Hmmm, this turned out longer than I expected, so I guess I'll hide it behind a cut tag. Just some things that have been rolling about in my head for some time about "reality" and RPS.



I've come to the conclusion that I must be rather odd. If you visit this LJ with any regularity, you may have reached that conclusion some time ago. My epiphany was brought on by conversations I had at a conference I attended in March and some LJ posts and comments I've been reading about squeamishness and RPS. What I'm hearing are a lot folks from different fandoms expressing some level of discomfort with what they are writing and posting or what is being written and posted.

However, it doesn't bother me in the slightest that I write RPS. I don't feel guilt or angst. No embarrassment or shame. It doesn't, for the most part, present me with serious ethical issues.

The primary reason is that I'm not writing about real people. Well, not really. As cathexys and ithiliana were pointing out, the "real" in RPS is rather slippery to define, as is the border between the real and the fictional. When writing RPS, I'm using the names of people who actually exist. I'm also borrowing their husks, simulacra that look like them. However, I don't believe for a second that the personality I'm pouring into that shell is real or even simulates the real. So my RPS characters are fictional at the core with a candy coating of "real" over them. Then they are dropped down into the fiction of the story itself. That's a mighty thin layer of "real" sandwiched between two huge slices of fiction. Because there is so little that is "real" about RPS, I have no qualms about writing it.

In fact, I'm not even convinced that there is much of a divide between FPS and RPS when you look at it like this. If I'm writing Aragorn/Boromir, and my Boromir is blonde haired and green eyed, then I'm not really writing Tolkien's character (who was, like all Numenoreans, dark haired and grey eyed). I'm writing a "Beanomir." Again, a "real" person gloss over a fictional character in a fictional world. It's all part of the same pie, no matter how you slice it.

The question of what is real becomes even murkier when thinking about how the "real" characters in RPS are constructed. When I write, I do read interviews and watch special feature appearances; however, I don't for a second believe that the actor's public person is the same as his real personality. In addition to the slivers I glean from the press, I also allow something of the character the actor is playing to creep into my construction of him. If my Bean is commanding and dominant, then there's a good chance some of that is coming from Boromir.

Now, if I've already used some of the fictional film role to create the "real" persona for RPS, what about when I have the world of the fiction bubbling through the "real" world of the story. When Sean Bean is wondering whether what he feels for Viggo is genuine or simply a byproduct of the interaction the characters have in the film (the classic "like lovers" prompt to the actors), fiction and that specter of reality I've conjured are hopelessly entangled. There is no sorting them out.

I'm also struck by an odd but fascinating ambivalence toward the "real" that I've read about/discussed. Stories shouldn't seem "too real," I've heard, as if they have the power of encroaching on the "reality" of the actors as people the more plausible they seem. That the stories have the means of somehow tainting the actors they are being written about but also other roles those actors play in films (Anyone who can untangle that ungainly mess of fiction and reality gets a shiny gold star.). Does life imitate art? If I manipulate a photo of Sean so that he has emerald-green hair, does that mean that he's likely to run off and have it dyed? I am not Voodoo Queen Barb who is able to reshape reality with my stories. And if I am, then I'm pretty damn pissed that no one ever told me about it before now, because I've been quandering my powers and missing out on a helluva lot of fun.

However, I've gotten comments about how plausible my characterization or dialogue seems and I've left some of the same. So readers want the story or character to feel "real enough" but not "too real." How real is too real?

The whole bloody mess can be compared to writing dialogue. When you're writing good dialogue, it should simulate the way people speak, but it ought not try to copy it. Because it would bring no joy to read dialogue that reproduced actual speech. It would be full of odd pauses and placeholder sounds (ummm...); it would wander off topic in strange non-linear ways; it would reference personal knowledge/experience shared by the speakers but not by others. It would fail rather spectacularly. No one would want to read it.

But give those same readers dialogue that feels real, and they're happy. That's all the "reality" necessary in RPS. It's shadow, not the thing itself. Just like goddamn reality TV. Is something "real" when it has been artfully edited and shaped to emphasize certain aspects of personality and fit some overarching theme for the show? Are the people on the shows behaving as they truly are, or are they conscious of the camera on them at all times, aware of playing to an audience. Are they real people performing a particular version of themselves for an audience.

I also wonder how or if attitude toward RPS is different in fandoms that don't have an obvious FPS/RPS divide, like boyband slash. Perhaps cathexys and hederahelix can comment on that, since they're more knowledgeable in that arena.