Case (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
case) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomsecrets2012-06-03 03:31 pm
case) wrote in fandomsecrets2012-06-03 03:31 pm
[ SECRET POST #1979 ]
⌈ Secret Post #1979 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
01.
__________________________________________________
02.
__________________________________________________
03.
__________________________________________________
04.
__________________________________________________
05.
__________________________________________________
06.
__________________________________________________
07.
__________________________________________________
08.
__________________________________________________
09.
__________________________________________________
10.
__________________________________________________
11.
__________________________________________________
12.
__________________________________________________
13.
__________________________________________________
14.
__________________________________________________
15.
__________________________________________________
16.
__________________________________________________
17. [broken]
__________________________________________________
18.
__________________________________________________
19.
__________________________________________________
20.
__________________________________________________
21.
__________________________________________________
22.
__________________________________________________
Notes:
Friending Meme if people want to add each other on DW!
Secrets Left to Post: 05 pages, 115 secrets from Secret Submission Post #283.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
no subject
Shows like Doctor Who have featured celebrities since forever. (The fourth serial ever, aired in 1964, had Marco Polo and the Kublai Khan. The revived series only took three episodes to have Dickens.) Many, many shows have actors portraying current famous people, mostly political figures like presidents and prime ministers, but other people as well. On some occasions, shows even have cameos by people playing themselves, though this is obviously with the consent of the actor, it's still a form of RPF.
When David Bowie shows up on The Venture Bros., is that RPF? Liberties are definitely taken with his character, and he is not voiced by Bowie himself.
Writing fiction about real people is nothing new, either. When Dante wrote his Divine Comedy, it was basically self-insert RPF so he could chill in the afterlife with his idol Vergil.
I was going to say that I wouldn't write RPF myself, but then I remembered that Doctor Who fic I plotted, where post-Journey's End!Ten goes to 1969 and meets Canadian philosopher and communication theorist Marshall McLuhan, while in the backdrop, Two, Jamie and Zoe fight the Cybermen invasion, and Eleven, Amy and Rory deal with the Silence. (Man, that fic would have been a headtrip.) Marshall McLuhan, though dead, is still very much a real person and a modern figure, and he has living family, so would that story be "wrong" for me to write? Or is it only wrong if there's sex?
Because I find it very unlikely that the OP thinks Dante was a sick fuck in writing about Vergil, so I'm trying to find the difference.
1) It's only okay if the celebrity is dead. In which case, for how long? Is it because they would never know about it? Would a language barrier be enough for that? What if they have living family? Is it that different from writing fanfiction for stories whose authors are still alive (which several authors have expressed they find upsetting and violating)? Because there's the risk in causing distress in the subject/author, shouldn't the two be treated the same way?
2) It's only okay when it's in professional fiction, not fans doing it for free. Yeah I don't even need to take this one apart.
3) It's only okay when it's not about sex. TBH I've seen this argument with fanfiction as well, and it's just as prudish.
I personally don't have any interest in reading/writing about actors or musicians boning each other, but I fail to see why it's morally wrong to do so.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2012-06-03 11:31 pm (UTC)(link)no subject
no subject
Re: the morality of RPF, I think it's a lot to do with the sexual content. As others have pointed it, fantasizing about sexy celebs is something many of us do. Actually writing these fantasies down and sharing them in a public forum where anyone can read them may be what makes the difference. There is still an unfortunate negative stigma about fanfic and RPF, as you said, that it's all about smut/porn/etc. There are some amazing fics out there that do include explicit sex, but so much of it is dedicated to plot and/or exploring the characters in a way that canon/RL can never do.
Also, I would totally read that Who fic should you ever choose to post it. :-)
no subject
Even drawing the line about sexual content gets iffy. Like, I saw a PBS movie about Alan Turing, which was about his life but included sex scenes. Does that get a pass for art, but a fanfic Backstreet Boys orgy not?
And then there's the really blurry stuff, like, Sanctuary has Nikola Tesla as a vampire, if you write vampire smut about him, is that RPF? What about Al Gore's head in Futurama giving Fry a blowjob?
Moreover, if you go far back enough, it's impossible to tell truth from fiction. Was there ever a Jesus Christ? Was there ever a Helen of Troy? Many folk tales and religious accounts walk that line between fiction and historical figure, and I think this illuminates the fact that over time, reality becomes fiction. We tell it and retell it so many times in so many ways, forgetting, embellishing, merging similar stories, making our own spin on old stories, that eventually the line between fantasy and reality is lost. We do this in the short term with Hollywood biopics like The Social Network, and over time that becomes all that's left.
I think fictionalizing reality is part of human nature. And so's being horny.
XD And as for that fic, sadly it is not one of my current projects, and I don't know if I'll ever write it. I liked the idea, but I realized it would be a lot of work, and didn't have the energy for it.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2012-06-04 06:06 am (UTC)(link)no subject
Perhaps the difference with Heath Ledger is that you had an emotional connection to him when he was alive. This becomes extremely fuzzy territory. But thank you for bringing up that the subject being dead doesn't automatically make people okay with the fic.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2012-06-04 09:00 am (UTC)(link)Of course you can't check with every celebrity if they're okay with it and yeah some do find it funny, so how do you know?
no subject
Again, it's also difficult to check with the authors of every canon. Some are flattered, others are not. Even the flattered ones are slightly less delighted when the kinky pornfics start coming out.
RPF of celebrities who have said they do not want RPF of them should be considered on about the same level as fanfic of authors' works who have stated they do not want fanfiction of their works. Whether you think it's okay or not is a personal call, but for what it's worth, Anne Rice-based fics still exist.
Moreover, public figures do not own their identities. This is evident in every newspaper political cartoon. The politicians depicted there don't get a say in it, even if it shows them unfavorably.
Keep in mind that RPF isn't just musicians having buttsex. Something like Captain America punching Hitler in the face in the WWII-era comics is technically RPF, and was RPF of a living person at the time it was published. (I hope I haven't just Godwin'd myself.) We use RPF to express our feelings on our contemporaries.
Basically what I'm saying is, it doesn't matter if they find it funny or not, if an author doesn't have intellectual property ownership over their fiction, a celebrity doesn't have intellectual property ownership over their persona. (The way some authors act, you'd think they'd almost rather you wrote them having sex with the Dallas Cowboys than touched their precious characters.)
no subject
(Anonymous) 2012-06-04 12:47 pm (UTC)(link)no subject