![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Vidding, fanfic and commercialism
So yesterday I posted a rant in my Last.fm journal about Today by The Smashing Pumpkins being used in a Visa commercial, and how I was disturbed by that. I think my thoughts on that actually apply to fandom "coming out" to the public.
I finally truly understand the whole Fanlib.com fiasco and why that really bothered fans. It wasn't just an intellectual response to the problems Fanlib posed, it was an emotional backlash to someone commercializing something that has deep meaning to you. It's a betrayal of your feelings toward fanfiction and the movies and TV we love, and from that comes a deep mistrust that they will not handle your content responsibly. How could they, when they misunderstand on such a fundamental level that our thoughts and feelings should not be for sale? It's not just copyright issues; Fanlib wants to exploit the fact that the fans have strong emotional responses to fanfiction, like Visa wants to exploit my emotional response to Today. They want to make money, with no care at all for the fact that I actually have an opinion on the matter.
(For those that don't know what the whole FanLib fiasco is, read here, here, and here. I'm sure there's way more discussion out there, but I can't seem to find it right now.)
And now vidding is starting to be written up in the press; the signal is going out, as Laura Shapiro says. Can we control the spin the media might put on fandom and vidding, and prevent vids from becoming commercial entities to be used by The Man? Can we prevent them from being hijacked and used in a way that has no meaning for our fannish communities? According to this article at In Media Res it’s already being tried. I’ve previously been very excited at the prospect of vids gaining widespread acclaim because I want everyone to love them like I love them. But I’m starting to understand that even if we aren’t sued out of existence we could be manipulated and censored into something that doesn’t resemble us anymore. If vidding is no longer a rebellious act of irreverence and love and thought and emotion is it still worth watching and doing?
So I’m starting to appreciate more the OTW’s mission to prevent the commercialism of fannish works. If we the fans band together and actively create the kind of community we want and seek to protect it, there is a much higher chance that viding and other fan works will come through this series of changes with little to no destruction to our ideas and abilities. There are those who think the OTW will damage fandom by dragging us out into the spotlight, or by seeking to “speak for” and thus control the fans. (see Ethrosdemon’s post here) But we are already in the spotlight, and I sincerely don’t think the OTW can or will try to control fandom. To me they have demonstrated a willingness to work with everyone by accepting opinions and criticism and adjusting. And it can’t hurt to have someone on our side.
But vidding and commercialism already coexist to some degree. Many of the movies and TV shows we vid are highly publicized and are created to be commercially viable. The advertisers use any and all means to capture our interest and wallets, including using popular songs in their commercials and in their content, creating fan spaces on their websites, and going so far as to have “mash up” contests for the fans. And yet we the fans continue to have deep emotional responses to these shows and movies. The commercialism does not negate our feelings in these cases, so why shouldn’t the same be true for music?
Perhaps because we go into movies or TV shows with upfront knowledge of the commercial aspect and make the conscious choice to ignore it, but when I bought Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness it was new and raw and meaningful. It’s only later that the meaning of the music changed with this commercial, a change that I had no choice in making. And maybe that’s the difference: choice. If I choose to take a movie that’s mainstream and commercial, like 300, and dig deeper meaning out of it by vidding, then I end up with something that I’m happy with. If I show it to you but you don’t like it, well that’s fine. That’s your choice, but it doesn’t negate my enjoyment of the vid. In an environment of choice I don’t have to like everything, and that fact doesn’t bother me.
So maybe that’s the lesson to apply to music. Billy Corgan can do whatever he wants to with his song. It is his song, after all. My feelings and thoughts on the song are not negated by his commercial choices. Does that mean I’m selling out my personal meaning of the song by accepting his commercialism? I don’t know, but I still love the song.
Via metafandom
It feels like being tamed.
I remember looking into corporate fansite acknowledgement back in the day. It was stingy. Didn't offer the stuff I was interested in covering. Banned obscenity--a ban I felt extended to slash. If I couldn't write the Professor X/Cyclops adult male/underage boy fic I felt needed to be out there to confront the shadow I saw in the official text...
Times change, the corporate material is reflecting our own tastes in places. But I feel there will always be a place for creating what the author doesn't agree with. And that place will probably never be under control because the control doesn't agree with it's existence.
Re: Via metafandom
It does feel like being tamed. Like being controlled. Like they are saying "You can exist if I approve of how you do it." Maybe it wouldn't feel like that if they weren't out there trying to take down the stuff we create from YouTube, or deleting our journals and communities from LiveJournal, or censoring what gets put into FanLib and Fanfiction.net, or suing people for using their music, but they are. And it's not everyone, some artists and directors and producers are fine with what the fans do, or even support it. But the ones that don't make it difficult to trust that the others won’t eventually do the same things. Or at least that their lawyers won’t do the same things.
As for creating what the author doesn't agree with, that's free speech isn't it? Isn't this whole debate about free speech? I guess it comes down to whether you believe fanworks are legitimate creations that stand independently of the sources they come from, or not. I do. Obviously we are starting with someone else’s work, but the work I put into editing a vid and my thoughts and ideas about the movie are my own. I believe that the right to profit from my fanworks is not guaranteed and copyright does come into play there, but their right to exist is guaranteed by my right to free speech. Cesperanza talks about that here: http://cesperanza.livejournal.com/161806.html.
Why should the corporations expect us to read their books, watch their shows, go to the movies, visit their websites and spend hours there so they can make money off the ads they put up, buy those shows and movies on DVD and then Blu-Ray and then iTunes and then whatever new format comes out in five years, buy the books in paperback and then hardcover, buy the merchandise they put out and go to the conventions, but at the end of all that say we can’t respond in kind with our thoughts and feelings? That sends the message that they expect us to be invested enough to keep watching and buying, but to repress any impulses to talk about their content. And fanfic and vids are our way of talking about those shows with each other.