Fandom Take 2: Electric Boogaloo
Apr. 26th, 2010 10:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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fangasmicNow that Monday is here, it's time for some Deep Thoughts with Fangasmic. Today's essay is one that was promised you last week: reboots- and no, we don't mean that tragically underrated 90s Canadian cartoon.
The ongoing trend of remaking old properties has been well documented in the mainstream media. Every day seems to bring the rumors of another one; they're everywhere. Off the top of my head I can think of several: Sherlock Holmes, Star Trek, Bewitched, Get Smart, The Brady Bunch, The Mod Squad, Starsky and Hutch, Charlie's Angels, Battlestar Galactica, the upcoming movie of The A-Team, and the list continues. Most recently we've heard that Gilligan's Island is getting re-heeled, and Man From U.N.C.L.E. possibly not far behind. It begs the question, what else is left to reboot? (If you thought I Dream of Jeannie was safe/too problematic thanks to its 1960s gender politics, think again.)
It's easy to see where the trend comes from. Viewing past pop culture through the ironic lens of the present is what makes the successful VH1 franchise I Love The Decadewhateverthefuck tick. And forget individual shows, there's a whole cable channel devoted to nostalgic television that does pretty well for itself. There's obviously a market for this stuff.
Reboots may be a one-trick pony with limited narrative scope- look at that list above, you'll notice that BSG is the only non-movie up there with more than 2.5 hours of material- but that doesn't seem to be stopping anyone. Just recast it with younger, more attractive people, throw in some explosions and a few winking nods at the silly conventions of the original and boom! You've got yourself a remake.
And sure, maybe no one has ever considered The Brady Bunch sacred territory, but what about shows that Fandom has embraced? What happens when an old fandom gets rebooted, not just a franchise?
Ultimate Fighting Championship: Old Fen vs. New Fen
One of the most extreme examples of this phenomenon occurred not so very long ago. When Star Trek XI dropped like a shiny, lens-flared bomb on Fandom in the summer of 2009, the fallout was on the level of that time in SGA when Rodney blew up 5/6s of a solar system.
JJ Abrams: NEEDS MOAR LENS FLAAAAAAAAARES.
It was an especially telling moment for Fandom, Star Trek TOS being generally regarded as the Grand Old Matriarch of the entire sprawling, perverted family. The 40-years difference between when TOS aired and when the new movie hit theaters was instantly made manifest.
Plenty of youngins who didn't get/care about The Ways Things Used To Be, regarded old school TOS with all the attention of a 13 year old listening to their grandfather talk about having a Victory Garden during the War. ("Zines? What? Okay. I have to go text someone.")
TOS fen, for their part, reacted in a way similar to someone accidentally stumbling on the shrieking throngs of a Disney Channel mall tour while trying to return a blouse to Chico's. ("What is wrong with kids these days anyway, Miley Cyrus can't even sing.")
Mind the Generation Gap
Age in fandom is an issue that's hard to get a firm handle on- plenty of fen (younger and older) prefer to remain mum about their ages for a variety of reasons. For every time you're surprised to learn that someone on your flist could be your mother, there's another time when you find out that girl who writes scads and scads of filthy porn is only 16. Somehow though, we all manage to get along. It's not perfect, but on the whole Fandom is pretty good at pretending that age is just a number when it comes to a universal love of buttsex.
And yet when a reboot comes by these latent generational gaps get exacerbated. After all, a fandom's demographics are to a certain extent silo'd and self-selecting: older shows and shows with older characters attract older fans, Jonas Brothers fandom attracts no self-respecting person over 25, etc. And never the twain shall meet.
That is, unless a fandom gets rebooted- and then, stand back and let the rumble begin. It's like Sharks vs. Jets with fewer balletic dance numbers and a lot more anonymous potshots posted to fandomsecrets.
THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE.
I Don't Know What That Means
If we're going to go all Temperance Brennan nerdy on this, from an anthropological perspective reboots are incredibly valuable. They provide a rare look at Fandom, past and present, in one clearly defined context. And when you take a closer look at it, the most striking differences in the Fandoms of Today vs. the Fandoms of Yesteryear isn't so much the shows themselves but their fanworks.
The thing you remember most about Starsky and Hutch? Isn't a gritty cop show full of 70s hair and skin-tight jeans (okay maybe it is, but come on, that shit was painted on). What stands out the most is how authors subverted the masculinity of their characters in ways that seem as obsolete now as a betamax. It's the preponderance of We're Not Gay We Just Love Each Other fic that just doesn't jive with modern Fandom's queer politics. It's the unselfconsciously purple declarations of love straight out of the musty pages of a 35 cent romance paperback copyright 1964.
Reading some of the old classics of fandom can be a jarring experience to the modern reader. The phrase "cultural shock" has been used before, and it's pretty apt. But reading vintage slash fic is not exactly like visiting a foreign country. It's more like opening up your favorite novel for a re-read only to find that it's suddenly been rendered in Pig Latin. The differences you find are all the more striking because on some level it's comforting to think that Fandom and fic have always been the same since the dawn of time, as though women in Elizabethean England were like, "Didst thou see the latest play at the Globe? Verily, Hamlet and Horatio plainly were but Godless sodomites. Wouldst not that be hot?"
Ye Olde Fangirls, probably making Ye Olde Dick Jokes
However, when Spock and Kirk were first introduced as t'hy'la, the gay scene may have been swinging, but it was as self-consciously othered as the half-human Spock of 2009 in fanon: obvious in his separation, and to many or most of his peers, socially unacceptable. In the decades since, we've been through the AIDS scare, seen the rise and the beginnings of DADT's crumble. Being gay is no longer surprising or cutting edge on its own, and for a group of writers and consumers more tolerant of and, indeed, hungry for something different, a writer has to do more than talk about the epic love of Kirk and Spock or Starsky and Hutch -- those guys can fuck with impunity. Moreover, without the need to spend most of a story justifying two characters' relationship, it leaves a lot of space for other things, like terrible animal transformation fic. And a lot of space for kink memes, which necessarily engenders a joke about fisting.
What Do You Mean I Won't Live Forever?
But perhaps the most valuable lesson we can take from all this reboot mania is that Fandom of today will soon date as well. Inevitably, all of our shows and popular tropes will doubtless seem just as odd to the next generation of fangirl ("Cat macros? Why the hell was that ever a thing?").
Like Hallmark cards, there's a cat macro for every occasion, but this one seems especially appropriate.
And who knows? 30 years from now, when a futuristic content network decides to dust off House and remake it with a 20-year-old boy genius Greg "Mad Dog" House and his long-suffering roommate Jane Wilson, it might be comforting on some level to know that we've all been there before.
The ongoing trend of remaking old properties has been well documented in the mainstream media. Every day seems to bring the rumors of another one; they're everywhere. Off the top of my head I can think of several: Sherlock Holmes, Star Trek, Bewitched, Get Smart, The Brady Bunch, The Mod Squad, Starsky and Hutch, Charlie's Angels, Battlestar Galactica, the upcoming movie of The A-Team, and the list continues. Most recently we've heard that Gilligan's Island is getting re-heeled, and Man From U.N.C.L.E. possibly not far behind. It begs the question, what else is left to reboot? (If you thought I Dream of Jeannie was safe/too problematic thanks to its 1960s gender politics, think again.)
It's easy to see where the trend comes from. Viewing past pop culture through the ironic lens of the present is what makes the successful VH1 franchise I Love The Decadewhateverthefuck tick. And forget individual shows, there's a whole cable channel devoted to nostalgic television that does pretty well for itself. There's obviously a market for this stuff.
Reboots may be a one-trick pony with limited narrative scope- look at that list above, you'll notice that BSG is the only non-movie up there with more than 2.5 hours of material- but that doesn't seem to be stopping anyone. Just recast it with younger, more attractive people, throw in some explosions and a few winking nods at the silly conventions of the original and boom! You've got yourself a remake.
And sure, maybe no one has ever considered The Brady Bunch sacred territory, but what about shows that Fandom has embraced? What happens when an old fandom gets rebooted, not just a franchise?
Ultimate Fighting Championship: Old Fen vs. New Fen
One of the most extreme examples of this phenomenon occurred not so very long ago. When Star Trek XI dropped like a shiny, lens-flared bomb on Fandom in the summer of 2009, the fallout was on the level of that time in SGA when Rodney blew up 5/6s of a solar system.
JJ Abrams: NEEDS MOAR LENS FLAAAAAAAAARES.
It was an especially telling moment for Fandom, Star Trek TOS being generally regarded as the Grand Old Matriarch of the entire sprawling, perverted family. The 40-years difference between when TOS aired and when the new movie hit theaters was instantly made manifest.
Plenty of youngins who didn't get/care about The Ways Things Used To Be, regarded old school TOS with all the attention of a 13 year old listening to their grandfather talk about having a Victory Garden during the War. ("Zines? What? Okay. I have to go text someone.")
TOS fen, for their part, reacted in a way similar to someone accidentally stumbling on the shrieking throngs of a Disney Channel mall tour while trying to return a blouse to Chico's. ("What is wrong with kids these days anyway, Miley Cyrus can't even sing.")
it's the most terrible thing i have ever seen
ugggh i fear it.
kill it with fire.
Mind the Generation Gap
Age in fandom is an issue that's hard to get a firm handle on- plenty of fen (younger and older) prefer to remain mum about their ages for a variety of reasons. For every time you're surprised to learn that someone on your flist could be your mother, there's another time when you find out that girl who writes scads and scads of filthy porn is only 16. Somehow though, we all manage to get along. It's not perfect, but on the whole Fandom is pretty good at pretending that age is just a number when it comes to a universal love of buttsex.
And yet when a reboot comes by these latent generational gaps get exacerbated. After all, a fandom's demographics are to a certain extent silo'd and self-selecting: older shows and shows with older characters attract older fans, Jonas Brothers fandom attracts no self-respecting person over 25, etc. And never the twain shall meet.
That is, unless a fandom gets rebooted- and then, stand back and let the rumble begin. It's like Sharks vs. Jets with fewer balletic dance numbers and a lot more anonymous potshots posted to fandomsecrets.
THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE.
I Don't Know What That Means
If we're going to go all Temperance Brennan nerdy on this, from an anthropological perspective reboots are incredibly valuable. They provide a rare look at Fandom, past and present, in one clearly defined context. And when you take a closer look at it, the most striking differences in the Fandoms of Today vs. the Fandoms of Yesteryear isn't so much the shows themselves but their fanworks.
The thing you remember most about Starsky and Hutch? Isn't a gritty cop show full of 70s hair and skin-tight jeans (okay maybe it is, but come on, that shit was painted on). What stands out the most is how authors subverted the masculinity of their characters in ways that seem as obsolete now as a betamax. It's the preponderance of We're Not Gay We Just Love Each Other fic that just doesn't jive with modern Fandom's queer politics. It's the unselfconsciously purple declarations of love straight out of the musty pages of a 35 cent romance paperback copyright 1964.
Reading some of the old classics of fandom can be a jarring experience to the modern reader. The phrase "cultural shock" has been used before, and it's pretty apt. But reading vintage slash fic is not exactly like visiting a foreign country. It's more like opening up your favorite novel for a re-read only to find that it's suddenly been rendered in Pig Latin. The differences you find are all the more striking because on some level it's comforting to think that Fandom and fic have always been the same since the dawn of time, as though women in Elizabethean England were like, "Didst thou see the latest play at the Globe? Verily, Hamlet and Horatio plainly were but Godless sodomites. Wouldst not that be hot?"
Ye Olde Fangirls, probably making Ye Olde Dick Jokes
However, when Spock and Kirk were first introduced as t'hy'la, the gay scene may have been swinging, but it was as self-consciously othered as the half-human Spock of 2009 in fanon: obvious in his separation, and to many or most of his peers, socially unacceptable. In the decades since, we've been through the AIDS scare, seen the rise and the beginnings of DADT's crumble. Being gay is no longer surprising or cutting edge on its own, and for a group of writers and consumers more tolerant of and, indeed, hungry for something different, a writer has to do more than talk about the epic love of Kirk and Spock or Starsky and Hutch -- those guys can fuck with impunity. Moreover, without the need to spend most of a story justifying two characters' relationship, it leaves a lot of space for other things, like terrible animal transformation fic. And a lot of space for kink memes, which necessarily engenders a joke about fisting.
What Do You Mean I Won't Live Forever?
But perhaps the most valuable lesson we can take from all this reboot mania is that Fandom of today will soon date as well. Inevitably, all of our shows and popular tropes will doubtless seem just as odd to the next generation of fangirl ("Cat macros? Why the hell was that ever a thing?").
Like Hallmark cards, there's a cat macro for every occasion, but this one seems especially appropriate.
And who knows? 30 years from now, when a futuristic content network decides to dust off House and remake it with a 20-year-old boy genius Greg "Mad Dog" House and his long-suffering roommate Jane Wilson, it might be comforting on some level to know that we've all been there before.