#jonathan gray

Earlier, I quoted Jonathan Gray and Anna Martin on how the basis of The Lord of the Rings Real Person Fandom is their connection to The Lord of the Rings fandom.

In the bonus material, (Gray) points out, the actors as presented as similar to their roles in the film (…). The behind-the-scenes narrative existed parallel to the fictional narrative of the trilogy, and, as Gray argues, it mirrored the narrative of the trilogy, both enriching and being enriched by it. (…) Certain parallels are used to pin these versions together at crucial points, as I will discuss later in this chapter. Many points in the behind-the-scenes documentaries are used to pin the film version to the books. The books, the films and the paratexts link together in various ways to form a complex intertext, an interrelated group of texts that enrich and layer each other in meaning.

GRAY, JONATHAN (2006). BONUS MATERIAL: THE DVD LAYERING OF THE LORD OF THE RINGS In: ERNEST, MATHJIS (ED.) THE LORD OF THE RINGS: POPULAR CULTURE IN GLOBAL CONTEXT, WALLFLOWER, 238.-253.
MARTIN, ANNA (2014). WRITING THE STAR. STARDOM, FANDOM AND REAL PERSON FANFICTION, 64., 69.

Now, Cathy Yue Wang talks about a broader tradition of creating a transmedia story around certain characters or certain ships.

A more intriguing and creative subgroup has appeared, called “Lou/Cheng Derivation” (楼诚衍生). This refers to fan works which use characters from other media productions, who are played by the same actors who take the roles of Ming Lou (actor Jin Dong) and Ming Cheng (actor Wang Kai). (…) From the West, “Halric” presents a similar case, as part of the fandom of Thor/Loki and Chris Hemsworth/Tom Hiddleston – Hemsworth played Eric in the 2012 film Snow White and the Hunstman and Hiddleston played Prince Hal in The Hollow Crown TV series (2012). The creation and reception of this type of derivative coupling rely on sophisticated identification and recognition from both fan authors and fan readers. On one level, fans need to meld the performed character with the performing actor and this implicitly incline toward the controversial Real Person Slash. On a second level, it is also necessary for fans to project the image of the actor into the newly created fictional role, from a different media text. During this process, the boundaries between performer and performed, between actors and characters are radically blurrred. (…) The motivation behind the crossover coupling is the shared belief that the love and affection between two male characters , in this case, Ming Lou and Ming Cheng, is transmittable across several disparate media texts. In this sense, we can view this creativity from slash fans as a grassroots endevaor to produce a special kind of transmedia storytelling which is solely motivated by love – both the love between two characters, and the love received by these characters from the fan audience.

Wang C.Y., Hu T. 2021. Transmedia Storytelling in Mainland China: Interaction Between TV Drama and Fan Narratives in The Disguiser. In: Gilardi F., Lam C. (ed.) Transmedia in Asia and the Pacific. Palgrave Series in Asia and Pacific Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. 120-121. https://ift.tt/36BZZeu

In this way, there is definitely a subgroup of RPF that treats the Real People, the actors behind the characters as another derivation of the characters themselves. The transcendence of these stories, indeed proves love is universal – at least for a fan’s OTPs. But it is not that love is truly universal but that by layering these stories on each other, they create an experience of greater authenticity for the readers and creators.

It seems to me impossible to separate the emphasis throughout the DVD Appendices (of The Lord of The Rings) and behind-the-scenes documentaries on truth and authenticity from the focus in fandom on truth.

MARTIN, ANNA (2014). WRITING THE STAR. STARDOM, FANDOM AND REAL PERSON FANFICTION.

Over the last week, we received many responses to the question how RPF can operate without a canon text, the majority of them among the lines of much the same way non-RPF fandoms do: by constantly negotiating fanon interpretations. It looks like then that the question of what constitutes as canon is problematised for any kind of fanon.

(I’m also very glad that my throw out about canon already being problematised when we leave the media fandoms definitions was caught in this post.)

Henry Jenkins’ concept of Convergence Culture provides a useful way of thinking about how RPF communities work together to create their own meanings from transmedia texts, or intertexts, such as The Lord of the Ring and its paratexts distributed across many delivery platforms.

MARTIN, ANNA (2014). WRITING THE STAR. STARDOM, FANDOM AND REAL PERSON FANFICTION, 68.

We can see fans refer to a continuously changing meta-text, both in and outside of RPF. (Something that we might call fanon.)

The „ideal” version of Star Trek, the meta-text against which a film or episode is evaluated, was constructed by the fan community through its progressively more detailed analysis of the previously aired episodes.

Jenkins, Henry (1992). Textual poacher, Routledge, 101.

I’ve found interesting the mention of fandoms with several adaptations here. It was surprising to me, but Martin also talks about this interconnectedness.

In the bonus material, (Gray) points out, the actors as presented as similar to their roles in the film (…). The behind-the-scenes narrative existed parallel to the fictional narrative of the trilogy, and, as Gray argues, it mirrored the narrative of the trilogy, both enriching and being enriched by it. (…) Certain parallels are used to pin these versions together at crucial points, as I will discuss later in this chapter. Many points in the behind-the-scenes documentaries are used to pin the film version to the books. The books, the films and the paratexts link together in various ways to form a complex intertext, an interrelated group of texts that enrich and layer each other in meaning.

GRAY, JONATHAN (2006). Bonus Material: The DVD Layering of The Lord of the Rings=Ernest, Mathjis (ed.) The Lord of the Rings: Popular Culture in Global Context, Wallflower, 238.-253.
MARTIN, ANNA (2014). WRITING THE STAR. STARDOM, FANDOM AND REAL PERSON FANFICTION, 64., 69.

Thank you for all the responses so far! To continue the conversation, I’d like to ask your experiences: have you ever seen something that felt like queerbaiting but with real persons? If you can think of an example, what did you think of it?

Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW) #50 Cover D

Line Art: Jonathan Gray

Colors: Aleah Baker

Solicitation for Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW) Annual 2022

It’s a little mangled, it’s kind of jumbled, it’s the 2022 annual with Rough & Tangle and Rouge & Tumble! Writers Ian Flynn, Evan Stanley & Gigi Dutreix, Aaron Hammerstrom, Daniel Barnes, Ian Mutchler, and India Swift bring to readers six new heartwarming stories of unlikely pairs.

Writers: Ian Flynn, Evan Stanley & Gigi Dutreix, Aaron Hammerstrom, Daniel Barnes, Ian Mutchler, India Swift

Artists: Jonathan Gray, Evan Stanley, Aaron Hammerstrom, Thomas Rothlisberger, Abby Bulmer, Natalie Haines

Cover A: Yui Karasuno of Sonic Team

Cover B: Reggie Graham

1:10 Retailer Incentive Variant: Nathalie Fourdraine

Tentative Release Date: August 10th 2022