Social Commentary, BOO-YA

[chasingtides]

My lack of PETJA has managed this post into existence.

So this post I found via metafandom made me think about this. Yeah, yeah, I'm writing about RPF and celebrity gossip, neither of which I know very well knew very well when I started this entry. Go away.

First of all, I admit to reading some RPF. (Okay, Gary Oldman and Tim Roth were totally something of a gateway drug. And damn the Supernatural fans to hell and back. You're all damaging to my psyche, no matter how much I love you.) Yeah, I admit also to being squicked by a lot of it. For all that I've been on the internet and in fandom for more than half my life now (Jesus Christ!), I seem to have a low squick threshold for somethings. If they don't involve capslock. In any case, I do read some and sometimes I like what I read.

Some people in fandom really, really don't like RPF. In fact, there's something of a stigma against it. (Being mildly squicked by the somewhat creepy and vaguely stalkerish lens of some fics I've seen, I... I am torn on this.) I've seen it called weird and offensive and, oh, look, even I've called it creepy. Hell, ckr_actorfic tells readers, "I know not everybody agrees with the concept of RPF— hence the membership mod’ing and the automatic f-locking on all the entries. If you're not down with the RPF, that's okay; just please respect our right to have a difference of opinion, and we'll respect your right to not frequent this journal." Most of the RPF communities I found in my research are locked tighter than the Snarry communities after the LJ fiasco last summer. (Wow. Can I just say, wow?)

But... and I swear this comes from reading metafandom shortly after being out at the shops... why do people think there are problems with RPF? So, some folks think that writing fiction about Orlando Bloom bottoming for Johnny Depp is really hot. They are calling it fiction, after all. Some people think it'd be awesome if the actors from Supernatural had superpowers and used them to have kinky sex. Okay, that's obviously fiction. Some band guys are humping each other on stage (I've watched MTV, don't tell me that's not what they're doing) and their fans take that and write about them humping each other off stage. I'm not familiar with bandom, given that my favourite bands don't have much in the way of active fandoms, but I'm fairly sure they're still calling it RPF. In fact, wb_rps comes with this warning: "NONE OF THESE STORIES ARE REAL. THE BOYS ARE, THE THINGS WE MAKE THEM DO IN OUR SICK, SPECIAL HELL IMAGINATIONS ARE NOT." rugbytackle tells viewers, "All the material on this site is fictional unless specifically noted otherwise. These are our fantasies and have NO bearing on the real lives or activities of the subjects of our stories and artwork" (italics theirs).

This seems fairly clear, altogether. This is fictive stuff. Our friend Merriam-Webster defines fiction as, "1 a: something invented by the imagination or feigned; specifically : an invented story."

Ok. But some people don't like fiction. We're getting to crux of my argument here.

We are surrounded, in American culture at least, by RPF that isn't calling itself fiction and most people are calling it shiny and fine. Some of these same people are continuing to discriminate against fandom RPF.

What am I talking about, you ask? What have I been smoking? Where are these fics and vids that I'm claiming your parents and baby siblings and grandparents and bosses are reading and watching? These are people not in fandom.

Have you seen Celebrity Gossip? Have you seen Star Magazine when you pick up groceries? When you flip on the TV after work or school, have you seen E!?

TMZ, a celebrity gossip site/TV show, as far as I can tell, posts a picture of Brody Jenner (someone want to tell me who this is) and girlfriend/boyfriend/other person (I have no idea what gender Brody is). If you click on the link, you will see a picture of a bikini clad woman bent over in front of a man in swim trunks who has his hands on her back. The caption reads, "This is what Brody Jenner does all day long."

Here The Hollywood Gossip posts a number of highly disparaging comments (monthly winners) about celebrities. Included are such gems as, "June 2006: Heather Mills. Heather Mills sucks. But that one-legged, gold-digging ex-call girl sure did give us some great stories for a time," "February 2007: Antonella Barba. This New Jersey-ite couldn’t sing all that well, but her oral skills were on full display. If you know what we mean. We mean there were pics on the Internet of her servicing some schmoe," and "October 2007: Heidi Montag. Heidi and Spencer engaged! Heidi and Spencer call off wedding! Heidi and Spencer pose for staged pics on the beach! A story about them always gets attention, which Heidi Montag loves."

Here Star Magazine speculates about Vin Diesel's secret babies. Here you can vote on how many kids Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt should have (although last week when I was buying milk, I think the same magazine claimed that Brad Pitt had left her). "However many they want" is not an option, sadly. Learn all about Shia LaBeouf's family life here. I'd go on, but, honestly, I think I'm already losing brain cells.

I think you get the idea. If you go to the grocery store, the pharmacy, or the newstand or if you turn on the TV, you've seen it. Celebrity gossip, it's everywhere. Frankly, I find it fairly creepy - these poor people don't have any privacy anymore. Paparazzi are trying to get crotch shots of 18 year olds and the country waits on tenterhooks for the next young celebrity to go into rehab. People feel that they should have a say in how many kids a total stranger ought to have.

But that's not my point. My question is, how is this stuff not RPF? Angelina Jolie apparently didn't give birth to twins last week, like the tabloids claimed, and apparently, Brad Pitt didn't leave her. And yet, they're given a green light. I've seen people call them trash journalism, but I've never seen the stigma of RPF associated with celebrity gossip. Yet, it seems that RPF is, by and far, the more harmless of the two.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe RPF will give me herpes and the bubonic plague while celebrity gossip is benign, like freckles. Wanna tell me why?

Holy research Batman! I did more research into celebrity gossip and RPF than I thought I would. I admit that I've got more on celebrity gossip than on RPF. RPF seems to be a strictly closed community, so I know mostly what I've seen, whereas celebrity gossip is open and freely available to the public, often thrown in our faces.

Comments

Great Job!

[(Anonymous)]

Awesome Job!

On a related note-- the law on the subject of reporting bullshit is pretty clear-- when public figures are involved, is a virtual per se rule of protection for the libeling party (See New York Times v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964); Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46 (1988). See also http://www.attorneys-usa.com/intentional/defamation.html#4 for a layman's explanation.

On another related note-- men in sales have for years generally kept up on sports to have something to talk to their clients about, and now consulting firms are advising women (or others who my have a limited interest in sports) to keep up on celebrity gossip for the same purpose.

My $0.02.

[violetlemon47.livejournal.com]

You present a view that I've never considered (thank you), very well thought out and presented. I, personally, don't have a problem with most RPF. Sure, some of it squicks me out. I can not read JDM (unless it's CAPSLOCK, which I'm sure speaks of my unbalanced nature) in any sexually related manner. There's a lot of JDM related RPS out there, but it doesn't bother me that others write/read/enjoy it. I simply avoid it.
It does make me extremely uncomfortable when stalker-ish fans post personal things about celebrities (or anyone really, without said person's permission) - personal photos ect. It's the same as the fans who ask much too intimate questions at conventions, or even worse, when randomly meeting someone famous in pubic.
I guess, what it comes down to, for me, is that I am comfortable with RPS that is based on a celebrites public personas. Actors, etc, chose to live a part of their lives in the public eye, and if the RPS is based off that I think it is okay. If it goes farther, into their private, personal situations, then it's gone too far. That might only make sense in my head.

ETA - I love Incubus.

[chasingtides.livejournal.com]

That's about how I feel, at this point. There are some actors I don't want to read about (Torchwood actors, for some reason, rank high on this list) in most ways, but I don't care if others do. Stalking, on the other hand, bothers me in so many ways (and so many paparazzi are stalkers).

And capslock, for some reason, makes *everything* ok with me. I'm probably just as unbalanced as you.

[rabidfangurl.livejournal.com]

Dammit, your meta is intersecting with my (brewing) meta about the nature of Alternate Reality fics. And I'm going to be computerless for a week starting tomorrow!

[chasingtides.livejournal.com]

Do tell! Do tell!

[sarari.livejournal.com]

Once I found out what RPF was... I realised that that's the first kind of fanfic I ever read (and loved) when I was 12. Bandom, specifically. :D

[theladyscribe]

LOL, once I learned what RPF was, I realized that it was the first kind of fanfic I ever wrote. It was dreadful Elijah Wood/Mary Sue fiction, and I wrote it for my 8th grade writing class. *dies of embarrassment*

[(Anonymous)]

I thought about this myself and came to the conclusion that the only difference is the format. The content is more or less the same (though I have to admit that I prefer RPF. For some reason it's less cringe-worthy).

[fmyates.livejournal.com]

I look at these things in the idea of putting myself in their shoes, and how would i feel? I wouldn't like to read untrue things about myself in rags like the star or watch them on tmz, and I sure wouldn't like to read 18 chapters about me and my secret sex life with another member of the cast of my show.
Tabloids are the bottom of the barrel, it just feels like just because jill is jumping off the bridge, it doesn't mean you do too.
imho

[chasingtides.livejournal.com]

Personally, I would be thoroughly amused if I went online and found stories about my secret sex life with my friends/co-workers. I would probably then print them out and show them to people. That might just be me, though.

On the other hand, I'm most comfortable with stories that aren't about omg!secret!sex lives, but more "what if" scenarios... but that's just me being odd, I suppose. I generally don't go for omg!sex and lean more toward omg!plot in my reading.

[lannamichaels]

I have been wondering about that for years, why RPF is considered disgusting and tabloid journalism is a merely a fact of life. I'm an RPS-er and I hate tabloid journalism. I won't read tabloids and I feel gross after scanning the headlines at the checkout. I'm a member of a figure skating message board and there have been people posting the most slanderous gossip about underage athletes, and that's "fine", but bring up skating RPS and out come the moralizers saying ew. But skateslash has disclaimers and, most importantly, we know that what we're doing is fake. We're not trying to pass this off as something that really happened. Yet RPS is gross and inappropriate, but talking about people having public sex at a competition is okay? The double standard is the strangest thing.

RPF in fandom has disclaimers. RPF is real life doesn't. RPF in fandom isn't passing it off as fact. RPF in real life does. I just don't understand this. Is it because "we are fandom and those people over there are giving fandom a bad name"? Or is it just "it's okay when other people do it, but not okay when people from our own group do it"? Tabloids get a free pass, why?

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

Tabloids get a free pass, why?

Because they are in it for the money. Because they do not claim to be creative, even though they are. Because we all look down upon them *because* they are creative, and thus don't have to take them seriously.

Because the money mostly goes to men.

[viciouswishes.livejournal.com]

I agree that it's ridiculous that RPF communities are locked tighter than those Snarry ones. I've spent some time arguing with irrational people on this issues; mostly looking at what's libel and what's not. And when you shout from the rooftops that it's all just fiction...

[hector-rashbaum.livejournal.com]

As someone who is very strongly not okay with celebrity gossip culture, and someone who is very much in favor of RPF, I've thought about this a lot. It seems roaringly hypocritical to me to be okay with gossip and vehemently against RPF, and beyond that I don't get how that hypocrisy isn't obvious.

And I've yet to figure out why. And it drives me insane for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is as someone who actively avoids gossip culture because I feel it's intrusive and disrespectful, it leaves me a little at a loss to be directly accused of being...intrusive and disrespectful for my RPF.

I wrote on the same topic (http://hector-rashbaum.livejournal.com/187996.html) a while back, and one of the comments made sense to me as a reason to be against both: if people assume you must support gossip culture to properly research RPF, then it makes perfect sense to be opposed to both (disregarding that it's entirely possible, believe me, to write well-researched RPF without gossip) - but I've never understood how one can be opposed to RPF and think intrusive, borderline-stalking tabloid gossip is a-ok.

Here from metaquotes

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

I don't like RPF. I think it's intrusive and kind of boring (I don't really care about the lives of actors/sportspeople/musicians) but I think this *because* it feeds off the evil of the gossip sites and magazines. I have asked an RPFer about this before, and her ethical path through this was to only use information from sources like interviews, blogs and liner notes - information that the subjects themselves had put out there. But this seems to be a rarity in RPF canon-formation, and so I don't like RPF. And no, I don't read gossip magazines or sites, either.

For some of the harm done by celebrity gossip, try some feminist blogs talking about the problems with the culture of women (the main consumers) judging other women, photoshopping and teen/child body image, and the emphasis on appearance and fame used to distract girls and women from actual achievement. Shapely Prose is a good place to start. I do think fan RPF is by far the less harmful, because of that disclaimer and the fact that it can sometimes question and challenge dominant paradigms far more successfully, but I think the two kinds of RPF are more closely entwined than your post might imply.

Re: Here from metaquotes

[chasingtides.livejournal.com]

I don't know that RPF requires celebrity gossip. I don't think they're quite so co-dependent. Admittedly, however, I don't know that much about either (see also my first paragraph).

I do have an idea of how destructive gossip media is. If this post came of as supportive of the paparazzi, then I wrote it wrong. I am firmly opposed to such media and think it horrific.

[shirasade]

Interesting connect you make with the tabloids. I worked in a retirement home for several years and sold trashy magazines with European royalty on the cover. They always made me shake my head, but never more so than the time when two different magazines, sitting side by side on the shelf, were proclaiming completely contradictory headlines. (I think one was 'Charles and Camilla - the break up!' and the other one 'Charles and Camilla happier than ever!')

Just... yeah, definitely fiction - except that they can actually be dangerous, because they're not labeled as such.

[msilverstar]

Just FYI, the main LotR RPS communities, fellow_shippers and lotrips are not locked. Many of our guys have said they're OK with RPS, though the don't understand it, and we do try not to push it in their faces.

Like the tabloids, it's the fan gossip groups that seem to be the most outrageous and annoying. RPS says "fiction"; tinhats say "fact". They were notorious for believing in color-coded shoutouts and mysterious meaningful rings. There's a little gray overlap, but mostly, anyone who would try to argue that any of the LOTR actors are in love with any others in an RPS group would get mocked instantly.

[chasingtides.livejournal.com]

Okay. Did not know that.

As I've mentioned above I'm still in the "gateway drug" moment of my RPF reading and haven't been involved in LotR since the movies came out.

[bluevsgrey.livejournal.com]

Most of the RPF communities I found in my research are locked tighter than the Snarry communities after the LJ fiasco last summer

Being someone who has read multitudes of rpf fanfiction, and been in spn rps and bandom fandoms for a time, I do not find this to be true.

[chasingtides.livejournal.com]

I've found some SPN RPS locked comms that are locked for the same reasons mentioned above.

I'm pleased that not all RPF comms are locked. When I searched "rpf" and "rps" under an interest search, most of the comms that came up that I looked at were locked. A lot weren't open-memberships either.

[kanzenhanzai.livejournal.com]

Hi, here via metafandom. This came up at an RPF con panel I was at and part of our own conclusion was that RPF is looked down upon was because we're not being paid to write it.

I think it comes down to fanfic writers being a part of a community, whereas when the tabloids come up with their own speculative stories, we can mutter and put them down, but they're not "one of us" and we can't just click post comment and have a direct dialog (or flame war) with that tabloid writer. They're professionals, even if their job is a load of crap, somehow they're still legitimized, whereas a fan writing RPF, isn't.

Jon Stewart's book "Naked Pictures of Famous People" is made up of RPF and Historical RPF, but at the time I read it, I didn't think of it in that way. Part of why he got that "pass" was because he's a professional, doing his job. Yet his chapter of fictional letters from Princess Diana to Mother Teresa could probably have been written by one of my lj friends in a crackier moments.

[bridgetmc.livejournal.com]

Indeed. I'm in Sports RPF myself and the sports media as well as traditional fans love to fictionalize the athletes' lives. Here's a 2/21/07 New York Magazine article (http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2007/02/damn_yankees.html) which is basically a slash story about A-Rod and Derek Jeter. Yet what the media does is okay and what we fen do isn't (by fen not in RPF fandoms)? All the fics I've read mention that what we're doing is fake fake fake. Media, especially the ones covering celebrities, don't.

[aerynvala.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly. That's the difference between RPF and gossip that makes the former okay and the latter not even remotely tolerable. RPF writers/readers, we know we're dealing with fiction. We don't present it any other way. We're not lying to make a buck. Very good post.

[winterlive.livejournal.com]

you are 100% correct. i've made the same analogy before, because it's that accurate. it isn't even a metaphor; it's the same damn thing.

[pensnest]

(here via metafandom)

I've been writing RPF for three years now, and I certainly think that what I do is more reasonable than what tabloid-style "journalism" does, because I do not present it as true.

In fact, I'm a member of an LJ community which fangirls our chosen celebrity, and it's clear that most of the people in that community are not RPF writers/readers. And what they do is exactly the same thing - they'll grab a smidgen of news and speculate their way into "That's How It Is" conclusions. I'm sitting there reading the comments and thinking, But! The proper way to deal with these assumptions is to write them into fic!

Frankly, it seems more reasonable, to me, to present our assumptions as Fiction rather than to persuade ourselves that because we have drawn a line connecting TinyCanonItem A and TinyCanonItem N, we have figured out The Truth.

Well, maybe I'm just weird. But I can out-write any tabloid journalist, bah!

[alias_sqbr]

Here via metafandom: I'm wondering, are there people actually in favour of celebrity gossip who are also anti-RPF? I can see people disliking them both but not bothering to actively denounce tabloids since it's not something they feel they can do anything about.

Personally I'm not a fan of either but agree that RPF is much less morally dubious.

It might be worth doing a poll someplace like fanthropology on people's relative opinions of the two (I don't know you, but if you have a lot of pro-RPF friends that'll make the results rather boring :))

[snorkackcatcher]

My question is, how is this stuff not RPF?

Because gossip is (nominally, at least) about actual events in the lives of the celebs, wheras RPF is, obviously, not. It's like the difference between a history book and a historical novel. The former in both cases may in fact be wrong, but come with a virtual author's note claiming "this REALLY happened!!!11", whereas the latter come with a (frequently literal) author's note saying "none of this really happened except in my imagination". That's a fairly crucial distinction, even if the formats might sometimes be mistaken for each other. (Well, usually they couldn't. Gossip columns and RPF about Orlando Bloom bottoming for Johnny Depp really have pretty different styles.)

[chasingtides.livejournal.com]

However, at least from what I've seen, this so-called journalism is just as fictive as the RPF. And it is proven fictive (unless Angelina Jolie gave birth to twins and stunning became 9 months pregnant within hours). It's not that these are legends that may or may not be fact. These are lies that are not fact, in the same way that all fiction is a lie.

Perhaps I'm oversimplifying things in my head, but the major distinction I see is that RPF is honest about lying.

[princessofg.livejournal.com]

my answer got so long that I had to put it in a post of my own! hee hee.

http://princessofg.livejournal.com/257543.html

thanks for the thinky. here from metafandom.

[lunalovegoddess.livejournal.com]

Thank you for drawing parallels to the celebrity gossip culture. I'm appalled at the lengths that paparazzi will go to, and in fact, a few months ago, was ranting on the very subject of crotch shots. I happen to like Angelina and Brad, and feel that as long as they can provide for their children, they can have as many as they like, regardless of who carries said children. I read an article about their nanny claiming they were unfit parents or some shit like that, and the things she allegedly said, like "OMFG they allow the kids to eat pizza and chocolate for breakfast", were things that I allow my own kids to do. I ended up laughing because that was really grasping at straws. I mean, Angelina's a freakin' goodwill ambassador, is one of the most beautiful and successful women by industry standards, and has opened her heart and home to raising children who were born in other countries. The Jolie-Pitt brood has been learning about seven languages. The parents encourage their kids to learn about their respective heritages and to express themselves creatively. I could go on, but you catch my drift.

So, how is trash-talk fine for the gossip rags, and slash fiction that we write for our enjoyment, and do not receive money for, not? I write all sorts of fiction about characters, and occasionally RPF. Generally, I prefer to write "what ifs" like "What if male characters A and B became romantically involved? How would that change group dynamics? What difficulties would they encounter? What about their upbringings?" The thing is, it is for private enjoyment. It's not like I'm wanking to what I write, either. To me, it's just another route to explore, an alternate reality.

Example A: My first foray into fanfiction was actually about the New Kids on the Block. *shows her age* It started with a dream I had about Joe McIntyre, which I told a friend about. Soon enough, we were writing a series of adventures called "The Dream Scene" about the band. (I'll admit, sometimes with us as the Mary-Sues, but hey; we were fourteen.) Compared to some of the stuff that I read online, it was quite tame.

Example B: Then, recently, I started getting hooked on bandom slash for Panic at the Disco, Fall Out Boy, etc. In general, I'm not huge on RPF, but it's all in fun, and my friends and I mean no disrespect to the musicians. Some of it is based on how touchy-feely the band members are with each other due to having spent so much time together. (They are very much like family when they are on the road, so this is natural.) Yeah, I know that Pete Wentz just got married, but I like slashing him because he's actually pretty cool about it all. He knows what people write about him, and pretty much said in an interview that he would not be opposed to making out with another guy. He has gay friends, he is comfortable with himself and open to possibilities, and his attitude is basically, "it's not a big deal whether the person is male or female because love is genderless". Some of the bands will flirt on stage with each other regardless of their real orientation because it's fun and gets a reaction from the audience.

This makes me think of how other celebrities might react to allegations that they are gay, for example. Not everyone would be able to find it as humorous or flattering, and might respond with a lawsuit for defamation of character. Not that they personally feel anything is wrong with homosexuality, but it's such a powder keg in the media that it could effect their livelihood.

[iamrazorwing.livejournal.com]

Fanfiction of any stripe has a similar stigma. Yet fairy tale retellings (and I love them dearly) are, at their core, fanfic. The entire comic book industry is predicated on fanfiction--it's just that it has the seal of approval from the creator and/or the people who own the creation's rights. (Granted, comics aren't quite out of the literary ghetto in the eyes of many just yet, but the medium has come a long way in the last few years.)

Long answer is, I'm not sure exactly why the distinction. I have ideas, but they may not be right. Or maybe some are. Anyway, I never considered the parallel you talk about, but it's a good point.

[dharma-slut.livejournal.com]

OMG, so much yes!

I've written exactly one RPF because it was impossible not to write, and it was very heart-in-my-mouth to post it. But in my own warped way, my story is a tribute to the two actors involved.

My story was based on two interviews in which the actor was (as he so often was, back in those days) very open about how he felt for the other man, and some biographies that I'd read. There was no gossip magazine input, and I wanted to make my scenario as possible as possible, given what I hoped I understood about these guy's characters and personalities.

I never thought about the tabloids as RPF, but you are so right! And they embody the disrespect that so many people associate with our genre-- time ten. And when I hear people taking their crap seriously-- well, it says sad things about our society, doesn't it?

[rabidfangurl.livejournal.com]

Reading through the comments, I've noticed two differences between RPF and the tabloids.

One, there's a serious power imbalance, in that the tabloids are mass-produced and mass-marketed, while RPF is not. The gossip rags can justify themselves by sheer presence, in that there are enough of them and they repeat rumors often enough as to seem legit in the eyes of the general public (see also, Fox News). If you have enough money and enough media coverage, you can convince anyone of anything.

Two, RPF can get much more explicit than any tabloid. While I'm sure the Inquirer or the Star can hint at the salacious details of Johnny Depp's sex life, they certainly can't write about how he holds BDSM orgies with Orlando Bloom every night, especially in the graphic detail fans tend to get into. If they did, they wouldn't be able to be on supermarket newsstands.

Oh, and that made me think of one other thing. Since fans clearly label their work fiction, they can get away with a lot more than the tabloids, which hide behind a tissue-thin cloak of 'truth' in their journalistic efforts. If they go too far, you can bet Orlando Bloom's highly paid lawyers will be eating them for lunch, since you can sue for slander when it's presented as truth. Fiction has greater protection than non-fiction.