In Which I Discover Fannish Entitlement

[fulselden]

So, I guess I have a problem with schmoop? Also with narratives that dive for the heart-strings and start twanging? NOT ALWAYS BY ANY MEANS ... but to me, fics and non-fics that do this stuff often have the sniff of kitsch about them.

So, yep, this is the piece of grousing in which I prove my heart is as dry and withered as a mummified frog by moaning about the soppy film I'm roping in here as a strawman (WHICH IS PROBABLY STILL MORE PRUDENT THAN WHEN I USED THE ENTIRE GENRE OF EPIC FOR THE SAME PURPOSE), and then leaping bravely across a chasm of genre and medium and intent to moan about soppy fic. And also, to write about p0rn, again. Well, at least any most squee-harshing is corralled behind the cut.

One of my most uncomfortable film-watching experiences in recent years was being taken by a friend to see The Time Traveller’s Wife, which, for those who haven’t seen it ...

... is one of those lovingly crafted slices of Hollywood melodrama which are FOR THE LADIES and which drench everything in this sort of HONEY GLAZE. I don’t care, in principle, that it invoked a science fiction trope (time travel, yeah) as essentially a storytelling prop to enable the most hilariously literal sundering of lovers since Pullman left his Adam and Eve on either side of a slammed-shut door between worlds (not that I intend to drag Pullman into this, mind you). I do care, though, that it invoked this fascinating setup (a man essentially adrift in time), used it to generate angst and h/c, and then did the latter sloppily.

Seriously, I don’t care if your story circles around a magic rocket-ship mcguffin or whatever and then ends by firing it off into space! Just do something interesting while you’re there! Don’t just produce another beeswax-polished-to-a-deep-gloss tale of wistful, angora-wearing love between A LIBRARIAN and AN ARTIST. Seriously, how the hell did that dude even keep his job? He kept falling through time and ending up naked in the road! That is not professional behaviour.

And I know there was a book. And ... maybe it was better? Anyone reading this, feel free to proselytize! But, to be honest, I suspect it would annoy me in a lot of the same ways, unless the writing is exceptionally gorgeous. I can forgive a lot for gorgeous writing!

Ok, so. We’ve established that I can’t really be dealing with modern romance at its Hollywood we-will-now-cater-to-the-twinset-demographic schmoopiest. So bear in mind that a lot of this is a reflection of my personal impatience with finely tooled sappiness of this particular variety.

But, yes, fic. Because The Time Traveller's Wife, in its appropriation of a medium-hard science fiction trope to enable its wistful, polite, Sunday magazine love story, seems to be doing some rather ficcish things. Well, apart from the politeness.

And those things ... are things I wonder about.

Because I vastly enjoy the fact that fic is often involved in prying narratives away from a swords-and-battles (for instance) core to investigate their characters and their romances and their world. That it is, more often than not, FOR THE LADIES and indeed BY THE LADIES (not, of course, that ladies don't also tend to be fond of swords-and-battles). I’m fascinated by the mechanics of its conversion of screen into prose, where this is applicable; its playing with medium and genre, its devotion to outré varieties of porn. And I also enjoy its tendency to lovingly extrapolate emotional intricacies and plumb psychological depths and also, even, to ship n’ slash like never before has a man taken his burly canon-best-friend in his arms and said, baby, let’s go window-shop strollers. These are all awesome things that many canons do not provide, or do so ham-handedly.

I guess, in fact, what I’m partly railing about is the fact that, when I started trawling though fic (which, when I dipped my toe into Avatar fandom, meant FFN, as mediated by a couple of rather sub-par rec lists), I read so much ... well, not badfic. But ... averagefic. I was so thrilled that there was readable (and sometimes great) stuff out there that I just ... kept reading.

And this is hard to discuss, really, because I don’t want to name names, and lord knows I’m in no position to start throwing stones when it comes to proficiency in writing fic or indeed fiction.

But I read a fair amount of stuff which luxuriated in dwelling on poignant, shippy, emotional moments, which delighted in cosseting the woobie, that offered heart-warming reunions and exquisitely painful losses met with comfort and understanding. Sometimes they offered some of this stuff in the context of elaborate world building and careful characterisation. Sometimes ... it was just there. Yes, you say, THAT IS WHAT FANFIC IS FOR, DUDE. GET OVER IT. And, yeah, I know. I know! I can’t just barge in and demand that people stop writing their fulfilment fics! And, you know, I don’t even want to. Even though this is the kind of stuff I pretty much loathe when it’s done sloppily, as, I would suggest, it was in The Time Traveller’s Wife, this is often the sort of stuff I want to read in fandom, too! I just want to read it done really well. (And, ok, also in small doses. Otherwise, I get indigestion. World building and angst, however, I can apparently chug. Relatively speaking).

Yes, this is essentially the story of my run-in with Sturgeon’s Law. So I understand entirely if your response is, well, CRY MOAR.


... And I feel as though it might be useful, here, talking of indigestion, to invoke Sontag on camp, and her prodding at the idea of good-bad taste:

The experiences of Camp are based on the great discovery that the sensibility of high culture has no monopoly upon refinement. Camp asserts that good taste is not simply good taste; that there exists, indeed, a good taste of bad taste. (Genet talks about this in Our Lady of the Flowers.) The discovery of the good taste of bad taste can be very liberating. The man who insists on high and serious pleasures is depriving himself of pleasure; he continually restricts what he can enjoy; in the constant exercise of his good taste he will eventually price himself out of the market, so to speak. Here Camp taste supervenes upon good taste as a daring and witty hedonism. It makes the man of good taste cheerful, where before he ran the risk of being chronically frustrated. It is good for the digestion.

[here I pause for imagined hilarity on the part of people who know me irl upon seeing me essentially positioning myself as Sontag's 'man of good taste' - AHEM, not something I am famous for.]
 

Sontag's essay actually refracts fandom in interesting ways, I think. Which isn't, I suppose, surprising: camp is a kind of fannish enterprise, a 'tender' (says Sontag) reappropriation and reshaping of its source. And fandom is often rather srs bznz in a way which lends itself to camp (yeah ... I guess it takes one to know one).

One distinction, I suppose, is that while fandom lends itself to defence of and deference to canon (or, at least, a constant consideration of it), camp is a top-down form of appropriation which tends to delight in its source material from above. And, to a greater extent even than fandom in general, it tends to isolate its targets, pry them from their immediate context, appreciate them as delightful relics of past eccentric devotion. Fandom, in contrast, tends to swing back repeatedly to the source - at the very least, it maintains an umblical relationship with canon. Eccentric devotion in the present tense.

But Sontag's mention of Genet makes me think again about kitsch, about faux or unearned emotion. Ok, I haven't actually read Our Lady of the Flowers (internet, any clue as to which bit Sontag is on about here?), and Sontag's view that the 'Camp ideas in Our Lady of the Flowers are maintained too grimly, and the writing itself is too successfully elevated and serious, for Genet's books to be Camp' ties in with what I think camp is doing in the pieces of Genet I have read. But there's one bit of Genet which I wouldn't hesitate to characterise as kitsch (albeit with, uh, all the authority of rather fuzzy memory), much as it pains me to do so. This would be the soft focus sex-ish scenes in his 1950 film Un Chant d'Amour, which as I remember (and I may be getting it wrong here, mind you - I don't have a copy on hand to check) consist of pretty much literally bodies in space, twisting around rather vaguely. I remember the scenes as too insistent and sonorous to strike me as camp, especially. But they seemed to me to have a kind of basic hollowness, a flavour of simulacra, a sense of emotion replayed and overexposed, which pinged my (admittedly rather wonky) kitsch radar.

I suspect that the kind of thing this was meant to evoke was the soup-slow prison-time described by Genet in The Miracle of the Rose:

In the cell, gestures can be made with extreme slowness. You can stop in the middle of one. You are master of time and of your thinking. You are strong by dint of slowness. Each gesture is inflected in a flowing curve. You hesitate. You choose. That is what the luxury of cell time is composed of. But this slowness of gesture is a slowness that goes fast. It rushes. Eternity flows into the curve of a gesture. You possess your entire cell because you fill its space with your engrossed mind.

Genet, The Miracle of the Rose, trans Bernard Frechtmann (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965), pp. 149-50.

Which passage (occupying, it now seems to me, a middle ground between The Talking Heads' 'The Great Curve' and 'Once in a Lifetime'. A middle ground of cell-bound-wanking, that is) was apparently memorable enough for it to come to mind years after I read the book, and despite the fact that the book (which, heh, I just typed as 'he book') itself was something I found rather undigestible. But, anyway, this aesthetic, or the more overtly porny version of it, was rather tedious on film - a half hearted answer to the surreal, brittle, symbolism-larded-UST that makes up the rest of the film, as I remember, which nevertheless managed to snap the tension entirely.

It's these scenes, also, which were, I think, cut for release, even in the seventies. That they exist at all is a victory for the kind of civilisation I want for the world, the civilisation I imagine most people in this corner of the internet would want to see. But in artistic terms, they flop. It's a not-quite sex scene that doesn't work.

And I think it's because Genet, here, is extending sex the same kind of mealy-mouthed, soft focus indulgence that fic often does to emotional scenes and heart-string tugging. He wanted to get his film shown, I presume (I mean, 1950!). And, absolutely, it is disgusting that he had to prevaricate - because those scenes do strike me as an unfortunate combination of Genet's pull towards the lushly symbolic and the need to forestall censorship (ineffectually, as it turned out).

... Wait, sorry. This kind of leapfrogging is apparently a hazard of writing in a browser window. Meta, THE GAME OF TAG EDITION. I apologise if I've been sloppy in invoking Genet and the weight of twentieth-century gay history here. But, well, there's a reason why fandom's queerness seems so precious, even if it's rather frequently a queerness which uses male gayness rather than starting from it, as Un Chant d'Amour certainly does.

And that's part of the reason why, much as fic should be a playground, I'd like it to be a playground which was a bit more conscious of (OF MY NEEDS, I may, actually, be saying, I know) the risk of unintended kitschiness. Because I'm not sure mainstream literature, in general, has quite worked out how to write sex, yet. But it does know a great deal about how to do poignant emotion. (and about how to do elaborate world building, careful plots, fully realized characters - they just don't annoy me as much when done badly as schmoop does, can you tell?) So do we really need to extend schmoop or fluff or what have you the same level of courtesy, as readers, when it's done badly?

I mean, when it comes to porn, there's really a very simple barometer of success: does it turn you on? And fandom seems to have developed a baroque system of kinks and counter-kinks and kink warnings and so forth. Rule 34. But it also means that porn comes with a built in evaluation procedure (um, yeah...) which dilutes the need to switch your reviewing engines to full burn. Or, at least, gives evaluating it a different flavour. There's always that basic qualification: a safety net, of sorts. If you don't like it, well. You're just not that into it. But fandom, by dint of sheer volume and through the power of careful kink-calibration and niche-catering, seems to be evolving a way to write more and better porn (though I presume there's a massive amount of bad!porn out there - I've just been fairly punctilious in avoiding it).

There's no need for Genet's rather second hand evocation of sex on the interwebs, basically. IN FACT, RATHER THE OPPOSITE.

But is the same thing happening for fandom genres which are more likely to be catered to in the mainstream? Maybe. Fandom can certainly act as a master class on world building, for instance. But the fluffy stuff? I'm not so sure.

So, I guess I am being puritanical here, in a rather middle class way. Learning to write sex well, learning to write it matter-of-factly, playing around with it, messing up, getting schooled, seems more innovative, at the very least, than learning how to write schmoopy love fests. Those have been getting written for a while - though, it's worth noting, they're probably mostly a product of the eighteenth-century cult of sensibility and sentimentality - one era in which 'feminine' tastes massively reshaped what was expected and wanted out of mainstream fiction.

But that was a while ago, you know? So I think that the role of indulgence of this kind in fic really is worth considering. Both in terms of how fic is shaping itself, and how it coulda shoulda woulda impact mainstream fiction (not that this is any kind of glorious end-point for fic, of course). There are many wonderful scenarios in which writers learn from fic how to produce sex scenes that aren’t potential candidates for a Bad Sex Award, to be tricksy and metatextual in a very different way from the footnote school, so to speak, of modern novels (much as I love said school), to be bullish and unapologetic when it comes to, say, making their main character a queer non-neurotypical Québécoise with a penchant for crochet and a dragon in her cellar.

But a lot of fic is emotional comfort food. And this is really, really difficult to do well. Admittedly, fic could probably teach mainstream literature, let alone Hollywood, to do it better.

Or not.

It might result in more luscious trifles like The Time Traveller’s Wife, which invoke genre tropes only to use them as scaffolding for an average romance story. It’s not even a fear I feel very comfortable about having or voicing, because it’s clear that fic provides a lot of comfort food in flavours that just aren’t available elsewhere. And that’s something I certainly appreciate on a personal level, quite apart from its broader social implications.

And, after all, wish fulfilment may be the force which drives a lot of fic, but it seems ridiculously rarified to argue that this is a bad thing, per se. After all, people write fiction of any kind because they want it to get written. There’s always desire in there somewhere, even if it's just the desire to make the rent, though mainstream stuff is seldom as solicitous of the reader’s wishes as is fic.

Desire's naked visibility in fic makes it very different from mainstream literature, which tends to hedge and sublimate its most id-ish moments and in which critics often reward obliqueness – witness the Bad Sex Awards, which may be a fount of hilarity but which also strike me, seeing porn done well and done almost as a matter of course in fic, as one way in which the literary establishment polices itself, tells itself that sex is really a little off limits, old chap, and that anyone who tries to write it deserves a bit of ribbing.

But, talking of self-constraint, I wonder to what extent fic’s status as wish fulfilment acts as a drag on its quality. How much it means the reader is willing to handwave, how much it rewards adherence to a basic chicken-soup-for-the-id model and how much it serves to discourage innovation and even refinement.

And I guess domesticated, Vaseline-lensed, soft focus (often also soft core) versions of shippiness as peddled by The Time Traveller’s Wife got me thinking about this stuff because my own tolerance level for them is probably unusually low. But when I was first reading fic, I read this stuff. It wasn’t quite the wish-fulfilment recipe I wanted, and it tended to make me feel as though I’d swallowed several cake's worth of marzipan bridal couples, but I read it and, by virtue of page counts if nothing else, I asked for more.

So. I just hope fandom becomes a kitchen where writers can improve the recipe, not a production line for standard issue schmoop.

That fic, slowly, provisionally, works out a way to give readers what they want without feeding them pabulum.

 

Comments

[inkstone]

Oh, I read The Time Traveler's Wife. I hated it. I was like one of 5 people who did at the time and basically asserted: Well! I guess I must have a heart of stone then!

[attackfish]

It set off my creepy child grooming filters and I couldn't finish it. I reacted to it with almost as much distaste as I did to Twilight.

[fulselden]

... And I'd actually forgotten about the creepiness aspect. But, yep, believe you me, it is still present in the film.

And actually, I wonder if it is appealing to some of the same fulfilment-receptors as Twilight: the girl who is picked out by a mystery man who just can't keep away from her. But here, space-time itself validates their luurve!

[fulselden]

Heh. Ok, I feel totally validated in my suspicions about it: thank you! And, yeah, it was big news at the time, wasn't it? And yet the film, at least, certainly struck me as meretricious garbage.

I mean, it took this premise which has such potential for an investigation of destiny or a careful meditation on the role of detachment in our atomised modern life or whatever and ... used it to propel a boring love story to its preordained end. And it did so really smugly. Yep, I still have rage!

[softestbullet]

Yeah, it's -- bad. And the writing is nothing special, either.

[fulselden]

... yep, that doesn't surprise me in the slightest!

[illuminating_dragon]

I understand the need to write fulfilment fic but what I don't understand, after six years in a fandom that lives for fluffy schmoop (and does everything it can to foster the production line), is how readers can stomach endless quantities of it. Is it that most people's idea of fulfilment in 'real life' is to be drowned in a vast sea of schmoop?


Your post requires a more complex response but if I don't leave my desk right now my back will never forgive me.

[fulselden]

Exactly. I mean, sometimes it seems as if schmoop is the default for genfic - and yet it's actually really tricky to do well without being cloying.

Admittedly, Avatar fandom mostly produces vast quantities of angst-ridden shippy stuff, which I don't mind either when done properly (I say grudgingly), but it makes everything else all the more precious. And yet, so much of that is fluff.

And I suppose schmoop does peddle a kind of billboard-ready version of life: I guess when people try and provide their characters (or imagine themselves) with nice things, they come up against pop culture's rather bland ideas about what constitutes a happy ending?


(Also, can you tell I like your icons? Keaton up there is meant to be casting an eye over Genet, though - not schmoop!)

[cofax7]

I mean, sometimes it seems as if schmoop is the default for genfic - and yet it's actually really tricky to do well without being cloying.


I think shmoop is the default for basically everything, or, well, no, but it's common across the board. I find it most frequently in shippy fic (het or slash), but also in gen fic where the focus is on characters rather than plot. It's known as "smarm" in some (older) circles, where the male leads are tightly bonded but the writer chooses not to make a sexual relationship explicit, and yet they have a Profound Emotional Connection (which results in a strange defiance of expectations for someone familiar with more modern slash conventions, let me tell you). You see a lot of smarm in fandoms like The Sentinel and Starsky and Hutch; much less in contemporary fandoms, where fans skip over that and go right to the buttsex.

they come up against pop culture's rather bland ideas about what constitutes a happy ending?

Commonly referred to as "curtain-fic" in many circles. As in, the characters (m/m, or m/f, rarely f/f) end up shopping for curtains together as an example of their domestic bliss.

::sigh::

I do not have the wherewithal to give your entire essay the attention it deserves (or, frankly, the background), but I see shmoop as the inevitable result of fans providing what the source text won't.

... or at least I used to. Before Supernatural, where the show is just as likely to show the leads emoting all over the place and throwing themselves into self-destructive spirals of angst-ridden emotion because of their explicit emotional bond. It was one of the reasons I liked the show for a while, that the writers were willing to put on screen the kind of emotional content most show-runners left to the fans.

Perhaps it has more to do with what we are socialized to expect in our literature: the happy ending almost always involves explicit expression of emotion, even if not romantic. God knows I've done that in some of my fic...

[fulselden]

It's known as "smarm" in some (older) circles

Wow, what an evocative word - though I'd have problems prising it away from 'smarmy', I think. And I had no idea that slash went through a UST stage, so to speak, though I suppose it does make a lot of sense: how fascinating. I must admit, of all the varied Things Fandom Does, slashing seems a really obvious candidate for a full-on historical treatment. Just so intriguing - and from what I know of Starsky and Hutch (which, uh, I owe entirely to cultural osmosis, mind you), smarm was pretty much their canon condition in the first place.

And ditto on 'curtain fic'! These are excellent phrases, why have they dropped out of the fannish lexicon?! Though, yes, the actual scenario sounds like a recipe for extreme tedium. Also, an affront to anyone who has ever actually shopped for curtains! The kind of activity which is invariably harrowing and fraught with relationship peril, in my experience.

I see shmoop as the inevitable result of fans providing what the source text won't. ... or at least I used to.

Interesting - and hmm, perhaps I need to rethink what I was discussing with pennieblack just now, which did involve pinging schmoop as part of fic's general canon-rescuing. But if Supernatural provides heavy-duty emoting in canon (not to mention a generous measure of brotherly smarm, as far as I know), and yet fans go ahead and churn it out anyway, I guess that there probably is some kind of Hollywood-happy-ending template at work, as you say.

Not that closing off a story with explicit emotion of some kind seems exactly unreasonable! In fact, it occurs to me that one of the hallmarks of srs bznz literature is that it often denies the reader this variety of release, instead opting for something poignant and unresolved. Which is frequently just a way of ducking any number of issues, I think.

But anyway! Thank you for expanding my vocabulary - and, also, for the nod to Supernatural: I had no idea it was innovative in terms of on-screen schmoop. Which of course must have been immensely refreshing ... for a while.

[cofax7]

And I had no idea that slash went through a UST stage, so to speak, though I suppose it does make a lot of sense: how fascinating

Hmm. I ... wouldn't put it like that, I suspect. If you go back to the "origin" of slash in ST:TOS, I don't think there was a prolonged period of smarm before the actual sex arrived in the fandom. But some of the older fandoms do seem to have, running alongside the slash, a thread of nonsexual emotional bonds that read a great deal like unfulfilled sexual tension. So that some writers (and readers) wanted the emotional relationship examined, but weren't interested in the relationship developing a sexual/romantic element.

These days you see (in the circles I run in) much much less of that: the m/m relationships are either tight-but-platonic, or sexual. There's very little in that penumbral area. And I have to think that it has to do with the increasing acceptance, on a societal level, of homosexual relationships. ETA: or at least within fandom, because I think the power of fannish conventions is Very Strong.

But if Supernatural provides heavy-duty emoting in canon (not to mention a generous measure of brotherly smarm, as far as I know), and yet fans go ahead and churn it out anyway, I guess that there probably is some kind of Hollywood-happy-ending template at work, as you say

Of course, what the show provides is (generally) platonic brotherly love, not buttsex, so the fandom still far outpaces the canon in its development of explicit emotional/romantic/sexual relationships. I does however occur to me to wonder if the show brought this upon itself: they wrote this close emotional bond between two brothers, thus leaving the fanwriters only one direction to go, which was incest. If the two had been unrelated, the fanwriters would still have slashed them, but the result would have been less transgressive.

[fulselden]

So that some writers (and readers) wanted the emotional relationship examined, but weren't interested in the relationship developing a sexual/romantic element.

Ah, right - and now that I think about it, of course even I know that people were getting Kirk and Spock between the covers pretty much from the get-go. But the in-between zone you describe is even more interesting than UST, I think - not least because, as you say, societal or at the least fannish acceptance of homosexuality is probably the determining factor in its fading.

Which is obviously something to be celebrated on a societal level - but, still, that penumbral area in m/m relationships seems deeply familiar to me from real life: I suspect it describes the tenor of a whole lot of male friendships from, say, the days when (to generalise hugely) a man had male friends and female family and acquaintances. And of course a lot of modern contexts also spring to mind - keeping it vaguely fannish, football and similar (most...) professional sports, for instance. And of course the present-day definition of 'platonic' is much more niggardly for men than it is for women - I'm often surprised at the open physical affection men show towards each other in old photos, for example. So, all in all, it seems a pity that fandom tends to neglect grey areas in favour of more buttsex - but hardly surprising, I guess.

And talking of Supernatural: yes, it does seem that the only way for fans to go was inwards, really, in terms of slashing. Which, it occurs to me, is interesting in terms of the show's status as (unless I'm completely wrong about the nature of the beast) a piece of American gothic. In that gothic often deals in curdled, enclosed, incestuous familial relationships, Fall of the House of Usher style, and while as far as I know Supernatural sets out to subvert a couple of classic gothic tropes - in that it's about two guys and a car instead of, say, a girl and a castle - it nevertheless invokes the possibility of incest like nobody's business. Which, hm, may be completely off target as I've never watched it, but still, interesting.

Also: heh! That icon: trufax!

[quinara]

But, talking of self-constraint, I wonder to what extent fic’s status as wish fulfilment acts as a drag on its quality. How much it means the reader is willing to handwave, how much it rewards adherence to a basic chicken-soup-for-the-id model and how much it serves to discourage innovation and even refinement.

Hmm, I'm not sure. I feel like, in the end, fic and the internet is pretty much an infinite space - there is room for all things; all it needs is for people to write them. Certainly a lot of the wish-fulfilment stuff isn't to my taste (apart from when it is), but if people like to write that and people like to read it, then I can't really see the harm. Greatness (in the literary sense) is still coming out of fandom at the same time as the schmoop and even though there is less of it, I don't think the schmoop is stealing its spot.

The 'problem', I suppose, is that ~badfic (in the sense of cheap plots and cheap emotion) is a lot quicker and easier to write, because it basically involves sitting at the keyboard with a narrative we all know well and writing it with our favourite characters. Being innovative and counter to the standard chicken soup recipe takes more time between consuming canon and getting your hands to keys and I'm not sure that's always what people want (as writers). So, with both of those things in mind, I'm not really surprised that there is so much schmoop in fandom and comparatively less stuff that diverges from the model. With easily constructed works we might see 90% or more of the time spent on them exhibited on the internet - with the really divergent and thinky stuff, I wouldn't be surprised no matter how far the percentage goes down, so, with perhaps fewer people interested in producing it anyway, it's hard to expect the representation to be high.

That fic, slowly, provisionally, works out a way to give readers what they want without feeding them pabulum.

When I read this, you see, I can't help but wonder whether you don't mean that fic might work out a way to give, well, you what you want - because I think a lot of people out there are finding what they're looking for, even if they would admit that the quality isn't high. Fic, after all, serves a variety of functions for people, not just the literary - a way to relax, a way to socialise etc. - so sometimes I think the act of communication/descent into sugary pleasure becomes more important than the quality of story on the screen.

I definitely sympathise with the desire for more, because I agree that fandom is a space where magnificent works of art could be created, and have been - but then I also think that fandom is full of people who have neither the time nor really the desire to construct them. Since hobbyauthors (if that isn't an awful pejorative), in it for the equivalent of social tennis, don't generally get a space in the literary world, I don't see any problem with fandom welcoming them with open arms.

[fulselden]

I feel like, in the end, fic and the internet is pretty much an infinite space - there is room for all things; all it needs is for people to write them

That is an excellent point - I'm definitely in danger of forgetting that it really isn't a zero-sum game. And I really am being very churlish in the post (vide the title!) in demanding that people stop tossing marshmallows about and start tossing me a bone. I mean, I love the idea of fandom as a social space where fics are one of the media and not necessarily the message - I mean, that's certainly a big reason why I write fic (the other being that since there isn't enough of the stuff I want around, I had to start making my own). I really appreciate giving myself permission to essentially type and post when it comes to the stuff I put up here - which means that it's often chronically undigested and whenever I read back through a fic I usually blanch and stealth edit like woah. That 90% figure sounds pretty on the money, as far as I'm concerned, at least thus far. It's not that I don't want to provide quality - it's that I'm aiming for the provisional, to some extent. I like the present-tense quality of fandom! I'm a hobbyauthor! Much as I appreciate and support AO3 in theory, and try to put stuff up there, in practice I'm certainly not trying, myself, for archival quality.

... Aaaand, hm, apparently you hit me where I live. Witness me attempt to yoink myself out of the hypocrisy zone!

But seriously, that being said, fandom is a literary space as well as a social one, and as such it does play by literary rules, as well (though they're evidently, and interestingly, hard to tease out from the social ones) - in that obviously it evolves tropes and genres and, as you say, cookie-cutter forms. But, I don't know, it seems to me that the more likely those forms are to be largely catered for in fic, the more the online world has had to work to codify them all on its lonesome ... the easier it is to find quality stuff? And while with some things (eg genderswap) that might be a matter of relative volume, that certainly isn't the case with porn!

I'm not sure how much of this is an artefact of my reading a lot of vaguely crappy genfic when I was really just flailing around looking for stuff, and only looking for the things which interest me mostly on a 'how do they do that' level when I had a bit more idea of how to find the good stuff. A lot, probably?

But it seems to me that when fic hews too closely to the patterns carved out by Hollywood stuff like The Time Traveller's Wife, that's when it becomes laziest. I may be talking rubbish here, but it does seem to make sense that when people have a ready-made flavour that they can get from Hollywood, rather than having to cook it up in an internet basement (not that there isn't published porn, of course, for instance - but the fandom version seems surprisingly distinct) they tend to be even more on autopilot, to put it crudely.

I mean, despite what I say above, it's fairly seldom that internet porn does work for me, as porn (and, um, apologies if this is TMI and a half!): I'm too conscious of the closeness of the writer, too intrigued by whether it's pulling stuff off on an artistic level. And my sampling is definitely skewed by the fact that while I'll have finished reading a short piece of average fluff before I can muster up the resolve to click away, bad or squicky porn is one thing that will have me hitting the back button like that. But I've still been surprised (in perhaps a very puritanical way!) by how much porn is actually good! And likewise with other rather fandom-specific genres - crossovers, actually, spring to mind as something that I have an instinctive nervousness about but have seen done well.

It's something I might be making up out of whole cloth, I think - but I guess that at the least it's interesting as a first impression?

But, yes, I really don't want to be a killjoy who's all snide (well, more snide) about people who only write chicken soup and marshmallows, so thanks for giving me an opportunity to backpedal!

[quinara]

But seriously, that being said, fandom is a literary space as well as a social one, and as such it does play by literary rules, as well (though they're evidently, and interestingly, hard to tease out from the social ones) - in that obviously it evolves tropes and genres and, as you say, cookie-cutter forms. But, I don't know, it seems to me that the more likely those forms are to be largely catered for in fic, the more the online world has had to work to codify them all on its lonesome ... the easier it is to find quality stuff? [...] But it seems to me that when fic hews too closely to the patterns carved out by Hollywood stuff like The Time Traveller's Wife, that's when it becomes laziest. I may be talking rubbish here, but it does seem to make sense that when people have a ready-made flavour that they can get from Hollywood, rather than having to cook it up in an internet basement (not that there isn't published porn, of course, for instance - but the fandom version seems surprisingly distinct) they tend to be even more on autopilot, to put it crudely.

Oh yes, totally agreed that it's a literary space as well (after all, social tennis players still appreciate tennis!) - I suppose what I might have been crudely heading towards is that I'm not sure the correlation signifies causation, at least to the extent you seem to be suggesting? In the sense that it's not Hollywood narratives inducing a sense of laziness, but that people who want the sort of thing Hollywood narratives talk about (or don't have the inclination to write outside of a narrative they know) tend towards and group around the Hollywood narratives. So, in quite harsh terms, it's not that fandom becomes literarily lazy when Hollywood patterns turn up, it's that literarily uninterested(?) fandom finds the Hollywood patterns and pumps them out.

Porn, I tend to think, can be explained somewhat by what you mentioned in your original post - ie. a lot of published authors could write good porn, but there is a definite sense that 'good girls authors don't'. As for crossovers... I've sort of seen them done well, but I've seen them done badly so many times that I'm not sure I'd make them out as generically 'better' than, say, schmoop.

It's something I might be making up out of whole cloth, I think - but I guess that at the least it's interesting as a first impression?

Yes to this as well - it's definitely very interesting and a pleasure to read your thoughts! I'm not sure it's an impression I share, I suppose, which is why I'm being hesitant in my agreement. But it's fun to ponder! :D

[fulselden]

So, in quite harsh terms, it's not that fandom becomes literarily lazy when Hollywood patterns turn up, it's that literarily uninterested(?) fandom finds the Hollywood patterns and pumps them out.

Heh. Yep, putting it that way round makes much more sense! I think I'm tending to segregate and romanticise fic a bit (or, well, more than a bit) here - because it's all shiny and new to me and so I want it to be all super special and distinct and full of omg serious literary significance. Which obviously neither of us would want to deny is sometimes the case - but, yep, I'm absolutely glossing over the way that schmoopy fic and Hollywood sappiness are really pressing a nearly identical array of narrative buttons for most people: it's not some mysterious case of convergent evolution!

And, well, re crossovers - to be honest I was mostly surprised to find any readable ones at all! So, on second thoughts, I'd tend to agree with you - a case of low expectations throwing my readings off, I think.

I'm not sure it's an impression I share, I suppose, which is why I'm being hesitant in my agreement.

Yep, I'm not sure I agree with me! But, as you say, fun to ponder.

...And just incidentally, I'm intrigued by your mentions of fic as pastime and internet-mediated storytime in general. More to think about.

[quinara]

I want it to be all super special and distinct and full of omg serious literary significance.

Well, there's nothing wrong with that! It definitely balances out all the negative portrayals you see in other places. :D

...And just incidentally, I'm intrigued by your mentions of fic as pastime and internet-mediated storytime in general. More to think about.

Heh, I should take a leaf out of your book and meta, shouldn't I? (Alas, I get terribly self-conscious meta-ing - I can't do it without constructing a proper pseudo-essay and then I feel terribly pompous. Maybe I should try?) I have this whole thing as part of my IS SERIAL TV EPIC OF THE MODERN AGE?? general ponderance, where I see media fandom as kind of the social space around these universally shared narratives and characters. So on the one hand you have these epics that you know, in, let's say, 5th century Athens, because that's an easy and well-documented example, which get performed in a public context but are understood to have been 'written' in the past. Yet, at the same time, these epic narratives form the building blocks for the narratives you use in a number of other contexts - say at a symposium (ie. your citizen men's drinking+story+mildly orgiastic(?) party), or in the plays you're using in community ritual, or decoratively on pottery. It's not the be all and end all, and maybe 'myth' is a better category for what TV (etc.) becomes for media fandom (and I think there's an article/book about TV as myth that I read ages ago and need to read again), but I definitely tend to find myself thinking about fandom as a para-literary experience in that it is about literature, but it is more than simply more literature, or visual art, or whatever. It's about (dare I breathe the internet's favourite buzzword) communication with a shared story as the medium for that communication.

[fulselden]

It definitely balances out all the negative portrayals you see in other places.

Weeeell, except I feel that if fandom teaches one anything, it is the dangers of overinvestment (I say darkly).

AND DUDE YOU SHOULD TOTALLY META! Seriously, I would read meta by you like a shot. Though I take your point about the temptation to turn out an essay – well, though obviously I am in NO DANGER of doing any such thing in my meta, but then fandom is not a place where I feel an obligation to try and rein in my (pretty epic at the best of times) tendency to ramble and/or pinball around from word to word without actually making an argument. Seriously, how did I get to Genet up there??? A MYSTERY FOR THE AGES. I figure that as long as there’s something entertaining and/or thought provoking somewhere in there, and I try and make the most of any comments, I’ve fulfilled my obligation to whoever reads it. Hence all the CAPSLOCK and lolcats-talk: it’s the kind of thing I actually have limited patience with! But somehow it really helps me snap into a kind of DW space – and I think I’m sorta getting the hang of it.

BUT ENOUGH ABOUT ME. I think that given your mapping of epic onto serial TV, and fandom onto symposium-theatre-ritual-pottery-etc redactions of epic, it would probably be interesting for you to see the symposium (well, closer to the modern usage!) side of things from the host’s, um, couch, I guess? And I suspect the classical world – and probably fifth-century Athens especially – is a good place to think about stories circling out and round in this way not only because a fandom model is sometimes just hilariously applicable (Euripides’ Helen: redemption fic?!) but also because there’s a kind of hearty casualness about using and abusing these central stories, even if it’s a bad idea to burden your tragic heroines with too many little bottles of oil, so to speak. There’s a flexibility when it comes to tessellating culturally-significant narratives and using them for flirting or polemic or vase painting or whatever which seems very ficcish.

Though of course the definition of ‘culturally-significant’ is problematic when you’re thinking about TV, I guess, especially modern TV and even more especially genre TV? I mean, I can see soap operas in seventies Britain as having a kind of cultural saturation – or, oooh, I know! The Indian TV version of the Ramayana and Mahabharata! Now those are very literal versions of what you’re thinking about and also vastly successful, as I’m sure you know. Though possibly a bit beyond your remit?

It just seems to me that perhaps the internet and eleventy-billion different TV channels, not to mention the way different media bleed into each other nowadays, is fragmenting audiences faster than fandom, and the internet in general, can pull them together again? I mean, fandom is by definition invested – it’s a very different atmosphere from the kind of engagement which produces water-cooler chat. Closer to fairytale, maaaybe, in its tellings and retellings in a fairly enclosed, almost domestic, atmosphere, than epic or myth, with their expectations of cultural saturation and potential for public bombast, not to mention religious significance?

And of course, thinking of stories that manage to make it past the saturation point, it’s so vitally important (skipping back to my VERY VAGUE knowledge of fifth century Athens) that so much gets squeezed through Homer and other ‘canonical’ authors – there’s this basic need to have some central text – or, one might say, in Greek, BOOK, to riff off.

Which is really interesting in terms of how the internet deals with narratives, I think – it’s so, so easy to lose track of sources, to look along a row of tags as you have some quote hanging from the right-click of your mouse and just boggle because you’re going to have to go through half of them to find where you c&p-ed it (not that this has happened to me recently, or anything). And I wonder if this bagginess has an impact on how people cling to canon, or indeed otherwise.

I guess it would be interesting to look at fandoms for internet-specific stuff (as well as pre-internet fandom, of course): not that there’s much to look at, I think, apart from some popular webcomics and perhaps Dr Horrible? But, I mean, I can imagine the latter having a much larger fandom presence (um, not that I’ve seen it – and I may well be wrong about the fandom as well) if it had been shown on TV and not popped up as an internet artefact. Which is unlikely to be entirely a matter of numbers, because I imagine fandom-y people are very likely to have known about it and watched it online. I just wonder what it is about a series that precipitates fannishness, and how closely it can be mapped onto what it is that makes a TV series play some kind of epic-ish role. What it is, to (belatedly!) pick up your point about communication and to go all Lévi-Strauss for a moment, that makes a series good to talk with, as well as to think with.


Also, Spike should be back to you by the end of the week – I’m so sorry, he got buried by boxes!

[pennieblack]

I tend to wander in and out of appreciating schmoop. On my best days (which are more common), I like snarky-schmoop*. Seemingly brusque, laid-back approach to sex, characters familiar with each other but not overwhelmed by each other... but still ultimately a mostly-plotless exploration of 'characters as couple' with a happy ending. Or, rather, with no real angst at all.

*And by 'like' I mean 'live for'. Please, world, never stop providing hilarious descriptions of love. There's nothing as satisfying as happy bitching.

On my worst days (which are less common), I back-click without reading. I'm in fandom for character development -- and how far can you push a character's depth without some sort of tension*? Or when you're constantly dropping the tension for a microcosm of 'just the two three/four of us' insulated against the rest of the story?

*A more than 'I'm not with my lover right now' tension.

But, let's hop back into some connection to your actual post:

So. I just hope fandom becomes a kitchen where writers can improve the recipe, not a production line for standard issue schmoop.

This is sort of tough. Because, in tons of ways, fandom really has changed over the last, say, ten years. We have more higher-level thinking and criticism being shared and expanded upon. We have all sorts of in-fandom tropes which, oddly, lend themselves to better-written and more elaborate plotty stories (because, like with fanfiction itself, there's something about working within an accepted framework that allows the author to make the rest of the details shine. Or allows them to be half-assed -- but I prefer the first option.)

But we still have schmoop. Production line schmoop, even. An entire manufacturing company's worth. And I can't see that ever changing because, you're right, it is wish-fulfillment.

Schmoop is all the one-liners, the tucked-away scenes, the revelations, and the epilogues of plottier stories -- stuck into a blender and then poured into an easy-to-digest, low-engagement form. It's like an instant hit of the moments that make the space behind your breastbone ache and flutter during a more complicated fic.

And, well, humanity at large is a pretty big consumer of instant hits. Kind of like why Easy Mac exists -- you don't get the same intensity as real macaroni and cheese, but you get something close, and you get it quickly.

How much it means the reader is willing to handwave, how much it rewards adherence to a basic chicken-soup-for-the-id model and how much it serves to discourage innovation and even refinement.

Going back to the middle of this comment: schmoop exists, but critical-thinking and meta posts and crazy-intricate world building still exist, too.

Or, working with food: Easy Mac is popular, but we haven't forgotten how to make stove-top macaroni and cheese.

The average person in fandom might be different from the average person in greater society, but we're still part of society. Complicated things take time. Tailored, well planned things take time. People in general like quick n' easy -- we're impatient.

But fandom being what it is, it lends itself well to complexity and depth. If you're fascinated enough by canon to want to do more with it, you're likely to (at least occasionally) be nit-picky and harsh and gritty. So schmoop will never be everything -- even though it feels like it sometimes.


Random notes:

1_| Going off track, you mentioned FFnet: fanfiction.net as an archive is very low-engagement. It's automated, it's massive, it's wide-open and easy to get lost in. So you're probably going to see a larger schmoop-to-not-schmoop ratio there than you would, say, an enclosed LJ community. Which isn't to say that an LJ community won't be covered in fluff.

2_| There are other low-engagement subgenres, too -- the stories that read like an outline because the authors know their plot but are too hurried to, well, write it out. Or the stories which are non-stop action sequences. Stories where none of the characters seem to like each other. Etc. The authors pick one track and go with it, because darnit that's what they're focused on. Even if a critical reader might go 'but other facets of the human condition might help flesh things out, yo?'

3_| It's four o' clock in the morning, so this entire comment is probably rambling and disjointed. Also, probably repeated your points back to you while at the same time ignoring half your points. I'm sorry. ):

[fulselden]

First of all:

It's four o' clock in the morning, so this entire comment is probably rambling and disjointed. Also, probably repeated your points back to you while at the same time ignoring half your points.

Are you kidding! That was an awesome comment, thank you! Not at all disjointed and only rambling in the most engaging of ways. And since my original post was pretty much stream-o-consciousness, you get shiny rows of golden bells (or, um, whatever jackpot-machines throw up that means good stuff) for picking out any of my points in the first place.

[I]n tons of ways, fandom really has changed over the last, say, ten years. We have more higher-level thinking and criticism being shared and expanded upon. We have all sorts of in-fandom tropes which, oddly, lend themselves to better-written and more elaborate plotty stories (because, like with fanfiction itself, there's something about working within an accepted framework that allows the author to make the rest of the details shine. Or allows them to be half-assed -- but I prefer the first option.)

Quoted, as they say, FTW. Because although I feel as though my positioning myself as a lol!newbie is getting a bit old now that I've been wandering around fandom-proper for a couple of months, this is still fascinating stuff that I'm only hazily aware of. Someone needs to write a history of fandom! Wait, someone has, haven't they? Or, I'm sure, at least of a fandom. I should go check.

And what you say about fandom tropes as providing nodes or what have you for more elaborate stories to curlicue out from is an excellent point and clarifies a couple of the more sprawling stories I've come across. As also your mention of other low-engagement subgenres: I definitely recognise the [s]tories where none of the characters seem to like each other.

And of course the idea that fandom does tend towards complexity and depth at the same time as popping out instant hits is very true and also heartening.

It's like an instant hit of the moments that make the space behind your breastbone ache and flutter during a more complicated fic.

Also FTW, but, as well, because it makes me wonder if my framing of schmoop as Hollywood-brand-familiar wasn't a bit hasty. Because of course mainstream fiction in whatever medium doesn't usually provide this kind of unadulterated Big Mac gratification - it has to pad it out or dress it up or whatever. I guess the closest parallel I can think of is the pop song? Which of course is a product of the democratisation of creativity and very tightly codified use of tropes and genres in ways which are really quite ficcish in flavour. Not that I want to say that pop music - or indeed fic in general - is just junk food!

But I wonder if part of my reaction is a recoil away from a familiar flavour served up in unfamiliar, concentrated, form? Uncanny schmoop!

Though, ahem, see my above comment for my distinctly microwave-ready (though by no means effortless or unengaged, I hasten to say) approach to my own fic - I definitely have no room to moan about chicken-soup-marshmallow-Big-Macs.

And, wow, I feel as though both you and quinara have been immensely patient about my whining about the internet's failure to cater to my exacting specifications! Especially when journeying through FFNet, which as you say is pretty trackless. I do absolutely take your point that schmoop isn't the be all and end all, even if sometimes, wandering through fandom, all the low-hanging fruit seems to be, um, marshmallows? Or perhaps Big Macs? I don't see how chicken soup works here, though. Perhaps in buckets?

Whoa, sorry! And it's the right end of the AM here, so I have no excuse. But thanks again - that was just a generally delightful comment and very illuminating. Also, patient!

ETA: And I just realised I elided 'Easy Mac' (which I don't think we have over here, in my defence) with 'Big Mac'. Thus making my junk food concatenation even more disgusting than it already was. Sorry!

[pennieblack]

And since my original post was pretty much stream-o-consciousness

The best posts are!

Because although I feel as though my positioning myself as a lol!newbie is getting a bit old now that I've been wandering around fandom-proper for a couple of months, this is still fascinating stuff that I'm only hazily aware of.

Pfft, it never gets old. I've read posts by people who have been in fandom since Spock and Kirk who are baffled by/fascinated with/glorying in some new so-and-so they discovered. On a personal note, I wish I had at all been into journaling when I first entered fandom. I was ten and probably would have said some hilarious (and most likely offensive) stuff.

[I]t makes me wonder if my framing of schmoop as Hollywood-brand-familiar wasn't a bit hasty. // But I wonder if part of my reaction is a recoil away from a familiar flavour served up in unfamiliar, concentrated, form? Uncanny schmoop!

Movies package things the way they do because it a appeals to an audience, regardless of all sorts of social implications behind that appeal. So I can definitely sympathize with that second line -- a lot of what's in fandoms quick-fixes is familiar. I mean, a lot of what we write is what we see/want/experience ourselves. No queer characters exist? We write'em. Character reacts a certain way? We explain why. And for wish-fulfillment.. the media tell us a lot that this is what makes you happy, that this calm ending with these domestic actions are what define completion.

Going back to the personal, I sometimes have issues reading sugar-sweet fic because I spend the entire time thinking, "This doesn't feel right. Why does this matter? This wouldn't be happy," because I need the struggle to arrive to make the ending worth something.

Then again, I know a lot of people who love schmoop because they don't want to deal with strife in their relaxation time.

And no Easy Mac where you live? You poor soul! It's a 'don't feel like cooking' necessity.

[fulselden]

[I]it never gets old

I guess this could really stand as a motto for the entire internet. And, heh, I'm pretty sure I'm bound to say some hilarious and/or offensive things pretty soon, if I haven't already! Fandom can be pretty heady stuff...

And, while I was going for the idea that it's Hollywood-flavour in concentrated doses which is a bit homely-unhomely when come across unawares, your take on it actually works just as well - fic is very often just a matter of importing the everyday into fiction. And being slapdash and frivolous about it as well, which is often refreshing in its own right - I mean, plenty of published authors still get a bit po-faced when they gear up to tackle some under-represented group or to bear witness to some social wrong. But fic isn't earnest and hectoring nearly as often, for obvious (relaxation-related) reasons - though of course the corollary is that it's frequently less reflective about what it's doing. Fic really does just normalise the everyday, which is a sad reflection on canon tendencies.

I sometimes have issues reading sugar-sweet fic because I spend the entire time thinking, "This doesn't feel right. Why does this matter? This wouldn't be happy," because I need the struggle to arrive to make the ending worth something.

Yep, I think its the unearnedness of a lot of schmoop which tends to get me, too. Though, well, sometimes I am definitely in need of a pinch of fluff and very grateful to get it.

And I guess the tendency of fics, at least in a journaling context, to be pretty literally pinch-sized - the drabble, the ficlet, etc - is interesting in and of itself.

And, heh, my 'don't feel like cooking' standby is toast! Or noodles! Something that approximates a for-real meal sounds far too civilised for such occasions...

[cofax7]

I like your comment, and agree with much of it, although I might challenge Note #2: non-stop action sequences are really damned hard to write well, and that's actually one of the reasons they're not that common. And a well-done action sequence actually can get a lot of reader engagement, because they're suspenseful and exciting.

I guess my question is whether your definition of low-engagement is based on the engagement of the reader or the writer? Because god knows I've occasionally had the strongest response from readers for stories that were basically throw-away pieces of business for me.

Easy Mac is popular, but we haven't forgotten how to make stove-top macaroni and cheese

And now I know what I'm making for dinner, I think. (Home-made mac & cheese with fresh vegetables.)

[pennieblack]

Definitely! Definitely not that common -- fight sequences lend themselves a lot better to visual mediums. Like, I totally see more (high- and low-engagement) fight scenes in comics than I ever do in written fandom.

And mmm -- I don't know if I could comment on the focus of the writer (level of experience, writing habits, enthusiasm, etc. are pretty variable) so I'm probably commenting on the engagement of the reader. Sort of.. how many things are you keeping track of at once? With schmoop you're lightly staying in contact with canon/fanon while enjoying a low-plot, positive interaction between characters. The 'reads like an outline' pieces are skipping over emotional engagement. Action sequences~

Well-written action sequences are a treasure, I definitely agree with you. They're hard to pull off, but really interesting. High-engagement for the reader would be following the action, knowing what it means for the plot, understanding why the characters are doing what they're doing/feeling some sense of personality with how they react, etc.

Low-engagement action sequences come off as pretty mechanical. Like-- the people involved could be anyone. Maybe the moves themselves or the setting are fandom-specific but there's nothing else there.

And that sounds so amazingly good. My roommate and I have been living off ramen and hotdogs the last... week?.. so fresh vegetables and cheesy pasta~~ I'm totally drooling.

(Aaaand I just mis-posted this by accident. Sorry, fulselden!)

[cofax7]

fresh vegetables and cheesy pasta~~ I'm totally drooling.

The key is to start with an onion: sautee it and use that with the butter for the white sauce. Oh, and I usually add some white wine, too. And then when it's all ready to put together I add fresh broccoli and mushrooms before I put it all together in the casserole dish for baking.

... damn, I really am hungry now.

[fulselden]

Wow, highly delicious!

*has just squandered vast load of field-picked mushrooms in an only moderately successful rice-mushroom-odds-and-ends-thing*

[my_daroga]

Hi there! I hope you don't mind my dropping in. This is fascinating and there's a LOT here so I will just say a few words with no real structure behind them. Beyond, you know, basic sentence construction, one hopes.

First, I don't know what prompted this on a fic level, and I'm not sure I read a lot of schmoop fic (though sometimes it's had to find Kirk/Spock that isn't on some level, which is astounding) because angst and porn satisfy me beyond the requirements of good writing in a way schmoop doesn't. So I'm with you there.

As for The Time Traveler's Wife, you're absolutely right. lettered and I watched it some months ago, and hated it. What was especially offensive to me, I think, was how badly I want SF/fantasy tropes paired with romance, and how badly this is accomplished in mainstream film. It's why I watched Penelope, too. The id-part of me wants to enjoy shippystuff that has that edge of oddity or even dirtybadwrongness (which is why the creepy child grooming thing didn't bother me so much as the not-addressing it did) and that's why I read TTW as well and why I made it through despite it not being good. I was so desperate for that plotline, that story, that relationship, that the fact it was inhabited by total ciphers was not forgivable but didn't deter me, either.

I am not entirely sure why this is, unless it's my desire for camp/crack/what have you. But what Time Traveler's Wife does is take a scenario I find very interesting and people it with lovers whose only personality trait is that they are in this horrible relationship. Going outside the current topic, I see this in a majority of modern films, especially "genre" films, where the heroes and heroines are as bland as possible in order to (I think) provoke audience identification. Erroneously, of course, as so many of us go to novels and films to relate to people who aren't ourselves or our family members and friends. The trap is that the lovers here are so very uninteresting that it makes their affair totally uninteresting which makes their problem as dull as they are when OH HEY GUY KEEPS DROPPING INTO GIRL'S LIFE AT RANDOM TIMES OUT OF SEQUENCE should be crack.

I may write that Kirk/Spock time travel fic after all.

Anyway, I don't know what my point is, other than you're cool and I am going to be reading you more.

[fulselden]

I'm glad you enjoyed this. And, heh, there may be a LOT here, but I'm not sure all of it's doing a lot, if you see what I mean...

And actually I'm not quite sure what prompted this, fic-wise, specifically. Or, well, there's one long-running story I read and enjoy but which often fills me with a kind of 'too much of a good thing' queasiness, so that was one precipitating factor.

And talking of the Time Traveller's Wife in schmoopy terms, the awful thing was that the friend who took me to see it was in dire need of lush schmoopiness at the time and so got completely swept up in the film. Which is obviously fine - but surely people deserve better stuff than TTW to give themselves over to? Plus, it meant I couldn't snark about it with her, so I have to do it belatedly on the internet!

But, yes, I too long to see SF tropes - or any genre tropes, really - effectively paired with romance. One of my very favourite rom-coms is Grosse Pointe Blank, which (if you haven't met it) is an-assassin-thriller-high-school-reunion-romance-tragi-comedy and which knits it all together fabulously and also has Alan Arkin as a put-upon psychologist. Good times, and pretty Hollywood friendly. So it can be done! It just hardly ever is.

And really TTW was itself a cipher, let alone the characters - just this empty vessel for wish-fulfillment which was nevertheless really ponderous and solemn, especially when it came to the random SF accoutrements. Which as you say should be complete crack! I mean, Grosse Pointe Blank works so well because it knows just how crack-filled it is, I think. But, yes, vanilla characters are such a blight in general - with I think the added annoyance that when people do try to make an indie film filled with character-characters, they overcompensate and fill them with ticks and quirks and eccentricities, when, really, that's not a lot better than identification-ready blandness.

Kirk/Spock timetravel sounds like a promising antidote to TTW!

And thank you very much! I can probably promise more rambling meta...

[my_daroga]

Oh, I hate when one can't snark in company. Luckily, J and I seem to be on the same page a lot of the time.

I have seen Grosse Point Blank! It's been awhile, like since it came out probably, so I don't know how I'd feel about it now. But I enjoyed it, and I know what you mean. Because rom-com by itself is so overdone, and boring, not that it still can't be done well. But it really can afford some rebooting with other genre tropes and with not taking itself seriously. Though all too often, attempts to blend end in none of it being done well, or someone decides to back away from risk and you get a horrible compromise when you might have had something palatable but not totally bland. Another thing I really want is modern fairy tales, but those are done pretty poorly in my opinion most of the time. So I keep watching, say, 17 Again or Penelope because the premise is so cracktastically attractive, and get let down every time. (Though it may be time to lower my standards, if that's possible at this point.)

The indie-quirk disease is indeed a problem. "Look how unique this person is! Aren't they unique just like you?" Which is why I disliked Juno so much, though that's not really indie, but anyway the film seemed to be targeting ME and MY SENSIBILITIES in a rather blatant and yet not altogether accurate way, so that the whole time I was scuffing my Converse sneakers and clutching my messenger bag and thinking, "oh man, they really really want ME to like this movie, but I can't stand anyone, and they got that reference wrong."

I was going to say that there's a problem of pandering, on both ends, but I'm not sure that's what I mean to say. Because in some sense, don't we want to be pandered to? All film is manipulation, of a sort, that we invite. "Manipulation" is a bad word, and we always mean it negatively. But what I really want is to be manipulated in ways that give me pleasure, and don't knock me into a place where I'm feeling marketed-to or talked-down-to or treated like a statistic in a box office report.

[fulselden]

Yes, I too want modern fairy tales! And Christina Ricci is absolutely made to be a fairy-tale heroine, so I did nearly succumb and see Penelope. But then, well, I read the reviews, and from what you say I was wise.

I was about to say that the uselessness of most of the fairy tales provided by modern cinema is especially odd because Hollywood peddles fairy tales a lot of the time. But of course what it really peddles is wish fulfillment, which is a very different thing. And I wonder if the seamlessness of modern cgi (at least some of the time) is a factor - I'm not quite sure where I'm going with this, but there's a home-made, fireside quality to fairy tales which is maybe obviated by completely immersive special effects?

One of the things I like about del Toro, for instance (although I guess Pan's Labyrinth is probably more of a commentary on fairy tales than a fairy tale itself) is that his sensibilities, special effects-wise, are so old-school: I'm sure a lot of it is cgi, but, like Gilliam, it still looks cooked-up out of wire and brown paper, so to speak. And it works pretty well for a fairy tale-ish aesthetic.

And I felt the same about Juno! It didn't annoy me as much as some similar cod-indie films, but it was so laser-targeted on me and my demographic that I was just sitting there wriggling, feeling I was being taken aim at by a really pushy advertisement.

Which is such a pity because, as you say, there's no shame in escapism or in films (or fics) that provide it. I mean, I love (some) Fred Astair and Ginger Rogers, and they were in the business of providing escapism from, y'know, THE GREAT DEPRESSION. But if there's any place you're justified in demanding some quality, precision-adjusted manipulation, it's Hollywood (or, well, Bollywood or any of the great popular film industries, I suppose). And yet, so much clumsiness and fuzziness as to just what it is that they're trying to do, especially when it comes to mixing genres.

[my_daroga]

Good call. Basically Penelope set up a story I wanted told, and then did the most obvious things with it. Which, needless to say, was not what I wanted. (Though I will say that Ricci looked ADORABLE, which really made the message of the film rather upsetting, in that this perfectly lovely young woman was entirely incomplete until she had the perfect nose.)

I agree that more "substantial" effects are preferable to me, but I don't know if it says anything about fairy tales and Hollywood. I'll have to think about that. Certainly the new Alice was terrible, but I thought that had more to do with the imposed narrative and other absurdities (not in the good way) than the aesthetics--which, granted, weren't that nice either. So I agree with both things that you want, I just haven't decided if they're related.

So much of it--and so many of my discussions about film--is about money. I hate to keep coming back to it, but I feel it's essential to understanding modern cinema that what sells stays and what doesn't increase the b.o. doesn't get done. There's a formula: star + explosions (of whatever variety) = success, and you can have equal success with a well-written script but probably not much more than you would with a mediocre one. That sounds really bitter, I know, and I don't mean everything's like that or I hate everything that comes out. But I don't see a lot of writing, and I don't see a lot that's actually edgy--and you never did get much, really, in Hollywood. Things have gotten so expensive that they can't afford it--which isn't to say that people enjoying blockbuster films are stupid, but that the film by necessity has to be a little bit or it won't appeal to enough people.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, aside from an hour-long rant, but yes. Astaire and Rogers are delightful, because those films know what they are and they do it well. I'm fine with that. I'm also fine with spectacular failure because someone had a vision. What I'm less okay with is precision-tuned id-factories churning out stuff that doesn't even tickle that, for me.

[fulselden]

this perfectly lovely young woman was entirely incomplete until she had the perfect nose.

... When you put it that way, that is a deeply upsetting message!

And the new Alice is another thing which I avoided seeing, because I thought it would be appalling! Which is sad because Burton can get it so very right, I think (actually, perhaps Beetlejuice is a decent candidate for a good modern fairy tale). And, yes, his aesthetics certainly do tend towards the hand-made, but also the twee, so perhaps it isn't such a cure-all as all that.

precision-tuned id-factories

Yes! That there is Hollywood. And of course it does all come down to money - and, well, really I feel it's crass in a way to go on about film without getting down to brass tacks or greenbacks, because that is what it's all about. At least to a large extent. But, I mean, so was Shakespeare? I don't have a problem with actor-producers retiring to large houses in Stratford or Ann Arbor as long as they produce some good stuff while they're in the business, you know? Well, as you say, in fact.

And I'm not sure I know enough about the ins and outs of the modern film industry to say anything more - I mean, I don't want to lament the demise of the studio system, or even seventies auteurship, I think - but, well, as you say, yes to noble failures (Gilliam's speciality); no to identical star-explosion-girl construction kits.

[my_daroga]

Oh, good on you, avoiding the Alice movie. It was awful. (I prefer Edward Scissorhands, but the point stands.) Basically, they cooked up a narrative (in direct violation of the actual novel's point, I think) and ladened it with destiny and Chosen One-ness while simultaneously telling us the theme was about Alice finding her autonomy--as a destined savior? It made no sense. And wasn't that pretty. And was just... not good.

No, I don't begrudged anyone their fortunes, really, though I think we could well afford to pay a few unknown actors and give the $20 million salaries a rest. I don't need to see the same five people in everything. And yes, to some extent, the market's going to drive things. I just wish it wasn't quite so extensive. I don't want a return of the studio system, either, but even if the motives were exactly the same, it seems to me we got a few nice things during that time when people managed to rise out of it. I'm thinking of the lovely epics which cost millions but actually have fantastic characterization, or snappy comedies with real writers behind them. But then, I'm looking at a select group from amongst a lot of dross.

[fulselden]

Oh, I love Edward Scissorhands ... right up until the last five minutes, I have to admit. Too cosy for me, or something? Or not cosy enough? But, anyway, I'm sadly unsurprised to hear just how exactly Alice failed - I knew they'd be messing it up as soon as I heard they gave her a sword. Not every girl needs to be Buffy!

And you're absolutely right that the sums involved in Hollywood have become obscene. Or, well, increasingly obscene. Obscener. And, yes, the same people in everything! I mean, I like both Brad Pitt and DiCaprio (more so as they both start to look less pretty-pretty and more Henry VIII-ish, heh), but they are at their best in rather specific circumstances! Not everywhere ever (or, well, in every Scorsese ever, in the latter case).

And, yes, I mentioned the studio system because I often feel the same way. But I do think that's probably a product of nostalgia and of time allowing the good stuff to float to the top, as you say.

[my_daroga]

But I do think that's probably a product of nostalgia and of time allowing the good stuff to float to the top, as you say.

I agree, but I do still wonder where the good stuff is. Not that I really do hate everything, but I just feel like there aren't any Lawrences or Seven Samurai or All About Eves happening. I could be wrong! And all of those productions no doubt were fraught with compromise. It just seems like you have to make so many more these days, or maybe you just have to make different ones. I can't imagine someone spending the type of money that must have been spent on any Michael Bay action thing that had any room for character development or ambiguity or commentary. Or, like, the new Star Trek film. Or ANY Trek film: once it was off the small-budget no-one-cares screen, it has to cut out the talking and the moral questions and the stuff that made me like it to begin with, because to justify the cost we've got to have the Earth in peril and something exploding every few minutes. Give me The Day the Earth Stood Still any day, where the stakes really are the Earth but it takes an hour and a half of watching some guy live at a boarding house to figure that out.

[fulselden]

I know what you mean - I tend to tell myself that it's probably a product of me not watching enough film, that the Lawrence-scale classics are happening in say Chinese cinema - which is certainly churning out lush epics one after the other, as far as I know. Though ... none that I've heard of as completely unmissable??

But, yes, I think the bar has been lowered for big Hollywood movies, definitely. Michael Bay just depresses me, although I love a good explosions-and-shiny-machinery-porn movie when it's done with a degree of finesse (I was about the only person in the world who actually liked Michael Mann's Miami Vice, which was really just a lot of sparkly cars and guns bobbing about in a sea of macho UST...).

And, yes, the willingness to go slow and let the tension rachet up through everyday routine, as in The Day the Earth Stood Still, does often seem a lost art - perhaps because invoking mundane detail is also a matter of genre bending, to some degree, at least in SF films?

Also, when modern Hollywood does try and go for All About Eve or Bringing Up Baby snappiness, it seems to me that it usually does so really literally, generally as part of George Clooney's campaign to be Cary Grant. Which, ok, I like Clooney. Even when he's trying really hard to be Grant! But ... it seems as though we should be doing our own thing. I mean, not least because most Hollywood actors these days aren't exactly trained in quick-fire patter, so repartee is subject to technical difficulties, quite apart from anything else.

[my_daroga]

That's a point--maybe they're happening somewhere else. But you know, Seven Samurai isn't happening in Japan, so I don't know. And I haven't heard great things about the Chinese epics other than visually, which is great but just not my thing. (And of course I'm horribly over-generalizing, here.) I watched Bridge on the River Kwai a few weeks ago on the big screen and while it's not my favorite film and doesn't have everything I could wish for, it has a hell of a lot. And I can't imagine a film today with SPECTACLE and moral ambiguity and adventure and quiet talkiness quite like that. But then, no one holding the purse strings is going to let a David Lean flourish these days, because that man will take the whole crew into the desert for two years and that's just not feasible.

I don't have anything against the flashiness on principle, and it has its place. But I feel like people think I'm asking too much when I was some non-cipher characters and somewhat thoughtful dialogue to go with it sometimes. But then, I also have a reputation for hating everything, which I don't think is really true either.

I mean, I have seen some recent stuff that was hopeful. I enjoyed The Social Network a lot, because it didn't pander much to anyone's overt commercial needs and had snappy dialogue and interesting characters and interesting stuff embedded about modern society.

You're so right, though. I love Cary Grant. Grant is dead, though, and I don't mind George Clooney trying to be him, because I like George Clooney, too (and in fact the man does choose/direct some fine films). But when it is done today it doesn't come off right, and I'm not sure what we can do to either put something else in its place or fix that.

[fulselden]

Yes, I really want there to be a Chinese epic I can fall for entirely unconditionally ... but, not so far, at least that I've encountered.

And, oh man, I must watch both Bridge on the River Kwai and, apparently The Social Network. Snappy dialogue ftw!

And, yes, Clooney's Grant impersonation is good times in general. But how to get past pastiche? OH HOLLYWOOD, PROBLEMS. Especially since the internet makes it really easy for everything to run on pastiche. Though ... perhaps I have just been reading too much fic, when it comes to that last point!

[my_daroga]

I really haven't watched enough to judge--I saw Crouching Tiger... and enjoyed it but got weary of the hype and the fact that everything that followed was advertised on those terms.

*laugh* I like movies! If you know me long I'll be throwing all sorts of "you haven't seen THIS?" at you, I'm sorry.

I am wondering what makes the older forms more difficult to do. For instance, as we've been speaking of, the screwball comedy. There's the acting style, which is now outdated but I think necessary for the tone. And there's also, I think, an awareness of the homage which plays into the pastiche idea--but weren't a lot of them probably pastiches even at the time? What's the difference?

[fulselden]

Yep, same here. I saw quite a few of the post-Crouching Tiger ... films and they were so gorgeous but didn't do much else for me (Hero, I'm thinking of in particular).

And you are always welcome to throw movies at me!

You're right that screwball comedies are often pastiche right down to the bone, actually. I wonder if it's something to do with films back then (I say vaguely) being less worried about being closer to theatre? I mean in terms of the quick-fire patter and perhaps the stylised body language? Whileas perhaps a lot of actors today learn to act first and foremost for television, which is stylised in a completely different way and involves acting for the close-up and the the long-haul and doesn't lend itself nearly so well to the kind of playing to an implied audience that a lot of screwball depends on?

But, uh, disclaimer! I don't know very much at all about acting styles or indeed acting, so it's possible I'm just making stuff up here...

[my_daroga]

It's possible! I've only acted on stage, and I have no idea how it'd be different for a camera. Of course, one of William Shatner's "defenses" is that he was trained for the stage, and that's why he's so big--as someone who actually enjoys his style of acting and thinks there actually is "good" Shatner!acting as well as bad, I think there may be some truth in this.

I have noticed, too, that a lot of older actors seem really "bad" later in their careers and I can never figure out if they've lost it or if they just no longer "fit" into the prevailing image of "naturalism"--which I think does alter with time.

[fulselden]

That's fascinating about Shatner - and from what little I've seen of him, yes, he does seem stagey - but that isn't a style I object to per se either, so I can definitely believe that there's good Shatner!acting out there. And, actually, given that SF - especially space opera - is nothing if not devoted to the grand gesture (let's work out some problems of the human condition ... IN SPACE), perhaps there's a case to be made for Shatnerian bigness being rather appropriate.

And, yes, I'm sure that is spot-on about older actors and changing definitions of naturalism. I mean, just think of Beerbomn Tree doing the death of King John (here, if you haven't met it) - it's obviously a special case because no-one in 1899 had any idea about what worked when it came to acting for the camera, and, well, it's a set piece designed to cram maximum levels of ACTING into its two minutes - but, wow, talk about changing acting styles.

Incidentally, rewatching that it occurs to me how hilariously appropriate it is, given the Victorian obsession with mortality and mourning, that it's totally designed to provide maximum levels of DYING, as well - seriously, two minutes of Tree expiring all over the place is such an apposite endstop to Victorian theatre, at least given what little I know about it.

[pandarus]

Much food for thought here!

The one point I feel I can comment on is 'The Time Traveller's Wife'; I haven't seen the movie, and wasn't tempted to at all, but I did enjoy the book a lot. It's a couple of years ago now, so it's not all that fresh in my mind, but I don't remember being particularly invested in the relationshippy stuff per se. What I found really interesting and engaging was the structure of the narrative, where we were jumping back and forth to different points in the relationship, and the way in which the two people connected and interacted was informed by the fact that they were intimate strangers, and because of that timetravelling device and the non-linear structure there were lots of things in the storytelling that couldn't make sense until one had read the whole thing and could look at all the jigsaw puzzle pieces with hindsight. It was very satisfying being able to look back on earlier parts of the story and understand that X, Y and Z had inevitably contributed to him getting himself killed, and so forth, and that we'd sort of seen it from early on, without knowing what we were seeing.

I liked all of that. It was kind of like watching 'Pulp Fiction'. Only with less swearing and fucking. (And not as good as 'Pulp Fiction', because, well, I like 'Pulp Fiction' rather a lot, and not only for the structure.) Still, I liked all the gritty and inconvenient and unromantic bits of description about what it was like to be torn out of time and have to get your shit together rapidly, and be able to obtain food and clothes and all that, having arrived naked in god-knows-when. It was a lot crappier and less glamorous than in 'Quantum Leap'. ;)

But, yes, the film experience you're describing is pretty much the film experience I thought it probably would be, which is why I wasn't at all interested in watching it.

[fulselden]

Otherwise know as raaambling!

But thank you very much for dropping in with news of the novel - I may have been too hasty to sneer where the book was concerned, in that case. I mean, as I say above, part of the reason why I was so annoyed with the film was that it didn't really play at all with the idea of them being 'intimate strangers' or with the jigsaw-y aspect, which is especially weird because it's pretty much a cinematic technique in the first place - Pulp Fiction, as you say.

And, yes, I may jeer at the guy ending up naked in the road an awful lot in the film (not that I objected on aesthetic grounds - he was played by Eric Bana, after all), but I love stuff that gets into the nitty-gritty of SF scenarios. So! I guess I will give the book a try if I come across it! Or at least, y'know, riffle through it to see how fun it is.

The film, however - yep, good call!