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.

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?

I think I said this upthread, but I'll say it quickly.

John Malkovitch starred in Being John Malkovitch. I'd call that to go under the heading of fic written for people, with their knowledge and consent, the way that Fay wrote that post for me (well, it wasn't just for me, but it was mainly about me, and I looked at it like a gift). One of the constraints of that among-friends RPF is that the friend it's being written for/about likes it-- BJM did not show him doing anything basically unwholesome; nor did it seek to plumb the inner depths of his mind. Well. Okay. It had people crawling inside his mind, literally. But no one narrated from his point of view! ... BJM wavers on the edge of the comfort line. But if JM hisself was okay with it (as he must have been, since he was *in* it) than I'm filing that under the among-friends acceptable sector.

Re. famous people making cameos: As I said with Yahtzee's Hoop Screams, it sets off an uncomfortability in a small, screaming part of me, that doesn't want to touch real people-- much less real people who don't know about it-- doesn't want to touch them at all at all at all! (Sorry for the italics. I mentioned she screamed.) But a much larger part of me knows that it's impossible to do that, as I said above. Background cameos, and tiny supporting roles where they don't do much but stand there and not really say anything or do anything active, don't touch me off, because the fic then isn't presuming to pilot the person as though it knew what they would do in a particular situation, or what they would say.

See what I mean? It's infringing upon the psychic propertylines that make me upset.

'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.

I do this too, RL. I go through whole editing processes when it comes to writers, because I'm forever wanting to say "blah blah blah Marti" and it feels invasive. (Interestingly, I only ever do this with the female writers - all the man are last names in my head. Except for Joss, with whom I don't feel weird about using the first name.)

My first (and only) experience with RPS was "huh. This is about Gillian Anderson, not Scully? Weird, I wonder what... oh, now she's getting on the Internet. And looking at... M/S fanfic... and... oh God what is she doing with her hand? Back, back, back!" It felt rather like someone had lost their grip on the separation between actor and character, and it gave me the icks.

Except for Joss, with whom I don't feel weird about using the first name.

Yeah, me too, because... Joss. It rhymes with "God". Or, almost.

My first (and only) experience with RPS was "huh. This is about Gillian Anderson, not Scully? Weird, I wonder what... oh, now she's getting on the Internet. And looking at... M/S fanfic... and... oh God what is she doing with her hand? Back, back, back!"

This, or rather, your thought processes in encountering the squicky fic, made me laugh like a drain. In a sympathetic way. Wrod.

No one's announced the new noir yet?

I win!

[link]

Yay!

In a strange synchronicity, I spent several hours poking around that same website yesterday, though from a different angle.

Yes, that's all the relevance I have to add, since hard as I tried I could not keep up with RPF argument. Bon chance!

Whoa. Willow hinted casually last night that she'd written fanfic in her youth. (If this is a spoiler, let me know and I'll white it.)

Is this the first time that a TV show has mentioned fanfic explicitly?

I haven't seen the episode, Betsy, but I'm not howling about spoilers here, so I don't feel like you need to whitefont.

What I am howling about is the massive number of egregiously bad "Willow writes fanfic!!!!" stories that are furiously being composed right now. To add to the already egregious pile of, "[Character] writes fanfic!!!!"

I don't like it when those worlds collide. My opinions on the inclusion of actual fan fiction writing or reading by a character in a piece of fan fiction are entirely vituperative in nature.