fanthropology

Oh no!

2010-08-31T17:02:00.000+10:00

I'm taking steps to update my online presence, and part of that means a massive re-vamp for fanthropology. In the spirit of spring cleaning, I have moved my blog over to a new host, and you can now find me at:

http://fanthropology.wordpress.com/

Please update your links and look for more posts on the new site. Thanks for everything, Blogger, and farewell!

Guest Lectures

2010-05-30T19:34:00.002+10:00

I've been absolutely drowning in work lately as I try to meet PhD writing deadlines while teaching and getting things ready for the Revise conference as well, so forgive my lack of posting. But I wanted to share the slides from two guest lectures I recently gave on fan-related topics here at UOW, just in case anyone was interested.

The first was for a second-year sociology subject on "Youth Cultures", where I gave a talk on Japanese anime and manga fandom as it exists in the West. Check out the Powerpoint here:

SOC206 Lecture: Anime Fandom in the West

The second was for a third-year soc class, "The Body and Society", and I had the pleasure (no pun intended) to talk about pornography, sexuality, feminism, and all that fun stuff. The lecture is called "Bad Girls", because in the second half I talk about female subcultures centered around sexual material (namely, slash and yaoi/BL).

Bad Girls: Pornography, Fantasy, Sexuality

I hope to post some more soon, once the semester ends and I get back from a trip to Hong Kong!

We Want YOU!

2010-04-16T15:52:00.000+10:00

Abstracts are pouring in for the conference I'm helping organize here in Wollongong. (Check out the website here: http://revise2010.blogspot.com) We are hearing from a lot of academics, postgraduates, and DJs, but I'm hoping to get some excellent contributions from the vidding community to this event. I've received a few thus far, but if you're interested in coming to the event and speaking about your work, your editing, or vidding trends and styles, I'd love to hear from you! Any vidders who are interested in submitting their vids to be shown at the conference are also welcome. Please just email me a link to where your vid can be found, and a short description of it (like a curated art work).

I'm welcoming any submissions of any kind in terms of style or content. I want this event to be open to non-academics in order to foster some communication between the artists and fans out there and the researchers.

Send your abstracts, submissions, suggestions, etc. to the conference by emailing : revise2010@gmail.com. If you have any questions, you can contact me separately here on my blog or by email at fanthropology@gmail.com.

First publication!

2010-03-14T22:30:00.003+11:00

Kinda embarrassingly excited right now as I have just gotten my first publication. It's just a short essay on Counteragent's wonderful Supernatural vid "Still Alive", but you can check it out here if you're interested:

"I'm glad we got burned, think of all the things we learned": Fandom conflict and context in Counteragent's "Still Alive"

Let me know what you think!

Official Announcement: Fan & Artist Submissions Wanted

2010-02-23T11:39:00.001+11:00

Here is the official announcement looking for fan and remix artist submissions for our conference. Please feel free to send us an email with any questions you might have about the event or what sort of submissions would suit.

Revise: The Art and Science of Contemporary Remix Cultures
Dec 2-3, 2010
University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia

An upcoming conference on remix cultures is seeking contributions from remix artists and practitioners. This event aims to bring together researchers whose work investigates aspects of remixing, alongside practitioners working in remix cultures, for a collaborative conference. We invite remixers of all kinds to submit artworks in the media of their choice, and/or to speak on their style or aesthetics, or other features of their practice. Live performance submissions are also welcome.

Expressions of intent of 200-250 words should be sent to revise2010@gmail.com by 15 April, 2010. Please include your full name (and/or artist/fan name), email address, and institutional affiliation (if applicable) along with the proposal, and include any tech requirements.

Please see http://revise2010.blogspot.com for more information, or email revise2010@gmail.com if you have any questions.
You can also contact me individually at fanthropology@gmail.com.

Call for Papers

2010-02-15T13:55:00.002+11:00

I've finally gone and done it! Chris Moore and I are now hosting a conference here at UOW. It's called "Revise: The Art and Science of Contemporary Remix Culture" and it's coming up on 2-3 December, 2010.

We are seeking both academic papers and fan submissions of artwork, video remixes and mashups, DJ work, and literary remix. I would love to see practitioners and fan artists attend this event, and you are welcome to submit a short abstract (200-250 words) to revise2010@gmail.com and speak for about 15-20 min about your work or your style. It is our hope to combine the academics and the artists in a collaborative event that everyone can enjoy.

We created a blog for the event over at http://revise2010.blogspot.com with the details of the Call for Papers - submissions are due by 15 April, 2010!

"Men who say women don't like porn don't know the right women."

2010-01-21T12:03:00.001+11:00

That's from a t-shirt my friend owns. Currently brainstorming for a guest lecture I'm going to do in Sociology called "Bad Girls". I have been specifically instructed by the course coordinator to blow some minds with the delightfully filthy things that women are doing out there on the Interwebs. (He asked the right person!)

I plan to talk in detail about some old research I did on yaoi / boy's love fans, and how these explicitly erotic texts are consumed and used by young women (mostly teenagers and young adults, 14-24). I'll also be talking about slash, of course, and going through some of the different uses and reasons for its popularity.

(Word to the wise, this post has nothing to do with the current LJ storm a-brewing on straight female and gay male fans of slash. I'm hoping not to become involved in that at the moment.)

While there are a myriad of reasons I personally enjoy the stuff, I'll admit that one of the main ones is that I appreciate how these genres objectify male bodies in a way that appeals to me as a heterosexual female. It's just really great to see shiny, ripped men in various stages of undress. And while I do read het erotica as well (nothing will keep me from my Ten/Rose shipping), I sometimes find myself over-analysing the feminist politics of such works, especially in mainstream/commercial products. And nothing kills the fantasy for me more than my own brain's over-analysis of feminist politics.

So, friends and comrades, what is it about slash that appeals to you?

New law could block access to anime, manga and slash fan sites in Australia

2010-01-18T12:40:00.001+11:00

[NB: What follows is an alert for all slash / yaoi / boy's love / anime / manga / gaming fans about new legislation that could potentially make large parts of fandom illegal in Australia. Please circulate this as widely as you can to any and all Australian fans. I did not write this: the author prefers to remain anonymous. However, I am happy to answer questions or provide more information where necessary.]

Alert!

In 2010 the Australian Government proposes to go ahead with a mandatory ISP-level internet filtering scheme which, if passed into law, could have a massive impact on anime, manga and slash fans. Why manga and slash fans? Because the main target of the law is to prevent the circulation of ‘child abuse sexual imagery’ – BUT in Australia ‘child abuse sexual imagery’ covers even FICTIONAL representations and includes ‘under age’ characters in anime, manga and slash. If the law is passed, any fan site that contains or links to this material could be added to a government ‘blacklist’ and access denied in Australia.

The proposal

The Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy has recently announced measures to require internet service provider (ISP) level filtering of overseas-hosted internet material classified Refused Classification (RC) under the National Classification Scheme. Such material includes child sexual abuse imagery, bestiality, sexual violence, detailed instruction in crime, violence or drug use and/or material that advocates the doing of a terrorist act (Consultation Paper, 2009).

The problem for ACG/slash fans

‘Child sexual abuse imagery’ is a primary target of the proposed filter – as it should be when dealing with pictures of actual children. Yet, in Australia ‘child sexual abuse imagery’ is an extremely broad category that extends even to purely fictional representations of ‘under-age’ characters in violent or sexual scenarios – including animation, comics, art work and text. Hence, existing legislation targets not only a small coterie of adult paedophiles dealing in representations of actual children, but extensive communities of ACG and slash fans whose activities involve the consumption, creation and dissemination of representations of young persons that would be classified in Australia as ‘virtual’ child pornography.

In Australia child pornography and abuse is legislated at both state and federal level. State legislation defines child pornography and abuse as

material that depicts or describes (or appears to depict or describe), in a manner that would in all the circumstances cause offence to reasonable persons, a person who is (or appears to be) a child:

(a) engaged in sexual activity, or (b) in a sexual context, or (c) as the victim of torture, cruelty or physical abuse (whether or not in a sexual context) (Criminal Code Act 1995 [Commonwealth] s.473.1).

The federal legislation refers not only to images or texts referring to actual ‘persons’ but also to ‘a representation of a person’ and ‘material that describes a person’ who ‘is, or is implied to be under age 18’; (however, most state legislation puts the age at 16 – leading to confusion as to what, exactly, is the legal minimum age for such representations). That cartoon representations fall within the definition of a ‘person’ in the Act was clarified by Justice Michael Adams in his ruling in the case McEWEN v SIMMONS & ANOR [2008] NSWSC 1292. The case was an appeal against an earlier conviction for possession of ‘virtual child pornography’ (in this case images of the cartoon children from The Simpsons TV show engaged in sexual interactions). In his interpretation of the legislation, Justice Adams upheld the judgement of the original magistrate, commenting:

In my view, the Magistrate was correct in determining that, in respect of both the Commonwealth and the New South Wales offences, the word ‘person’ included fictional or imaginary characters and the mere fact that the figure depicted departed from a realistic representation in some respects of a human being did not mean that such a figure was not a ‘person’ (McEWEN v SIMMONS & ANOR [2008] NSWSC 1292, para 41).

This ruling is of great importance for Australia-based ACG and slash fans, since it clarifies that in Australia child pornography legislation applies equally to ‘fictional or imaginary characters’, even in instances when such characters ‘depart[..] from a realistic representation’.

Given the ubiquity of such representations on both ACG (BL, Loli, etc.) and slash (Harry Potter, Narnia, etc.) fan sites, it is easy for fans to stumble across material that would put them at the risk of prosecution. As the Commonwealth Criminal Code Act 1995 makes clear, an individual is guilty of an offense if said individual, among other things, ‘uses a carriage service’ to access child-pornography material, cause the material to be transmitted, distribute, publish or otherwise make the material available (Commonwealth Criminal Code Act 1995, 474.19). Hence Australian fans of ACG and slash who routinely access sites that may contain or link to representations of under-age characters in sexual or violent scenarios run the risk of arrest, prosecution and entry into the sex-offenders’ list.

The effects

Accessing fan materials that transgress the above legislation is already illegal in Australia. However, if this ‘clean feed’ legislation is passed it would result in the issuing of take-down notices to affected fan sites located on Australian servers, and the establishment of an ISP-level filter that would block access to a blacklist of overseas fan sites. Given the concerns raised above, it is likely that a huge number of fan sites could be affected, seriously diminishing the ability of Australian fans to participate in these global fan communities.

What can I do?

If you are the owner of an Australian or overseas fan site that may be impacted by this legislation please consider making a submission to the Government consultation process outlining (1) how existing ‘child abuse publication’ legislation is overbroad and unfairly targets your community and (2) the deleterious effects that this filtering plan would have upon your community.

A Consultation paper outlining the proposed filtering scheme and detailing how to make a submission can be found here (note the deadline of 12 February 2010):

http://www.dbcde.gov.au/funding_and_programs/cybersafety_plan/transparency_measures/consultation_paper

Not dead!

2010-01-11T13:14:00.003+11:00

Well, I seem to have fallen off the blogging map for a while there, for which I am sorry. I had disappeared into writing farr, as I had a deadline for a completed chapter in November, and then got eaten by the (Australian) summer holidays. But I have survived my first Christmas away from home, and I now have two completed (ish) chapters for my diss, which is always a nice feeling. But now, no more slacking, gotta get back into it.

I'm hoping to post more in the upcoming weeks, but two quick things now:

I requested and received permission to change how I get consent to use vids in my research. Basically, many people verbally agreed to allow me to include a vid they had made, but we all have busy lives and lots of things on our plates, and it was extremely difficult to get signed copies of the consent forms returned. If you've already given me written consent to include a vid, that's still fine. However, from now on I am able to receive verbal consent (either over the phone or via email) to include vids, rather than needing a signature. Hopefully this will make things much smoother from here on in.

The second (and infinitely more exciting) thing is this:

Boppy and I in the planning stages to host some sort of vidding convention in Australia, broadly conceived. This means we are hoping to include more than just (mostly) Livejournal-based live-action vidding - AMVs, mashups, trailers, machinima, and any other sort of remix/appropriated video are all welcome, in addition to vids.

In addition, I have been in talks with one of the research groups here at the University of Wollongong (specifically, the inter-faculty Innovations in Cultural Research group) to pair up a fan-run convention with an academic conference on the topic. I have several colleagues here who study different types of appropriated, grassroots media (DJ culture, machinima, yaoi/boy's love fandom, that sort of thing), and we are hoping have a call for papers on "remix", broadly conceived, for this event. We're also hoping to make it a little different from other academic conferences: creators will be invited to speak and showcase their work, in addition to academics, and digital media students from the uni's Faculty of Creative Arts will also create an exhibition on the theme of "remix".

Tentatively scheduled for the end of 2010 (Nov-Dec), I think of it going something like this:

Thursday & Friday: Academic conference at the University of Wollongong
Saturday & Sunday: Fan-run convention (possibly also in Wollongong?)

Having the events next to each other in this way will allow the fans and academics to mingle and attend each other's events if they like.

Of course, this is all still in the very rough planning stages. Everything is subject to change, and we're looking for feedback on pretty much everything - planning, hosting, programming, tech, premieres, all of that!

If you are interested in attending either event, pretty please let me or Boppy know!

More posts on this upcoming in the near future, so stay tuned.

Vid Workspaces

2009-10-20T18:07:00.001+11:00

Hey vid world, hope you've all been doing well. Pretty wrapped up in writing chapter 3 of my thesis at the moment, and I was wondering if anyone out there would care to send me a photo of their vidding workspace, maybe with a word or two about what kind of equipment you use.

Por ejemplo, here's mine...

This is my uni office, where I have a standard desktop PC I never use, but I hook my personal laptop up to the awesome widescreen monitor for spreadsheets, multiple Word documents, and most importantly, vid watching (pictured here: killabeez 's "Little Lion Man" for SPN). The unfinished LJ post I'm in the middle of writing, and pics of Australia I've taken are there, as well as some from VidUKon... and ten miles of tangled headphone/microphone cord. My laptop is a beautiful little HP Pavilion dv6 with an 18" monitor, 500GB memory, and 2GB RAM.

In any case...

If you wanted to email me a photo of your workspace, there is the possibility that I might include it in my dissertation, so be aware of that. I'm over at fanthropology@gmail.com. :-)

And I'm starting to feel a little guilty for constantly asking for stuff without giving anything back. But I can promise is 100,000 words on vidding sometime in the next 18 months! *sheepish*

Seriously, though, you guys rock. And now, in proper Aussie fashion, I'm off to a springtime BBQ.

Looking for sources

2009-10-07T17:36:00.001+11:00

hey vid world, i'm looking for anyone who might happen to know who created these two LJ icons:

i'm hoping to include them in my dissertation, and I want to make sure I give credit where credit is due.

*fingers crossed*

Writing continues, and how I use quotes

2009-10-06T10:24:00.000+11:00

I may not be dead, but I have fallen into a pit of writing, conferences, and research work here at uni. Probably about time, though, lol.

For anyone who was curious, I've completed my second chapter (barring some minor edits). This chapter is about my methodologies - what types of data collection methods I've used and what - and a general introduction to the vidding community online - about how many people, some demographics, and that sort of thing. I also address issues like privacy, consent, confidentiality, and things like that.

I've now moved on to third chapter, which I've tentatively titled "The Practice of Vidding". It is sort of a background information chapter for my readers who may not be familiar with vidding, and covers the 30-odd year history from slides to digital, and then gives a summary of how current digital vids are made (as I've mentioned before, I am focusing on contemporary, digital vidding for my dissertation).

I already have, and probably will continue to, be sending out some emails in the near future to various vidders I've met or interviewed, and also some I haven't, asking for permission to quote sources outside the range of personal interviews or focus groups (which is covered by the consent form you would have signed). This may include things like individual's Livejournal posts, or comments in someone else's LJ. I will be quoting from general posts to communities without tacit permission, because a larger/more public audience is assumed for these. However, I will request permission to quote by email for any comments in any LJ, and personal LJs. And I will ask permission for each quote, and not just assume a blanket permission to take words wherever I please (unless the vidder indicates this is okay).

I am planning to include a DVD of several vids along with my dissertation for the examiners / my supervisors. I am going to be sending out consent forms which need to be signed by the vidder in order to include it here. You can check out the consent form here if you are curious: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dfn5rwh3_114cbkv3pfd. It usually comes with the participant information sheet, which looks like this:
http://docs.google.com/View?id=dfn5rwh3_7gdktk2d6

Of course, if you receive a request to quote or for vid use, you can always refuse me with no hard feelings. I'm not here to expose anyone or disrupt anything.

Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to run a final focus group as I may have desired. I have some tight deadlines coming up and really need to get on those. My apologies to everyone who volunteered! However, if there is anyone out there who would like to read portions of my thesis as it is written, please let me know. I am looking for some vidder/vid-watcher feedback. :-)

duh

2009-09-15T15:30:00.000+10:00

editing second chapter particularly painful today. for those keeping score at home, chapter 2 is the only one i've written, and it's kinda multi-pupose, an introduction/demographics/methods/ethics chapter. it's probably 85% complete - fully written, but needing some sections expanded on.

decided to take a break from the editing struggle to crunch some statistical data that i'll need for one part of this chapter, where i basically describe what sort of vids are posted to the main community, what shows are being vidded, and what the community is talking about just to give an overview.

so for the past 6 months (feb-july) i've been writing down a basic summary of everything that's been posted in an excel spreadsheet. i figured it would be a bit tough to analyze later on, but at the time of recording i only wanted it to be easy to take down.

and now i'm kicking myself in the face for it.

i never studied statistics, or learned how to crunch quantitative data in my undergrad, or even in my postgrad. i'm sure it would have been excruciating to sit through such a class, but MAN do i wish i knew a better way to do this.

bumped into a colleague of mine on the way to the library, another arts postgrad, and i was telling her about this problem, and she turns to me and says...

"you know, they have computer programs that do all that for you now, right?"

duh.

Wrapping up Interviews

2009-09-07T15:17:00.001+10:00

It's weird, but I get a bit sad when I'm wrapping up interviews with my participants, both in-person in scattered locations around the globe, at conventions, and by email over the course of a month or two. I almost wish I had more questions to ask, because I want to hear more about vidding, and keep the conversation going. But I've got to move on from collecting information, and into analysis and writing.

I'm considering the possibility of an online focus group to wrap up my data collection phase, but am not sure of the best way to do it. (I'd like to go out with a bang!) Drop me a PM or a comment if you're interested in participating (if you've been interviewed before or not). Also: any suggestions on a good place to host it? Maybe a communal Google chat? Here in my LJ? Skype? What do you think?

The multi-faceted definitions of vidding

2009-09-02T17:39:00.000+10:00

Or... "Can't we all just be friends?"

You know, this whole vidding thing that's been going on (which I'm going to call The Great Vidding Kerfuffle of 2009) makes me suddenly really terrified to actually make any sort of statement about vidding one way or another. It seems like such an ephemeral thing, such a contentious thing, and it's obviously something that people care a lot about (myself included) that I'm almost hesitate to say anything about it, one way or another. So... I'm just hoping that I can avoid any possible vitriol or shit-storming in my journal. Please play nice in comments.

The definition of vidding I have used for my thesis is: "a fan-made remix video (known as a "vid") whereby favourite television or film texts are edited to music and shared online", with a second line describing it as "a unique new media form that combines pre-existing sources in new ways which often convey meanings not intended by their original creators".

I was trying to create a definition that was relatively more inclusive, because at the time I was unsure if I was going to include a chapter on trailer mashups or AMVs (although I no longer am for length/focus reasons).

And I can see a hundred contentious issues pop in just my two sentence definition. I think many traditional vidders (coming from the slash/VCR/Escapade line) would take issue with the phrase "new media form", as this refers explicitly to digital vidding and suggests that it has arisen in the last 5-10 years. I've also noticed that vidders tend to avoid the word "remix" as well, as this brings up connotations of DJs, political remixers, and other digital media artists. I've also included that vids are "shared online": while this has not always been the case, I believe it is such at the current moment. The last section I think is especially important: imho, vids often convey new meanings, but not always. I think vids are inherently transformative, but not necessarily interpretive or analytical. That's a criticism that's often heard of AMVs - they're not vids because they are not critical or interpretive. There's a value judgement there. So many vids are simply about joy, about love for fandom, about expressing that joy. And that's what I love about vidding the most: the emotion. (Please don't hurt me.)

So for anyone wondering, here's the type of vidding I'm going to be discussing in my dissertation:

I hope to provide a snapshot of contemporary vidding. It will be heavily informed by the history of media fandom, and I hope to detail the evolution of vidding as a practice and a community from its inception with Kandy Fong's slideshows, through the VCR collectives, and into early digital collectives. But what really interests me is what has happened to this original tradition since the inception of YouTube, new media cultures, and the mainstream accessibility of digital remix.

I am fascinated by the tensions, conflicts, communities, changes, and individuals who are involved in vidding: the new styles, the experiments and ground-breaking changes, and how they affect and effect the original ethos of the group. What happens when new people start joining the group, and the dynamic shifts? When the definition of vidding is no longer so straightforward?

I've been fortunate that I have cast my interview net far and wide, and have managed to talk to AMV editors working on their first live-action vid, YouTube vidding community members, professional editors, VCR vidders with 20+ years unflagging love for editing, mainstream artists, and so-called visual fan-ficcers on three continents, men and women (and some in-between) from eighteen to sixty. But they've all got a few things common: they love TV, they love music, they love the craft of editing, and they all call themselves vidders.

I consider myself pretty lucky, as a researcher, to have shown up on the scene at such an interesting moment.

So I like to consider a more far-reaching and open-ended definition of vidding for myself, but simply for the sake of scope I will be dealing with the Livejournal-based vidding community with its roots in media fandom-- and how YouTube and digital remix culture has affected it-- for my dissertation.

A big part of me doesn't even want to post this at all, because I'm afraid of blowback. And I really wish I wasn't.

Vividcon Vid Recs

2009-08-31T11:47:00.003+10:00

Finally, I've decompressed enough information to pass on my vid recs from Vividcon, which I just attended in Chicago. Here are just a few that have popped into my head. More later, probably.

"Intergalactic Friends" by dragonchic. Smallville set to a Beastie Boys / Dandy Warhols mashup.

Inherent awesomeness of the music aside, I really loved how this vid evoked the entire Superman mythos, pulling it up and out of the context of Smallville itself, and connecting it to the entire history of the character. Shirtless Clark and evil, plotting Lex also help. Michael Rosenbaum is the best Lex ever cast, no competition. (Sorry, Kevin Spacey.)

"Seven Nation Army" by Charmax, to the Matrix, I Robot, Doctor Who, BSG, and Terminator.

This vid really knocked my socks off by drawing the connections across so many franchises, and I really shook my booty to it at Club Vivid.

And the most inexplicable award goes to...

But is it a vid?

2009-08-31T11:39:00.003+10:00

check out this entrancing remix for mary poppins:

Aca-Farr

2009-08-28T15:36:00.001+10:00

Okay, so back in Australia... stressed out about all the things on my plate right now... but hey that's the life of the PhD student!

I'm currently working on an short article for the TWC's upcoming issue on Supernatural, and have been swimming through my mountain of SPN vids to choose which to talk about. And hey I'm just curious: what's your favourite meta-y SPN vid, or one that tickled your thinky brain, and why?

Vividcon Unpacking: Vid Recs

2009-08-22T04:16:00.001+10:00

Absolute fav vid of Vividcon: bradcpu and laurashapiro et al: Hard Sun for Firefly. This vid pulled something right out of my brain, set it to music, and put it up on a big screen for everyone to enjoy. For me, it is an extremely intimate and personal vid of that little moment where you are walking along, listening to music, and thinking about Firefly. I've had that experience, and I know a lot of other Browncoats and vidders out there have had that experience too. And it was so beautiful to see it expressed in vid-form, utterly compelling and beautiful. It also gave me a powerful sense of SHARING that experience with other fans, walking their local streets doing what I'm doing. This vid just sang to me: "We're all in this together." Yes.

Closely followed by jescaflowne's vid Can Delight: Pure, cheerleading joy. I saw it at Club Vivid, and I just had to stop dancing and stare, slack-jawed, at the screen and admire it. A must-watch.

More recs to follow, and perhaps also some comments on the simmering bad feelings surrounding the con (which is a shame, because I enjoyed myself thoroughly and was upset to hear that some people didn't).

Vividcon by the numbers

2009-08-22T02:03:00.001+10:00

Back from Chicago, finally. Utterly exhausted and useless, and here's why: Over 4 days, I collected:

16 hours of recorded audio.
10 interviews.
1 focus group.
75 pages of notes.
200+ vids watched.
15 library items checked out.
15 GBs harddrive consumed.

and 14 hours of sleep required upon return in order to recover.

But I had a fantastic time. Proper detox post still forthcoming.

Windy City, Here I Come

2009-08-13T12:37:00.004+10:00

My flight leaves in 14 hours for Chicago: I am finally going to go to Vividcon. This trip has been a year and a half in the making, and now that I'm finally going I can only say that I'm both extremely relieved, and extremely nervous. A lot of things have changed for me in the past 18 months, that's for sure.

In any case, I have a pretty packed schedule during the few days I'm in Chicago. Lots of interviews with fantastic vidders and vid-watchers alike that I'm supremely excited to talk to. Getting to know individuals, learning about their history and their vids and techniques and thoughts on the community is the most engaging part of this sort of research.

And I can't wait to squee wildly over the gabillion vidders I admire. Fangirl at heart, what can I say.

I am worried that my schedule is too packed, that I'll be run absolutely into the ground by the end of the weekend. But hey, I've done cons before, forgone sleep, and lived off pixie sticks and coca cola, and I can do it again!

I'm coming, Chicago.

OMGCRAP

2009-08-05T13:32:00.001+10:00

deep breath... Vividcon is only ten days away... I leave in just over a week.... HOLY CRAP I'M NERV-CITED!

Nervous

2009-07-24T09:30:00.000+10:00

Okay, I'm finally going to do it. I'm going to make my own vid. I'm really nervous, but my horoscope says it's a good time to start a project and I'm house-sitting for a few days so that should give me enough free time to really dig my teeth in and get started. Hopefully a good head-start will provide me with enough momentum to keep it going, and not abandon the project 1/3 of the way through like I tend to do. *looks at her mountain of unfinished fanfiction*

Taking the advice of many of the vidders I have met so far, I am planning to limit my source material as much as possible to make it a little easier as a first-timer. I'm thinking of making a chara vid for Saffron/Yolanda/Bridgette from Firefly. While singing in the shower the other day, one particular song made me think of her character for some reason out of the blue. Going to listen to it a little more closely now and see if it will suit as well as I hope.

Wish me luck, I think I'm gonna need it!

Effects Research...

2009-07-15T16:02:00.003+10:00

...why are you so painful? As much as I love anthropology, I hate sociology. BLEGH.

(In other news, Happy Bastille Day.)

Eroticism, Sex, and Consent in the Field

2009-07-12T14:11:00.011+10:00

I'm currently reading the fascinating collection "Taboo: Sex, Identity, and Erotic Subjectivity in Anthropological Fieldwork", edited by Don Kulick and Margaret Willson (London & New York: Routledge, 1995). Despite the fact that I only did anthropology for my undergraduate degree, I find the methodological, ethical, and subjective issues of this particular field endlessly interesting (nerd that I am). The collection of essays deals with issues of eroticism, sex, and sexuality in fieldwork, a topic that most fieldworkers are silent on. There is an unspoken rule that sex while in the field is unethical, and it is assumed that all anthropologists are somehow celibate while performing their fieldwork. I find this book very confronting in that it acknowledges the possibilities, risks, and even benefits of sexual desire for one's fieldwork. Most of all, the honesty and candid accounts of various ethnographers' experiences is touching and brings up a lot of issues that I think should be addressed in more anthropology training in universities.

Consider this passage from Ralph Bolton's chapter, speaking as a gay man who frequently had sex with his participants while researching the gay community and the AIDS epidemic in Brussels:

"I cannot imagine doing fieldwork without sex, perhaps from a feeling that life is too short and one must enjoy it while one can. We don't get younger. Perhaps it's because I came out late and am 'catching up'. In truth, it's probably because I enjoy sex too much to remain voluntarily abstinent. It is most definitely not a sacrifice I would make for my profession. But the question of identity is implicated as well. In the hierarchy of components of my personal identity, gayness ranks higher than ethnicity, nationality, and profession. And that aspect of my being is expressed and celebrated through sex." (pg. 149)

This passage just floored me. What a brave statement to make, first of all. I commend Bolton for so openly stating such things. The role of the body, of emotion, of sex, and indeed of love is one that hardly ever enters ethnographic discourse, and certainly not in such frank terms. The scandal of Malinowski revealing his sexual desires in the field in his "Diary in the Strict Sense of the Term" shocked and scandalized the anthropological discipline. Despite all the recent hubbub on self-reflexivity and auto-ethnography, the silence remains.

And as someone who always struggles with issues of consent and ethics (even though my research has never been with high-risk communities), I find this also deeply unsettling. Obviously Bolton's partners were all consenting adults, and likely also educated Westerners, but obtaining data through pillow talk seems questionable.

Later in the chapter, Bolton details the ethical concerns in performing this type of research. Regarding consent, he explains that he did not obtain signed consent from any participants (partially out of concern for their privacy), and did not hide that he was researching when asked. But would these men have consented to sex if they knew in advance that Bolton was studying them? Would it have affected their decision in some way?

Or am I placing my own subjectivity onto this? Bolton seems unworried for the consequences, and I am neither gay nor male, and certainly cannot claim knowledge of the role of sex in the gay male community. Bolton states that he engaged in sex for personal and not professional reasons, but if he stood to gain professionally from the encounters I believe he should have obtained consent in advance. "...The purpose of informed consent is to prevent hard to the individual, or if harm could occur, then to obtain permission and acceptance of that risk by those who would incur it. In my judgment, no risk was involved in the Belgian fieldwork." (155) I find this statement problematic for many reasons: if someone slept with me and then started quizzing me as an anthropologist, I would feel at risk. I wonder how Bolton's participants felt. I agree with Marshall's review of his work, when she called it "passive deception", even though Bolton himself does not.

Bolton also points to the necessity of participating in sex in order to fully be a member of the gay community, and of course participant observation is the cornerstone of anthropological methodology. You learn by doing. My own participants have insisted that I make a vid myself in order to fully understand their practices, to be "in" I need to become a vidder myself. Could Bolton have achieved his research goals while abstaining? I doubt it.

I can just imagine the reaction from the UOW ethics committee if I even thought about suggested a project like this!

Focus Group at VVC

2009-07-12T11:56:00.000+10:00

Just sent out a bunch of invitations for people to be interviewed at VVC, and I'm going to send out another round soon.

I'm wondering if anyone is interested in participating in a focus group while at the con, which is kind of like a group interview with four or five people all together. I've found this type of interview format to be really useful, engaging, and tends to be more social and fun than traditional interviewing. The questions will be a bit meatier and more open-ended, and are designed for everyone to discuss and debate with each other, dealing with trends in vidding, remix culture as a whole, the role of gender in the vidding community, and fair use and copyright issues.

If the idea of participating in this appeals to you, hey, let me know! I'm sure we can arrange a time for all of us to chat together at some point, perhaps over dinner?

Email me at fanthropology@gmail.com if you'd like to participate, or leave a comment and I'll get back to you. You're welcome to join the focus group even if I'm interviewing you separately as well!

History of Vidding: The Struggle

2009-07-05T13:05:00.001+10:00

Struggling to write my chapter relating to the history of vidding... It's probably because my supervisors are pushing me for another chapter before I go back to Canada, and I really haven't done enough research on this yet to write about it with any confidence. I've watched Francesca Coppa's great documentary on the genealogy of vidding from the DIY conference, checked out the Fanlore articles... But it's really scattered and I'm finding it difficult to piece together. I really do need to wait until I get back from Vividcon and manage to meet some VCR vidders and such there to get a more complete picture before I write any more. If anyone wants to help me out, let me know!

In other news... my ambitious side wants to plan a small vidding convention here in Australia somewhere. How sweet would that be?

VVC Here I Come

2009-07-01T12:28:00.001+10:00

I just made my hotel and flight reservations for Vivicon... So excited!!!

Any Canadian / Australian vidders out there?

2009-06-27T12:42:00.001+10:00

Because I'll be travelling a bit these next two months, I'm wondering if there are any vidders out there who might be interested in being interviewed. Any Sydney / NSW vidders from now until early July, and then I'll be in Brisbane, QLD in early July and in Toronto, Canada from mid-July to mid-August. If you're out there and interested, drop me a line!

Guest post

2009-06-17T14:28:00.001+10:00

I just guest-posted on Supernatural fandom, vidding, and intertextuality over at FandomResearch.org. Check it out!

Dear Vidding: How are you so awesome?

2009-06-16T16:18:00.003+10:00

Just finished writing up a guest post for Fandom Research (I'll post the link when it goes up) on the different ways Supernatural vidders manipulate genre and use outside sources to tell their stories. Ten seconds later, I am scrolling through the latest Meta Vidding Newsletter and downloaded Ash's "Supernatural at the Movies":

How utterly amazing is this vid? Especially in terms of how useful it would be for my own research, as lately I've been focusing on how vidders are so media literate that they are able to make use of television cinematography, editing, and genre conventions to manipulate the source footage to tell any sort of story they desire.

And here it is!

Ash, between this vid and Channel Hopping, you are my new favourite person in the whole world. XD

Holy crap

2009-06-15T11:19:00.002+10:00

I'm FINALLY done my transcriptions from VidUKon! It only took... oh... 9 months?? I really need to do a better job getting my data down after Vividcon. I don't want to still be transcribing when I should be writing because it's very distracting.

But I will say there are worse ways to spend your time than sitting outside in the Australia sun, even in the 20 degree C "winter", listening to vidders chat about what they love.

Video Remix Origins

2009-06-04T13:58:00.002+10:00

Check out this parody of a German propaganda film from 1941, which takes footage from Nazi rallies and edits it to a popular musical number from the period to make the German WWII troops look ridiculous:

Link Here.

It may not be of the vidding tradition per se, as that grew out of fandom in general and the fanfiction tropes and traditions specifically, but I think it certainly does constitute one of the earliest video remixes I've ever seen. Fascinating!!

Thanks to my colleague Ruth Walker for pointing this out to me.

What I Do In My Office All Day

2009-06-01T15:15:00.003+10:00

I probably watch 5 vids a day, every single day. Some days, it's up to 25-30 if I'm cataloguing the vids from the vidding discussion thread on LJ. and i figure... why on earth am i keeping all these to myself?! so i'm going to try and rec more vids as i find them, so here's today's:

the aforementioned thread has been flooded by star trek vids in honour of the new film, and i have to share a few with you. i've never been into trek - every other fandom on the planet, yes, but i seem to have missed this one. but i found the new movie to be really fun and enjoyable even for a non-trekker.

so i'm recommending "Who Found Mr. Fabulous?" by kuwdora. it's fast-paced and tons of fun to watch. check out the imeem stream here.

here's a great one for classic trek: steady as she goes by jesuit24. it's a deliciously fun and campy romp through TOS. check out the stream below:

and for something completely different: i highly recommend chamalla's "dust in the wind" for the whole of BSG. it's a heartbreaking overview of the series now that it's over.

switching gears again so as not to depress you all to death...

SPN slashers has discovered misha collins (aka: castiel/jimmy) and i giggled myself to death watching danegen's "luv song". god help him. check it out at imeem here.

that's all for now, folks!v

Chapter Two

2009-05-22T11:30:00.001+10:00

A Wordle art for my second chapter. Excerpt forthcoming.

CEDIR Second Life Workshop

2009-05-07T17:09:00.002+10:00

Our workshop to-do list:

Border authentication
Creating an account
Logging in
Friending: Click "Communicate", then and add Rina Ethaniel as your friend
Groups: Click on "DIGC101 New Media Communication" in my profile and join the group so that I can communicate with you.
Moving
Communicating - main and IM chat, group chat, voice
Using objects / interacting with the environment
Profiles
Search
Map
Teleporting and Landmarks
Editing Appearance
Inventory
Freebie Sites
Making Money

A list of useful in-world locations you can link to, known as "SLurls":

Sandbox . Head here if you need to unpack a box!
The Pond. A Telstra-run island with some great builds of Australiana.
ABC Island. The ABC's own island with tons of cool buildings and sites to explore.
Vassar College. A recreation of this American college's campus, featuring an exact replica of the Sistine Chapel built by the students.
Alliance Library Island. One of the many libraries in the SL library system, where you can check out information on a variety of topics, with support from actual librarians.
October Country. A Hallowe'en build that plays old radio dramas. Sit around the campfire and listen to the plays by turning on your audio (click on the "play" button next to the music notes above your Inventory).
Bogart's Jazz Club. A formal dance club that plays classic jazz music. Make sure to turn on your audio, and be warned of the etiquette codes of the club!
Alice's Looking Glass. A fun build based on Alice in Wonderland. Fall down the rabbit hole and look for the club.
Jokaydia. A build by an instructor from Wollongong TAFE, this island is used by a variety of SL educators to teach classes in-world.
Chichen Itza. A build by Tourism Mexico in an attempt to promote the site for one of the Eight Wonders of the World.
Avilion Grove. A medieval role-playing group. Be careful of the etiquette requirements of the sim.
Georgia State University. Check out the library for a extensive selection of landmarks in various fields. They also have a library of notecards on how to use SL.
Princeton University. Explore how the university promotes itself in-world.
Ohio University. Another great example of how universities are able to promote their campuses in-world.
RMIT University. Check out this space for a completely different take on university presence in world.
Australian Film, Television, and Radio School (AFTRS).
Garden of Da Vinci. A really unique build which models the different inventions of Leonardo da Vinci.

Feel free to explore any of these sites or find ones that interest you through the search. If you are having difficulty, try asking another Resident for help.

VividCon Fieldwork

2009-04-21T12:13:00.005+10:00

I'm gearing up to prep for my fieldwork at VividCon, and I want to talk a bit about what I'm planning to do there because I think it's important to be transparent about your research methods.

Methods

Here is a short rundown of the methods I plan to use while there.

- Participant Observation: this is a classic anthropology method which essentially involves me being a convention attendee - attending vid shows, listening to panels, etc. - and making notes on what is going on.
- Short Interviews: The formal term for "asking questions". I might ask someone what they think about fair use, or using YouTube, or the vid they just saw. Very straightforward.
- Extended / Formal Interviews: I would like to sit down with some people individually and go through a list of questions on your vidding practices, the vidding community, copyright and fair use issues, and issues around fandom in general.
- Roundtable: The ConCom has asked me to give a roundtable presentation on my research, where I will be outlining my approach, theories, and research thus far so that people can give me feedback and ask questions.
- Focus Group: If people are interested, I would like to get 4 or 5 people together to talk with me in a focus group, which is similar to an extended interview but tends to deal with more complex questions and lets all the group members discuss it together with me.

Ethical Concerns - Consent, Confidentiality, and the Right to Decline

My University requires that each participant read this participant information sheet and sign a consent form like this one before particpating so that everyone is fully informed. All must be over the age of 18. You need to sign your real name on the consent form, but after that I will assign you a random pseudonym and obscure your personal details so that you remain fully anonymous unless you choose to be identified by name or by a particular nickname (like your vidder name or LJ handle). I know some people are concerned about copyright suits, and I will do my utmost to protect your identity. The consent forms will be kept locked a file cabinet in my office and destroyed after the end of the project. You may refuse to answer any questions, and may cease participating at any time with no hard feelings. :-)

Research Guidelines

I have been in touch with the ConCom, and they have provided me with several guidelines to follow for your protection and mine. They are as follows:
- Consent forms will be required from all participants.
- Interviews will mostly be arranged in advance but you can also approach me and ask for one at the event.
- I will be introduced at the beginning of the con so that people know who I am and can approach me or avoid me if they are not interested. Please do not feel shy about telling me you do not want to participate - I completely understand and I will not be offended.
- I will be interviewing away from the main con space where there is some privacy.
- I will not make any recordings or take any photos during the convention. I would like to audio-record my extended interviews, but these will happen away from the main con space and I will ask each person individually for permission.
- I am going to be handing out a flyer at the con with details on my work and how to contact me.

For more information, please don't hesitate to contact me. You can email me at fanthropology@gmail.com or leave a comment at this post or at my LJ. You can also contact the ConCom and they will be able to pass your concerns on to me anonymously. If you haven't yet, please fill out my survey over at Survey Monkey.

I'm really excited to get to attend this great vidding event and meeting some of my vidder heroes!

Practice what you preach

2009-04-19T16:14:00.002+10:00

Well, following the example of several of my colleagues I'm going to try and follow the practice of transparent, open-source scholarship to try and garner some collaboration opportunities and such. So in that vein, I would like to share the presentation I gave at the PCA conference I just attended in New Orleans. If you have any questions or comments, please let me know and I will be happy to answer them for you. Feel free to use any part of this as long as you cite me.

PCA - Veni, Vidi, Vids!

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Research supernatural fandom

Veni Vidi Vids! - Katharina Freund

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Research supernatural fandom

It's Conference Time!

2009-04-01T20:43:00.002+11:00

I'm going to be off to the Popular Culture Association National Conference in lovely New Orleans on Tuesday to give a paper on my thesis topic, hoorah! I've already been in contact with some people who are going to be attending. I'm really looking forward to doing some networking with the other people studying vids and fandom out there.

I'll be giving a modified version of the paper I gave here at the Postgrad Student Conference, which I blogged about before. I'm going to be focusing on how vids can manipulate the source in a multitude of ways by using a variety of vids from Supernatural that take the essentially action-thriller-horror show and change it into a melodrama, a slash romance, a AU about serial killers, a critical commentary on women in the media, and an intertextual masterpiece.

As much as I adore it, I had to take out "Things That Make You Go Hmmm..." by deirdre_c because the presentation was just way too long the last time I gave it and I have another slash vid in there already ("Here In Your Car" by dalyn03).

Got my suit tailored and bought new shoes, so I'm all ready!

Thoughts on "This World" vid by Buffyann

2009-02-25T19:16:00.000+11:00

I first saw this vid at VidUKon, a vidder's convention in the UK, back in October while I was doing my fieldwork there. It played as part of the "Unexpected Choices" vidshow, due to the unusual selection of the nouveau-jazz / trip-hop song "This World" by Zero 7 (confession: it's a favourite band of mine) to scenes of violence, destruction, warfare, and general angst from the early seasons of Battlestar Galatica.

What struck me was just how much the musical choice can affect the interpretation of the vid. I noticed about 3/4 into last year that I was putting way too much theoretical emphasis on the visual aspects of vidding, and was forgetting entirely that this is an AUDIO-visual medium. At VidUKon many of the editors patiently explained to me that the idea for a vid tends to grow out of a SONG first - that the music somehow reminds them of a certain aspect of their favourite television series. The music is the instigator for most vids, from what I was told (there are, of course, exceptions but this seems to be the trend.)

Back to the vid in question, then. Consider how different this vid would be if we traded the cool beats and mellow voice of Zero 7 and traded it for a punk rock song? Or an operatic aria? How differently would we interpreted the intention of the editor in such a case? To me, at least, this particular musical choices makes this vid a thoughtful meditation on these humans of the Galactica and the fleet and their struggle to survive.

But I'll let the vidder herself describe to you how she understands the show both conceptually and aurally:

"The idea for this came very early on from watching the pilot of BSG and whenever the opening credits came in, there was just something about them that totally marked me then. It wasn't the usual SciFi music, it carried so much more, so much pain and hope as well. it was clearly established then for me, how the show was not about scifi, but about this lost civilization looking for a meaning and a way to survive. It's always been what dragged me to BSG. And so this vid is suppose to mirror this idea. The lyrics tell you the rest better than me."

--Buffyann, http://buffyann.free.fr/battlestar.html

For Buffyann, who I had the pleasure of talking to in the UK, the lyrics of the song describe the story she is trying to tell. The song is the backbone that ties all the visual scenes together and knits it into a narrative rather than just a clip show. Have a look, and let me know what you think.

BSG - This World - Buffyann

sowing misconceptions

2009-02-02T10:55:00.000+11:00

One of my mailing lists pointed me towards this documentary on SL by the CBC. You can watch the entire video online through the website.

I was so struck by the misconceptions and sensationalism in the doc, even from the very beginning - it continually refers to SL as a game and never brings up the term "virtual world" or "online world" at all. I was also disappointed in how SL was blamed for the problems in these people's marriages when I suspect that those problems already existed, and SL was an escape bringing some happiness to them. I don't like to see the platform scapegoated for ruining marriages. Also, it made me really angry when the doc kept saying that these women had fallen in love with "fantasies" - there are real people using those avatars, communicating with them and listening to them. Also quite tickled to see the scenes framed as being of an "unhappy household" of the woman in Pennsylvania showed the husband cleaning up around the house, doing the shopping, and spending time with the children while the wife got some time to herself. I personally think she took it too far, but I still strongly disliked how the doc made it seem that she should be the one doing all these things while her husband got to leave the house and be "breadwinner". Last time I checked, CBC, it was 2009, not 1952.

Argh.

still not dead

2009-01-26T10:59:00.001+11:00

just got back to oz last week after a month back home in canada for xmas. desperately trying to get things back on track with this thesis, as i've ended up quite behind as of late due to a pile of interferences.

i'm currently in the pipeline to upgrade from an MA thesis to a PhD dissertation... i was offered a scholarship, but there seem to be some problems getting it approved so i'm currently in limbo because i can't afford to do a PhD without the free monies. argh. it's been 6 weeks or more now with this awful limbo... if i get the PhD it will drastically change how i proceed. i need to know one way or the other so i can get my act together and bash out some actual work!

still trying to transcribe all my notes from my time at VidUKon - how sad is that? like i said, i've gotta get on this...

(p.s. happy australia day!)

blind-sided

2008-11-28T15:20:00.002+11:00

wow. strange day on monday for me. my advisor has, several times already, asked me if i'd like to consider upgrading my thesis from a MA to a PhD, and several times i've said no to him. of many, many factors, one of the biggest decisions in my choice to just finish my work on vidding at the MA level is the fact that i simply cannot afford to pay any more tuition.

okay. flash forward several months. meeting with advisor. he says, "if you agree to stay, i'll go to bat for you and get you a guaranteed scholarship for three years."

i freak out.

i agonize over it for many, many days.

i freak out some more.

i say yes.

i won't hear for a while if i will get the scholarship or not, and i cannot stay if i don't, but right now it looks like this could be a PhD on vidding, and another three years in oz for me. SCARY!

mild successes

2008-11-20T16:11:00.003+11:00

while i'm still kind of in the dumps about my thesis in general, i am feeling slightly more enthused about the topic after the really lovely feedback i've received after my first proper presentation on my topic here at my uni.

for our little in-house research student conference, i gave a 20 min presentation on vidding - outlining what it is, who is doing it, blathered on about some of the semiotic crapola that's involved, and showing off a bunch of shiny videos to impress the academics, lol.

while i didn't get a chance to dry-run it (and time it) it was waaaay too long, but the response from the audience was quite positive. it seems as though the topic of vidding was really fascinating, because a great deal of people came up to me afterward and asked a lot of good questions... or just asked me to tell them more about (which i did, happily). one of the conference organizers commented to me something along the lines of "you must have done a good job because you seem to have your own fan club now" because there were so many people standing around me. i don't actually think the presentation went over that smoothly as i had to shorten and skip a lot of content and that's always awful... but hey, a good response is a good response.

here's a short rundown of my vids playlist:

(i stuck to supernatural to make the ways in which the vidders play with the source material much more obvious as they can see how the same footage is used in different ways.)

1. we will rock you, melissa (aka proofpudding).

this video showcases all the manly camaraderie, action-adventure, car-chasing, ass-kicking fun of the series, and is generally in-line with the CW's vision of the show.

2. forgiven and forsaken, loki.

unlike the previous, this video focuses on the melodramatic, interpersonal aspects of the show, giving the viewer some insight into the interactions between sam and dean.

3. things that make you go hmmmm..., deirdre_c

uses a lot of the same clips as "we will rock you" above, but to say something entirely different, drawing out the (unintended?) homoerotic subtext of the series.

4. here in your car, dayln03.

whereas "hmmm" just suggests the slash, dayln masterfully crafts this video uses advanced manips to slash 'dem brothers right up to sex town. (ahem.)

5. women's work, luminosity and sisabet.

you knew this would be in here. while the previous 4 vids focus on the boys, this vid reminds us of the unseen side. it highlights the (mis)treatment of women in SPN and changed how a lot of people thought of the show (myself included).

6. impulse, nycalls0909 (aka antigonesgift).

an AU vid where dean is a serial killer. i discussed how the footage is so readily re-purposed for any desire the vidder may have, and how the pleasure for a viewer is in recognizing how the source material has been taken out of context.

7. channel hopping, ash.

pure intertextual genius. this vid draws hilarious parallels between SPN and television as a medium, dancing from genre to genre all using the same footage. it shows just how media-aware viddes are, and how all-consuming the "mediascape" really is.

that's just kind of a quick word on what i got up to today... and i hope to refine this presentation further to give a guest lecture here at the uni at some stage in the upcoming semester (that's february btw, all you northern hemisphere types).

and now, i have a date... with my couch!

On my way!

2008-10-22T07:24:00.001+11:00

Well, I'm about to start my fieldwork for my thesis... and I have to confess I'm a bit nervous. I am extremely excited, of course, but also a bit worried - I've travelled so far, you know? Let's hope it all works out. I don't have much time here in the Abu Dhabi airport... See you all soon!

Back into the fray

2008-09-03T17:43:00.002+10:00

At my office... Taking a break from listening to my first interview I did back in July with a professional editor. I'd forgotten how draining it was to transcribe audio recordings. I'm a pretty fast typist, don't get me wrong, and I'm pretty used to using all the anthropology-style transcription shorthand, but MAN does it suck the life out of you. I've been working at it for a little over an hour now and I'm only 9.17 minutes in to a 1.13.11 long interview! But that's how the cookie crumbles, of course... It's okay. I kinda do really enjoy it, in a sick way. Now that I have my theoretical framework fully in place, it's great to find nuggets in this interview that support what I'm planning to argue.

So yeah, I finished my 6-month review and it apparently went really well (YESSSSSS!!!!!!). Sitting on the edge of my seat until Friday when I find out if I got approved for the money to go to VidUKon. Still thinking about converting into a Ph.D. but I don't know... Seems like a big commitment, and I'm not sure if I could stay so far from home for another 3-odd years. We'll see.

I guess my blogging break is over, and I'm getting back into it!

*ties a headband around her head, anime-style, and rolls up her sleeves*

Bring it!

The joys of the survey data

2008-08-25T18:53:00.002+10:00

Still preparing for my 6-month review. I decided to include some preliminary survey data on the demographics of the vidding community just as an FYI for the panel. Under "Sexual Orientation", one person responded, "A bit more flexible when it comes to dancing."

I'm giggling too hard to decide what category to put that in.

Whoever wrote that? You are made of win.

Here it is... The questionnaire!!

2008-08-11T12:09:00.002+10:00

Let the data collection begin! My official blurb is below.

I am a graduate student at the University of Wollongong in Australia, and I am writing my Master's thesis on vidding. I have create a questionnaire for the purposes of my research that I would love to have as many vidders and vid-watchers take as possible. If you are interested in taking my questionnaire, please click the link below. It should take about 20 minutes to complete.

Click Here to take survey

If you would like more information before you begin, please don't hesitate to leave a comment here on my LJ, on my research blog, or you can email me.

Please note: This survey is only open to those over the age of 18.

Thank you to all the great vidders and fans out there who have helped me with my research!

Crossposted to my LJ and the LJ vidding community.

How do vidders create their vids?

2008-08-07T03:08:00.002+10:00

I just saw this post over at eunice's LJ, and it really got me thinking about how vidders might go about putting all the pieces of their products together. i wonder how many out there vid intuitively, as eunice does, or how many prefer to storyboard everything in advance. is the clip choice also intuitive, or does a vidder know in advance what particular scenes they want to add?

so any vidders out there who may be reading this, why don't you let me know - how do you go about bringing the pieces together?

Almost there!

2008-07-23T03:57:00.002+10:00

well everyone, i'm just about ready to begin my data collection for my thesis! how cool is that? i'm really excited to get down into the meat and potatoes of my work now. fieldwork is the anthropologist's lifeblood, after all. i am hoping to get my survey up and running this week, via survey monkey, in order to get some of my most basic questions answered. i hope to share my results with the community as well, just to give a bit back to you all.

i'm hoping to post it up in the livejournal comms, and perhaps at animemusicvideos.org as well - does anyone have any other suggestions on where i might be able to hit up more vidders?

the joys of the lit review

2008-06-08T15:29:00.003+10:00

okay, so i know it's been quite a while since i last posted and for that i apologize. i'm going to try and post once a week or similar from now on.

some updates on my progress:

i won't be attending vividcon in chicago in august, unfortunately. i'm rather upset i won't be able to go, but dems da breaks. so instead, i've registered to go to vidukon in england, coming up in october. i've never been to europe, so i'm really excited about it. the only fun part now is convincing my uni to give me some financial support.

my ethics application has been submitted, as well - it's been about three weeks now, but i don't think the committee have met since i gave it over... fingers crossed, everyone! many of the laws regarding media appropriation and the like are extremely strict here in oz, so i'm a bit worried about what the committee will think of my proposal. i'm using some pretty strict methods to keep the identity of my participants confidential, and i hope that will do the trick for them. but you know copyright law - it can be a sticky, scary mess sometimes.

i did a scary and massive review of feminist literature in regards to film over the past month, as well. it was all rather daunting, but i managed to slog through it and i think i've finally come up with something that's relatively cogent for the vidders. i couldn't find a single theorist or group of theorists which i found to apply to the vidding community and their practices, because let's face it - it is a hugely diverse group with a thousand different perspectives.

and then i realized - that's almost like the academics, isn't it? pick up a recent feminist media/film reader, and each chapter will have a completely different way of reading the same text. for example, sherrie inness's collection entitled "action chicks" offers interpretations ranging from Herbst's view that the lara croft is simply a spectacle created for male consumption, while Brown states that these types of heroines are transgressive as they embody both male and female attributes, and Tung argues that the powerful black female is not offered the same opportunity to be progressive as the powerful white female because it invokes an ideology of savagery instead...

and these different viewpoints reminded me of those of many of the vids i have watched over the past few months. consider luminosity & sisabet's women's work to absolute destiny's i enjoy being a girl to giandujakiss's origin stories to LC's jack.... all these vids are about people watching a show and having something to say about its portrayal of women (whether commending or condeming it). and i think it's really similar to what the academics are saying. it's a struggle over the meaning of the text.

i'm not going to get too far into this (unless anyone would like me to elaborate) because i don't want to bog this post down with theory or anything, so i'll leave that thought there for now.

i have also found some interesting work on film music theory that i am really excited to apply to vidding. if different people can watch the same show and get completely different meanings out it, then we get into a bit of a pickle regarding if a text has any inherent meaning at all, and that sort of postmodern debate. so this applies to the vids as well - if a television text doesn't have an inherent, intended, clearly understood meaning, how can a vid?

i did ponder this, and one answer i came up with was this:

a television show is made by a massive cast and crew, and even different episodes are written by different people. take a show like lost or heroes - could you sit one of the creators or writers down and ask them what their show "means"? it would be a tough question to answer, i think. and the other members of the crew could give really different answers.

a vid, on the other hand, is usually made by a single person (or small group of people). and if you want to know what a vidder had in mind when they were creating, just read their notes or commentary that accompany it. should give you a pretty clear idea, no? also, there is much more contact between the vidders and their audience than there is in terms of mainstream TV texts and their viewers. if i wanted to know what a vidder thought about their vid, i could just leave a comment on their LJ or email them. but i can't just call up eric kripke and ask what was up with season three of SPN (no matter how much i wish i could, lol).

but it turns out the answer to this question (the question of how to interpret meaning in a text) was staring me in the face the whole time.

it's the music! it's in the MUSIC!

duh.

how obvious, am i right? i realized with a massive slap to the face the other day that up to this point i had been ignoring the absolutely VITAL ingredient of the music.

lightbulbs went off. i grabbed some film music theory work... and there it is! suture theory. thank you, claudia gorbman & jostein gripsurd!

while a text may have a multitude of potential meanings floating around, the music in film acts as a suture, restricting the possible interpretations down to a more limited number. suturing the text to the emotional or psychological response intended by the creator.

BOOYAH.

i'm still in the beginning stages of developing this idea, of course, but i think it's a really positive step forward for me. a framework is beginning to appear, and that makes me really, really excited.

feel free to comment, debunk, admire, or laugh at me in the comments if you think i'm way off. at this point, i'm still trapped behind a pile of dry theorists in their ivory tower, and i have to wait until my ethics approval comes down from TPTB to actually test this with some vidders. but here's hoping!

Different hats or, I meta on and on about online identity

2008-04-24T15:49:00.005+10:00

had a lecture yesterday in my "electronic cultures" class about identity online, and it triggered some interesting ideas in my wee little brain. i have been reading a wide variety of books about online communities and such as of late for my lit review, and i have been enthralled by how much emphasis academics put on the individual's ability to adopt different personas in cyberspace that they wouldn't be able to IRL. for example, in MUD or MMORPGs or even metaverses like second life, you are able to play in different genders, racial or ethnic identities, ages, or whatever. i think i give a different answer to the question "where are you from?" in SL every time someone asks it. why do i have to be a canadian every time? i enjoy how people react to and conceptualize you differently depending on how you answer the question.

some examples:

australian: something about the weather being amazing, or how lucky i am
british: i've gotten a type of referral almost, like a sense of being more "cultured" or whatever
new zealander: usually just a question about what it's like to live there. most people say they've never met a new zealander before.
canadian: many people profess to love canada, or make a remark about the cold weather. americans tend to give us a kind of kid-brother high-five, because we have so much shared history and whatnot.

note, however, that i always pick western, european, and english-speaking countries that have a kind of shared heritage. i wonder what would happen if i said japanese or mexican or south african or french... perhaps i should try it, and see what sort of reaction i get. i would feel like i was "masquerading" or something, i think. what would happen if i played a male, even?

i've started using the word "mate" when i talk to people, or "bloody" or something, which leads people to automatically assume i'm british. i get that a lot, actually - people assuming i'm from the UK because of the slang words i choose to use. "no worries", "i reckon", or ending a sentence with "hey" (the same way canadians use "eh") hints at an aussie... i find these things really fascinating. i don't really plan them. but out they come, and people make their subconscious evaluation of my country of origin. i think it's fascinating, really. i wish sometimes that i was doing my MA on second life, because i think there's so much going on there that is begging to be studied.

but the point of this post was actually to discuss how these things happen IRL just as often as they do online or in SL. i wear different hats, as it were, every day. code-switching, i believe is the term in anthropology. some examples: i speak different to women than men, to groups than individuals, to people here than people back home, to native english speakers than to non-english speakers, to other canadians or americans than to aussies, to my friends than to my professors, to strangers than to close friends, to office staff differently depending on their rank... the list goes on and on and one. and differently again in SL versus telephone versus internet phone versus email versus IMS versus face-to-face. i write differently for my LJ than i do for my blog, even. it's amazing how our brains automatically evaluate the situation and all the factors relating to it and make the mostly unconscious decision on how to act in each case.

social context, medium of communication, intended audience, etc. etc. - all these things influence every word we say and how we say it.

god, i love language.... i'm wondering now what kinds of implications this might have for my own research into vidding and vidders, actually. self-presentation of people in LJ? how the community may conceptualize themselves individually or as a group as "vidders", in relation or opposition to other types of fans. i think my brain works laterally, for some reason, and not logically, which can be confusing for anyone outside my own head. please forgive me if this makes no sense to you. it sounds more like a stream-of-consciousness every time i look it over.

what hats do you wear?

(also, i just found out from one of my books (crystal's "language and the internet") that the term "spam" in regards to junk-mail originated from a 1970s monty python sketch. who knew?)

If only

2008-04-13T11:46:00.003+10:00

I really, really, really, really want to attend VividCon. Oh man, do I. Partially because it would give me an excuse to see my family in Toronto, and partially because my inner fangirlish side also demands it from me. I would love to be able to meet and interact with all those vidders, watch the vids in the screening room, and essentially fangirl--- I mean, research. Yeah.

But unfortunately, the registration sold out in 15 minutes! I couldn't believe it when I heard it, let me tell you. But I still really want to go. *hangs head* I will try to go to VidUKon in the UK instead, and I am getting really excited about that one as well. But I am worried that my uni won't fork out the necessary funding to get me to the UK. It's a pickle.

Apparently, I am now using this blog to complain about problems and snags in my research. Sorry, audience!

In an attempt to change the general tenor of this post around, I will say that I love my topic, even if it does increase my general stress level by 5000%. But that's okay - VidUKon, I will try and attend you!

As they say here in Oz, no worries mate. No worries. We'll figure this out. (Besides, I can't actually do any fieldwork until I get my ethics approval, but that's in progress.)

An ethical quagmire

2008-04-11T21:11:00.002+10:00

I had a meeting with another professor in my Faculty today, who took a look at my ethics application and helped me through it. She helped me quite a bit, I must say - pointing out things I never would have thought of, because I've never technically done internet-based research before.

But I must say I think I've gotten myself in a bit of a pickle with this whole thesis topic, just because of the things you never think of, you know? I'm specially referring to the issues of copyright infringement in regards to vidding. I'm worried now that my ethics form will scare away any potential vidders whose vids I'd like to use as examples, because of the consent form they'll have to sign. Of course, this could be said of any consent form - they do detail worst-case scenarios, and the potential risks are minimal at best, but the fact that they could potentially happen is what scares me, because the last thing I want to do is bring down the law-man on my participants.

Perhaps the sky just seems black right now; this is what the professor told me. And she's studying sex tourism online, so she would know about ethics approvals from hell to be sure. I must say, I'm going to do my damndest to make sure this whole thing works out for all of us. These are our people, as my friends and I say all the time. These are our people.

A work in progress... all over the place

2008-04-06T14:34:00.004+10:00

Well, I'm finally underway and now knee-deep in the preparation for my research. It's quite difficult, actually, because vidding has never really been documented in any in-depth manner in the past (barring a few instances, such as a chapter in Jenkins 1992), there's so much leg-work to be done it's extremely daunting. The part that is both fascinating and very frustrating is that vidding stands at the intersection of different media forms, and also in-between theoretical frameworks and disciplines. It's amazing because I'm kind of treading new territory here and no matter what I come up with it should be pretty unique, but so demoralizing because there's just so many avenues that need to be explored and I think I'm starting to drown in it all.

But that's okay! I can do this, right?

I'm going to share a few more vid recs for all y'all:

- "Ritual Habitual", by Alcoholic Pixie - LINK!. I watched this vid and my mouth hit the floor with how unique it was. I am definitely going to use this vid in my thesis if I can (after I ask the vidder for permission, of course). It's an extremely well-composed Supernatural AU that makes Sam a violent serial killer, who escapes from prison after being convicted of killing Jessica. (How cool is that?) In a way, the show makes this vid almost too easy to create because of its constant scenes of women in danger, as victims, and such. And SPN does share a lot in common aesthetically (mostly in how it's shot) with serial killer and slasher horror films. I would love to use this vid to talk about how vidders reinvent and subvert the original narrative, context, and intention of television series, sometimes completely tossing the original story out the window and crafting their own.

- Another great AU is "Papa Don't Preach", by Eunice and Greensilver - LINK! First of all, I laughed so hard watching this vid that my housemates came to see if I was okay. Yeah. I first thought, "That's so wrong, mpregs are scary, I can't watch this". But of course I also couldn't resist, and I have to admit this vid is a perfect example of a crack AU going ever so RIGHT. If you think about it, this vid's all in the lyrics. It's completely and utterly dependent on the lyrics to lay out the narrative of the vid, and if you don't pay attention to every line you might not get it at all. But if you do follow it, it's a fantabulous example of taking source footage WAAAYYYYY out of context and using that to make the footage say whatever you want it to. I hope to use this vid in my thesis as well, as an example of a fan/vidder exerting control over the characters and narrative and altering it to suit fannish desires.

I really have to get back to my ethics form now (joy), but I did just want to put a call out there (if anyone actually reads this thing) that if anyone is interested in being interviewed as a part of my thesis, I would love to hear from you. You don't have to be a vidder, even - just a watcher of vids, a fan, or even anyone at all. Drop me a comment!

Also - tell me your favourite AU vid and why!

In which I rant profusely

2008-03-26T16:39:00.001+11:00

I'm sorry, dear readers, but I have to post this here. I have to. Warning: what follows is extremely long and contains terrible language, anger... and... oh, I can't even explain it. Go ahead if you want...

(crossposted from my personal blog)

my fangirl brethren, if you don't want to start your new day seething at the mouth, then don't read this article. it's clearly written by someone who has no idea what they are talking about, and seems determined to provoke uncontrollable rage in fans everywhere.

(it's an article about fan fiction from a radical feminist blog community, fyi.)

it got my hackles up right at the very beginning, because radical feminist always engage my innate desire to kill stupid people. because everyone knows the best way to undo problems of sexism in society is to just hate men. i mean, that's not sexist at all, am i right?

*sighs*

god save us all. i've barely even started to read it, and i'm already deeply, deeply enraged. hold on, i'll continue trudging through this mofo...

here's some gold from this monstrosity:

"in fact fan culture is highly conservative, and bolsters and propagates male supremacist ideas".

i don't even need to say anything about this sentence. i refuse to acknowledge such stupidity.

"Fanfiction is a conservative and worshipful genre of writing..."

i love when people write about things they have never read. yeah. does this writer even know what "conservative" means? fanfiction is liberal and free-wheeling to the extreme, if it's anything. i don't know many conservatives who enjoy them some quality BDSM stories (at least, not publicly *wink*). because queer characters, mpregs, AUs, crack!fics, and the like are utterly NOT CONSERVATIVE in any way, shape, or form.

and i'm only up to the 3 para... prepare for more ranting and frothing to come... *goes back to reading*

"Fanfic writers pride themselves on their respect for and fidelity to their original source material, and in their writing they rarely, if ever, do anything that questions or contradicts the ideologies underwriting the original texts. As, in most cases, these original texts are steeped in patriarchal ideologies, this means that fanfiction, likewise, is strongly patriarchal and almost always woman-hating, despite the fact that women are now the main authors of fanfiction."

i think i'm still in the introduction, too. wow. if fanfic writers were steeped in patriarchal ideologies, then slash wouldn't exist. if fanfic writers don't question or contradict the original texts, then slash wouldn't exist. because i'm quite sure the creators of supernatural didn't intend for us to write filthy, dirty mansex about the two BROTHERS in that show. nor did they intend vidders to make works like "women's work" or "origin stories", which carefully and thoughtfully pick apart the source material and expose the deficiencies in characterizations and the exploitations of characters of colour and women. do some fucking research, asshat.

i can understand where she's coming from with her argument on how, in a patriarchal and male-dominated society, that men would only view friendships with other men as valuable. this is actually an interesting idea that i never considered, but this person refuses to acknowledge homophobia on the part of heterosexual men in any form, apparently. she's making it sound like all straight men do is have homosocial friendships together and then head out for some women-bashing or rape parties. i'm beginning to wonder if she lives on the moon, or some other strange planet where this is the case...

"To say they are drawing out a ‘gay subtext,’ and to attempt to attach revolutionary potential to this act is highly inaccurate, since homosocialism is one of the foundation stones of male supremacy, and fanfic authors who endorse and strengthen the homosocial relationships of male fictional characters by portraying them as homosexual are committing an act in support of patriarchy, not against it."

i can almost see the logic in this argument, almost. but again, i think that fear of appearing homosexual is an extremely important factor in machismo and most men (in this person's warped and twisted version of earth) will go out of their way to avoid appearing as such by "proving" their masculinity. slash writers remove this entire argument (except in issue fics, of course) and posit a more idealized and libertarian version of earth in which homophobia doesn't exist. which is what i had thought most feminists were aiming for - equality and acceptance. apparently, not so much.

*deep breath* back to reading. (you're getting a blow-by-blow of my reactions to this article, btw.)

"slash fanfiction is a conservative genre written by women who conform to patriarchal ways of thinking, and which is characterized by lesbophobia, homophobia, woman-hatred and severe phallocentricity, both in terms of its erotic content and intellectual ideas."

utterly, utterly wrong. clearly, this person has never heard of femmeslash, which is enjoyed by many slash readers/writers (myself included). and how is slash homophobic? anyone? this just makes the author seem like an idiot, imho. women-hatred? okay, sure female characters are usually inserted as a "threat" to the pairing in question, but slash in no way could be characterized as "women-hating" - i like to think about the lack of women in terms of removing the entire issue of gender relations and sexism straightaway, as a method for writers to create a place that's devoid of these issues (most of the time) and move straight into fantasy, play, and female pleasures. also, i don't know of any gay porn that's not phallocentric. this is again just retarded - stories about male-male sexual relations would be really fucked up if they suddenly started talking about vaginas, don't you think???

here's a long one filled with idiocy:
"Sex is generally portrayed pornographically, with an emphasis on penetration, force and pain, and the overwhelming/uncontrollable need the masculine character has for the feminine character, and the feminine character’s need to be needed by the masculine character in order to have a legitimate identity. Descriptions of sex tend to focus only on the physical side of the encounter, using an excess of violent imagery, and with characters often reduced to a collection of sexualized body parts devoid of emotions or humanity. Furthermore, the same-sex male relationships portrayed in most slash stories have a use-by date: sooner or later most of the characters ‘turn’ heterosexual and get married, it apparently being beyond the ability of most slash writers to imagine anyone actually choosing a non-heterosexual identity permanently. It is evidence of in-built lesbophobia and homophobia, since this use-by date mentality means that same sex relationships in slash are generally portrayed as being illegitimate, transient, unstable, and not able to last. Only heterosexual relationships are capable of doing that, apparently. (As evidenced in the real world by 50% divorce statistics)."

wrong, wrong, wrong. unlike most male-directed pornography, slash is much more focused on the sensual/erotic side of sex. all the theorists who write about slash take pains to point out that it has much more in common with romance novels than pornography because there is more focus on romantic issues, confessions of love, non-sexual intimacy, etc. etc. (see Bury 2005, Jenkins 1992, and a thousand others i can't remember right now). yes, there are some violent fics, but all BDSM fanfic i have ever read pertains to consenting adults. and again, the focus on emotional connection and intimacy remains. (the exception i can think of it yami or x/99, but these focus on the trauma and damage done by rape and usually lead the characters toward a properly loving and fulfilling relationship to move forward.)

also, i can't think of a single slash fic that ends with the slash pairing ending and one or both of the characters getting married in a hetero relationship. seriously, not one. this statement of the author's is just patently false. if anything, the stories usually posit long-term & seriously homosexual partnerships between the characters.

"Women’s sexual desires are never mentioned, and presumably do not exist. No hint of lesbianism is ever permitted."

wrong again. (apparently, i'm on a crusade to systematically debunk this entire article.) women's sexual desires are never mentioned because the entirety of slash fic is a tribute to women's sexual desires. AHHHH SO ANGRY. again, what do straight women find attractive sexually? male bodies. (duh.) what does slash do? depict in loving and eloquent detail the male body, from a women's perspective. focus on eyes, facial features, hair, but also on hips, backs, shoulders, etc. why? because chicks think they are hot. i certainly do. *urge to kill rising* and i already mentioned femmeslash, which apparently doesn't exist for this author.

and apparently, joss whedon is one of those authors "whose primary goal is to bolster patriarchy and male supremacy in all its ugly forms".

WHAAAATT????? the man who brought us one of the most complex, well-drawn, and kick-ass women on television? the idol for teenage girls everywhere as an emblem of girl power? (that would be buffy, of course.) and also his characters on his other works continue to be some of the greatest female characters on television - because everyone knows that zoe, inara, and kaylee on firefly are examples of male supremacy in television, right? FUCKING GOD! i mean, whedon's mother was a noted feminist who passed on all her ideals to her son, and he's won AWARDS from "equality now" for his feminist work--- see this video for his speech at the acceptance.

as for the psychology of slash, the author writes:
"There are thousands of women, all over the world, who, thanks to our wonderful friend male supremacy, cannot relate to themselves as women. They can only relate to men, because only men are considered to be fully human. So they fall in love with the heroes of film and literature, and the ‘geniuses’ who create these texts, and they fool themselves into believing that these men speak universal truths, that they are speaking to everybody and about everybody, women included, when of course they are not, they are only speaking to men in the language of male supremacy that is death and poison to women."

what about the massive communities of slashers? huge global networks that exist online with a primarily female membership, who regularly support, assist, and care for each other through the internet? see also: my previous comments about women's desire for male bodies. it would seem a bit more strange indeed if hetero women all over the world were spending their time writing about lesbian sexuality, don't you think? of course straight women will desire males! i think this author is undermining women's pleasure and desire altogether, denigrating who they choose to find pleasurable and enjoyable. wait a minute - aren't radical feminists supposed to support women's rights to choose their own sexuality? all the women i know would certainly not be pleased if they were told that what they find sexually pleasing is "no good". and in no way are slashers and fanficcers "duped" by the media - most fanfic and vids purposefully and thoughtfully critique and analyze the media for their white heteronormative narratives. (yeah, social theory background!)

"Slash comes about because women under patriarchy cannot recognise their own sexual desires..."

my god, i'm repeating myself now. see the above rant. i can't handle how retarded this is.

"Despite writing about gay men, and sometimes claiming to be ‘for gay rights’ (whatever that means), most women involved in slash communities would choke in horror if they were ever to be mistaken for, or tainted as, lesbian.....but they are not in the least turned on by the idea of two women together....Yet what do we have with slash fanfiction? Hundreds and hundreds of heterosexual women writing erotic stories for each other in order to turn one another on…is it just me, or is that starting to sound a bit lesbian?" [ellipsis added]

wrong wrong wrong WRONG WRONG WRONG again. the slash community contains many lesbians, bisexuals, and other queer identifications. in fact, usually more than the general society (my friend david's masters' thesis on yaoi fangirls demonstrates this statistically). slashers are the most accepting group of people i know on the internet - i can't think of any slashers who would be afraid to be mistakenly identified as lesbian, can you? and where is her evidence of this? i troll LJ every day for several hours as i research vidding communities, and i have not seen a single suggestion or hint at what she is talking about here. also, entire communities of het women writing stories to turn each other on? isn't that what romance fiction writers do? and no one ever accuses them of being lesbians, do they? oh yeah, and again ignoring the audience for femmeslash and the fact that many slashers like both. seriously.

"... I think its [slash's] very appeal to different women across these divides is further evidence of its ultimately conservative nature."

this doesn't even make sense. just people lots of people watch american idol doesn't mean that they are all conservative, does it? what about heroes? or lost? just because something is popular doesn't mean it's conservative. again, this author has no evidence. why don't we turn to look at those scholars who have actually survey slash communities? let's see.... Bury (2005) notes the higher presence of queer self-identification in the Due South slash community, as does Jenkins in his essay in "Theorizing Fandom" (I think 1992). as does david in his master's thesis. and as did i in my fieldwork in the yaoi fandom. people in all of this research also self-identified as feminist, as believers in gender equality, and as liberal. i don't know a single conservative slasher (although they certainly exist, i don't know if any personally). this author LIES and MAKES FACTS UP.

the comments in for this essay also cause me to froth at the mouth in anger. I CANNOT STAND feminists who basically say, "as women, you can make whatever choices you want to, as long as we think they are appropriately feminist. also, we get to decide what constitutes 'appropriately feminist'. also, we suck."

wow, what a way to end my day at the office...... i feel like punching someone in the face now. someone save me from this stupidity.

it's business time

2008-02-15T16:42:00.003+11:00

well, now that i've actually pondered some of the things i'm going to actually cover for this thesis, i'm going to have to get down to business. i believe that it's important to connect with your potential research participants and subjects in more than just a superficial manner, and i've made some great friends out of my previous fieldwork endeavours. the only problem is, now i'm a) on the other side of the world, making old contacts a bit harder to reach, and b) doing the majority of my research online with people i'll never meet.

and so, i'm going to make this blog a place for us to connect, shoot the breeze, and to debate and/or make fun of my various insane ideas. i've revamped the sidebars and links sections and hope to have a new layout at some point as well, so here's to the future of this blog!

and here's hoping i make it out of this thesis (mostly) intact.

my next post will hopefully detail a few of the things i want to cover over the course of my writing. 'til then!

thesis topic FINALLY chosen

2008-02-11T20:54:00.000+11:00

okay, so i finally had a proper meeting with two professors here at uni about my thesis topic, and it now seems that i will be (honestly and truly) writing my MA on fan music vids.

totally.

and the best part was the two profs seemed really interested/fascinated by the entire topic. i was surprised, let me tell you! there are a ton of aspects of this that could potentially be covered, and they both seemed worried that i would have too much to write about! (awesome.)

i'm super excited about this now, in case you couldn't tell.

a request - i would love to hear about your absolute fav vids (whether amv or vid proper) and why. also, what makes a good vid? what constitutes it? what components are essential for a good vid and why? any thoughts? no need to be too elaborate, but if you have time to share your thoughts, go for it. (links to vids always appreciated.)

some new vids i'm crushing on:

- Lost in an Anime Dream by Hana no JudgeHolden Productions for combining Read or Die with the Lost in Translation flick and footage from the original Madonna vid for the song, and making the city of Tokyo a character. i love how this one collapses boundaries between "real" footage and animation, between the song and the video... rockon. LINK!

- Ordained from Above, by Many Lemons Productions for making a amv about making amvs. i'm still in shock that this even exists, but i love it. it shows quite clearly the crazy dedication and mania that can go into creating a vid. LINK!

- Moons of Jupiter by Eunice (doctor who), because i was just so overjoyed to find a vid that highlighted the rather wonky happiness of who, and was not an angst-filled "ROSE/TEN 4-EVAR OTP!" type of vid. also, i love the licking / monster / running / hugging montages. love. this vid seems to me to be a ten/tardis 'ship vid. or maybe i'm drunk. one never knows. the point is, this vid captures the mad and quirky energy of who.

(also, i can't help but smiled back at scenes 1.44-1.50.) LINK!

- Rodeohead by Absolute Destiny. I've loved this guy's vidding since his early days in amvs. the song can be a little annoying, but if you can get over that then i think the vid grows on you.

- Jack, Or Adventures in Reading Against the Text, by LC, just for being so aware of what she is doing when she makes vids. (also, i like the song.)

- Vids=Joy! by CounterAgent, for having the hutzpah to make a vid about how much she loves vids, using clips from other people's vids that she loves - without actually making any cuts to them at all! craziness. it makes my heart happy. LINK!

- Filthy Mind, by SE. i love the stream-of-consciousness methodology behind this vid, crossing boundaries between shoes at will. i love love love worship the idea of sydney bristow, faith, the life on mars cops, captain jack, angel, and the lot all in the same club. brilliant. talk about collapsing boundaries between shows. LINK!

- Improper Dancing, by Mary Crawford. because it's lovely awesome fun. lovely awesome. the joy of seeing rarely-vidded older shoes, as well! and as she says in her commentary: "hiro wins at life." LINK!

- Walking, by Seah and Margie, for giving a great old mockery towards all who don't understand/know about vidding specifically, and that great series of tubes we call teh internets in general. don't worry, old peoples, it will all make sense one day. LINK!

and thus begins my proper foray into researchy-type stuff. hopefully i'll get this blog arollin' again to be used for actual communication with people in the internets.

so hello again, big world! bring it on

online ethics

2007-12-19T10:15:00.001+11:00

see below for some various methods of collecting consent online gleaned from AoIR list:

second life - online digital notecards.

VOIP - email before scheduled interview, and agreed to contents of letter verbally, which is recorded along with the interview. advises against reading consent form aloud as too time-consuming and difficult for interviewee to follow.

mail survey: cover letter and consent form sent out. if a respondent returned the questionnaire, it represented their consent to participate. also an online version where consent form popped up after respondent logged in, and must click to indicate their consent before able to answer any questions.

IM interviews: send out informed consent form with information sheet, and respondents emailed back to say they had read, understood, and agreed to participate.

Skype: emailed consent form - faxed back or scanned & emailed. read a short statement at beginning of interview instead of entire form.

tracking bbc's transmedia

2007-12-08T07:02:00.001+11:00

the bbc, apparently, has a mandate requiring them to create extra content and behind-the-scenes items for all of their shows. in particular, see doctor who's website counting down to xmas/the next episode with an advent-ure countdown clock and new items everyday:

1. xmas wishes from tennant/minogue

2. short story - winter themed (fic??)

3. behind-the-scenes photos of new episode

4. companions quiz

5. xmas cards with photos from new ep.

6. extra track from episode "gridlock" of choir.

7. xmas posters (who related)

8. 10 second preview of new episode

9. jigsaw puzzle to review painting of titanic, if complete then get to see RTD's script extract

10. 15 desktop wallpapers with images from new episode

11. behind the scenes video of filming of dvd commentary for episode gridlock

12. game where you fly the TARDIS through time/space collecting energy while trying to get to 21st cen. Cardiff to refuel at the rift.

13. 30-sec vid of cast and crew singing "we wish you a merry xmas".

14. 1.30 full trailer for the new episode.

15. make a christmas tree ornament of one of the villians.

16. 20-sec vid of clips from new episode.

17. "dalek break-out" game.

18. additional features added to comic maker, with festive themes.

19. interviews with executive producer, producer, and creator/head writer regarding upcoming season, etc.

20. preview of upcoming new website design for episodes, with some new content.

21. yet another version of the trailer - 40s.

22. video of actors recording commentary for s3 finale.

23. podcast excerpt from commentary for xmas special by exec trio.

24. screensavers with episode pictures, etc.

25. preview of "confidential" for xmas episode.

thoughts on a thesis

2007-11-24T08:57:00.000+11:00

ponderances stemming from a MA thesis by donald jones from georgetown
university on gender/sexuality and identity formation in second life.

- refers to lacanian theory of the self, a postmodern re-imagining of
identity as no longer unitary, but also questions if it exists at all
when it is constantly in flux.

"To Turkle, in virtual space the imago is shattered into multiple
shards, each of which reflect aspects of Self that can be explored by
the user in question for their (theoretical) betterment. To her this
validates Lacan?s thinking as ?Lacan insisted that ego is an illusion.
In this he joins psychoanalysis to the postmodern
attempt to portray the self as a realm of discourse rather than as a
real thing or a permanent structure of the mind? (Turkle 178).
Multiple online persona are simply parts of the signifying chain." p. 76

"the avatar functions as Other, the idealized Other of the mirror in
which the user derives pleasure in the looking", p. 79

the boundary between fiction/reality

2007-11-02T01:26:00.000+11:00

...is disintegrating as we watch.

see this post on jenkins' blog under "stretching the canon versus canonical fidelity", regarding heroes and the transmedia storytelling. can now receive text messages, etc. from characters...

i should figure out how to use del.i.cious...

viral marketing masterpiece

2007-11-01T13:57:00.000+11:00

i can't believe how complex and detailed the viral marketing campaign for the dark knight has gotten. i love it.

check out http://www.whysoserious.com/, and click on each letter for a different clue for a different american city. fans working together must find letters in each clue and assemble them to make a phrase that will somehow give them some sort of prize.

this is absolutely awesome.

nerd news coverage:

superhero hype
AICN
see also: forum

and check out the sneak pics at "Rory's Death Kiss" - a take on "rory's first kiss", or the code name they're filming dark knight under. ROCKIN'!

impact of facebook

2007-09-26T03:03:00.000+10:00

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/tech/hightech/facebook.html

expansion of the cool nerd

2007-09-25T23:50:00.001+10:00

nbc especially is pushing a number of sci-fi shows this season,
including "journeyman" about a time-traveller, "chuck" about a nerd
who has to save the world, season 2 of "heroes", and a "bionic woman"
remake. suddenly SF is all the buzz again, and shows pandering to
fannish tendencies (esp. "chuck" - living the fanboy dream). see also
explosion of "doctor who" fandom in north america - suddenly
old-school cult shows are also all the buzz.

also plethora of comic book movies in the works - and even indies! "30
days of night", "y: the last man" in pre-pro, etc.

fan vid links

2007-09-14T06:13:00.000+10:00

http://www.henryjenkins.org/2007/09/gender_and_fan_culture_round_f_2.html

directly relevant to thesis topic with book tips and links to vids.

links collection

2007-08-29T10:37:00.000+10:00

New Media Studies

Theory.org

Blogging article

Blogging and politics

"future" documentary EPIC 2014

OnlineFandom.com

Jenkins blog - re: gendering of fandom, rising popularity, mainstream perceptions

corporate sponsors of fannish practices, fostering fan bases, under "HP And the Media Revolution"

all regarding the future of the internet, media, and communication studies

society for the promotion of japanese animation

2007-08-22T08:44:00.000+10:00

maybe this group, the SPJA, has something to do with the sudden accessibility and acceptability of japanese pop culture products.

boy's love a positive role model?!?

2007-08-22T08:36:00.001+10:00

fumi yoshinaga's moon and sandals has made The Young Adult Library Services Association's list of "great graphic novels for teens"!!! YALSA is a part of the American Library Association, and has published a list of recommended graphic novels for teens, and a large majority of the titles are either manga or manhwa.

see ANN's coverage here.

how did moon and sandals end up on this list? who choses? what is the selection process? and are they aware that this comic contains GAY? this i just cannot believe.

not only have comics suddenly become more respectable in the eyes of "the institution", but the uncontrollable popularity of anime/manga/manhwa as well.

i am literally in shock right now.

fandom as positive pasttime for youth

2007-08-22T08:28:00.000+10:00

creators of philly's tandokucon cite one of the reasons for arranging the con was to prevent youth from becoming involved in violence (link here).

this is quite strange, considering that anime is usually considered excessively violent and otaku prone to both self-destruction and harming others.

there is a definite change in the wind regarding mainstream perceptions of fans.

in popular culture, "nerd" characters such as "Heroes" (Hiro), Densha Otoko, etc. may be slightly laughable and piteous, but also increasingly popular (nominated for Emmys, etc.)

Fandom is gaining mainstream cultural capital!!

move over democracy

2007-08-13T07:45:00.001+10:00

it's time for wikicracy.

(see article on history of wikis here.

know your fanbase

2007-08-08T10:13:00.000+10:00

nbc seems to have finally caught on to that there internet, and is actively using it to communicate and interact with the fans of its cash-cow masterpiece "heroes". the website invites fans to read supplementary comics, write their own works, and make music videos for chances to win prizes, as well as conducting a "world tour" and taking advantage of fandom's internal communication.

see the official website here.

it appears i'm not the only one who noticed

2007-08-01T10:21:00.000+10:00

about geeks suddenly becoming not only cooler, but a quality money-maker for the mainstream.

see time's article "geek god".

dark knight's viral marketing continued

2007-07-29T12:40:00.001+10:00

once again, and always, covered by our good friends at AICN. taking full advantage of the nerd pilgrimage to comic-con, the deliciously secretive marketing campaign continues.

the appearance of cool nerds

2007-07-29T02:14:00.000+10:00

perhaps it is only a wishful thinking on my part, but why does it seem as though, all of a sudden, the geeks, the nerds, and even the dorks have recently managed to become an accepted and even beloved part of mainstream culture?

when did words like "con" and "cosplay" enter the everyday vocabulary? the most popular shows on television now practically require one to become a fan - following the content online, debating cast changes, buying all the associated products...

who is to blame for this transformation in the general consciousness? is it the dvds and their special features? the ability to easily watch and re-watch cult shows from decades past? hear actor's commentary?

or was it the internet, the readily available information on every minute detail of the ppre- and post-production of media, follow the blogs, interact with the creators, influence popular opinion through forum posts?

i really think we have reached a new age of media, where everything is connected, crosses over, and there are no boundaries between genres or formats any longer. some may call this postmoderism, but i hate labels like that.

as i write this, i am pondering gaiman's storytelling while watching koop's rahxephon amv euphoria.

Presidential YouTube Debate

2007-07-25T13:12:00.000+10:00

Official Youtube site

- Youtube as sponsor of debate
- hailed as new age of "participatory democracy", "new media"
- See Daily Show coverage, Jul. 24/07
- importance of involving youth by appealing to new technologies, but debate itself filled with same ol'

Fan writers going pro

2007-07-24T11:21:00.003+10:00

or at least being recruited to do the studio's dirty work, so says AICN re: the proposed reboot movie.

Several website changes on the way

2007-05-30T13:12:00.000+10:00

I just realized that now that I'm out of school, I might actually have the time to use this blog as I should, and will attempt to update it more often and make it more user-friendly. I will be going back and editing the posts with commentary, instead of just links.

Any q's, let me know!

Hello to any coming from AN07

2007-05-29T14:07:00.001+10:00

I'm not sure if I mentioned this to all the people I gave this address out to, but after my original plan to use this blog as a discussion place kinda crashed due to non-interest, I've mostly been using it to keep track of info I stumble across that I could use for my master's thesis. This would be why most of the posts are short and just contain links.

Sorry 'bout that. I would love to see this thing get back into discussion mode involving more people than my 3 high school friends, so please feel free to ask questions, leave comments, and generally make your presence felt!

Those who expressed interest in my massive 4th year paper: if I get enough interest, I will post it up here. Leave a comment and let me know!

nuts for jericho

2007-05-26T00:30:00.001+10:00

highly organized international campaign to save the show: their website, and AICN's coverage.

2007-05-23T04:42:00.000+10:00

rejected TV pilots go online, and some are re-considered by networks

new advertising schemes

2007-05-21T00:39:00.000+10:00

AICN is following the shrewd schemes of Warner Bros. for "The Dark Knight".

Link

“We are not special. We are Japanese!”: Heroes and the Enactment of the New Foundational Narrative

2007-03-22T15:28:00.000+11:00

In NBC’s extremely popular new series Heroes (2006-present), individuals all over the world suddenly and inexplicably develop supernatural powers which they must learn to use in order to protect mankind. As one of these heroes, a young Japanese salaryman named Hiro Nakamura, along with and his friend and sidekick Ando Masahashi, attempt to save the world from annihilation, they enact a new and more contemporary version of the foundational narrative as described by Yoshikuni Igarashi (2000). Unlike the original postwar narrative, Japan is no longer explicitly feminized and in need of rescue, nor is it the threatening economic machine of the 1980s – instead, it is rendered as an ineffectual and weak male. In Heroes, the Japanese are portrayed as “good capitalists”, but at the same time only a pale imitation of the proper free and individualistic capitalism embodied in the United States. Through its depiction of Japanese “strange” and “foreign” social norms, the show makes invisible the cultural context surrounding these norms, and presents American neoliberalism as inherent and natural rather than culturally constructed. The character Hiro embodies not only the current trope of the Japanese male as dictated by the foundational narrative, but also enacts the drama of rescue and conversion, steadily transforming through his contact with the United States into a “true” American hero.

In Bodies of Memory (2000), Igarashi explains the foundational narrative as a method of understanding the changing relationship between the United States and Japan, particularly in the immediate aftermath of Japan’s defeat and its subsequent occupation by the American military. This narrative was co-produced between the two countries, and enacted through popular culture, news media, and the popular imagination. It consisted of the United States, gendered as male, rescuing and converting Japan, which was conceived as a desperate female: “The relationship between the United States and Japan in the postwar melodrama is highly sexualized. The drama casts the United States as a male and Hirohito and Japan as a docile female, who unconditionally accepts the United States’ desire for self-assurance. As a good enemy that is also constructed as a docile woman, Japan provides the United States with a reflection of its own power” (Igarashi p. 29). By depicting each of the countries in this manner, it allowed the people of both nations to make sense of their sudden shift from enemies to allies.

As the power dynamics between Japan and the United States have shifted over time, this narrative had to be updated in order to again comprehend their changing relationship. In the 1980s during the economic boom in Japan, the country was no longer gendered as female in the foundational narrative, but became an aggressive and hyper-sexual male businessman, with the United States as a woman in danger. This new trope is that of the salaryman, the kigyō senshi (corporate warrior). Japan’s economic success on the world stage was attributed to their strange and foreign business practices, in which the salaryman must sacrifice his body and personal freedoms for the good of the company, as the free and clean bodies of the postwar period were once again restricted by oppressive the requirements of Japanese society (Dasgupta in Louie and Morris 2003, p. 120).

This new and powerful Japan was somehow aberrant from the American point of view, as it was achieved through tyrannical control over the businessman, and not in a free and individualistic manner. Both Igarashi and Dorinne Kondo point to the 1992 Michael Crichton novel Rising Sun as indicative of this new narrative. Kondo reads the novel thusly from the American point of view: “The Japanese may have the upper hand now, but clearly all is not lost. ‘They’ are, after all, merely ‘plodders’ – hardworking but uncreative, successful only because of their dedication to work and their devious business practices. Representing ‘them’ as clannish and endowed with a racist superiority complex, [the character] Connor not so subtly allows us to counter by asserting ‘our’ own superiority” (Kondo 1997, p. 244). This new foundational narrative, then, continues the drama of rescue and conversion, by allowing the United States to insist on its own superiority and somehow “save” the Japanese from their own cultural values.

According to Kondo, the two stereotypes of the Japanese male at the time were either “the corporate soldier who threatens to invade the American economy” or “the bespectacled, camera-carrying, buck-toothed, asexual, emotionless automaton” (p. 173). As this paper will demonstrate, it is this second stereotype that survived the “bubble burst” of the late 1990s and survives in the popular imagination to this day. The new Japanese male is that of the emasculated and laughably pathetic otaku. As LaMarre indicates, “theirs is such an unqualified masculinity that it appears pathetic… they are both passionate and helpless... and the emphasis on youthful passion or youthfulness serves to highlight a childlike subjection…” (LaMarre in Yoda and Harootunian, 2006, p. 371), and is thus no longer a threat to the United States’ economy, nor its women.

At the same time, though, this otaku character is more able to free itself from the perceived oppression of Japanese society: “… the otaku apparently refuses certain forms of disciplinization and rationalization, especially those of the corporate man and the nuclear family. Thus the otaku strives toward a new kind of man” (LaMarre, p. 376). In this way the drama of rescue and conversion that is fundamental to the foundational narrative may again be enacted, as the otaku is more willing to adopt American neoliberalistic beliefs. It is this trope of the Japanese man that is portrayed in Heroes in the character of Hiro Nakamura, to which we will now turn.
Such an ineffectual and pathetic male lead character as an otaku is usually never seen in a lead role on a television series, as the traditional hero of American film and television is “undoubtedly masculine and heterosexual” (Brandt in West and Lay, 2000, p. 70). As the force that drives the film and the symbol of confidence and charisma, “heroism… is deeply injected with codes of masculinity like strength, courage, and the will to do things” (ibid, p. 71-2, emphasis in original). One would assume than an otaku type would never be figured in such a role, but throughout the course of Heroes, both Hiro and Ando learn how to be proper heroes as they attempt to save the world, slowly moving away from their “otaku-ness” and toward a more American ideal of heroism throughout the course of the show, in their performance of the drama of rescue and conversion.

The series begins with several scenes of Hiro in Japan as he works at a mindless office job, as is socially required (Episode 101, “Genesis”). Hiro is first shown staring at the clock in his white-walled cubicle, his desk decorated with figurines of anime characters and a computer desktop of Godzilla. Staring intently at his clock, he manages (using his ability to control time) to turn it back one second. Upon his success he leaps up from his chair, throws his arms up in victory, and shouts “Yatta!” (“Hooray”). He then turns and runs through the endless rows of matching white cubicles cheering happily, until he reaches the desk of his friend Ando. The subtitles tell us his first words are “I’ve broken the space/time continuum! I have discovered powers beyond any mere mortal.” To this declaration, Ando reacts with sarcasm: “Oh, you and Spock.” Hiro, in complete seriousness, responds, “Yes! Like Spock. Exactly.” At this point, his superior arrives and drags him back to his desk by the ear like a parent would a misbehaving child, and Ando returns to watching an online striptease on his computer.

This first scene is a perfect indication of the new trope involved in the foundational narrative. Unlike Rising Sun, in which the Japanese businessman was an ambiguously dangerous threat to the United States, Hiro is a threat to no one, save perhaps himself. He appears to function as comic relief for the series, as his cheerful personality seems oblivious to all solemnity. While the American characters struggle with their powers and changing identities, Hiro is thrilled that he can now act as the hero he has always read about, and constantly compares himself to other popular culture heroes such those in as The X-Men, Spiderman, and Star Trek (although one might ask why he uses American popular culture references instead of Japanese). His clownish nature is clear in farcical mock-seriousness in all his actions, such as the scrunched-up and overly dramatic facial expression he makes whenever he uses his powers.

As noted by LaMarre above, Hiro’s position as an otaku allows him to be liberated in some extent from the cultural pressures of Japanese society. In the scene described previously, Hiro is the only person in the office not acting appropriately, and the only one not sitting at his desk. His alterative potential is also prevalent in another scene from episode 101, in which the employees of his office engage in mandatory callisthenics on fake green turf on the rooftop of the building. As everyone else moves in unison and counts over and over again monotonously in their matching black-and-white business suits, Hiro stands still and stares upwards at the solar eclipse occurring right over their heads, while no one else seems to notice.
Hiro expressly states his desire to be different later on in the episode, after he and Ando are forcibly ejected from a karaoke bar when Hiro manages to teleport himself into the women’s bathroom using his newfound powers. At this stage, he and Ando get into an argument about Hiro’s longing to be special:

Ando: There are twelve and a half million people in this
city and not one of them can bend the time/space
continuum. Why do you want to be different?
Hiro: Why do you want to be the same?
A: Because that’s what I am. The same.
H: Exactly. Just like everyone else. Homogeneous.
Yogurt.
A: Yogurt?
H: You don’t understand, I want to be special.
A: We are not special. We are Japanese!
[Literally, 「我々は特別じゃない。俺たちは日本人だ。」]
H: Fine. Stay here. Be just like everyone else. I want
to boldly go where no man has gone before.

These scenes of Hiro and his rejection of Japanese norms seem to suggest that he is the only one who wants to break free of the constraints of society that hold him back from doing as he desires, which is a perfect indicator of the American ideology of individualism.

Beginning in the final scenes of the first episode, Hiro travels to the United States in order save New York City from an explosion, and it is at this time that juxtaposition between American and Japanese becomes the most clear. As noted by LaMarre above the otaku male is extremely ineffectual with women, and this is clear as both Hiro and Ando are utterly useless in their interactions with the American women they encounter as they travel from Las Vegas to New York. For example, in Episode 105 (“Hiros”), Ando agrees to follow Hiro to the United States in the hopes that he might meet the online stripper he was watching in the first episode. After having an argument with Hiro, Ando abandons him and goes in search of this woman (unbeknownst to him, another one of the “heroes”). She is understandably shocked when he arrives at her home, and explains to him in very condescending terms that her online persona is “just pretend”, and that there’s a difference between the internet fantasy and the real world. Here, it seems as though Ando was unable to distinguish fantasy from reality, and appears quite pathetic for having assumed that she would actually welcome him into her home.

Hiro himself also has a romantic interest introduced several episodes later, but as long as he remains the emasculated otaku he will be unable to engage in a proper relationship. This woman, Charlie, is extremely non-threatening and innocent, but she is killed before any relationship may occur (Episode 108 – “Seven Minutes to Midnight”). Although Hiro is able to use his powers to go back in time in an attempt to save her before she is murdered, it is revealed that she was dying of natural causes in any case. He is ultimately unable to save her or have any intimate contact with her whatsoever: as he is just about kiss her for the first time, he is suddenly teleported back to Japan, to the roof of his office building where his co-workers are performing callisthenics – back the symbol of conformity and homogeneity. Again, as everyone else moves and chants in unison, Hiro stands still, and is wearing red while everyone else is wearing identical black suits (Episode 110 – “Six Months Ago”).

Upon his return to the present day, he reveals to Ando that he has lost his ability:
H: I teleported forward, backward… But I couldn’t
save her. I couldn’t save Charlie.
A: So try again.
H: It won’t work. This power… It’s bigger than me.
I can’t change the past. No matter how hard I wish.
I failed.

Very clearly, he has become completely emasculated and ineffectual through his attempts to have a relationship with Charlie. (Interestingly, though, in order to regain his powers he must retrieve a Japanese katana sword, which acts as a symbol of re-masculinization.) Unlike the threatening figure of the kigyō senshi in the 1980s who was a danger to American women (as depicted in Rising Sun), this new depiction of the Japanese male is no threat to females as he is unable to ever properly have any sort of relationship.

In addition, when Hiro and Ando interact with the men they encounter in the United States, their ridiculousness and weakness is dramatically increased, as well as their position as clowns or fools. For instance, again from episode 105, Hiro encounters Nathan Petrelli, a self-described manipulative and controlling “shark” who is running for congress. He does, however, have the ability to fly and is seen doing so by Hiro even as he attempts to pretend that nothing has happened. The following dialogue occurs after Hiro confronts Nathan about his abilities:

Hiro: Flying man! You fly – I see you! Fwoosh!
Nathan: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
H: It’s okay, I keep shi-ku-re-to [secret]. I bend
time and space! Teleport into future. We are
both special.
N: [looks away with a sceptical expression]
Alrighty then.
H: I go to New York, I see future. Big bomb goes
there. Bad for many people – TO-KAAANN!
N: Shhh!
H: [whispering] Booom! [pushes up his glasses]
N: I can see where that might be a problem.
H: Don’t worry – I stop it. [pushes up his glasses]
I’m hero.
N: [sarcastically] Lucky us. [Walks away]
H: Give me lai-do? [ride]
N: What?
H: Lai-do [mimes steering a car] Bu buuu.
[pushes up glasses]
N: Sure. Why not.

When compared to the calm and serious Nathan (who is incidentally shirtless in this scene), Hiro seems extremely childish as he smiles cheerfully at the confused American. As Hiro speaks in heavily accented and broken English, he must mime actions to describe things, making him appear even sillier, and his “otaku-ness” is increased as he must constantly push up his glasses. It is interesting to note that the other “foreign” character in the series, the Indian university professor Mohinder, speaks highly articulate “Queen’s English”, with a negligible accent. The new foundational narrative is perfectly embodied in this scene, as both Japanese and American males come into contact and act out the new power dynamics at work between the two countries after the economic collapse of the 1990s.

In Episodes 113 (“The Fix”) to 114 (“Distractions”), Hiro must face his own father and sister when they arrive in the United States in order to convince him to return to Japan. These interactions demonstrate the ideology of company-as-family/ family-as-company as outlined by Kondo (1990), as well as the relative position of women in the social hierarchy and business world in Japan. However, the episode then systematically debunks these social practices, as Hiro manages to convince his family members to accept his newfound individualism. In Episode 113, Hiro and Ando are kidnapped and forced into a van, and taken to meet an extremely stern and cruel-faced man wearing a suit, who is revealed to the Hiro’s father, and head of a zaibatsu-type corporation. His father insists that Hiro return to Japan and resume his appropriate role as heir to the company/family as his only son. As this storyline develops in Episode 114, Hiro’s father is depicted as a Japanese male seemingly left over from the previous foundational narrative, as he is best described as belonging to the threatening and mysterious kigyō senshi trope whose company loyalty is absolute. His father discounts his son’s “mission” to save the world as an unnecessary distraction, and demands he come back to work, offering to make Hiro the Executive Vice-President as a prelude to becoming CEO: “You are my only son,” he states. “This is your destiny.” Hiro, however, responds, “Father, I believe I have a different destiny.”

Both his sister Kimiko (also dressed in a business suit) and Ando try to convince Hiro to return to Japan, as they believe that family obligations should come before personal choices. Hiro, however, will not be dissuaded from his mission, and manages to trick his sister into listing what she thinks should be done to save the company, and she proclaims that no one knows more about the business than she does. Upon doing so, though, she immediately realizes her error, bows, and apologizes to their father for speaking out of turn. However, by demonstrating that Kimiko knows more about the company that he ever will, Hiro is able to convince his reluctant father to make Kimiko Executive Vice-President, and frees himself from the company/family obligation: he states, “Life evolves, Father. And the son you wanted to be like you will follow his own path.”

This scene seems to suggest, however subtly, that the evolution that Hiro refers to requires the adoption of a more American-style ideology, one in which traditional values and familial obligations are not as important as self-determination and personal freedom. The Nakamuras enact the company-as-family/family-as-company narrative as outlined by Kondo, but it is portrayed as strange, overly formal, slightly backward, and discriminatory toward women (as their father would never have chosen his older, more business-savvy daughter to succeed him if Hiro had not suggested it first). All the factors of the 1980s-1990s foundational narrative that created the impressive power of the Japanese economy at that time – such as slavish devotion to one’s job, familial and social obligations, and father-to-son inheritance of the business – now appear out-of-date, and products of a disappearing age, as Hiro manages to break free of his duty to the company-as-family and choose his own destiny.

Over the course of his time in the United States, Hiro comes to adopt American-style neoliberalism, and steadily abandons the Japanese social norms, as evidenced in the above interaction with his family. The final product of this contact with American ideology is depicted in Episodes 104 (“Collision”) to 105 (“Hiros”), in which the audience meets Hiro’s future self. While it is not revealed exactly how far in the future this new Hiro has come from, he is nearly unrecognizable from his original self. This future Hiro has no recognizable accent when speaking English, wears no glasses, has a small goatee, a deeper voice, and is wearing all-black clothing. He speaks with deadly seriousness as he tries to warn the character Peter of the events to come, and not a single trace of his clownish otaku self remains. Now, he is a “true” hero of the American style – masculine, charismatic, and in control.

The rescue and conversion drama of the foundational narrative continues: “The postwar foundational narrative’s power has been constantly challenged by the ever changing power dynamics of the two countries, and to each challenge, the narrative responds with its basic theme of the popular representations of the two countries’ relations – rescue and conversion” (Igarashi, p. 43), and the series Heroes is no exception. Although the relationship between Japan and the United States has changed drastically again and again over the course of the past fifty years, the narrative always responds in the same way, as the United States is able to save the Japanese from their own society and convert them to a “better” way. The United States rescues the weak and ineffectual Hiro from his mind-numbing job, and makes him a “real” hero by converting him to neoliberalism, and he in turn manages to spread these liberatory values to others, such as his sister and father, who he manages to break just a little bit from the stricture of Japanese beliefs. While just as steeped in a cultural context as Japan is thought to be, the depiction of Japan in this series seems to stealthily suggest that American-style neoliberalistic values are somehow innately superior to the cultural values of the Japanese, as Hiro moves away from his former monotonous life and becomes a “true” hero.

This new foundational narrative is acted out through the portrayal of the monotony and futility of daily existence in Japan, the weak and pathetic portrayal of Japanese men in comparison to both American men and women, and in the suffocating social obligations of the company-as-family ethos. By choosing to be unique and different in the face of these social pressures, Hiro gains the sympathies of the audience and continues the drama of rescue and conversion which first appeared in the immediate aftermath of WWII and the defeat of Japan. As Japan and the United States continue their close association into the future, this foundational narrative will surely shift again to better reflect this relationship, and will give us a new glimpse into the subconscious play of power occurring on the international stage.

Works Cited
Heroes. Created by Tim Kring. NBC, 2006-present.

Igarashi, Yoshikuni. Bodies of Memory: Narratives of War in Postwar Japanese Culture, 1945-1970. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.

Kondo, Dorinne. About Face: Performing Race in Fashion and Theatre. New York: Routledge, 1997.

Kondo, Dorinne. Crafting Selves: Power, Gender, and Discourses of Identity in a Japanese Workplace. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990.

Louie, Kam and Morris Low, eds. Asian Masculinities: The Meaning and Practice of Manhood in China and Japan. London: Routledge Curzon, 2003.

West, Russell and Frank Lay, eds. Subverting Masculinity: Hegemonic and Alternative Versions of Masculinity in Contemporary Culture. Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi B. V., 2000.

Yoda, Tomiko and Harry Harootunian, eds. Japan after Japan: Social and Cultural Life from the Recessionary 1990s to the Present. Durham: Duke University Press, 2006.

“Goth Gunman”: Subtle Stereotyping and the Conflations of Goths and Violence in the Dawson College Media Coverage

2007-03-22T15:26:00.000+11:00

“His name was Kimveer Gill, alias Trench, and he was a Goth…” So runs the headline of the Montreal Gazette on September 14, 2006, following the shooting at Dawson College. Throughout the print media’s coverage of this horrific event, many of the articles focused unnecessarily on shooter Kimveer Gill’s black trench coat, Mohawk hairstyle, and combat boots as markers of Goth subculture affiliation, though his actual connections to this group are not known. By focusing on his appearance, the coverage served to both directly and indirectly create an association between Goths and violence. The media coverage of this event accessed many pre-existing stereotypes and preconceptions surrounding the “violent and dangerous goth” trope through conflation similar to that noted by Russell and Kelly in their 2003 study of the conflation of homosexuality and child abuse in the Boston media. In addition, Gill’s black-clothed figure was juxtaposed to that of victim Anastasia DeSousa’s “pink princess”, which further conflated the connection of dark colours and a violent personality while bright colours were associated with the cheerful and sociable victim. While it is no longer acceptable to create stereotypes based on race or gender, it appears that harmful stereotypes are now being created on the basis of life choices or subcultural affiliations.

The connection between dark clothing, Goths, and violence in the media has existed for more than a decade. First mentioned in the 1996 Moses Lake, WA shooting coverage, the conflation between the trench coat (a gothic and punk subcultural symbol) and school violence was solidified in the popular imagination after the 1999 Columbine High School shooting in Littleton, CO, after which several students were suspended for wearing trenches to school (Cooper & Russakoff, quoted in Bonilla, p. 146). However, the conflation grew a great deal more widespread, with the Washington Post finding trench coats as symbols “for things from Hitler and the Nazis to mass murder and suicidal fantasies” (Vest quoted in Bonilla, p. 188).

This conflation spread from a symbol of “goth” identity (the trench) to include the entirety of the Goth subculture, even in the face of disconfirming evidence. “Despite any lack of evidence that the [Columbine] shooters considered themselves Goths and repeated testimony from surviving classmates that the boys were excluded from the school’s reputedly Goth clique, ‘the Trench Coat Mafia’, the mainstream media quickly applied this label to them [the shooters], and a frenzy of anti-Goth sentiment followed,” states Siegel in her ethnography of the Goth movement (Siegel 2005, p. 30). Even further, Siegel believes that “…Since Columbine, non-Goths are likely to suspect anyone under thirty who wears a dark trench coat of being a (potentially murderous) Goth” (p. 14). As this paper will demonstrate, such an attitude is still prevalent in the Dawson College shooting newspaper coverage, and has not changed whatsoever despite all the pervasive data to disprove it.

By adopting Russell and Kelly’s methodology and a Critical Discourse Analysis approach as outlined in their 2003 article on the Boston priest child abuse scandal, we should be able to demonstrate if this particular case follows a similar trajectory in creating subtle stereotypes. The clearest way that stereotypes are created is through direct conflation, in which explicit connotations are made (Russell and Kelly, p. 9). The earliest newspaper coverage of this event, particularly in the Montreal Gazette, has several examples of direct conflation between violence and Goths.

A perfect indicator of this correlation occurs in the major article of the Gazette on the shooting, on the day after the event. The headline for September 14 ran, “‘Life is a video game, you gotta die sometime’: Suspect in Dawson shootings deeply immersed in dark Goth subculture based on horror movies” (Jeff Heinrich, Sept. 14/06). This headline alone manages to hit nearly every fear associated with school violence in one sentence: the influence of violent video games and media; an inability to distinguish fantasy from reality; and the dark, seething Goth. All three fears were merged in this case in order to perfectly access the proto-typical school shooter trope in the minds of the readers. Continuing, the article’s first line stated, “His name was Kimveer Gill, alias Trench, and he was a Goth, part of a subculture that takes its cues from Gothic literature and horror movies.” While it was later revealed that Gill’s connections to the Goth subculture were tenuous at best, this opening headline categorically states that Goths commit violent acts.

The following day, September 15, another article was printed which referred to Gill unhesitatingly as a “goth gunman” (Gazette, Jan Ravensbergen, Sept. 15/06). Both this article and the previous were placed in the opening “A” section of the paper, and prominently featured with bold headlines and large colour photographs of a menacing-look Gill posing in black clothing with a large assault rifle, taken from his website. This website, www.vampirefreaks.com, was focused on a great deal in the coverage, probably because it was the only evidence that Gill ever participated in the Goth subculture at all.

Russell and Kelly identify the other type of conflation as indirect, which is implicit and caused by linkage by association. Indirect conflation allows two things to be connected unconsciously: “They operate at a kind of stealth level: the conflation is expressed implicitly rather than explicitly. There is scarcely any room for rebuttal when linkages are so implicit. More often, they are more likely to create a visceral response than to signal a need for a rational rebuttal” (Russell and Kelly, p. 15). In the case of the Dawson shooting, a great deal more of the articles never explicitly stated that Gill was a Goth, nor that Goths themselves were violent at all. However, they did focus a great deal on Gill’s clothing: a black trench coat, Mohawk haircut, and large black combat boots. Implicitly, a reader would recognize that such an appearance marks someone as a member of the Goth or punk subcultures (among many others), and would bring them to unconsciously associate such an appearance with violence, as Siegel notes in her above quote on the hysteria surrounding the trench coat after Columbine.

A perfect example of such conflation comes from the front page article of the Montreal Gazette from September 14. The opening lines of this article boldly state: “He wore black, had a mohawk haircut and big boots, and carried a gun. His epitaph was written on a tombstone posted on a Goth subculture website: ‘Kimveer – Lived fast, died young, left a mangled corpse’” (Jeff Heinrich et al). Again on September 16, the Gazette used the same type of indirect conflation, referring to Gill as “…a grim-faced misfit in a black trench coat” who “…showed us anger and hate” (Susan Semenak). In these cases, Gill is never specifically referred to as a Goth. However, he dressed like one, was a social outcast, used a Goth website with an ominous name, and was violent. While the connection is never directly made, the qualifiers are linked by association, and the unconscious statement made is “Goths are violent and dangerous.”

Newspaper around the world adopted a similar type of conflation, with headlines such as “Trench coat gunman in school rampage” and “Mohawk gunman’s college rampage” running in UK-based Advertiser and The Australian. Both articles in these international papers, as well as the Seattle Times and New Zealand Herald, made mention of the 1999 Columbine shootings, pointing out that Harris and Klebold also wore trench coats at that time. This suggests to the reader a historical precedence for the conflation, that the trench-coat clad have been violent on more than one occasion, and are thus more likely to do so again in the future. This unnecessary focus on Gill’s clothing and appearance seem to suggest that the fact that he may have been a Goth is somehow relevant to his violent actions, and continues to conflate the stereotype of the aggressive and homicidal Goth.

The Dawson shooting coverage also had another element of unconscious conflation, one which was not present in the Boston coverage analyzed by Russell and Kelly. This was a form of colour association, which juxtaposed Gill’s black-clothed, dark-skinned and murderous figure against the innocent, pink-clad figure of victim Anastasia DeSousa. The articles examined seemed to focus to a strange degree on the fact that DeSousa loved the colour pink, and it constituted headlines in several different papers. For example, the Canadian Press printed the headline “Eighteen-year-old Dawson student remembered for penchant for pink”, and continued “Anastasia DeSousa looked pretty in pink. The 18-year-old student was caught in a hail of bullets Wednesday when a man dressed in black burst into Dawson College…” The article went on to mention the colour an astounding nine times throughout the short article, and concluded with “Like her darkly clad assailant, she was pronounced dead at the scene” (Jonathan Montpetit, Sept. 15/06). By contrasting killer and victim in such a manner, the association between dark colours and violence was increased, while bright colours remain symbols of happiness and innocence. Following this logic, a dark-clad individual (such as a Goth) would be more like to commit a crime than one wearing pink.

The Canadian Press was not the only newspaper to do associate colours with dangerousness in this way. The Gazette, the Calgary Herald, and the Globe and Mail all seemed to place an unnecessary amount of focus on the colour pink, each mentioning the colour more than five times. The Toronto Star printed two contrasting articles together on the front page of their paper on September 15: the first used words such as “friendly”, “outgoing”, “bubbly personality”, “upbeat”, “dazzling”, and “popular” to describe DeSousa, and the second described Gill as “hate-filled”, “an alcoholic and a killer”, “trouble”, “loner”, and an admirer of Marilyn Manson, “the rock star who portrays himself as the anti-Christ” (Betsy Powell – Gill; Jason Magder – DeSousa). Essentially, all the descriptors of DeSousa are the same as those for Gill, only in reverse.

The aforementioned Calgary Herald article also revealed something quite interesting in the placement of its text, and its quoting of DeSousa’s family members. The article relates that “…DeSousa had no involvement with the ‘Goth’ subculture that Gill apparently favoured”. The next paragraph consists solely of the quote, “‘She was too perfect and beautiful’” (Rene Bruemmer et al, Sept. 15/06). The juxtaposition here seems to suggest that the perfect and the beautiful would never be involved in such with dark and sordid group as the Goths, and that only the not-perfect and not-beautiful would be. By placing the articles comparing Gill and DeSousa in proximity to each other, they heightened the differences between these two individuals, and played on the unconscious colour association of bright colours such as pink with “good” individuals, and dark colours such as black with “bad” individuals.

While not prevalent, and seemingly downplayed in the Canadian papers surveyed, the issue of race did arise on two occasions in the print media. Agence France Presse, unlike any of the Canadian or American papers, carried the headline “Montreal school gunman was 25-year-old Indian-Canadian: police” (no author, Sept. 14/06). Unlike the Gazette, Star, or Globe, which focused on Gill’s subcultural identity, this French paper focused on Gill’s racial identity as an Indian-Canadian, finding it relevant enough to focus on as their headline for that article. As argued earlier, attacking someone on the basis of their race or ethnic group is no longer acceptable in any way in Canada, and instead the focus has been shifted to one’s life choices as a point of attack or stereotyping. Interestingly, the initial information in The Australian reported that witnesses had “described the assailant as a white man in a black trenchcoat with knee-high black boots” (no author, Sept. 15/06). The fact that Gill was of Indian descent was not noted by these witnesses, but his clothing, marking him as a Goth, certainly was. This is perhaps attributable to the fact that the trope of the “school shooter” is inevitably a white, suburban, middle-class male dressed in black – these witnesses reported not what they had actually seen, but rather that of the stereotypical Goth school shooter, which indicates just how pervasive this stereotype has become in the minds of the public.

In their review of the Boston media, Russell and Kelly point out that stereotypes are quite resistant to change: “they persist even in the absence of confirming information or in the presence of disconfirming information” (p. 11). Once the stereotype has been naturalized, the reader will ignore any information that challenges it (as is most likely the reason for the incorrect information reported by witnesses). The most effective method to counter these stereotypes is through a clear rebuttal of the conflation, but Russell and Kelly noted that only direct conflations usually have rebuttals, and indirect conflations are commonly left unchallenged, due to the fact that they operate on a stealth level (ibid). Of the thirty articles which were reviewed for the purposes of this paper, only two clear and unmistakable rebuttals were found. Both of these were in the Montreal Gazette. One must ask about the dozens of other papers in which the conflation was made, which ran no refutation whatsoever.

More common than any direct rebuttal were articles which focused on Gill’s dangerousness, the warning signs, and his subcultural “affiliation” and contained a one- or two-line caveat cautioning readers to avoid seeing all Goths as violent. These statements, however, were usually counter-intuitive in some way and did not prevent the stealthy, indirect conflation between trench coats, Mohawks, black clothes, and violence. On the front page of the Ottawa Citizen, for instance, an article detailing Gill as a “poster boy for school shooters” stated that, “Clad in a dark trench coat and sporting a mohawk… Mr. Gill… unmistakably fit the profile of a potential killer” (Chris Lackner , Sept. 15/06). Near the end of the piece, though, a psychologist was suggested that not all “Goths or counter-culture youths” should be seen as dangerous. This is highly self-contradictory: the author tells us that those with trench coats and Mohawks are potential killers, but then states that not all Goths and counter-culture youths are dangerous. However, Goths and counter-culture youths are more likely to wear trench coats and Mohawks, and are therefore potential killers. Following this logic, this reporter’s attempt to state that these youths are not dangerous really has no affect on changing the stereotype at all.

Other articles, such as the Hamilton Spectator’s front page “Murderer embraced goth culture”, are similarly counter-intuitive. Firstly, the article begins as follows: “We know they’re morbid, but just how deadly are goths? Writing in his profile on VampireFreaks.com, one goth’s self-description is chilling and disturbingly distant: ‘His name is Trench. You will come to know him as the Angel of Death’” (Bill Dunphy, Sept. 15/06). About three-quarters of the way through the work, it becomes apparent that the actual purpose of the article is to discount the belief that Goths are dangerous. The headline clearly does not reflect the supposed purpose of the article, but rather conflates the relationship between Goths and violence even more by expounding the killer Gill’s connection to “Gothic” attitudes and dress. This supposed rebuttal is greatly weakened by this, and it must be noted that anyone simply scanning the headlines would never realize it was a rebuttal at all.

Both direct and indirect conflation and the sparse and limited attempts to rebut the stereotypes have a concrete impact on the public’s everyday perceptions. This would be the “visceral response” noted by Russell and Kelly in action: it is not logical or consciously done, but rather implicit and unconsciously replicated. The misinformation caused by conflation “…may foster material reactions…ranging from disliking them or distancing from them, to denying them access to civil rights protections and blocking their entrance to certain occupations”, as well as leading to unnecessary harassment (p. 19-20). We have already noted how students were suspended from school for wearing trenches after Columbine and this fear continues (and perhaps is amplified) after the events at Dawson College as well. Montreal Gazette writer Bill Brownstein related the story of a friend who was stricken by a panic attack when a trench-coated man entered the laundromat she was in, and she had to be assisted out of the facility because she was too frightened to stay. Brownstein himself wondered if “dress profiling” would be the next stage in discrimination (Sept. 20/06). This paper purports that such a reaction would not have occurred if there had not been such an absolutely unnecessary amount of attention focused on Gill’s clothing and subcultural affiliations.

When called to testify before the United States Senate Commerce Committee on youths and media violence, communications scholar Henry Jenkins quoted in disgust Time Magazine writer Mike Murphy’s belief that the U.S. should focus on “goth control, not gun control” (2006, p. 193). He was deeply disturbed by the post-Columbine backlash of violence against Goths, and recommended that the Senate Committee should focus on tolerance and acceptance in American schools, rather than persecution. “Banning black trench coats or abolishing violent video games doesn’t get us anywhere,” he stated, “These are the symbols of youth alienation and rage – not the causes” (p. 197). While Jenkins urged parents to listen to their children to prevent school shootings, this paper suggests that the cause of the deep-rooted fear of darkly-clad individuals arises from a much more systemic problem, and unfortunately one that is a great deal more difficult to correct. However, by advising the media to be more aware of the physical impact of direct and indirect conflation, we might hope that continued “dress profiling” and dislike of strangely dressed might not lead to discrimination and fear.

Bibliography

Books

Bonilla, Denise M. School Violence. The Reference Shelf, Vol. 72, No. 1. New York: H. W. Wilson Company, 2000.

Hine, Thomas. The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager. New York: Avon Books, 1999.

Hodkinson, Paul. Goth: Identity, Style, and Subculture. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2002.

Jenkins, Henry. Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture. New York: New York University Press, 2006.

Milner, Murray Jr. Freaks, Geeks, and Cool Kids: American Teenagers, Schools, and the Culture of Consumption. New York: Routledge, 2004.

Newman, Katherine S. et al. Rampage: The Social Roots of School Shootings. New York: Basic Books, 2004.

Russell, Glenda M. and Nancy H. Kelly. Subtle Stereotyping: The Media, Homosexuality, and the Priest Sexual Abuse Scandal. Amherst: Institute for Gay and Lesbian Strategic Studies, 2003.

Siegel, Carol. Goth’s Dark Empire. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005.

Newspaper Articles

Montreal Gazette
Belanger, Michelle. “Shooter gives goths a bad name: Don’t Blame Goths and vampires for the actions of a troubled young man who grievously misunderstood the culture.” 17 Sept. 2006: A21.

Brownstein, Bill. “Just what we need: another category to the profiling list for the paranoid.” 20 Sept. 2006: A3.

Bruemmer, Rene and Brenda Branswell. “The girl who loved pink: ‘A bright and beautiful young lade’: In June, Anastasia DeSousa celebrated her 18th birthday and prepared to being her studies at Dawson College. On the cusp of adulthood, she was entering a new phase in life and, by all accounts, revelling in it.” 15 Sept. 2006: A1/FRONT.

Heinrich, Jeff. “‘Life is a video game, you gotta die sometime’: Suspect in Dawson shootings deeply immersed in Goth subculture based on horror movies”. 14 Sept. 2006: A3.

Heinrich, Jeff et al. “Bloody Wednesday: College Rampage: Gunman leaves one woman dead and 19 people wounded”. 14 Sept. 2006: A1/FRONT.

Lampert, Allison. “Fear and coping: students stand together: Student fears people wearing black: ‘All I was thing when I heard the shots is I want to grow older. I don’t want to die.’” 16 Sept. 2006: A8.

Ravensbergen, Jan. “Terrified victim looked only at gunman’s boots.” 15 Sept. 2006: A5.

Semenak, Susan. “Ordinary heroes on an extraordinary day: From first-aid to fast food, Montrealers rushed to assist students caught in the maelstrom.” 16 Sept. 2006: A10.

Solyom, Catherine. “Don’t blame goth culture: Alienated youth. Acts as a support group for many, study suggests.” 15 Sept. 2006: A6.

Toronto Star

“Kimveer Gill is no victim.” 15 Sept. 2006: A06.

Magder, Jason. “Anastasia DeSousa ‘brought love to everything she touched.’” 15 Sept. 2006: A01.

Powell, Betsy. “Kimveer Gill revelled in death and guns, a fantasy that became reality.” 15 Sept. 2006: A01.

Teotonio, Isabel. “Attention focuses on Goth subculture; Website linked to string of violence VampireFreaks has 606,000 members.” 15 Sept. 2006: A10.

Other Canadian Newspapers

“Goths in Edmonton joins others across Canada in march for children.” The Canadian Press. 14 Oct. 2006.

Bruemmer, Rene et al. “Slain teen remembered as bubbly ‘princess’.” Calgary Herald. 15 Sept. 2006: A5.

Dimmick, Gary and Neco Cockburn. “‘Angel of death’: From cleancut high school graduate to goth-inspired killer.” Ottawa Citizen. 15 Sept. 2006: A1/FRONT.

Dobrota, Alex. “Family, friends mourn ‘the perfect little girl’.” Globe and Mail. 15 Sept. 2006: A1.

Dunphy, Bill. “Murderer embraced goth culture.” Hamilton Spectator. 15 Sept. 2006: A01.

Hansen, Dallas. “Vampire freak hits close to home.” Winnipeg Free Press. 16 Sept. 2006: A19.

Lackner, Chris. “Blog reveals ‘poster boy’ for school shooters.” Ottawa Citizen. 15 Sept. 2006: A1/FRONT.

Montpetit, Jonathan. “Eighteen-year-old Dawson student remembered for penchant for pink.” The Canadian Press. 15 Sept. 2006.

Peritz, Ingrid et al. “Seething misfit was obsessed with guns.” Globe and Mail. 15 Sept. 2006: A1.

International Newspapers

“Mohawk gunman’s college rampage.” The Australian. 15 Sept. 2006: 7.

“Montreal school gunman was 25-year-old Indian-Canadian: police.” Agence France Presse. 14 Sept. 2006.

Bone, James. “‘I just want to die like Romeo… or in a hail of gunfire’; Factbox.” Times (London). 15 Sept. 2006: 37.

Buncombe, Andrew. “‘Angel of Death’ true to his word.” New Zealand Herald. 16 Sept. 2006.

Chad, Sheldon and Maggie Farley. “Accused shooter had chilling blog; Goth web site | Man expressed desire to ‘die in a hail of gunfire’.” Seattle Times. 15 Sept. 2006: A11.

Couvrette, Paul. “College killer’s crazed website.” The Advertiser. 16 Sept. 2006: 1.

Couvrette, Phil. “Trench coat gunman in school rampage.” The Advertiser. 15 Sept. 2006: 1.

Lithwick, Dahlia. “Blog of a Death Foretold.” Washington Post. 24 Sept. 2006: B02.

Cosplay and Yaoi in the NY Times

2007-02-26T05:25:00.001+11:00

Read here.

Simpsonzu

2007-02-25T03:52:00.000+11:00

http://www.thestar.com/artsentertainment/article/172601

Mythbusters Viewer Interaction

2007-02-23T09:04:00.000+11:00

check on mythbusters and viewer interaction

- viewer complaints on website regarding methods are not only included in later episodes of the show, but viewers themselves are invited to attempt myths themselves and are invited onto the show to prove their inventions.

2007-02-15T04:47:00.001+11:00

SG-1 writers, producers, actively engaging audience

2007-02-14T02:18:00.000+11:00

SG-1's writers and staff are creating a new series called "Sanctuary", which will be released only online, so that the creative team can "filled the void left by television" and communicate directly with the audience - see article here.

An interesting twist on an old debate

2007-02-13T09:15:00.000+11:00

Apparently, Thomas Harris (author of Silence of the Lambs and the other Hannibal Lecter books, is in a bit of hot water for seemingly plagiarizing from a fan fic! The Daily Telegraph has released this article, insinuating that Harris has been stealing ideas and even lines of text from various fanfiction around the internet.

Now, this I find particularly hilarious. First, the authors/directors were threatening to sue the ficcers, and now the ficcers can sue them right back!

To read: Cathy Young's work from Reason Magazine.

add to thesis

2007-01-23T03:35:00.000+11:00

something about coronation street fans - longest running fandom, reactions to character death, lay-fandom?

“De Oppresso Liber”: The Representation of the American Interventionism and Ideology in Stargate SG-1

2007-01-11T08:47:00.000+11:00

All societies express their beliefs and values through their cultural products. Just as the ancient Greeks expressed their worldview through their literature and theatre, so too do modern popular culture texts represent current American beliefs and ideologies. Through its presentation of the encounter of the primitive and morally deficient “Other”, the science-fiction television series Stargate SG-1 (1997-present) consistently expresses the American ideals of technological and moral superiority in relation to the people of the other planets they visit. Again and again, the protagonists of the show are faced with natives whom they must assist in scientific and ethical development, without regard to cultural differences. While recent scholarship applauds itself on the elimination of the ethnocentrism of the Victorian arm-chair anthropologists, such ethnocentrism is clearly still present in both modern foreign policy and popular culture. Following Barthes’ notion of “white mythology”, Stargate SG-1 demonstrates that the current American ideology is merely another mythical system used to understand the world, and the show’s characters are just as trapped by their beliefs as the aliens they encounter.

The ideological standpoint of the United States is indeed quite well-known. The slogans of “freedom” and “liberal democracy” are constantly in use by both politicians and citizens of the country, and are encountered continuously while watching any American news channel. These ideals are also present in American foreign policy: as described by Jackson and Nixon, the US sees it as its personal mission and duty to safeguard the very existence of freedom and liberal democracy, and it is their manifest destiny to ensure that these ideals exist in all corners of the globe. Such sentiment is readily plucked from the inaugural speeches of US president George W. Bush. In 2000, President Bush stated: “Our democratic faith is more than the creed of our country, it is the inborn hope of humanity, and ideal we carry but do not own, a trust we bear and pass long.” Although the Iraq War has dragged on these past few years to increasing criticism, the president echoed a similar, but more pointed, sentiment in his second term address: “The survival of liberty in our land is increasingly dependent on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom…”, also stating that the goal of the “new” American foreign policy would be to help other nations “find their voice”. In light of such statements, it is quite easy to understand Naeem Inayatullah’s belief that there has recently been a call for the return to the “white man’s burden” – the colonial mission. “And who could demur when colonial encounter is said to bring technological development, democracy, modernity, and civilization itself?”

Beginning in the 19th century during the expansion of imperial territories, the original concept of ethnocentrism stated that all societies proceeded along a straight line of progress, moving from savagery to barbarism, and eventually achieving civilization (the goal of this evolutionary path). This version of ethnocentrism was utilized by many of the earliest anthropologists, such as Edward Tylor, and also by the famous comparative mythology scholar James Frazer. Modern anthropology and cultural studies have made a point of attempting to avoid such loaded interpretations of other cultures.

While a noble goal to be sure, it is obvious from the examples of US political thought above that American values are held to be superior. These ideals represent a new form of ethnocentrism; one never explicitly acknowledged, but present nevertheless. This form assumes that a modernized and democratic state is the “best” possible type, not because all civilizations are required to follow along this same pattern but because “it just makes sense”. We may deny that this is ethnocentrism, as such rights are guaranteed by the United Nations Charter of Rights and Freedoms and therefore must be shared by all human beings – but this in and of itself is a value judgement on any groups that choose not to follow the dictums of these “indelible human rights”.

This would appear to be a more modern example of Frazer’s belief in the essential sameness of all human cultures who all travelled along the same trajectory of development toward urban, technological, democratic nations. Tylor and Frazer both believed that myth was the ancient or primitive equivalent to modern science, and this is echoed by Robert Segal: “Where moderns invent science to explain baffling experiences, primitives invent myths.” If this is the case, then consider Jung’s statement that “myth becomes a world view”. If modern myth is science, then science is also the basis of the modern world view. As mentioned previously, Roland Barthes also sees modern science and scholarship as the “white mythology”, even as we flatter ourselves with our perceived intellectual superiority. Following a Jungian analysis of this line of thought, it would not be misplaced to state that perhaps we see other cultures as trapped by their own mythology and cultural ideas as we are also trapped through a projection of our own denial.

Before turning to a specific analysis of Stargate SG-1 as it reflects these ideas discussed above, it would be salient to discuss the role of past science-fiction and politics in order to contextualize this argument. Firstly, it is important to note that while a direct relationship between modern political events and popular culture cannot be proven to exist, there is certainly “…an indirect, mediated, and symbolic process whereby Hollywood film [and presumably television] reference salient clusters of social and political values and, through the operations of narrative, create a dialogue through and with these values.”

Science-fiction as a genre has dealt with the current political climate in the past, namely in the readings of the various Star Trek incarnations as examples of a modern colonialist agenda. Indeed, it has been argued that the visual similarity between the humans and aliens and the fact that many other planets existed in recognizably Earth-like historical periods “…reinforced the American notion that all nations develop in the same unilinear pattern” – a statement uncannily similar to those of Frazer and Tylor.

The original Stargate film (1994) upon which the series is based follows in this tradition, “…offer[ing] a classic example of American ideology, from its emphasis on self-help through… its demonstration of the liberationist potential of ideas…” As established in the film and continuing throughout the course of the series, the characters attempt to teach the aliens they encounter about justice and freedom. Indeed, the basic premise of the majority of the television series is to liberate human slaves from their alien overlords across the galaxy. Cheung sees this mission as easily relatable to the current American mission in Iraq: “To the sceptical eye, it might seem as if both Saddam Hussein and the USA might merely covet Kuwait’s oil, but projects like Stargate help support the idea that the USA disseminates freedom, self-determination, and the pleasures of chocolate, while men like Hussein merely wish to exploit others for personal gain.” McGregor applies a similarly bleak reading, comparing the natives in the Stargate film to a “…Third World client country rescued from its own benighted past by the grace and might of America – Iraq or Afghanistan with a less obstreperous (and more grateful) population.”

Contrary to these extremely negative views, it would be preferable to read the television series in a slightly less cynical manner. While dissent and doubt abound in the news media, the show itself appears to be fulfilling a Jungian compensatory function, as it reassures audiences that they are in fact doing right by the world and that their actions are appreciated by the peoples they meet. This reading of the nature of the relations between Earth and the alien better reflects the essentially positive and optimistic atmosphere of the series itself.

First airing in 1997, Stargate SG-1 elaborates on the plot of the original film penned by Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich, in which a device (the Stargate) is discovered which allows instantaneous travel between Earth and any other planet with a Stargate of its own. The television series follows the team SG-1 as they travel to other worlds to make contact, seek allies, and gather technology to defend Earth against the Goa’uld, a race of parasitic aliens which take humans as hosts and enslave human communities by impersonating their gods. The SG-1 team consists of four members: Colonel Jack O’Neill, the flippant military commander and “frontier hero” ; Dr. Daniel Jackson, the archaeologist, linguist, and moral voice; Captain Samantha Carter, the astrophysicist and technology expert; and Teal’c, a former soldier for the Goa’uld now allied with Earth and the mystical and foreign alien member of the team. Based on the premise that human life began on Earth several thousand years ago and diffused across the galaxy, SG-1 usually encounters different cultures from Earth’s past in various stages of technological development, as well as many non-human beings.

For example, in one of the earliest episodes the team encounters a “living example” of a Mongolian-related tribe, whose clothing and lifestyle “could belong to Genghis Khan”. As with Star Trek as mentioned above, the placing of alien groups in Earth history leads the audience to believe that all civilizations evolve along the same path. Upon discovering that they have engaged with a tribe which sequesters women and whom will readily put a woman to death for speaking aloud in public, Carter (the only female member of SG-1) is forced to dress in the local style of clothing and cover her face with a veil in order to avoid upsetting the natives. However, she is later kidnapped to be exchanged for trade. Jackson attempts to explain it as a cultural difference that could be resolved peacefully, but O’Neill states firmly, “The hell with culture. One of my team has been neutralized. That constitutes a hostile act.” As this quote illustrates quite clearly, as soon as the team perceives itself to be under any kind of threat, any thoughts of cultural misunderstandings are immediately dropped. The fact that kidnapping might be a perfectly legal or acceptable method of women exchange to this group is ignored. It is painted as reprehensible and evil through the eyes of the SG-1 team, with whom we are invited to sympathize, and the naturalization of gender equality and individual freedom is taken for granted, even while they are relatively recent phenomena here on Earth as well.

When she reaches the tribe she has been traded to, the women attempt to explain their laws to Carter, but she will have none of it. She tells the native women how females are treated where she comes from and how they can choose to be free and fight back if they desire to, as if these women would never have thought of it without Carter’s help. Carter’s noble example convinces one of the women to run away from her impending trade marriage, but she is captured and sentenced to death as the law requires. After Carter is rescued by O’Neill and the team, she demands that they return and save this girl from being stoned to death (even though the girl would have known the punishment for breaking this law before she chose to escape). Perhaps setting the tone for the rest of the series to come, Carter recites the motto of the Army Special Forces: “De oppresso liber”, to free from oppression. Not only is saving this girl the morally correct act to take, but their military duty requires it.

Again, Jackson makes a standard objection: “Do we have the right to interfere with their culture, to interpret their laws?” To this, Carter emphatically responds, “Yes!” The episode makes note of the opposing viewpoint (Jackson’s), but it is Carter’s who is actually taken up by O’Neill and acted upon, and is seen as the ethically correct step to take. It is this scene which best demonstrates the reflection of American foreign policy in the series. As is currently politically correct, the active interference or altering of another’s cultural beliefs is viewed negatively, but is morally demanded. After defeating the leader of the young girl’s tribe in hand-to-hand combat, Carter demands that she be allowed to go free. The episode ends with all the women of the community removing their veils to triumphant music. The SG-1 team is assured that they will be remembered as liberators and heroes, and they return to Earth victorious.

This episode demonstrates the most straightforward example of American intervention, and is thinly veiled at best. However, in episode #305, “Learning Curve”, a very similar interventionist attitude is demonstrated, although through slightly more subtle means. Here, SG-1 meets a technologically superior civilization which is advancing at a much faster rate than Earth itself, due its use of nanite technology to increase the intelligence of specially chosen children. These children learn all they can over a period of twelve years at which point their nanite machines are harvested and distributed to the population, allowing perfect memory retention of all information without the need for any schooling. At first it appears that these Orbanians might be able to assist the Earthlings and SG-1 is eager to learn from them, until it is revealed that after having their nanites removed, the children become like infants, and “cannot be taught”.

While these children are well-cared for and the leader Kalan strongly resents any accusations of mistreatment, O’Neill becomes furious, insisting that they are “sucking their brains out”, and refuses to return the child Merrin, who has been visiting Earth. Kalan responds, “You claim to love knowledge, but when you find something you don’t like you expect us to change just to please you.” This cogent statement is summarily ignored: the fact that these children do not have “fun”, or play games, is mistreatment enough in O’Neill’s eyes. When Merrin herself asks to be returned home, he insists that she has been brainwashed, and spirits her off the base when his commander orders him to take her back to Orban. He takes Merrin to a middle school and asks the other children there to teach her how to play games and act like a “normal” child, where she learns how to have fun, be creative, and express herself as an individual. While Merrin appreciates his care for her well-being, she still desires to be taken home, and O’Neill returns her. After having her nanites distributed, though, Merrin’s experiences of “fun”, creativity, and games spreads to all the people of the community, and SG-1 returns to Orban to discover the formerly blank-faced children with their nanites removed to be playing hopscotch and colouring on the walls. Despite his earlier words, Kalan is delighted with this development, and again SG-1 are hailed as heroes, and were right all along.

If compared to the previously discussed episode, “Emancipation”, an interesting conclusion may be drawn. While Carter was kidnapped herself in that episode, the local women were completely unable to convincer her of their perspective on proper feminine behaviour. In fact, Carter left their company just as headstrong and determined to “save” them rather than understanding their viewpoint at all. In “Learning Curve”, however, when Merrin is similarly kidnapped by O’Neill, he manages to convince her that American-style individuality is preferable to the ideals of her own culture. This episode acts on a much more subconscious level, but the end result is the same as before: the American morality prevails over that of the “Other”, and leads them to live better lives.

Parallel to this type of positive interventionism is the notion that those who don’t interfere to “help” are somehow morally deficient. In a much later episode, #818, “Threads”, Jackson upbraids a member of the most advanced race in the series for just such a standpoint. Respected but elusive, the Ancients are honoured by SG-1 as the “Gatebuilders”, and a significant subplot of the show is the quest to finally encounter this race in person. Having “ascended” from their corporeal forms, the Ancients now live as pure energy in a nirvana-like state of omniscience. While all-knowing and all-powerful, the Ancients have an extremely strict policy of non-contact with “lower beings”, and any acts of intervention are punished severely. They strongly believe that they have no right to interfere with the natural state of any other group, no matter how they might personally disagree with their specific views – cultural relativists in the truest sense.

With the galaxy perched on the verge of complete annihilation, Jackson begs, cajoles, exhorts, and demands of Oma Desala, the only Ancient he has contact with, to step in and stop it before it is too late. She responds, “I’ve told you before: the galaxy you’re from, the plane of existence, is so small and insignificant compared to the rest of the universe.” Without hesitation, Jackson states, “I don’t care. It’s wrong.” Oma also argues that interfering would make them no different from the evil Goa’uld, who artificially advance civilizations, but enslave the people. By the final minutes of the episode, though, Jackson manages to convince Oma to break the most sacred rules of her people, and she finally acts to stop the destruction. “You were right,” she ultimately admits.

The Ancients’ choice to avoid all interference is portrayed through Jackson’s eyes as irresponsible – there is no reason to have the power to change the world if you won’t use it, he successfully argues. Jackson has inadvertently echoed the arguments for manifest destiny of the United States, such as Bush’s statement quoted above that America’s duty was to help other nations “find their voice”, and that democracy and freedom were the “inborn hope of humanity”. As the most powerful country on Earth, the United States must carry out the motto of “de oppresso liber”, or they are not acting responsibly or fulfilling their duties as elder brother to the world.
As demonstrated through these three episodes, Stargate SG-1 is a popular culture expression of the American ideology and cultural imaginary. As SG-1 travels from planet to planet, they bring with them all their beliefs in freedom, democracy, and individualism, and spread them to all those they encounter as they fight to free the universe from enslavement and misguided cultural beliefs. It is a testament to naturalization of ideology that this level of ethnocentrism, displayed weekly on television, could survive relatively unscathed by criticism. While scepticism and negativity abound on American news networks regarding US intervention abroad, Stargate continues to portray a similar form of interventionism as not only successful, but the most responsible action to take, and one that is demanded by moral decency.

Bibliography

Beeler, Stan and Lisa Dickson, eds. Reading Stargate SG-1. New York: I. B. Tauris & Co. Ltd., 2006.

Cheung, Floyd D. (1998). “Imagining Danger, Imagining Nation: Postcolonial Discourse in Rising Sun and Stargate.” Jouvert Journal of Postcolonial Studies. Retrieved December 2, 2006 from

Csapo, Eric. Theories of Mythology. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005.

Forbes, H. D. Nationalism, Ethnocentrism, and Personality: Social Science and Critical Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.

Hassler, Donald M., and Clyde Wilcox, eds., Political Science Fiction. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1997.

Jahoda, Gustav. Images of Savages: Ancient Roots of Modern Prejudice in Western Culture. London: Routledge, 1999.

Jung, C. G. Encountering Jung: On Mythology. Robert Segal, ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998.

“President Sworn-in to Second Term”, White House Official Website, Retrieved December 7, 2006 from < http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/ 2005/01/20050120-1.html>.

Slusser, George E., and Eric S. Rabkin, eds., Aliens: The Anthropology of Science Fiction. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987.

Von Hendy, Andrew. The Modern Construction of Myth. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2002.

Weldes, Jutta, ed. To Seek Out New Worlds: Science Fiction and World Politics. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2003.

"It's Hard for Fen to Explain it to Mundanes": Fanspeak and Media Mediated Discourse

2006-12-01T14:23:00.000+11:00

Meeting with my friends Marguerite, Iris, and Abby on a Friday night to watch anime was not a special occasion of any sort. Drawing on my interest in media fan studies, I had hoped to capture some form of “fanspeak” for the purposes of this assignment, but rather than analyze talk at a more formalized event like a fan club meeting or convention I instead decided to focus my research on an area primarily ignored by fan scholars – the highly informal, everyday fan interaction in a private setting. In this type of interaction a media text will usually provide the focal point for discussion, but I discovered that it actually acts as a basis for social interaction on a wider scale. While a large portion of the talk on that Friday evening did revolve around the actual television series we were watching, the text acted as a medium through which the four participants mediated discussion on their daily lives.
Due to the fact that it is usually viewed in Japanese with English subtitles, the act of watching anime actually allows for socialization as the subtitles can be read while talk between the viewers occurs simultaneously. Before turning to the specific content of this talk, I would first like to address the use of fan slang in our conversation. Fan groups are well known for each having their own distinctive jargon, but while writing this paper I realized just how foreign such language is to an outside observer, as indicated by the fact that I felt compelled to include a glossary of fanspeak, and by the number of quotes I eschewed as I thought that they would not be readily understood without a complicated explanation. I attempted to seek some feedback on this issue from one of the participants, Abby, and she remarked, “It’s hard for fen to explain what we do to mundanes”. Even this sentence would not make sense to a non-fan, and includes a value judgement about the non-fan perspective (namely, that it is “mundane” and boring).
Upon review of the recording of Friday’s conversation, a pattern of narrative immediately became clear. The watching of a fan text functioned as the starting point for all the other topics we discussed, but through association led to a variety of other subjects. Past social events around the watching of the show were related, with other members adding commentary, constantly asking for clarification on the narrative and inserting anecdotal narratives of their own. The topic, though, always returned to the current media text we were viewing, which led again to the social context in which it was last seen. For example, I offer the following topical associations:

Looking through the DVD collection  discussion of terrible
acting of English voice actors  Iris’s birthday party several
years ago when one text was watched in English and the party
attendee’s reactions  current participants’ reactions to the same
text  other examples of awful English dubs  differences
between English and Japanese women’s speech  events in
Iris’s and my own Japanese class  the protagonist of the
current show being viewed as a Japanese female archetype…

The talk seemed to follow this same circular pattern of subject association throughout the entirety of the two hours that was recorded, as the text was again and again used to mediate conversation about our personal lives, funny anecdotes, and fan gossip.
As interruption and successful topic changes can be a marker of dominance in discourse, I paid special attention to this feature of talk as I analyzed my data. Interruptions were extremely prevalent in this case, often occurring so frequently that I found it difficult to transcribe as large portions of the tape are unintelligible due to all four participants speaking at once. However, rather than revealing unequal power, the interruptions appeared to be used to construct narrative interactively, with each participant adding new information or opinion to the discussion which was acknowledged by the others:
Extract (1)

1. Katie: One thing the English can never get right is the kawaii, they just don’t
2. know [how to do it-]
3. Iris: [Their women never] sound cute enough, you [know-
4. K: [-yeah, they just sound whiny, 5. like, like, oh [my God-]
6. Abby: [-No, they] need to take young British actors, b-
7. because they can do the cute voice.
8. (2.0)
9. Marguerite: Yea::h, like in Howl’s Moving Castle [they-
10. A: [-yeah, ‘cause] the British-
11. M: Sophie-
12. I: -Yeah, Sophie was 13. really good in [that-
14. K: [Yea::h.]
15. I: There’s a couple of them that I-I really don’t mind watching in English, and
16. Howl’s- Howl is one of them. I will watch it in [Eng-
17. K: [Fucking Batma::n, ma]:::n-
18. I: [-Christian 19. fucking Bale-
20. M: O::h yeah!-
21. I: What’s the other one? Uh Bebop’s not bad in English-
22. K: Man I just watched Howl last week [and-]
23. M: I ca::n’t [wa:tch the Japanese version of Ranma.]
24. I: [I just saw it last week too!]

As is clearly seen in the above extract, the four participants in this conversation do not use interruption as a method of exerting dominance but rather as a cooperative means to co-construct the narrative, as indicated by the frequent use of the agreement hedge, “Yeah” (lines 4, 9, 10, 12, 14, and 20).
Members of the conversation also were noted to spend a great deal of time helping others understand any references to inside jokes, past events, or details of a text. In particular, the participants shared behind-the-scenes information in order to increase the group’s knowledge as a whole, following Jenkins’ (1992) account of fan gossip practices. An example may be seen in the subsequent interaction between Iris, Abby, and myself:
Extract (2)
1. K: Don’t you remember that thing with –with Seki on the DVD-
2. I: -what thing?
3. K: You know, th-the interview he had with that- that gi::rl, he was with the actress 4. who plays [Tohru-]
5. I: [No, wha-]
6. K: [-and she was] like, ‘what’s the most embarrassing thing that’s 7. ever happened to you?’-
8. A: -What the-
9. K: Don’t you remember? She was all like, ‘what the most embarrassing thing
10. that’s ever happened to you when you [were filming?’]

At first, I presented a few general details about the particular anecdote I was referring to, and when Iris and Abby both indicated they were unfamiliar with the story (lines 2, 5, and 8), I proceeded to embellish the telling with additional information (lines 3-4, 6-7, 9-10). This may be contrasted with a “successful” telling of an inside joke:
Extract (3)
1. M: Shut up! It’s mine-
2. K, A: No! It’s mine! It’s a hundred! Shut it off!

In this case, Marguerite needed only to recite the first four words of the anecdote, and both Abby and myself immediately caught the reference to an online joke and joined Marguerite in the recitation.
According to Jenkins (1992), another important feature of fan gossip is analysis of the characters of the text. The characters are taken out of the show space, and discussed in real, human terms, as the fans require the character to act as realistically as any human being. This was the primary topic of discussion over the course of the evening, with an extremely large portion of the talk dedicated to the protagonist of the show we watched (approximately one hour of the two-hour recording). This type of talk was usually similar to the following example:
Extract (4)
1. I: She’s so cute- But she’s very- She’s actually a shoujo uh protagonist that I
2. don’t find that annoying.
3. A: Which is weird because she’s like the protagonist, like everything ideal about a 4. protagonist-
5. K: She’s like the ideal protagonist but the thing I like about her is she manages to 6. pull it off with sincerity!
7. I: Yeah, and sh-she’s- I don’t think she’s annoying-
8. M: She’s got the voice that could be annoying but she’s s::o stu:::pid! HHH
9. K, I: HHH

This type of localized fan interpretation of a character is co-created through these types of interactions, based first on evidence in the media text, filtered though communal discussion and finally related to larger fan groups through fanfiction and other online communication. In this way, fans in many various locales are able to develop a coherent and standard interpretation for their chosen texts.
Through the topical association, co-construction of narratives, sharing of fan gossip, and fan interpretation of characters, the four participants of this conversation, myself included, used fanspeak jargon and speech practices in order to relate to popular culture texts, our daily lives, and to each other.

APPENDIX

Glossary of Fanspeak Terms

• Anime – Japanese animation
• Dub – the English voice-over of an anime
• Fanfiction – a fan-written work using characters and situations from media texts, also known as “fic”, commonly explore sexual situations undeveloped in original text
• Fen – plural of “fan”
• Kawaii – Japanese word for “cute”, an integral feature in anime, and especially of female protagonists
• Manga – Japanese comics
• Mundanes – non-fans
• Shoujo – Japanese word for “girl”, also a genre of anime and manga for girls with standard characteristics
• Sub – the Japanese language version of an anime with subtitles

Fan Texts Referenced
• Howl’s Moving Castle (2004), dir. Hayao Miyazaki
o Reference to Batman occurs because Christian Bale provided the English dub for the main character, and also starred as Batman/Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins (2005, dir. Chris Nolan)
• Cowboy Bebop (1998), created by Hajime Yatate, TV series
• Ranma ½ (1989-2002), created by Rumiko Takahashi, TV series, also includes 34+ volumes of manga, several movies, and an OAV
o One of the longest running and most popular anime/manga of all time, and also one of the first anime/manga to be translated into English
• Fruits Basket (1991), created by Natsuki Takaya, TV series, also includes 21+ volumes of manga; known as “Furuba” to fans
o Protagonist is Tohru Honda, whom is discussed in detail in the body of the paper; considered to be one of the best shoujo anime/manga
o Reference to Seki: Tomokazu Seki is the actor who portrays one of the male leads on Furuba, and he is interviewed by Aya Hisakawa (actress who portrays Tohru Honda) in the special features of the DVD

Works Cited

Fairclough, Norma. Language and Power. Second Edition. Toronto: Longman, 2001.

Jenkins, Henry. Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture. New York: Routledge, 1992.

sources

2006-11-16T08:49:00.000+11:00

pierre levy: collective intelligence

david thorburn and henry jenkins, eds: rethinking media change: the aesthetics of transition

canadian internet use

2006-11-14T06:33:00.000+11:00

{click here}

2006-10-28T06:01:00.000+10:00

http://www.animeresearch.com/index.html

2006-10-18T02:45:00.000+10:00

http://www.henryjenkins.org/

Jenkins article

2006-10-11T07:33:00.000+10:00

The Poachers and the Stormtroopers: Cultural Convergence in the Digital Age - Henry Jenkins article suggested by Prof. McLelland

2006-09-21T07:13:00.000+10:00

http://www.icv2.com/articles/home/9339.html

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/6528.html