Adapted from a Conversation with wisdomeagle

[alixtii]

The concept of canon whoredom requires, if not a single privileged meaning (which the authorial intent people of course have, or at least claim to have), then a set of privileged meanings which exclude a set of other meanings. One can see me working towards this in some of my earlier meta in which I try to perform a conceptual analysis of what makes something AU. Making Tara a robot doesn't make a fic AU, because we don't know she isn't, but...

...but what? If you take it far enough, there really isn't anything that can't be reconciled with canon with enough fanwanking, even if it seems like a fairly straightfoward objective claim like what was written on Buffy's tombstone (which is itself an interesting case, as the existence of Buffy's tombstone, while "clearly canon," is itself hard to reconcile with the events of "Bargaining" and is thus in need of fanwanking). The text becomes radically manipulatable, and there are no privileged meanings--which is pretty much where I am now. A Wittgensteinian response would probably be to recognize that within a group of socially positioned readers, certain meanings would emerge as more central than others, in the way that a microwave oven is less "oven"-y than a toaster oven, but would resist the notion that we could ever systematize that spectrum, since to do so would require a position outside of language. That is, to the Wittgensteinian, what is important is that it "feels right," which is I think what we go for in fanfic over and above technical accuracy. So we end up with an approach that actually privileges fanon over canon.

I do think that the impulse, which I manifested as a baby fan, to delineate a set of acceptable meanings is a gendered one, especially insofar as it seeks to ally the gendered subject with a system of Authority (sometimes a system of clearly imaginary authority--do the producers of our shows really care if we accept X as canon?) against the violator. These issues have been brought up in fandebate, but the best example might have been that guy in fanficrants who claimed that all the people who were writing SPN/BtVS should a) use comics canon, b) use the "right" interpretation of canon, in which Willow's level of power in comparison to that which they've seen in the Winchester's universe was X. Bargining in and telling the women how to write their stories. Not to mention how it fits into the fanboy stereotype of knowing all of the exact technical specs of the Enterprise. All the focus on facts and dates and measurements, and relatively little on character--my (previously-held) notion of canon-whoredom/AU-ness just sort of shrugged and swept that into a separate category of OOCness, which was too fuzzy to sharply delineate, and then ignored it.

Comments

[slashfairy.livejournal.com]

wow.

just. wow.

i'm not academically trained/educated this way (a BSN in nursing doesn't get into Wittgenstein much, sadly, though now i'm curious) but I can follow what you're saying from my women's studies work.

and, wow.

thank you for thinking it out and writing it out.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... I don't know that "canonwhoredom" or supporting a single (or small number) of privileged readings of canon is necessarily a gendered trait, though. I've seen plenty of female fans do it (in a sense, it's what some of the HP ship wars were about), and I certainly do it myself when it comes to Marvel comics (and I'm a woman). I'll be the first person to point out that, no, ficwriter, you've got Iron Man's age off by six years, or that Daredevil's powers work like such-and-so -- and cite issue numbers as evidence.

This makes me something of an anomaly in lj comics fandom, though, since it leans heavily toward DC, and most DC writers prefer to keep only a tenuous connection with canon (to be fair, their canon is much less consistent than Marvel).

[lynxara.livejournal.com]

I think canonwhoredom is just indicative of the kind of relationship you have with the canon, and to some extent the canon itself. I know male fans who are just as character-oriented as the stereotypical female fan, and although I'm a woman, I'm definitely of the "memorize all the tech specs/power levels/inane factoids" type.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

That's a good point. I can't be fannish for something unless there's at least one character I can feel an emotional connection with, so I'm always character oriented. My level of canonwhoredom depends on the fandom -- I don't really care about canon in fandoms where I haven't seen the show and am just reading the fic because it contains hurt/comfort. But anything where I actually like and care about the source material (i.e. anything I'm motivated to write fic for, instead of just lurk)... there, I try very hard to make my fic line up with my interpretation of canon, and can't read or enjoy fic that doesn't.

This includes all fic that conflicts with my OTPs, because I don't OTP a ship unless I think it's supported by canon.

[ravenclaw-devi.livejournal.com]

It may not be exclusive to one gender, but there is such a thing as the stereotypical fanboy - you know, the kind of fan who will have lengthy debates on subjects like "Dante vs. Vincent Valentine - who would win?"

Whereas someone (male or female) who approaches a hypothetical Final Fantasy VII/Devil May Cry crossover from a characterisation-focused viewpoint would say, "They wouldn't fight in the first place because they're both good guys." Yes?

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

Vincent would win! I base this on zero canon knowledge, but solely on the fact that I have been told he can shapeshift into a giant demon.

I'm not sure the difference between detail-oriented and character-oriented fannishness is as distinct as some fen think, though. You can spend hours writing epic Captain America/Iron Man shipper fic, and also be able to explain Marvel continuity and the difference between Wakandan and Antarctic vibranium at length.

[lynxara.livejournal.com]

Honestly, my acquiantance with really character-oriented fans is that they don't write crossovers, because they're not interested in exploring the characters as they interact with someone not in thier canon. They want to play with the canon toys and get very cranky when anything outside canon, ranging from an OC to a crossover, gets introduced. The usual argument I see for this is that these relationships don't matter, because they aren't relevant to the primary canon's themes/conflicts/whatever.

I mean, I'm sure a character-oriented fan would be more likely to write "they team up!" than "they fight!", but the general crossover formula usually calls for a team-up after an initial conflict and misunderstanidng (which is usually inconclusive to keep from pissing anyone off). And versus MB threads are outright banned on a lot of even male-dominated forums I frequent, because they mostly serve to piss people off.

[puritybrown.livejournal.com]

(here via metafandom) I am terribly amused at the thought that DC canon is "less consistent than Marvel". It's true, of course, which just goes to show how inconsistent DC continuity is...

I think to a certain extent it depends on how narrow your definition of "gendered trait" is. This is not a trait that's universally male, any more than the opposite is universally female, but I do think female fans are more likely than male fans to be willing to live with a certain fluidity of interpretation. It does seem to me that male fans are, on the whole and with exceptions, more likely to fixate on the most obvious interpretation, or to attempt to establish For All Time what the "truth" of any given text is, where female fans are (again, on the whole and with exceptions) happier to produce subversive/unlikely interpretations (even knowing that they're not going to catch on, or that the creators have explicitly ruled them out) and to live with a multiplicity of possible readings.

My experience in 24 fandom, which illustrates this rather starkly, is that the female fans are happily writing Chloe/Jack stories (despite the fact that the producers have outright stated that Chloe is not in love with Jack, nor vice versa), while the male fans are creating sites like the Jack Bauer Death Count or the JackTracker, both of which are about establishing "facts" about the canon. (I say "facts" in quotes because 24 plays fast and loose with the laws of physics, the geography of California, and its own internally laid-down timelines. Attempts to make it internally consistent are doomed to failure: "making of" documentaries make it clear that the producers don't care about that kind of thing as long as the result is dramatic.)

I do think it's significant that in the one area where I've seen large numbers of female fans insisting on their interpretation's being superior/privileged, it's been with regard to relationships -- a traditionally female domain.

And I don't think saying "Daredevil's powers don't work that way!" counts as canonwhoredom, as alixtii is using the term. It'd be more like... hm... well, one of my favourite theories about Northstar is that he's bipolar, and I could cite evidence for this if somebody asked, but it's not definitive, and if I wrote a story featuring Bipolar!Northstar, a canonwhore would object because it's never been outright stated and my "evidence" is kind of sketchy -- while a non-canonwhore would only object if the story didn't do anything interesting with the idea.

I mean, there's deviating from canon because you don't remember details and can't be bothered checking, and there's deviating from canon because you think you can create something more interesting if you don't stick too closely to what's on the page. The former is irritating; the latter can be very cool. I would guess that one's level of canonwhoredom is a function of how cool the execution of a non-canon idea has to be for one to get over its non-canonicity. And it does seem to me that male fans (on the whole etc.) are likely to have a higher threshold for this than female fans.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

there's deviating from canon because you don't remember details and can't be bothered checking, and there's deviating from canon because you think you can create something more interesting if you don't stick too closely to what's on the page. The former is irritating; the latter can be very cool.

Actually, though I think of myself as the traditional "fangirl"-type fan (all about the hurt/comfort and rabid OTP-shipping and specific-character-based-squee and the ZOMG, Gambit&Rogue'sloveissotrue), the latter example would also irritate me, unless the writer specifically designated the fic AU (and even then, if characterization is different, I'll usually bail). I literally cannot read Ultimates because the pod-people pretending to be Tony Stark and Jan Van Dyne are so obviously not based on 616 canon.

Though, with the bipolar Northstar, I think you can make a good case from canon details (and the fact Aurora is clearly mentally ill, and mood disorders run in families). But that's extrapolating from canon, not randomly making stuff up because you want to write a story about X, regardless of whether it makes sense with canon or not. Something that is in no way rampant in SGA slash fandom. Not at all.

I'd argue the notion that keeping religious track of canon statistics, etc. is a specifically male trait, though, anymore than shipping is a female one. I know more than one male fan with an OTP, and on the Iron Man message boards my fiancee hangs out on, she often knows more canon detail than the guys.

Though with both of us as a test sample, you could make a case for canonwhoredom as an Aspergers trait.

[puritybrown.livejournal.com]

Actually, though I think of myself as the traditional "fangirl"-type fan (all about the hurt/comfort and rabid OTP-shipping and specific-character-based-squee and the ZOMG, Gambit&Rogue'sloveissotrue), the latter example would also irritate me, unless the writer specifically designated the fic AU (and even then, if characterization is different, I'll usually bail). I literally cannot read Ultimates because the pod-people pretending to be Tony Stark and Jan Van Dyne are so obviously not based on 616 canon.

Characterization is the sticking-point for me, too, though I do like Ultimates -- but that's probably because I came to it first. (Feel free to scream in horror at the thought of somebody meeting Ultimate!Cap before 616!Cap...)

I find that deviations-for-the-sake-of-coolness itch at me. I can overlook them if the story's great, and the better the story, the more likely I am to overlook it, and the more deviation I can tolerate. But my idea of what's "cool" is not always the author's, and I much prefer it if I'm, so to speak, walked through the changes. I think this is probably why I prefer first-time stories to established-relationship stories: even for my OTPs, I can never quite believe in established-relationship stories unless I've read a lot of first-times beforehand so that I can fill in the details myself -- and even that's problematic because different authors have different ways of getting the characters together and that affects the subsequent relationship.

I've noticed that stories written early in a series's existence tend to grate on me, too, because they usually get details "wrong" -- and of course it's not the author's fault. They couldn't possibly have known. But as I read the "wrong" bits, I mutter to myself "but that's not how it happened!" and I can never quite enjoy it as much as more canon-compliant stuff. (This makes going through old SGA archives frustrating, because anything written in between seasons is likely to have this problem. Damn cliffhanger endings.)

All of which is to say that you and I are probably not as far off as you may think. I know that in my writing, I'm very anal-retentive about canon details, even though I know most readers don't care that much. I can't bring myself not to care.

But that's extrapolating from canon, not randomly making stuff up because you want to write a story about X, regardless of whether it makes sense with canon or not.

Sure. But there's a continuum involved here, not a dichotomy. Canon never fills in all the details, so we all extrapolate, otherwise we'd assume that our heroes never went to the toilet. Some people's extrapolations go further than others'. I think every reader has a point where they say "this is not justifiable extrapolation, this is making shit up for no good reason", but it's different for everyone.

I'd argue the notion that keeping religious track of canon statistics, etc. is a specifically male trait, though, anymore than shipping is a female one.

To use RPG terms for second: I'm not saying that male fans are only into the crunchy bits (statistics etc.) and female fans are only into the fluffy bits (relationships etc.) and never the twain shall meet. I think I'm saying that in a fandom (or fandom subgroup) that is male-dominated, there will tend to be more crunchy bits, while female-dominated fandoms (or subgroups) will tend to have more fluffy bits. Does that seem reasonable to you?

you could make a case for canonwhoredom as an Aspergers trait.

Stands to reason that the attention to detail and laserlike focus associated with AS would lead to that kind of engagement with fictional texts. And doesn't Simon Baron-Cohen theorise that autism is a kind of "extreme male brain"? Not that that's a universally-accepted idea, of course.

[lynxara.livejournal.com]

Actually, I've noticed that lately in comics, a lot of the "memorize every detail" attitude that was attributed to the typical fanboy is now a niche occupied mostly by women. Most male fans at this point tend to preach the "continuity doesn't matter" gospel, or if they point out an inconsistency, don't take it seriously. Most fanboys now are creator-oriented, though, and tend to argue that a writer of sufficient status is free to ignore past issues, characterizations, and stories as he sees fit in the course of making a good story. Now this is one thing I could never see the stereotypical female fan accepting, though I'm sure it's possible; you can't subvert a history that you're essentially declaring meaningless.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Wow. Phrases mutate as they move across fandom.

When I see "canonwhoredom", I think of somebody who'll read fic in any fandom. This may be my fuzzy mind.

[lynxara.livejournal.com]

You know, when I studied philosophy in school Wittgenstein was one of the guys whose work I just didn't quite get-- I wasn't sure how his ideas actually impacted anything besides other philosophers.

Now I do. I believe I owe you thanks.

[alias_sqbr]

I think you have a bit of a false dichotomy: I tend to be fairly picky about technical details and incredibly picky about character consistency. Basically my suspension of disbelief tends to be pretty shaky, and I need a fair amount of continuity (wth both characters and setting) to engage with the material. This also means I pretty much no interest in AUs that aren't of the "what if we changed this one detail" variety.