TFN linked to an interesting article on CNET.
The way one academic sees it, the moves Lucasfilm have made over the years to control what they allow fans to create are biased against women.
Not sure I agree whole-heartedly with his opinions. But judge for yourself.
Very interesting article. I don’t know about the bias against women stuff (we women love our pardody, too!!) ;) but I love the stuff about telling stories about heroes being a part of ancient culture. It gives a dignity to fanfiction that I really like.
I do think it’s a hard thing to determine where the line between “intellectual property” and encouraging fan interaction is. I think when fans really get that they’re playing in someone else’s sandbox and have a respect for that, it’s easier to not worry so much about intellectual property.
This guy is seriously underinformed about fan fiction. Sure, LFL doesn’t support it or have contests for it, but they also haven’t out and out banned or tried to control it since the 80’s – and that was mostly because of explicit sex. If they didn’t go after the fanfic community after TPM when Qui-Gon/Obi-wan slash was all rage, they’re not about to do it now. Fan fiction is not banned – it’s just recieving any professional attention. That doesn’t mean it’s not thriving.
I have noticed that the fan film and audio community is far more male dominated than fanfic. But I don’t think that has much to do with LFL’s decision to support fan films more than anything else.
Supporting fan films is a bias of Lucas himself. He’s a visual guy – how many times have we been told he doesn’t read the novels, which are authorized by his company? The guy’s just not all that interested in written derivatives. It makes perfect sense that he would have an interest in fan films and more likely to support them.
And hell, some of us prefer that LFL keep their hands off fanfic entirely… But from this article, you’d think fanfic doesn’t exist because LFL isn’t handing out awards for it. And that’s a gross oversight on the part of the author. There are a lot more fanfic writers out there than there are people making fan films, and they’re not that hard to find.
This is Henry Jenkins, right? He’s the media studies guy over at MIT who’s written about fanfic before. In my experience academics are always happy to claim that their own area of study is somehow oppressed.
I agree with Dunc; it’s more that Lucas is a film person. Plus the fanfilms are less likely to be full of MarySue ickism than lots of the fanfic.
I continue to be amazed that people think LFL has never heard of NC-17 fanfic or slash, and that the company would shut it all down if they knew it existed. Ummmmmm, tried google lately?