don't think that the bands are aware of bandom (because all of them have admitted to seeing, if not reading, the fic), but because in the minds of some people if you believe that the fanon is true, it will, eventually, be true. That's my line insofar as I have one.
I don't care if Pete Wentz reads my Pete/Patrick story. I really kind of don't, but I do care if MaryBethSueRogers writes a story and believes it to be true to the point that she's threatening Pete Wentz because he's cheating on Patrick with Ashlee. You know what I mean?
It's always been a problem in fandoms--since the very beginning--people who couldn't hold those walls in their own minds. I don't really know why that is because I can see Janeane Garofalo in The Matchmaker and also in The Truth About Cats and Dogs and I have no problem whatsoever holding her character in those two movies and her identity as person all separate. If we can do that, I don't know why some people can't keep the division between the person and the character separate. ~shrugs~
In fact, we do even more complicated things than that. Take Everybody Loves Raymond. I actually very nearly detest this show, but it's a good example. It's a show, conceived of and originally written by Ray Romano, about a character named Ray that has the same appearance, characteristics, etc., as Ray Romano. There are some slight differences--i.e. his profession, but it is, in many ways, almost the definition of a Gary Stu in fanfic. Ray Romano, depending on how you want to define it, is almost creating his own RPF starring himself in that case. It is different, I know that, but it's very similar.
It's a classic thing that happens in television, in comedy in particular, and it's something that we're all acquainted with and know how to process. Is that so very different from bandom? We're creating characters based on what little we know of these people and we're manipulating them for our own story-telling needs, but that isn't really so different from what people have been doing since the dawn of the written medium.
I do have an issue privacy when it comes to these people and protecting their privacy. As characters we pretty much have license to do as we will to and with them, but as people they are entitled to their own lives, loves and mistakes. I have little-to-no patience for people who literally stalk them and pry for information. Most of them, frankly, already give us ridiculous levels of access to their thoughts and activities, it's more than a little worrying that that isn't enough for some people.
Other than that, my limits in RPF are just my limits in any sort of reading--nothing too violent, gory, no infidelity, no real S&M, etc. I'm actually pretty vanilla. ;)