Democracy and Accessibility in Fanfiction Erin Maley Agnes Scott College
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The Onyx Review: The Interdisciplinary Research Journal © 2020 Center for Writing and Speaking 2020, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 1–9 Agnes Scott College Deconstructing My Immortal: Democracy and Accessibility in Fanfiction Erin Maley Agnes Scott College Abstract Fanfiction, as a field of literary study, is relatively new and unexplored. Ofte1n viewed as a “counterculture,” fanfiction frequently subverts the conventional structures and methods of traditional literature, whether through structure, content, or attitudes towards ownership (Goodman 662). Post-structuralism posits that the distinction between “high” and “low” art is, and should be, dissolved. Therefore, fanfiction is a valid field of study. The notoriously poorly written Harry Potter fanfiction, My Immortal (2006), in which the author creates a persona who interacts with altered gothic, or as the author writes “goffik,” versions of existing characters, provides an interesting view into the role of fanfiction, especially considering the debate as to whether or not My Immortal is intentionally bad. The style of writing, which devolves in quality as the fanfiction progresses, mocks common tropes or clichés present in popular, and often poorly written, fanfiction of the time. The misspelling and inconsistent lack or presence of continuity, in addition to a superfluity of clichés, exposes the structures of popular contemporary fanfiction. The author also engages in a critique of common themes or elements of contemporary fanfiction, such as the fetishization of queerness and of “Mary Sue’s,” a subgenre of self-insert characters which are often criticised as being idealised and seemingly flawless. Through the use of language, wordplay, and intertextuality, My Immortal exposes a new way to engage with texts and democratises access to both reading and writing. anfiction, or “fiction that utilizes pre- privilege that is placed on high art, thereby existing characters and settings from a enabling fanfiction, a field of writing that is F literary or media text,” is a relatively typically looked down upon as being new field of study which subverts both the “lesser,” to be viewed as a valid field of study structure and methods of traditional and writerly engagement. As well as literature, such as novels and poetry expanding the type of writing that is viewed published through established publishing as worthy of being studied, fanfiction allows houses. (Tosenberger 185). Fanfiction’s people previously debarred from traditional attitudes towards authorship and subject forms of writing and reading to explore them matter do not conform to what are typically in a new way. Unbound by the rigid rules of deemed as “acceptable” topics in traditional form, structure, and authorship, fanfiction is forms of writing. Its breakaway from the inherently post-structural and can be playful expectations and rigidity of traditional and create new forms of reading and writing. literature allows it to disregard both the form As an example of fanfiction more broadly, and style of writing as well as subject matter. the Harry Potter fanfiction My Immortal As a result, fanfiction is typically considered (2006), through the unique use of language, as “low art”. Post-structuralism deconstructs wordplay, and intertextuality, not only the binary between high and low art and the exposes a new way to engage with texts, but The Onyx Review E. Maley / DECONSTRUCTING MY IMMORTAL also democratises literature and makes it 185). The term “slash” originated from a Star accessible to a broader audience. Trek fanfiction in the 1970s, wherein the Fanfiction, prior to the popularisation of punctuation mark of a slash (/) was used the internet, was originally published in between the names “Kirk” and “Spock,” magazines, or “zines”. These magazines were indicating that “the major romantic pairing run primarily by fans, subverting the was homosexual,” although the punctuation traditional format of publication i.e. through mark itself has come to signify any romantic established publishers. The magazines pairing, despite the term “slash” still referring allowed fan writers to write on topics and in exclusively to “homoerotic romance” styles that would never be published by (Tosenberger 186).1 The rise of slash fiction traditional publishers. Henry Jenkins, in his was possible due to fan communities and book Textual Poachers (1992), discusses magazines allowing writers to submit writing how fan magazines often had to choose that reflected their sexual orientations and between “’professionalism’ (the desires. In the Harry Potter fandom (the development of high technical standards and name given to a subculture of fans who are all the showcasing of remarkable engaged in a specific piece of media, in this accomplishments) and ‘acceptance’ case, Harry Potter), some of the most popular (openness and accessibility for new and pairings are slash: Harry/Draco, inexperienced writers)” with the magazines Sirius/Remus, and Snape/Harry, amongst the often leaning towards “acceptance” in order most popular. However, even though these to “[represent] the fledgling efforts of new magazines allowed for more freedom and fans” (Jenkins 159). Interestingly, acceptance access to reading and writing than other in this context does not refer to acceptance as traditional structures did, there were issues something to be gained by traditional that limited access and inclusivity. The publishing sources or mainstream society, but magazines were run by people who could rather from fans themselves, displaying the control what was published in the magazines, power and importance of the fan community. thereby censoring some writers who did not Almost any writer who wrote fanfiction “had fit the moulds prescribed by the magazine a good chance at publication, since most zine publishers. Access to magazines was also an editors [struggled] to find enough acceptable issue. Unless you knew about them, they material to fill their zines” (Jenkins 159). The were hard to find. It was also harder for democratising effects of almost anyone being adolescents and people with limited income able to publish their writing and gain to afford the magazines. As a result of these “national and even international recognition limitations, most of the writing in these as fan writers and artists” provides an magazines is written by adults, and adult “alternate source of status, unacknowledged women in particular. by the dominant social and economic systems Using Hélène Cixous’ concept of but personally rewarding nevertheless,” Écriture Féminine as a base, Bonnstetter and subverting traditional routes to literary and Ott, in their article “(Re)Writing Mary Sue: artistic acclaim and redistributing the power Écriture Féminine and the Performance of imbalance between traditional forms of Subjectivity,” posit that as traditional publishing and fan writers (Jenkins 159). publishing is seen as a male space, the The rise of the subgenre of slash claiming of fanfiction as a space outside of fanfiction, or “fan writing concerned with the male-dominated publishing scene same-sex romance” created space for constitutes action against the patriarchy and marginalized topics and writers (Tosenberger the establishment of an Écriture Féminine, or The Onyx Review E. Maley / DECONSTRUCTING MY IMMORTAL feminine writing, and thereby grants access universe in a more direct and personal sense, to new “feminine” forms of writing that were as well as makes the writing process more unavailable to women in the past. Given that, accessible for beginning writers, as many historically, “popular culture was equated people unfamiliar with creative writing find with the feminine and consequently critiqued it easier to write from their own perspective as lowly, frivolous, and passive,” the fact that rather than from that of others. Mary-Sue fanfiction, being primarily written by fanfiction is somewhere that the women, is seen as “lesser” or as “low” art democratising power of fanfiction could accentuates the reasoning behind the genre expand, as it is mocked within fan being seen as “lesser” because of the communities, yet it increases accessibility patriarchal structures of society and an and gives a marginalised style of writing a unwillingness to give precedence to female voice. artforms (Bonnstetter and Ott 352). The rise of the internet, primarily in the Fanfiction, therefore, is democratising as it is 1990s and 2000s, was essential in the further an “instance of feminine writing, [that] democratisation of fanfiction. Anyone, “of rhetorically undermines the patriarchal any age, with a computer and a modem,” can economy of writing by allowing women to have access to the internet, and it is free on write their own desires” (Bonnstetter and Ott free sites such as fanfiction.net, 346). archiveofourown.org (AO3), wattpad.com, Fanfiction creates space for subversion etc. (Tosenberger 189). This increased and criticism of existing forms, as well as for accessibility allows teenagers to have the creation of new ones. Mary-Sue relatively unimpeded access to fanfiction and fanfiction is “a popular genre of fan writing exposes them at an earlier age to types of in which (typically) female authors” insert literature that enables them to explore things “’glorified versions’ of themselves” as main such as sexuality and desire at their own characters “into the universe of a beloved leisure rather than by what is dictated by the media text” and is often “denigrated” by invisible rules of sexuality and desire “scholars and fans