The Radical Nature of Fan Creation
*Special thanks to @sasbatcii whose Twitter thread inspired this piece and Hannah who turned me onto it
Creative fandom, the act of making art, fiction, or videos based on your fandom, is a radical act. It takes the creative production out of the hands of the controlling few (TV producers, publishers, etc) and into the hands of the fans. Anyone can create or enjoy fanfiction. You could be twelve or fifty. Any gender or race. Anyone can participate and find something for themselves in fandom.
The commercial nature of television, books, and other forms of popular media means they are controlled by corporations, cultural gatekeepers, and the whims of the market, just like everything else. What sells, or is considered “appropriate” determines, at least in part, what gets created and seen by the public.
Those barriers are, if not entirely gone in some cases, are at least far, far smaller with fan creations. Fans have their own means and ways of producing creative works and ideas outside of the publishing world, TV producers and their ilk. And like in any free market place, the good stuff – as determined by the community - can float to the top. This allows for a different, more open and inclusive, environment to develop.
The removal of gatekeepers allows for different kinds of voices to flourish, and ideas that wouldn’t necessarily be accepted by the mainstream society at the time. Kirk/Spock fiction, one of the most famous male/male fan fiction pairings, was first being written at a time when homosexuality was illegal in many parts of the US. Hermione from Harry Potter was depicted as black or mixed race in fan art well before a black actress was cast as Hermione for the play The Cursed Child. Fan creations can explore openings that the mainstream media cannot or will not explore for whatever reason. And while there is plenty of fan fiction that does become mainstream, those that do only show the potential power of the medium, rather than act as a constraint.
Of course, this is how it works in an ideal world, not in reality. Fan creations, like everything else, has its issues. There are gatekeepers that emerge, drowning out stories they don’t want to hear or bullying people who do something different. And even if the bullying is saying that gay couple A is better than gay couple B, it’s still bullying. Which is never ok.
It is also extremely important to remember that fan creations wouldn’t exist without the TV shows and books and things that inspired their fandom in the first place. The relationship between fans and The Powers That Be of the fandom is often portrayed as adversarial. Which is sad, because it should be a symbiotic one. The fans and creators of work need each other, and should support the other, rather than tear the other down. And the toxicity that can emerge from an adversarial relationship undermines the radical openness and accessibility of fandom. It turns it into something to fear, rather than celebrate.
And maybe all this feels a little too radical at times. As an aspiring novelist, I know I want to maintain a certain level of control over my characters even after they are open to the world. And I do have a canon is canon mentality, even as I respect people who don’t. The openness of fandom is terrifying just as it is incredible. It provides opportunities that wouldn’t otherwise exist for marginalized voices/ideas while still being susceptible to the internet equivalent of a torch-wielding mob.
It is incumbent on all of us, including myself, to promote the positive radicalism of fan creations, the side that expands our ideas and the equality that can and should be a part of fandom, while limiting the power of bullies. The radical nature of fandom is impressive and rare in our culture. It should be encouraged to flourish, and develop into the best version of itself.
