SQUEE FROM THE MARGINS: INVESTIGATING THE OPERATIONS OF RACIAL/CULTURAL/ETHNIC IDENTITY IN MEDIA FANDOM by Rukmini Pande B.A., Mumbai University, 2006 M.A., Delhi University, 2008 MPhil. Jawaharlal Nehru University, 2011 This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of The University of Western Australia Department of English and Cultural Studies Schools of Humanities, Social Science and Music 2017 ABSTRACT Fan studies’ foundational texts established media or participatory fandom as an area of interest for scholars due to its potential to overturn stereotypes about fans as unquestioning consumers of popular cultural texts. Media fandom’s transformational interactions with these texts—most notably through fanfiction but also expanding to other fanwork—was seen as especially significant as these spaces were dominated by women (Jenkins 1992; Bacon-Smith 1992; Russ 1985; Penley 1992; Lamb and Veith 1986). The discipline has expanded in its scope since then and the idea of the ‘fan-as-resistant’ has been queried on various grounds (Hills 2002; Sandvoss 2005; J. A. Gray, Harrington, and Sandvoss 2007; D. Johnson 2007; Jenkins 2006a). Nevertheless, a strong utopic strain remains evident in theoretical discussions of fanwork in particular, especially that which explicitly queers source texts. This is based, once again, on demographic data that indicates that a significant number of participants in these spaces identify as queer women. Such transformational fanwork is seen to function in an intertextual and communitarian matrix, which is self-reflexive and progressive in its politics (Busse and Hellekson 2006; Busse, Lothian, and Reid 2007; Hellekson 2009a; Coppa 2008; Larsen and Zubernis 2012b; Coppa 2014; Stein 2015). What remains absent in these examinations is any sustained examination of the racial make-up of these communities, both in terms of participants and in the choices of characters and texts that form the focus of media fandom’s transformational activities. My thesis builds from Rebecca Wanzo’s (2015) critical intervention in fan studies, wherein she maintains that the continued and glaring absence of race as an aspect of analysis in fan studies is not due just to oversight but because it “troubles” some of its most foundational assumptions regarding its subversive potential and inclusive ethos. This dissertation explores the ramifications of such ‘trouble,’ in line with Sara Ahmed’s (2010) conceptualisation of being a “feminist killjoy.” What does it mean to be a ‘fandom killjoy’ with regard to being the subject of and reacting to, racism in fandom spaces? How do conceptions of shared pleasure and intertextual communities interface with these dynamics? These are some of my key questions. I will use data from my respondent interviews with non-white fans from all over the globe, as well as examination of specific practices such as racebending in order to go some way in answering them. It is my contention that ‘whiteness’ has been an unarticulated yet core structuring mechanism both within fan studies and in media fandom communities that actively works to elide, erase and excuse its operations. My thesis will systematically deconstruct these ‘truisms.’ I will interrogate the ways in which such communities are seen to ‘work,’ using the respondent data from my interviews to interrupt the accepted accounts of media fandom history, as well as their contemporary functioning. My key theoretical argument is positioning media fandom as a postcolonial cyberspace. This allows me to interrogate the operations, flows, interruptions and re- inscriptions of representational power within fan spaces without falling back onto simplistic ideas of resistance and co-optation. It also enables me to approach the complex identities of my non-white interview respondents with appropriate nuance. I argue that because the racial identity of media fans is seen as something additional to, rather constitutive of, their experiences in media fandom spaces, a serious consideration of its effects on generalised fan studies frameworks continues to be deferred. This thesis aims to end that deferral and highlight the ways in which the choice of inclusive methodological and theoretical frameworks allow for a much more nuanced discussion of the operations of contemporary media fandom communities. Acknowledgements It is a fact universally acknowledged, that the completion of dissertation needs not just a village but an entire cosmos. I have been very fortunate to have received the unwavering support of my supervisors, colleagues, family and friends throughout this stressful yet rewarding period. I’d like to thank my primary supervisor, Dr. Shalmalee Palekar, for her patience, intellectual guidance, dedication and kindness throughout this time. Thank you Shalmalee for remaining a point of certainty amidst ever-shifting sands, even as you went through a tumult yourself. Also thank you for trusting me in the research process (even when I didn’t trust myself!) and therefore enabling me to truly believe in my choices of theoretical frameworks and positioning. I’d also like to thank both Dr. Alison Bartlett and Dr. Chantal Bourgault du Coudray for all their help and support at the beginning and end of my dissertation. I was also extremely lucky to have found an amazing support system of friends and colleagues at the University of Western Australia and in Perth. Thank you Lauren for being my anchor and a link to home I never expected to find in a foreign land. Thank you Charmaine and Jess and Steven for being my rocks and my sounding boards and my teachers. Thank you Sebastian, Aisling and Ashleigh for always being around to chat or lend a comforting ear when the stress got overwhelming. Thank you Maia for your boundless generosity in giving me a place of refuge outside the university. To Swati and Amanda, I would never have crossed the finish line without your unending support and critique. Thank you for all of your time and your energy. To Kajori and Samira, your encouragement when I wanted to give up at the end was so crucial to my actually finishing this task. Thank you, for believing I could do this. And finally, and most importantly, thank you to my family. Amma and Devika, I don’t have the words to express how much your unconditional love and support has meant to me over these years and especially these last few months. You raise me up. INTRODUCTION 1 “BUT WHAT IF IT’S NOT ABOUT RACE?”—ANCIENT FANDOM PROVERB 10 REBUILDING MAPS: OUTLINE OF CHAPTERS 17 AUTHOR NOTES: A DISCUSSION OF METHODOLOGY 33 OVERVIEW OF METHODOLOGIES IN FAN STUDIES 33 THE RESEARCH PROCESS: LOCATING MYSELF 40 DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS 43 CHAPTER 1: DIAL ME UP, SCOTTY: HISTORIES OF MEDIA FANDOMS AS PLATFORMS FOR ‘WOMEN’S’ ONLINE IDENTITY 48 OFFLINE TRACES, ONLINE STRATEGIES: MEDIA FANDOM NETWORKING PATHWAYS 51 LOCATING MEDIA FANDOM WITHIN EARLY CYBERCULTURAL TOPOGRAPHIES 56 THE POSSIBILITIES AND PITFALLS OF FOUNDATIONAL CYBERFEMINIST THEORISATIONS 58 TRACKING ONLINE MEDIA FANDOM 64 I WAS THERE TOO! DIVERSIFYING MEDIA FANDOM HISTORY 71 TRACKING DISCONTENT: CONTROVERSIES AS POINTS OF COALITION BUILDING 72 BUILDING SQUEE: HIGHLIGHTING DIVERSITY IN FANDOM INFRASTRUCTURE 80 “I JUST NEEDED OTHER PEOPLE TO FANGIRL WITH ME!” ANIME AND MANGA FANDOMS AS CROSS-CULTURAL PATHWAYS TO MEDIA FANDOM 83 CONCLUSION 90 CHAPTER 2: GLOBAL CITIZENS, NETWORKED IDENTITIES: ONLINE MEDIA FANDOM AS A POSTCOLONIAL CYBERSPACE 92 SCOPING THE FIELD: THEORISING ONLINE IDENTITY TODAY 95 CAN YOU LOG IN? BOUNDARY CROSSINGS IN THE NETWORK SOCIETY 95 DIVERSITY IN THE NETWORK: DIFFERENTIAL ALGORITHMS OF CYBERCULTURAL IDENTITY 100 THE CASE FOR POSTCOLONIAL THEORY 106 INTERSECTIONS WITH POPULAR CULTURAL STUDIES, POSTCOLONIAL AUDIENCES, AND FAN STUDIES 106 MEDIA FANDOM AS A POSTCOLONIAL CYBERSPACE 114 FIGURING OUT THE ‘FAN’: A HISTORY OF PARTS 114 DIFFERENT STROKES: CONCEPTUALISING FAN DIVERSITY 118 MEDIUM MATTERS: USAGE OF FANNISH PLATFORMS 123 ZOOMING IN, ZOOMING OUT: THEORISING ‘GLOBAL’ FANDOM 131 CONCLUSION 137 CHAPTER 3: POSTCOLONIAL PRAXIS: FANDOM ACTIVISM, IDENTITY NEGOTIATION AND TRANSFORMATIVE PRACTICES 139 THE POLITICS OF FANDOM ACTIVISM 143 “AANG AIN’T WHITE!” FANDOM ACTIVISM AND THE POLITICS OF IDENTITY, REPRESENTATION AND AUTHENTICITY 149 FAN IDENTITY ARTICULATIONS: THE CASE FOR DIFFERENTIAL AUTHENTICITIES 155 STRATEGIC ASSEMBLAGES: FAN OF COLOUR 160 AN INTERRUPTION OF REGULAR PROGRAMMING: META, HEADCANONS AND RACEBENDING 167 THE CURIOUS CASE OF NEWT SCAMANDER 174 CONCLUSION 184 CHAPTER 4: RECALIBRATION NECESSARY, MR. SPOCK: RACE AND THE DYNAMICS OF MEDIA FANDOM 186 RACE IN FANDOM STUDIES TODAY 187 GLITCH RACISM: FANDOM ALGORITHMS AND RACIAL IDENTITY 194 ALGORITHM ONE: FANFICTION COMMUNITIES AS INTERTEXTUAL 197 ALGORITHM TWO: FANFICTION AND IDEAS OF SUBVERSION 205 ALGORITHM THREE: RACIAL IDENTITY AND FANWORK VERSUS CANON 212 ALGORITHM FOUR: SAFE SPACES FOR WHOM? FANDOM AND ESCAPISM 216 ALGORITHM FIVE: “CAN YOU PLEASE STOP CLUTTERING UP THE TAG?” RACIAL IDENTITY AND DIGITAL FANDOM INFRASTRUCTURE 223 CONCLUSION 230 CHAPTER 5: HOW IS THAT SEXY? AN EXAMINATION OF THE FANFICTION KINKMEME 231 ASK NOT WHAT IS PORN, BUT WHAT ARE PORN STUDIES? THE CONSTRUCTION OF A SCHOLARLY FIELD 236 FOUNDATIONAL TEXTS/TRENDS 236 IDEAS OF AUTHENTICITY 241 PORNOGRAPHY AND RACIAL IDENTITY 243 ONLINE PLATFORMS: THE INTERNET IS FOR PORN 245 QUEERYING PORNOGRAPHY 249 DIRTY LOOKS/DIRTY BOOKS: THEORISATIONS AROUND THE ROMANCE NOVEL 251 PRODUCING GENRES: TEXTUAL ROMANCE/EROTICA/PORNOGRAPHY 251 THE EMBODIED PLEASURES OF READING