Darlini’s Linguini

Well,  it has been awhile.  We moved from an apartment into a house and it is taking my partner and I quite awhile to get settled in our new space.  The biggest mistake was not getting everything unpacked and set up before school resumed after spring break.  This left us with a house half full of boxes that sit and stare accusingly at me during the crazy syllabus-writing, lesson-planning, dissertation theorizing (can’t really call it writing yet) of the first few weeks of school.  As such, blogging has also taken a backseat.

 As a blogging ‘newbie’ I am still learning the software and trying to negotiate this space and its purpose. By that I mean, the space of this blog and the portion of my identity that will be ‘published’ within it.  Since the premise of this, as my first blogging experiment, is to document (so to speak) the experience of the dissertation, solicit discussion with other people interested in media fandom, gaming and gender dynamics, perhaps I should retain my ‘academic hat’?  It seems that lately, however, my collection of identity ‘hats’ are losing their distinctiveness.  I mean, really, when it comes right down to it, isn’t there a point where it is nearly impossible to differentiate between things that are academic and things that are not?  Maybe it is just me.  Still, for the sake of saying I got some work done today, I am going to synthesize some of my reading notes and brainstorm a bit.

I know that the general modus operandi for dissertation writing is to write the introduction last. This makes sense, considering that it is easier to provide a ‘map’ for a project already written than one that is still in its infancy.  However, I am the kind of writer that can’t do anything until I have a clear idea of the map–it’s not just for the reader; it helps keep me focused.  As I am reading a plethora of work in my field that I haven’t been able to read in the first three (I think it is three…I lost count) years of graduate school due to coursework, random exam-hoops, and general distraction, I have been taking notes on things that will end up in the introduction while trying to outline the first chapter.  Bear with me here, but I think it will be helpful to work through some of those notes.

The goal of the introduction is to state project goals and the thesis, foreground the stakes, provide theoretical and historical context, describe my theoretical position and research methodology and provide a ‘map’ to the dissertation itself.  Said that way it seems so simple. Alas, if only it was!  So, some specific things to accomplish:

In order to ground discussion of the cultural practices of vidding and machinima-making inpost-structural conceptions of identity within cyberspace, I will need to discuss the conception of gender as discourse and identity as performance—with fandom being an active part of identity construction. Here I am planning to Use Judith Butler, Rhiannon Bury, Cornel Sandvoss and some Foucault. A key part of this discussion should be the impact of the rise of geek (white, male) culture on the cultural differing evaluations of machinima and vids and the reinforcement of the mind/body split evident in male techno/cyberculture.

Also key to this discussion of identity in cyberspace is this quote from Butler’s Gender Trouble:

    “What can be meant by ‘identity,’ then, and what grounds the presumption thatidentities         are self-identical, persisting through time as the same, unified and internally coherent?            More importantly, how do these assumptions inform the discourses on ‘gender identity’?     It would be wrong to think that the discussion of ‘identity’ ought to proceed prior to a         discussion of gender identity for the simple reason that ‘persons’ only become intelligible     through becoming gendered in conformity with recognizable standards of gender                 intelligibility” (16).

In other words, the construction of identity is inseparable from that of gender identity because, in order to be a person at all, we have to be gendered. Butler also states that:

    “The notion that there might be a ‘truth’ of sex, as Foucault ironically terms it, is produced   precisely through the regulatory practices that generate coherent identities through the     matrix of coherent gender norms. The heterosexualization o f desire requires and                 institutes the production of discrete and asymmetrical oppositions between ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine,’ where these are understood as expressive attributes of ‘male’ and                 ‘female’” (17).

This relies on Butler’s earlier assertion that there is really no distinction between biological sex and gender. For the purposes of my project it is great evidence of the ways in which gender is constituted by consistent performance of normative behaviors and is just as
identifiable online as a requirement for ‘personhood’ as offline. Different fan practices are aligned with different genders.

So, if I am reading Butler correctly (and there is always a gigantic chance that I am not!), it might be a valid assertion that participation in songvid and machinima-making communities is a method of performing one’s gender (and thus their identity) via their fandom. This could explain the gendered difference in the producers of each form as well as the focus and content of the objects themselves—arguably these perform normative behaviors that constitute genders. For example, the focus on vids are overwhelmingly on relationships and affect (which are the normative domains of the female)—both for different ‘pairings’ in the respective universes but also inthe emotional attachment to fandom itself and to entire serial franchises. A great example of this is vidder  Luminosity’s X-Files vid set to Bob Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues. This vid is a tribute to the X-Files universe and the collective of fans that are invested in it and its mythology. Machinima films/videos, on the other hand, tend to ‘perform’masculine attributes such as physical violence, competition, homophobia, misogyny, insulting, satire and sarcasm. Vids made by men and machinima made by women might be the best place to look tolocate instances of non-normative/resistive behavior in terms of gender performance. Still, it is important too to acknowledge the content/focus on these ‘cross-the-gender-line productions’. So far, machinima made by women still has a tendency to perform attributes of femininity. Examples here are the vids made with the Sims2 for acting out stories like “The Little Mermaid”, and the lyrics of romantic poetry and love songs. This is interesting and, thinking more on it, may help me really pin down a precise argument about the role of gender in these media objects.

Well, that is enough for today!  The other part of introduction that I know I will struggle with is the construction of a solid research methodology. As a bit of a theory-head, I have absolutely no experience with empirical research that includes interviewing subjects. Thus, the next task will be to figure out exactly how to go about formulating questionnaires, locating interview subjects, etc.  In the meantime, it is off to watch more vids!

Hello world? That may be a tad overzealous but what the hell. Everyone else is blogging so why shouldn’t I? The biggest challenge for me in terms of creating a blog (and I did not create this, my lovely sister did it for me in all of her ubar-ness) has been trying to decide what on earth to post. Since the advice to ’stick with what you know’ has usually served me pretty well, I will start out that way. At this point, at least in this initial section, I am going to use this medium to help me research, brainstorm and stay relatively sane while working on constructing my dissertation. I suppose we can think of this as a journal/note-taking/venting outlet that will hopefully function as a survival mechanism for this lowly graduate student. So, first things first, I suppose it would be wise to introduce my self. I am Darlini (RL names changed slightly to protect the innocent and not-so-innocent): a 31 year old female graduate student studying popular culture, fandom and gender studies at a state university. The dissertation project, at least at this point, is focused on exploring the ways in which two of the most prolific types of consumer-produced digital media objects floating around the internet–fan vids and machinima, intersect with gender.

Fan Vids are, with some exceptions noted, assumed to be the domain of female fans. Much like fan fic—I would go so far as to include them as a type of fan fic, these vids focus on narrative, affect and intimate relationships between characters of television shows, anime and film, and more. These vids are essentially narrative based and focus specifically on intimate (though not necessarily sexual) relationships. They express emotional investment in the media they are taken from and can be discussed as fan fiction because they function the same way. Fan song vids are, in fact, a form of fan fiction; even though vid images are limited to canon footage, vids make claims, interpret, expand and play with the canon text; the narrative in these vids comes from the music. The carefully chosen songs are used in the same way that prose functions textual fan fic: to tell a story. Like fan fic the vids are often distinguished by pairings (Bangle vs. Spuffy vids, Starbuck/Apollo vs. Starbuck/Sam, etc.) and can be categorized similarly by het, comfort, slash, etc.

Machinima films differ from other fan vids in several ways, the most obvious being that they are made using 3-D game engines. This sometimes, but not always, involves the changing of programming code. Machinima also includes ‘modding’ of computer software. Mods are written for popular games and programs to make them better suited to the use of those who use/play them. Some game mods are considered ‘hacks’ if they violate the rules of the game but many game developers not only tolerate mods but encourage them. Machinima films are even more varied than fan vids in terms of format. There are narrative machinima films, machinima music videos, machinima political satire, machinima vids created as instructional videos for game bosses in MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft, vids created to document in-game achievements or to brag, and more. Not much work has been done in cultural studies or reception studies on machinima or digital vids as of yet but what has been performed describes this genre of consumer-produced media art as a more masculine form.

I am suspicious of this gendering and the implications it presents in terms of the creation and maintenance of cultural hierarchies of gender and this is where the project stems from. As a fan of several ‘cult’ TV shows (though usually as a lurker in communities) and a woman who happens to be a gamer, I want to explore the ways in which these fan-created texts are gendered because both of these mediums are very important to me personally and, I believe, can help illustrate the ways in which online life and RL are interconnected.

Some of the questions I wish to pose are: why are the producers of machinima overwhelmingly assumed to be male when only cursory research indicates that there are in fact several female machinima producers? Why do female machinima producers seem to favor The Sims as their engine while male producers utilize games such as Halo, Hitman, and Counter-Strike and others in the genre of the “First Person Shooter.” Is this discrepancy connected to ‘boy’ and ‘girl’ games? Is The Sims a girl game? If so, why? Does the rise in female machinima producers coincide with the release and popularity of The Sims and The Sims 2? Do female producers of machinima focus more on narrative and less on parody/satire? These are questions that can only be answered by watching both machinima films produced by male and female directors and narrative fan vids produced by male and female fans alike, talking to those producers and conducting empirical research to discover what is out there. Fans and machinima film makers are a wonderful well-spring of theory as they collectively discuss and analyze their productions in widely distributed ‘meta’. I believe that, in order to understand these productions and what they can tell us about the evolving relationship between media and its consumers, we need to take into account what consumers who produce say about their own work. Thus, I will be utilizing meta and seeking to interview producers of both narrative fan vids and machinima film makers in order to compare these two types of vids/digital films(?) in terms of production, consumption, distribution as well as content/form/meta in order to examine the ‘gender divide’ that seems to separate these two types of consumer-produced new media.

And there you have it–straight from the prospectus notes! Like much of the work I have been engaging in since my post-bac years in English Literature, this will no doubt (and it better!) change and evolve as it moves forward. As a woman, a lurking fan, and a scholar of popular culture I am hoping to use this blog as a jumping off point for discussion, research and a means to meet and form relationships with other people involved with fandom, digital or textual production, and video gaming–both fans and gamers and scholars alike. This section of the blog will be devoted to research and discussion of various things associated with the project but I intend to create posts that branch out into different categories so watch for discussions on politics, various TV shows, video games and posting of fanfic, vids and machinima that myself and others will be creating.