Question for you fine folk...

[chatastic]

What's the appeal of "real person" fics?

I'm not being rhetorical or a smart ass-- I honestly am curious, because there's obviously an appeal, and I'm not sure I understand it.  Is it sort of like having a god complex?  That is, if you write/ read about real people, it's as if you are able to control the world in a way that you will never have the opportunity to do?

Any opinions on this are welcome and hoped for.  I like knowing why people write/read what they do.

C

Comments

[wens.livejournal.com]

Is it sort of like having a god complex? That is, if you write/ read about real people, it's as if you are able to control the world in a way that you will never have the opportunity to do?

...it's probably a little less grandiose for most people. I think it's more a matter of fantasy and the projection of inner desires, which may or may not include a God complex.

[elektrawwf.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of it happens when fans confuse 'characters' with the actors who play them. eg: a good number (if not all) of the Gerry/Emmy 'fics were written after the POTO movie.

Personally, I don't like reading them. I think they're disrespectful to the actors.

[chatastic.livejournal.com]

I think that's huge-- that "Gerry" has the same qualities somehow as "the Phans," which then sort of makes it less "real" to the writer?

[stars-fell.livejournal.com]

I hate them. Hate hate hate. Especially when the subjects are people I like and admire, or even know, because you just know the authors are making assumptions about their personalities, and they aren't always kind. Or right. I recently found a RPF Phantom/CSI crossover that probably destroyed my molars from all the teeth-grinding I was doing over what the author was doing to poor Ted Keegan. Never mind all the other real people and the awful prose.

I think it must come out of the way the authors want to see their favorite actors/musicians/etc, or a need for self-insertion, or both.

[my_daroga]

They don't really bother me; maybe because I have no empathy (?!) or maybe because it seems to me that they come out of the idea that public figures are just as much *characters* (to us) as the people they play. That's how the media sells them to us, after all: everything's scripted, airbrushed, and larger than life. I definitely feel, also, that it "comes out of" popslash and other areas where the "need" for fanfic was there, without the framework of a fictional world. The music videos, the selling of that image, stood in for the fictional world, and we just happened to acquire "characters" like Nick and Justin and Britney--they're not real in the sense that they are at all like real people. So in fanfic, they're treated like characters, but with that label of "real person fic."

Then, of course, the genre gets transferred over to other things. Sometimes, very rarely, that's a metatastic impulse and cool stuff can happen if you're really playing with the intersection of character and performer. Other times, yeah, it's just porn.

For the record, I don't ever specifically read RPF, though if someone I know and like writes some, I do. Because I personally don't find it disrespectful, even if I don't particuarly dig it.

[chatastic.livejournal.com]

Mmm, I like the way you articulate that: Brit and Nick and Justin become characters, not people.

Okay, that makes sense to me. Thanks!

[my_daroga]

You're welcome! I'm glad.

[wendelah1]

I am sorry to be commenting here on a year old post, but your journal is flocked, so I am kind of stuck. This is an interesting question. I don't know why most people read or write RPF. I can only tell you why I have, on occasion read, and once, written it. I have very little interest in actors as people apart from their roles. I don't read People Magazine or any of the other celebrity mags. I don't think there is anything wrong with it, but it isn't my cup of tea. I do read the recs at crack_van. In January, they had recs from SciFi RPF, which I read, since I actually knew who all of the actors were, unlike bandom, where I don't know the musicians, etc. Because I am old. I just read them for entertainment, not because I think anything written in them is real. There is a lot of fan fiction that fits into that category for me, including most slash. It doesn't seem real, but it is fun to read. In case you were wondering, in most fandoms, I am a noromo. I very rarely ship pairings. It is just not part of who I am, I guess. But I read everything, het, slash, gen, if it is well-written. I have no boundaries, I just like good writing.

My only RPF was written very quickly, while I was on vacation. I was bored, my husband was ignoring me because he had so many papers to grade. I had seen the promo pictures that were posted all over the internet for the new XF movie. What struck me, amidst all of the fangirl squee, was how posed and stiff the actors looked in the pictures. Whoa. I thought. Where is the fabled Mulder/Scully chemistry?

This got me thinking about the actors' chemistry. What makes that happen? What would make it go away? So I got an idea for a story, and I wrote it. I posted it in an RPF community. No one read it, except the person who betaed it, and another person on my Flist who had expressed interest in seeing it. Lid has never read it, because she doesn't read XF RPF. It was not a happy story, and it did not have any wish fulfillment in it. So, that might explain it's lack of success in the RPF community. I just had an idea and wrote it. There was no intent to do anything but amuse myself on vacation. I do not believe that the events in the story occured in real life nor would I want them to. The three people who read it liked it. I did too. Sadly, I think it is one of the best things I have written, and it has no audience. Not that my stuff does anyway. I am not for all markets.

Now, I have created a little universe I can play in. Maybe something else will bubble up that no one will want to read...

I think I understand why RPF makes people uncomfortable. The Actors belong to everyone. So people feel very protective of them, and possesive, too. So, they get angry if they perceive something bad is being done to their image or whatever. I don't have relationships with the Actors. My relationships are all with the Characters. I am afraid I just turned the Actors into Characters and played with them, just like I do with all of my writing. This probably seems kind of insensitive to you. I don't think any real real people were harmed in the creation of my story. I wouldn't want that at all.

This is probably way more info than you wanted or needed.

[chatastic.livejournal.com]

This journal is a lot of me being emo and otherwise not terribly interesting, but you're welcome to friend.

[wendelah1]

I did, because it is hard to get to know someone if you can't read their journal. Journals are supposed to be emo, right? My journal is kind of a mixed bag. There is a lot, a lot, a lot of X-Files stuff. Some of the more normal, ie not in fandom, people on my flist think I am a little bit nuts. They keep coming back, though. You may or may not get sucked back into the fandom, but if you do, you can't blame me. Okay? Blame Lid. She is way more entertaining and full of XF Squee.

I think I did an introductory post I will try to find so I can link you to it: Here. Welcome!