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

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

most people haven't studied the era, they just take Will Shakespeare's word for it.

Which would make them something like the fanfic writer who hasn't actually read Les Miserables, and decides to base her Valjean/Javert slash epic solely on the musical. The musical's a very good adaptation of the book, but think of all the details and subplots that get left out! Or like someone who's seen half an episode of SGA, and decided to write a Sheppard/McKay pwp based solely on having read Freedom.

Research is a lovely thing. Why, if I hadn't done some admittedly half-assed research for that Tombstone WIP, I'd never have known that Bat Masterson had a pimp stick, and my world would have been a sadder and far less amusing place.

[seanchai.livejournal.com]

Research is a lovely thing. Why, if I hadn't done some admittedly half-assed research for that Tombstone WIP, I'd never have known that Bat Masterson had a pimp stick, and my world would have been a sadder and far less amusing place.

See, this is why people who don't like doing research baffle me, cause it's half the fun. I mean really, how can people not enjoy finding out that Bat Masterson had a pimp pimp-stick. Or that Virgil used to call Wyatt the 'Earp-ape'. Or that Doc was born with a cleft-palate, and had to be fed out of a shot glass as a baby. Or, well, all of those fun facts that research can turn up, which are at least half the reason that I like writing historical fiction.

[sodzilla.livejournal.com]

Amen! Though there are some things about research that make my teeth hurt. For example, just as Dumas preferred to ignore all the blood-and-gorey aspects of period warfare and focus on the gloriousness of it all! so do I prefer to ignore the fact that most probably, the real people behind the characters all had lice and bad teeth and smelled like week-dead goats. My Musketeers bathe, thank you very much!

[seanchai.livejournal.com]

Oh, very much agreed. But that's the nice thing about research- you don't have to use it, 'cause sometimes it's better to let historical fiction be, well, fictional. After all, sometimes, fleas and lice and rotten teeth just get in the way of the fun. And anyway, it;s not like Dumas spent much time on those details himself.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

Dumas preferred to ignore all the blood-and-gorey aspects of period warfare and focus on the gloriousness of it all

Yes, he does that. I was seriously considering sticking blood poisoning in my pastiche fic, but I eventually decided not to drag it on that long (basically, I couldn't come up with a good reason to keep Porthos and Aramis wandering around in the woods for an extra day, or I'd have been there with the septicemia. Walking around with a musketball stuck in your shoulder is practically a recipe for it).

I'm sure Aramis at least bathes regularly. He's got a vested interest in keeping his hair/teeth/skin/etc. pretty. And Porthos cares deeply about appearances and the importance of nice clothing--not a man to go too long without donning a fresh shirt.

[sodzilla.livejournal.com]

I had one plotbunny wherein one of the guys took a bullet in the leg or something, and had to hide his condition lest he be given over to the surgeons, on the basis that the infection might kill him but the amputation surely would. *grins*

[sodzilla.livejournal.com]

I'm sure Aramis at least bathes regularly. He's got a vested interest in keeping his hair/teeth/skin/etc. pretty. And Porthos cares deeply about appearances and the importance of nice clothing--not a man to go too long without donning a fresh shirt.

Yes! Whereas Athos probably doesn't care how he looks but would scrub down and change his underwear regularly without thinking about it because that's proper, and d'Artagnan would do it because Athos does it which must mean it's the thing to do.