Really, we're not all psychopaths

[author_by_night]

So as a shipper (if in the most moderate form) and active member of two fandoms and a dabbler in some others, I had mixed feelings about how Castle portrayed fandom. I suppose it just bugs me when shows and books and movies try, in some weird way, to wink to their fandom-based fans... by portraying fans as "not quite there" weirdos who live with their parents at the age of forty. I have issues with The Guild for the same reason.  The Guild purports to be about rebutting that very stereotype, and yet all of the characters are extremely socially and/or emotionally awkward. Zaboo is a stalker who you can't even call a stalker because he's like a five year old who just didn't know better, Vork has no real personality and lives off his deceased grandfather's social security checks, and Clara neglects her children. So basically, even though Felicia Day wants to show the world not all internet users are screwed up individuals with little to no sense of reality, most of the characters are screwed up individuals with little to no sense of reality. That's not to say I don't still enjoy The Guild - I do, it's a guilty pleasure. But I just don't see what stereotypes it's supposed to go against. (Of course, they're gamers, not necessarily fandomers. But the stigmas apply all the same.)

Let's go back to Castle. I will try and summarize part of the plotline without spoiling anything, mainly for those of you who haven't seen the episode and those of you who have no interest in doing so. Essentially we find out a murder victim, who happens to be a writer for a popular TV soap, has an active fanbase. We learn that there's very rabid "shippers", and one of them ends up being a suspect. She is a heavyset woman, very socially awkward, and still lives with her parents despite being in her thirties or forties. She claims that a group of fans were going to go to the studio with axes in protest of writing decisions. We never see or hear of other fandomers who are as into the series, but less rabid. We know Beckett is a fan of the show itself, but there is little to nothing that indicates whether or not she is a shipper apart from knowing what a shipper is, which could indicate some fandom dabbling but could also mean she stumbled on a website once that mentioned it or someone else told her. Knowing /=/ involvement.

All of this being said, I do think that there can be validity behind these stereotypes, as annoying as we may find them, which is why I didn't have too much of a problem with Castle's approach to fandom. Fiction is all about exaggeration, an in this case, they exaggerated something that does happen. I have seen very, very obsessive fans. People who seem to have no scope of reality beyond the fictional universe they are a fan of, and/or the actual fandom. Even that's an extreme, and it's rare, but I do think that's probably the aspect Castle was talking about.

I suppose what I would like to see is a show or movie or book approach fandom as it really is: a group of very, very different people who range in interests and motivations. It's like fans of anything; there's sports fans who just go to games when they can and watch them on TV, then there's fans who are really into it, do whatever it is big sports fans do to show they love sports (I'm... not a huge sports fan), and then there's people who stalk baseball players. Look, I don't get sports, but I would never claim that all sports fans do things like that. OTOH, maybe "sports fan just likes sports" just isn't quite as interesting as "sports fan is a murder suspect." 

What do you guys think?

Comments

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

I think they had a sports fan is a murder suspect plot in an earlier ep, where the suspect was v much the same sort of stock character. For me, Castle, Ryan and Esposito have all exhibited serious fannish behaviour for particular shows though the course of the series -- you know that cosplaying Captain Mal was more than just a bit of Firefly fanservice ;-)