Links roundup for 7 May 2012

[otw_staff]

Here's a roundup of stories about women in fandom that might be of interest to fans:

• An urgent call is going out to any female fan artists in the New York City area! The PBS program Off Book did a piece on fan artists on May 2. "The fan art community is one of the most creative and active online. Taking pop culture stories and icons as its starting point, the fan community extends those characters into new adventures, unexpected relationships, bizarre remixes, and even as the source material for beautiful art. Limited only by the imagination of the artist, the fan art world is full of surprises and brilliance." Apparently it is also "limited only" by the gender of the fan artist in the show's eyes, as not a single woman appeared to speak despite some of their fan art being shown. Super-wiki owner missyjack protested the exclusion of female artists on the YouTube post, and received a request from a show representative to gather the names of fans willing to be interviewed. If you're a female fan artist in NYC who would be willing to take part and broaden this representation of fan artists, comment at her blog.


• Also infuriating to many female fans was the representation of female audience members by MovieFone with regards to the new Marvel movie release, The Avengers. More than one female fan protested the representation of women as passive audience members dragged to the film simply to please boyfriends. The Discriminating Fangirl wrote "Instead of writing an intelligent guide to the movies for people who aren’t already fans" the article included "idiotic, sexist stereotypes." She summed up the problem with "Yes, because every girl going to see The Avengers is a giggling twit who’s obsessed with being pretty, watching inane rom coms, and who never got over high school. That’s insulting both to fangirls AND to girls who dig rom coms, because it...downplays womens’ intelligence and their taste in films. If girls like it, it must be fluff." She added that "superhero genre stuff AND romance genre stuff...[are] two interests [that] are not mutually exclusive."


• By comparison the just-completed ROFLcon III, a "State of the Web Union" conference held in Cambridge, Massachussetts, had a panel on Fangirl Culture alongside other panels on internet memes and supercuts ("those densely packed, tightly edited video compilations that usually hone in on an idiosyncratic film or television trope"). The Fangirl panel "brought together several fanfic creators-slash-experts, who discussed the increasingly mainstream visibility of fanfic, as well as the bad rap it sometimes gets — despite the fact that most of us grew up daydreaming ourselves into the lives of our favorite characters." It also spawned a related online article about the origins of vidding.

If you are a female creator of fanworks, you can help correct the media assumption that there are only one or two of you out here. Why not contribute to Fanlore? Additions are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, event, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent Links Roundup — on transformativeworks.org, LJ, or DW — or give @OTW_News a shoutout on Twitter. Links are welcome in all languages!

Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW. Mirrored from an original post on the OTW blog. Find related news by viewing our tag cloud.

Links roundup for 7 May 2012

[otw-staff.livejournal.com]

Here's a roundup of stories about women in fandom that might be of interest to fans:

• An urgent call is going out to any female fan artists in the New York City area! The PBS program Off Book did a piece on fan artists on May 2. "The fan art community is one of the most creative and active online. Taking pop culture stories and icons as its starting point, the fan community extends those characters into new adventures, unexpected relationships, bizarre remixes, and even as the source material for beautiful art. Limited only by the imagination of the artist, the fan art world is full of surprises and brilliance." Apparently it is also "limited only" by the gender of the fan artist in the show's eyes, as not a single woman appeared to speak despite some of their fan art being shown. Super-wiki owner missyjack protested the exclusion of female artists on the YouTube post, and received a request from a show representative to gather the names of fans willing to be interviewed. If you're a female fan artist in NYC who would be willing to take part and broaden this representation of fan artists, comment at her blog.


• Also infuriating to many female fans was the representation of female audience members by MovieFone with regards to the new Marvel movie release, The Avengers. More than one female fan protested the representation of women as passive audience members dragged to the film simply to please boyfriends. The Discriminating Fangirl wrote "Instead of writing an intelligent guide to the movies for people who aren’t already fans" the article included "idiotic, sexist stereotypes." She summed up the problem with "Yes, because every girl going to see The Avengers is a giggling twit who’s obsessed with being pretty, watching inane rom coms, and who never got over high school. That’s insulting both to fangirls AND to girls who dig rom coms, because it...downplays womens’ intelligence and their taste in films. If girls like it, it must be fluff." She added that "superhero genre stuff AND romance genre stuff...[are] two interests [that] are not mutually exclusive."


• By comparison the just-completed ROFLcon III, a "State of the Web Union" conference held in Cambridge, Massachussetts, had a panel on Fangirl Culture alongside other panels on internet memes and supercuts ("those densely packed, tightly edited video compilations that usually hone in on an idiosyncratic film or television trope"). The Fangirl panel "brought together several fanfic creators-slash-experts, who discussed the increasingly mainstream visibility of fanfic, as well as the bad rap it sometimes gets — despite the fact that most of us grew up daydreaming ourselves into the lives of our favorite characters." It also spawned a related online article about the origins of vidding.

If you are a female creator of fanworks, you can help correct the media assumption that there are only one or two of you out here. Why not contribute to Fanlore? Additions are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, event, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent Links Roundup — on transformativeworks.org, LJ, or DW — or give @OTW_News a shoutout on Twitter. Links are welcome in all languages!

Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW. Mirrored from an original post on the OTW blog. Find related news by viewing our tag cloud.