Fayjay, I understood your question to be as you intended it, I think. And I don't have an answer to you except inasmuch as the "narrative" with which RPF/RPS people are interacting is the narrative of celebrity.

And... damn, I could ramble on about this for some time but I have work deadlines looming like the Angst Train, and I gotta log off. Maybe someone else (*bats eyes at Nutty*) could pontificate on this a bit?

At any rate, I have found this to be one of the most thoughtful and non-flammatory conversations about RPF/RPS I've seen yet. David is raising some good points, and I think there is a slippery slope involved in the whole issue. That doesn't negate my instinctive reaction of "ew!" when I think about RPF, but I'm always happy to have my reactions challenged so I think theem through.

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Um. My understanding of the phenomenon is so simplistic as to be beneath laughable, but isn't it basically create-a-nonexistant-team-out-of-real-players? And then say 'Player X scored a goal for InsertNameOfRealTeam, which means that InsertNameOfMyNonexistantTeam has scored a goal, as I've appropriated his name and goal scoring information for one of my players'? Or something kind of along those lines?

I mean, I'm not saying it's the same thing as RPS. The fantasy football uses real world football playing as (constantly changing) source material for imaginary football, whereas the fantasy shaggage fiction uses real world celebrities' (constantly changing) biographical details (appearance, name, habits, whatever) as source material to contextualise a piece of fictional porn.

steps away from dead horse. Nudges it sadly with toe.

Wow. I'm boring myself here. Sorry.

edit

it has nothing to do with speculating about the athletes as human beings

Sorry, I've not made this clear, have I? 'Cause I totally didn't mean to imply that fantasy football DID have anything to do with speculating about the athletes as human beings.

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And then say 'Player X scored a goal for InsertNameOfRealTeam, which means that InsertNameOfMyNonexistantTeam has scored a goal, as I've appropriated his name and goal scoring information for one of my players'?

Yes. But the essential distinction for me is the formulaic nature of it. We can all plug our teams in at the start of a season, and in a theoretical season free of trading come back 8 months later and see who won. There is absolutely no conjecture and fabrication past that point.

If I were to say that Pele *would* have scored a goal for my team of ita Real, them I'm just making shit up, since he hasn't scored a goal for anyone recently, and maybe he had bad fish the night before and wouldn't have, so what do I know, but then there's the fact that his rep precedes him, and the goalkeeper (who's less august) was wondering if he could get an autograph after the game and was therefore distracted at that crucial GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLL!

That's bridging it for me.

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Um. My understanding of the phenomenon is so simplistic as to be beneath laughable, but isn't it basically create-a-nonexistant-team-out-of-real-players? And then say 'Player X scored a goal for InsertNameOfRealTeam, which means that InsertNameOfMyNonexistantTeam has scored a goal, as I've appropriated his name and goal scoring information for one of my players'? Or something kind of along those lines?

That's pretty much it. I'd say that the major difference between fantasy football and RPF is that fantasy football uses only the scores from the real game, and just rearranges the numbers in a way that, as ita said, a computer could do. RPF, on the other hand, takes some details from the private and/or public life of the person, and adds to them by the whim of the author, blurring the line between what's real and what's fictional. In fantasy football, it's clear that anything using FantasyTeamName is part of the game, while anything using RealPlayerName is something real that's just being used for the purpose of the game.

t x-post w/ita, who said it much more clearly.

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This stupid public computer ate my paste-- I mean, the contents of my clipboard, not a Ralphie-type scenario. (Also forgive spelling.) But I just wanted to reiterate that from my position, it doesn't matter whether SMG is BOBBING FOR COCK! in a story, or HAVING A DATE WITH HER BOYFRIEND IN A NICE RESTRUANT! ALthough you probably won't see that as the heading of spam any time soon. It doesn't matter what you make the person do-- it is that you make them do anything in the first place. And the further the made-up action is from how they project their own personality, the worse the offense, so there is a small difference between casting SMG in an orgy, which as far as I know I do not think she has had or would admit to publically, and have her eating a sandwich, which as far as I know she has done at least once over the years-- but it is one of degree, not cateorgy. The totally nonsexual story Prophecy Girl wrote about SMG, MT, and anorexia squicked my shit out.

Because it's talking about SMG like she's your character. Because it's plumbing the depths of her soul, as though you were able to, as though you knew shit about her inner self. You can do that to Buffy, because all she is is a character-- all she is is a text--, and by being a fan (a reader) you own a part of her. That's how it works, in my mind. But you cannot own SMG. No matter how many pictures of her you have stored on your computer, or TV or magazine interviews with her you have read or watched. Just because you think she's hot gives you no control or ownership on her inner being-- or any part of her being, really: inner, sexual, intellectual, moral, fishcakes.

I'll also admit-- c'mon, how weird am I?-- that I don't like it when people call stars (&c) by their first names. It implies a degree of familiarity that I'm just not comfortable with. You don't know friggin' Alyson Hannigan, don't call her Alyson, call her AH if her last name is too much for you to type. I do admit I've said just "Alyson" in the past but it's always come with a little sneaking guilty feeling.

Fantasy Football doesn't push my buttons at all, as per ita's argument above. (blah blah blah I have no copy/paste.)

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lunges at unsuspecting horse corpse. Beats it scarily.

Maybe part of my problem here is just that I'm too entrenched in my own POV. With the RPF pieces I've read, I found the mundane details of day-to-day life very interesting & unexpected, in a conjuring-up-a-believable-context way. But the shagadelic fic I was subsequently lured into reading could have been written about Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla and his friends, or any other random names one might come up with. More or less. I mean, it did depend upon a measure of context for a framework, but essentially it was original fiction, and in reading it I very much took it as that. I didn't think 'hey, these folks really did such-and-such a thing', not for the tiniest of split seconds. So it turns out that (in complete contradiction to my original suppositions about the genre) an active interest in/prior saucy thoughts concerning the RPs concerned isn't necessary. Weirdly, I totally distinguish between Such-and-such the character in the fic and Such-and-such the real person whose details were used as a starting point for the fic.

I cannot justify this. I am clearly on crack.

I especially cannot justify this within the context of me-feeling-bad-about-Eliza-Dushku-posing-for-sexy-pics- because-I-think-she's-too-young-and-may-be-exploited. And yet simultaneously having no qualms about the Faith Oost.

Monkey crack. Made from only the finest bepanted Columbian monkeys.

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I mean, it did depend upon a measure of context for a

framework, but essentially it was original fiction, and in reading it I very much took it as that. I didn't think 'hey, these folks really did such-and-such a thing', not for the tiniest of split seconds.

First, let me just say, awright, copy and paste worked.

Then I was going to say, but that's no excuse, but you already said that for yourself, Fay, so the only real point of this post is to ask you to break up that second long hypenated string so I can read the page without resizing. Please?

Also to ask-- what time is it where you are?

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It's midnight where Fay is.

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I have a lot of incoherant points to make, but I will try.

1. I have read one piece of RPF. And, I am embarrassed to say, it was about the cast of Dawson's Creek, filming. It was fairly well-written, and it actually brought up some interesting points about fame, as it was about the person's imagining what it would be to work, as actors, playing a couple on TV when in real life you were a broken up couple. It was fairly good, but I would have felt a lot less horrible about reading it if it were about original characters, as that is basically what they were (as many people said before) However, IF they were original characters, I probably never would have had access to it. It wouldn't have been published. I rarely if ever, read random original fiction on-line. I only saw it because it was somewhere where I was indulging my shameful and embarrassing addiction to Pacey/Joey stories. So maybe people don't disguise their characters because they wouldn't have readership

2. Isn't part of the reason we're exposed to RPF more because of the internet. Certainly, as an pre-adolescent, I wrote RPF (an elaborate Soap Opera about the "popular kids" grown up. They became like characters to me.) In college, a friend of mine and I made up this family tree of our theatre department, which paired off the profs and had us as their offsprinf (although that was much more about working style than actually thinking about them having sex)) So certainly it happens. Just now, it is available on a wider basis.

3. I really don't like to read RPF about actors I like BECAUSE i feel like I know them (even though, as Re=becca said, they are unknowable). I feel protective of them, especially young people. I don't want to see Michelle Tractenberg or SMG or ED in some jack off fantasy. I don't really care about Britney Spears. That probably makes me a hypocrite.

4. Part of David's point is that by eliminated ALL RPF as a genre, one may be eliminating one truly good, subversive story that turns art on it's head-- that has something real to say and says it better than anything else. As an artist of sorts, I do agree, but I haven't seen that piece, and the things one has to look at to get to it sometimes scare me.

5. Rebecca-- for you, is there some sort of line where the use of real people is OK, a la "Being John Malkovitch" or using real people as sort of background noise or cameos in original fic (say an original character going to a Hollywood party and seeing famous people? Or is any use, even when you don't claim to know that person, not OK?

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Um, hi. My name's Nutty, and I got this mad call out of the darkness, how I was supposed to expound on something... the narrative of celebrity? But, it's 11:15pm, so I'm just going to be a goof.

All lusts aside, and I know that's hard to do, the film Velvet Goldmine was a serious attempt at a psychobiography of David Bowie. (Basically, RPF, of the more thoughtful variety.) If you've seen the movie, you'll know it's not the most forgiving of theses, and it's not a surprise that Bowie wouldn't license his music for the film. Even though the main character is named Brian Slade.

(It's pretty obvious who Brian Slade is supposed to be, what with the glitter and the outer space and the gender-bending, and who "Curt Wilde" is, what with the nudity on stage and the dancing around like an electrocuted muppet and the whole Iggy Popness of the character. But the names and enough of the details are different.)

That's one bit of art I'll remember for a while, and even though it never mentions Bowie by name, it will color how I feel about David Bowie and his relationship to gay iconography. I love how art can be powerful like that, and even condemning like that, without ever naming names or pretending it's a documentary. I love how the film signals that this is only one interpretation of events, and not even an interpretation that hews strictly to facts and testimonies, but one interpretation and a striking one and one I think needed hearing. All without invoking Lawyer Wrath and official nastiness.

That's cool.

Ironically, the same movie mentions Oscar Wilde by name. It also implies he was a space alien, and largely he's there as a symbol of the continuity of gay history in the arts, but I thought I'd mention it in the interest of full disclosure.

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