RPF, HPF, and Based On A True Story, or What if Hollywood ficced them First?

[elspethdixon]

I myself have never participated in any real RPS fandoms—I couldn’t tell N’Sync and the Backstreet Boys apart even back when they were all over MTV and the radio, which should give you some idea of the level of my interest in boybands, and when it comes to television and movies, I’m far more interested in the characters than the actual actors. I’d rather read about Jack Sparrow having sex with Will and Elizabeth Turner than about Johnny Depp, Keira Knightly, and Orlando Bloom performing the exact same sex acts, because Jack, Will, and Elizabeth are the ones I saw on screen and got all fangirly over. Mr. Depp, Ms. Knightly, and Mr. Bloom may be the talented and pretty people who helped create Jack, Will, and Elizabeth, but are they 18th century pirates?

Not that I’m totally against actorfic. When someone writes orgy fic featuring Shakespeare and the Lord Chamberlain’s men, then I’ll be all over actorfic like white on rice. Especially if they throw Marlowe into the mix as well. Mmmm… Marlowe.

And that begs the question: when exactly is RPS “RPS,” and when does it become something else? Sitting down at a computer and writing Depp/Bloom or Sean Bean/ Viggo Mortenson fic could theoretically get me sued for libel (though not for slander; to quote J. J. Jameson, “Slander is spoken. Libel is printed.”), but I could not only freely pen Marlowe slash, I could actually get it published. I submit as evidence Melissa Scott & Lisa A. Barnett’s Armor of Light. For that matter, I give you Shakespeare in Love, which might not be slash, but is certainly some degree of RPF. and totally stole the Oscar that should have gone to Saving Private Ryan

Granted, Mr. Mortenson et al are currently alive and well with their own agents and lawyers and press people to perform the aforementioned suing, and Christopher Marlowe has been dead for several hundred years, and moreover, left no descendants, but that’s the legal reasoning, not the moral argument. Why is Depp/Bloom squicky and wrong, and Shakespeare/Marlowe less so? Hell, I consider historical RPS less squicky than RPS with modern celebrities (as well as more interesting, since I’m a history geek), but I don’t know why.

And what about fic written for films and television series that are based on real people and events? To what extent is, say, a Doc/Wyatt slash fic based on Tombstone regular fanfic, and to what extent is it historical RPS? Wyatt Earp and John H. Holliday were, after all, real people. What about fic for a miniseries like Band of Brothers, which was based on a book that told the story of a real life army unit? What if I wrote fic for Good Night and Good Luck or Walk the Line or Capote?

Not only did Hollywood do the film equivalent of RPF in those movies, they used actual footage of Senator Joe McCarthy in Good Night and Good Luck, completely without his consent and permission, since he’s dead, and probably would have refused to give the film his blessing even were he alive to do so. His Hed Was Pastede On Yay! Granted, it was footage from a public broadcast, and therefore presumably up for grabs to anyone who cleared it with CBS first, but you see where I’m going with this, right?

If Hollywood or some published author has “done fic” about a celebrity or historical person first, does it absolve RPS writers who choose to write about those people of fic-writing sin, or does my Doc/Wyatt slash earn me a place in the Special Hell right next to the Timbertrick people?

Comments

[azarias.livejournal.com]

My general rule is that if they've been dead long enough that no one now living knew them, they're completely fair game for fiction. Price of leading a noteworthy life.

Before that cut-off, it gets more complicated. I don't have a hard and fast rule, but it seems to be mostly "Is it good?". Lawrence of Arabia, the Peter O'toole version, is not only RPF but RPS (if that is not a nonsexual romance, my subtextometer is broken). It's also the greatest film I've ever seen, and I completely fail to care if anyone who knew T.E. Lawrence et al may be uncomfortable from the portrayal. On the other hand, I tried to read ... ugh, I've blocked out the title. Some slashy historical novel about the same characters that was terribly written, and it not only offended my sense of aesthetics but made me supremely uncomfortable in a human sense.

The Alexander/Hephaistion relationship in Alexander made me uncomfortable, too, because it was so badly done -- despite a couple thousand years' cushion, and despite much of it being taken word-for-word (and uncredited) from Mary Renault's novels, which I love. If you're going to make historical figures your puppets, all right, but do it well.

Fic about living celebrities simply squicks me, particularly if it's sexually-oriented. I imagine it's a combination of several factors. First, I think it's poor taste to air masturbatory fantasies where the object of said fantasies could conceivably come across them. Second, so much of it's terribly done -- though that's most fic, pro- or fan-. And, honestly, I think a lot of it is because I could care less about the living celebrities that get written about. I don't care about popular music. I don't care about most of Hollywood. I liked Lord of the Rings like most geeks who didn't hate it, but the actors are not the Fellowship and thus are not one tenth as cool. Sean Bean is very, very nice to oggle, but I simply don't give a damn about his personal life, including who he has sex with, and I wouldn't like to meet him in real life, both because I probably wouldn't like him and because I'm shy and don't want to meet the vast majority of humanity.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I think a lot of it is because I could care less about the living celebrities that get written about... I liked Lord of the Rings like most geeks who didn't hate it, but the actors are not the Fellowship and thus are not one tenth as cool.

That's pretty close to my opinions on the subject, as is your comment about people being fair game for fiction so long as they've been dead long enough that nobody who knew them personally is around to get offended on their behalf. I feel... creepy.. when I ponder writing about current or near current people (which is why that Walk the Line plotbunny never got written). Even reading autobiographies of still-living people creeps me out a bit, since, while I'm reading, I project myself into the POV character. Hawkeye can bang BJ and Trapper seven ways from Sunday while I read along gleefully, but reading Alan Alda's autobiography for my mom's book club felt... wierd. And it didn't even have any sex in it ^_^.

"Lawrence of Arabia," the Peter O'toole version, is not only RPF but RPS (if that is not a nonsexual romance, my subtextometer is broken).

Scarily, I know people who've watched this film and not seen any subtext between Lawrence and Ali. Or realised that there was a sexual component to the torture scene (and that part is canon, as is, I suspect, Lawrence/Ali, given that Ali's initials are S.A., which makes me think he's intended to be the one Lawrence dedicates Seven Pillars of Wisdom to). Truly, there are people out skilled enough at ignoring any and all non-het subtext that they could compete with the collective population of Sunnydale in the Denial Olympics.

[azarias.livejournal.com]

Truly, there are people out skilled enough at ignoring any and all non-het subtext that they could compete with the collective population of Sunnydale in the Denial Olympics.

Funniest example I've yet encountered: My pet comics fandom, The Authority. As anyone who's been exposed to this fandom for two paragraphs knows, the comic is, in part, about the big gay superheroic love of Apollo and Midnighter. Years before my time in the fandom, the canon relationship was ... I guess you could call it "subtextual." I mean, sure, in their very first scene in canon, the two of them are hanging out in an abandoned building, naked, clothes strewn about and hair mussed, killing time while waiting for the bad guys to show up, but neither of them is wearing a large neon sign flashing "WE JUST HAD SEX AND IT WAS GREAT HOMOSEXUAL" with voice-over for the blind, so, yes, I suppose it's subtextual. As opposed to the adopted child and the wedding later in canon, at least.

I'm very sad that I was not in this fandom way back when, because evidently the snark between the slashers and omgnogayincomics!!!1! was epic. And hte slashers won. (And the writer, bastard demigod that he is, spent a couple of years gloating over the entertaining wank he had wrought before calmly addressing the issue on a message board with, I quote, "Yeah. So what?".)

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

One of my friends has been making serious attempts to pimp me into that series (she's sending me some issues right now), and she's suceeded in getting me to read the wikipedia rundown and squee in anticipation. There are cyborgs! There are people with glowing red eyes! There's canon Manly!Love! (with Interesting Scars and a guy whose superpowers seem to involve glowing with heroic golden light). There's a naked girl who appears to be made entirely of silver metal! There's a truly excessive amount of violence! It's as if the entire thing was written with my subconscious in mind. There also appears to be more crack than you can shake a giant spaceship at, and occasional political commentary, but I'm good at ignoring political commentary.

[azarias.livejournal.com]

Victory!

There are woobies. Woobies who get things done! And extremely imperfect heroes, and crazy old British bitches who accidentally gave Hitler some important career advice, and women who have conversations with each other about topics that aren't men, and drunken superheroics and PR stunts and bad decisions coming around to bite people in the ass in organic ways!

It really is my favorite comic, and I'll always love it dearly, despite the quality being a dodgy crapshoot depending on who's writing (as with anything).

*cough*theauthority iswearwedon'tsuck*cough*

[seanchai.livejournal.com]

The comics are on their way, and if all goes well, you ought to have them by the end of this week. ^^

I'd have gotten them sent sooner, but I was looking for a couple of the issues I knew I had lying around, that contained some truly glorious examples of the fact the while Midnighter may be the psychotic one, Apollo can damn well be a violent bastard when he pleases. Also, there are aliens on horses. I figured it would be worth the wait.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

Aliens on horseback are always worth the wait.

[azarias.livejournal.com]

*fangirls you*

[seanchai.livejournal.com]

Pimping people into things is one of my great goals in life, Of course, I also owe elspethdixon for introducing me to Barbara Hambly, Sharpe, and Tombstone, amongst other things.

Also *fangirls right back*. I thought I recognized your name- you've been writing the Authority fic for [Bad username or site: http://community.livejournal.com/fanfic100 @ livejournal.com], haven't you? I have to say- your take on Jenny Q is just utterly adorable.

[seanchai.livejournal.com]

And that's supposed to be *[Bad username or site: http://community.livejournal.com/fanfic100/ @ livejournal.com]*. Cause I really ought to be able to remember how to link to the damn place, as often as I've ended up visiting it.

[my_daroga]

I want to point out that while "S.A." does invite slashy speculation (and rightly so), I've read much to suggest that this does not refer to our dear Ali, who was a composite character devised for the movie (sure there were plenty of Sherif Ali's out there, but this one shares a lot of Feisal's role, later given back to Feisel in A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia). The most convincing argument I've heard is for a friend (named Salim Ahmed) from an archeological dig TEL was on before the war.

Just wanted to provide that tidbit--hope it doesn't spoil anything for you! Doesn't stop me from my wild speculations about the characters played to such perfect tension in the film!

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

I actually know that Ali was a character created for the movie rather than a real historical figure (I went and looked everybody up after I saw the movie for the first time), but the fact that they assigned him a name with those particular initials struck me as either significant, or a pretty big coincidence, so my pet interpretation is that the writers intended there to be some level of subtext there.

If all of that romantic subtext in the film is unintentional, then I'd really start to wonder about the writers and actors ^_^.

[my_daroga]

Forgive me, you're aboslutely right; the authors were aware of what they were doing in that instance. Lawrence gets difficult to talk about because of all the layers--I'm afraid I took you to mean "real life" as opposed to "filmic reality." Sorry!

It's just another curious layer to this discussion, though: that there can exist for us a separate world of Lawrence that isn't strictly "real" but that does not offend us in its fictionalization of real people.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

My general rule is that if they've been dead long enough that no one now living knew them, they're completely fair game for fiction. Price of leading a noteworthy life.

Pretty much my feeling too. I have no qualms about having characters in my original fiction claiming descent from Edward Kelly and stepping outside
historical fact about him and other long-dead figures at times. I was a little uneasy on the other hand as to how to deal with some of the minor characters, where there was obviously a real person holding the post I mentioned, but it would have been cumbersome to stress that I wasn't referring to them in the story. The Warden of Keble College, Oxford is one that springs to mind; my hero is in the same room as the Warden at various points, but as they never speak 'on screen' I left things as vague as possible.

My one exception to the second rule was Margaret Thatcher -- it seemed perfectly in character for one of my characters to speculate about her in a slanderous manner, so I put a throw-away comment in there. Then again the chances of her showing up in person in any story are pretty unlikely -- I wouldn't be *that* mean to my characters.

[azarias.livejournal.com]

it seemed perfectly in character for one of my characters to speculate about her in a slanderous manner, so I put a throw-away comment in there

Having fictional characters comment on real people doesn't even come close to tripping my squick triggers. I like it, in fact, as it feels like it's integrating the characters into reality without getting inconvenient fluids all over reality.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

I simply don't give a damn about his personal life, including who he has sex with

Neither do any of the RPS writers and readers I know. Writing fiction about someone does not imply that you have any interest in their actual personal life.

[azarias.livejournal.com]

Then why write RPS about him?

Honest question. When I write about a character, it's because I'm interested in that character -- his whys and wherefores, his backstory and his potential. If you're not interested in a person, why write about that person?

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

Because I like their personalities? (Or what I've seen of it.) I write mainly Jude Law/Ewan McGregor. I like what I've seen of their personalities (and because Ewan has done a lot of documentaries and written a book and such, I've seen more of his) and they fit the type of guys I like to write about. They're also good looking, which is a plus (but not necessary, as I also write RPS about other actors who I think are completely unattractive), but basically they match the type of characters I like to write about.

But I can honestly say I've never spent any time thinking about their personal lives or their sex lives. I mean, it's got nothing to do with what I'm writing, which is fiction, so it has no bearing on it. Ewan is happily married. The guy I write about just has his face and personality, that's all.

[azarias.livejournal.com]

Huh. Interesting. Possibly my problem with RPF is that I'm too much of a canon-nazi, then.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

I'm a canon nazi with FPS, but for me RPS is something completely different. The entire way I approach writing RPS is different, the way I get plot ideas, everything. Whereas with FPS, I'm inspired by canon events and mainly want to write stuff that fits in the cracks or shows another possible interpretation, with RPS, I have ideas completely divorced from any canon. Just, "oh, I want to write a fic about a guy who walks in to find his flatmate and his flatmate's girlfriend shagging on the sofa, and it's horribly awkward and becomes obvious that the guy has a thing for his flatmate" and then I use whichever of my RPS characters fit in that situation. (This is exactly a fic I wrote last night, btw.)

There's a lot of my RPS that I change the names on and shop around to get published. But I enjoy writing in fandom, the interaction between writer and audience, so I usually post it as RPS first. But even if I weren't, as I said, the actors I like tend to fit personalities that I prefer, so I'd be writing the same thing anyway, even if I called the guys different names from the beginning.

[cupidsbow.livejournal.com]

To give another perspective... I use them as avatars in my writing. I know very little about the celebrities beyond their names, what they look like, what films they've been in and country of origin. I don't even watch or read interviews unless I come across them randomly while in a waiting room or whatnot. But everyone else knows those basic things too (it really is a bit like the pantheon of our times), which means that in terms of story you can skip a whole heap of description and setup and letting the reader know who the characters are friends with and get stright to the plot. Basically, I "cast" the celebrity personas in my stories, and they have no relationship to the real lives of the actors at all. They are as fictional as any roles the actors might play in the movies.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

Basically, I "cast" the celebrity personas in my stories, and they have no relationship to the real lives of the actors at all.

So, it would be similar to an original fic author saying "if my novel were a movie, this character would be played by actor X?" I've seen people do this occasionally with original characters in fanfiction (particularly in virtual season episodes). They never use the actor's name or real life persona, though, just create a character and stick something like "and Bob the OMC is played by George Clooney," in their author's notes.

from *metafandom*

[my_daroga]

Lawrence is my favorite film, and it has caused me to read a lot and collect a lot of info about the man himself. And I struggle with the "fictionalization" of the film--except my struggle is that I don't see anything wrong with it. I don't see the film as telling use "who" Lawrence was, because he doesn't even know. There is some truth in the film, even if it is not entirely factual. It's a response to the legend of Lawrence, which is as much a part of history as the man.

So why do I feel differently when it's something like Walk the Line, which I'm just not interested in seeing because I doubt I'll learn anything about the real people involved? Why do I adore Good Night and Good Luck and yet am immediately suspicious whenever I see "based on a true story" on a trailer?

Re: from *metafandom*

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

I don't see the film as telling use "who" Lawrence was, because he doesn't even know. There is some truth in the film, even if it is not entirely factual. It's a response to the legend of Lawrence, which is as much a part of history as the man.

I think I see what you mean. Tombstone fandom (such as it is, consiting mostly of me and about five other people), has a similar situation regarding historical "canon." So many movies, dime novels, etc. have been made about Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp that they've become as much mythology as history (much like the American West itself, actually). There's the real historical men, but there's also Stuart Lake's version of Wyatt (Frontier Marshal), John Ford's version of them (My Darling Clementine), John Sturges's versions of them (Gunfight at the OK Corral and Hour of the Gun), George P. Cosmatos's version (Tombstone), Robert B. Parker's version (Gunman's Rhapsody), Randy Lee Eickhoff's version (<>The Fourth Horseman), and a good dozen more, and most of them are as "real" in people's minds as the historical truth.

It gives you a fair amount of leeway as regards strict historical accuracy--no matter how much you fudge details and alter things for dramatic effect or plot convenience, thee's the comforting knowledge that it's damn near impossible to be less accurate than My Darling Clementine.

Re: from *metafandom*

[my_daroga]

it's damn near impossible to be less accurate than My Darling Clementine.

There is a similar joy in Lawrencedom--most of the biographies directly contradict each other when it comes to psychology, motive, etc. Even contribution to the war, society, etc. So, yeah, I can write Lawrence as a misunderstood genius or a raving megalomaniacal fiend.