Bernalyn Villajardo
From Canon to Fanon
Fandoms have existed for a long time but the internet has really propelled fandoms into new heights that would never have been thought possible. What would have been a small local community talking amongst themselves about their favorite series or book is now a large global community with subgroups all united by a similar interest. Fanon is interesting because it stems from a general agreed upon supplement or divergence from the canon lore. Sarah Z’s video on fanon highlights the point that although canon lore attempts to direct its audience to a certain direction, the audience still decides how to interpret the lore and sometimes, it’s interpreted in a way that the canon lore never predicted.
In Sarah Z’s video, she presents several fanons throughout different fandoms such as the wide acceptance of the Mormor ship of Moriarty and Sebastian Moran in BBC’s Sherlock and the fandom generally agreeing that the ship exists in fandom canon. It should be noted that Sebastion Moran is an existing character in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s writing but not in the BBC imagining of his work. Another would be the existence of the notice me not spell in Harry Potter fanfiction which never existed in the books or movies. But there is also how the fandom tries to correct the writing of the creator such as that from the Danganronpa character Chihiro Fujisaki who was generally accepted as a trans character in protest of the transphobic writing of their character.
This sudden interest in the logic behind fanon comes from the idea of polysemy where multiple meanings coexist and how its messages are coded and encoded. It’s interesting to see how society at large is able to create these divergences from the original goal of the message and fanon embodies that. The audience takes social cues and interprets it in a way that is picked up by the general fandom and they as a whole agree that it is accurate. It’s also interesting to see individual actors play their role in creating a fanon that is accepted by the fandom and it becomes almost indistinguishable from the canon lore. And I think society and socialization plays a lot in that–especially in the time of the internet where many individuals are more vocal online about their political and ideological biases and that can affect the interpretation of the content of the media presented. It should also be noted that these fandoms, based on my experience, congregate in sites such as tumblr, fanfiction.net and AO3 where the most dominant beliefs within the fandom will be at the forefront and will also likely influence the members of the fandom more easily because of the immersion of individuals in these groups. And these fandoms in these sites tend to have very strong left leaning ideologies where they are vocal about their support of the LGBT community, are more willing to accept far fetched ideas and are just generally a wild and crazy bunch that latch onto anything that leans towards their biases.
Fanon is such an interesting topic because it doesn’t come out from a vacuum. Members of the fandom actively create content and consume that content and given enough support and fanfare, that content can weave itself into the fandom and transform itself into the fandom canon–fanon if you will. There are so many actors in play–the individuals, politics, belief systems and society at large, that factor into how a piece of media in the fandom that is just created for fun becomes part of the lore of the fandom and becomes generally accepted and sometimes indistinguishable from the canon.
For the list of sources and citations made:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_1_U9oGJbXXjlD_lhH4VLanFazwojcaSk-YPSXniQJI/edit?usp=sharing
Sincerely, A Frustrated History Student
In one of my history classes, we were tasked to make a reaction paper about the film The Act of Killing. There was a point where the main characters of the film went on a talk show and the host started her introduction of the guests by praising them for killing the communists. The film is centered around the killings of the Communists in Indonesia in 1965-1966 and the process of the gangsters who played their part in the killings as they tell their story and the sociopolitical climate of the country they live in. The point I want to say is that, the late 1960s was decades ago yet the villainizing of Communists continues to the present and because of that continued narrative, victims and survivors of the killings are never given justice. The actions of the host may seem inconsequential but because the host is on public television, they play their part in continuing that narrative and it also sheds light on how their country continues to think in the present day.
It’s reminiscent of how the Philippines is now, Marcos has been elected as the president because of the decades worth of misinformation by what used to be alternative media but now, it’s seeped into the mainstream media. Mediatization as explained by Stromback (2008 in Cushion, 2018, pp. 305-306) shows that when media becomes autonomous and has dominance in the information in a democracy, it has the ability to influence political actors or parties. Possibly it’s a two way street where political actors influence media and media also acts in favor of their interests but what is sure is that media has played its part in the course of politics within the country. It’s become even easier to shape the public narrative surrounding Marcos and his cronies because the government has proven that they can shut down anyone that dares to criticize them–ABS-CBN for example because they criticized Duterte. Waistbord (2002 in Schudson, 2019, p. 146) explains that when states are weak or disintegrating, those who attempt to report about the misdoings of its government are subject to harassment, threats or even death. It’s not a far reach to say that the Philippines is now disintegrating because the institutions that supposedly should protect its democratic process are being bought and controlled by the rich and powerful.
It’s become even harder to fight against misinformation and the revisionism of already established historical facts but what can individuals do in a battle against news agencies backed by millions–possibly billions. They serve to protect the people funding them and through their actions, they are able to shape the political climate in the Philippines. They do it by allowing those who could care less about the country they serve and only serve to fatten their pockets a platform that gives them recognition and recall in the minds of the masses. They do it by not highlighting the actual events in the country. By allowing themselves to be controlled by the interests of a few rather than the good of the nation.
References:
Schudson, M. (2019). Approaches to the sociology of news. In Curran, J and Hesmondhalgh, D. (eds). Media and Society. 6 th edition. Bloomsbury Academic
Cushion, S. (2019). The Political Impact of Media. In Curran, J and Hesmondhalgh, D. (eds). Media and Society. 6 th edition. Bloomsbury Academic