Robert Rodi and the Relationship of fans to their canon.
Originally posted August 31, 2003:
For everybody else who is remotely interested in fandom, comic books, fanfiction, or any other hallowed halls of geekdom: you must read Robert Rodi's What They Did to Princess Paragon. Written in 1994, this book is a delightful sendup of, well, everything I just mentioned. I felt as if I were reading a satire by somebody who'd been taking notes for their underground novel while attending comic cons all over the midwest. In addition to being a really delightful look at some of the more bizarre and subversive elements of homophobia (if such a subject can be delightful?), it also offers among other things a really hilarious caricature of Neil Gaiman (Nigel Cardew in this incarnation--I've never read a single thing by N.G. and even I recognized this portrait).
But the real reason you all should read it is that it offers a nicely thought-provoking look at the question of ownership of a much-loved cultural icon, and asks blatantly, who owns it? Does Princess Paragon (read: Wonder Woman and all of her ilk) belong to her faithful fans and readers, to the corporate suits that produce and deliver her to the public, to the writers who ensure her continuation, or to the sole person who invented her in the first place? The reason this novel takes an effective stab at the question is that Robert Rodi is obviously both a comic-book writer and a fan of comics; in addition to being a fabulous author whom I've loved ever since I read his classic coming-out farce Closet Case, he clearly knows his turf and knows whereof he writes when he tackles obsessive fans, egocentric cartoonists, and the many kinds of reality associated with the creation of character and folklore around a cultural icon.
The plot is a satirical mecca: being asked to take over the line of foundering comics, a brainchild-offspring of Stan Lee decides to make Princess Paragon, in her newest incarnation, a lesbian. This sparks an outcry from fans as well as a storm of media attention, and launches an unprecedented encounter with one upstanding straight white male (geek to the core, living in his mother's basement with the blinds drawn), who feels it is his duty to rescue the Princess from a fate worse than cancellation. Robert Rodi handles farce very well, and his hilarious writing keeps this story from ever taking itself too seriously--but there's still a definite moral authority in the interactions between the writer, Brian, and the fan, Jerome, who refuses to accept that Princess Paragon does not belong to him, and that he has no authority over her corporate image. Of course, this bites Brian in the ass too, because as much as he'd like to believe it, Princess Paragon isn't his property either, and the book ultimately leaves you with the shaky admonition that the only way to call something your own in the world of publishing politics is to create it yourself.
Obviously, the minute I read this I thought, must tell fandom! Not the least because I have lately been thinking about what it means to love a character in your own mind and what sort of responsibility that entails, if any at all. I, personally, have a deep and undying love for my Harry and Draco. I firmly believe that the things I love about them and write about are mine and that no one can take that away from me. I'm not, obviously, picketing JKR to make them gay and redeem Draco (though I did write her a letter about Draco, attempting to explain to her why we love him so much, and probably failing utterly); what I am sticking to is that I have just as much right to love them and stand by my interpretation of them as I do to love anything else in "real" life.
While Robert Rodi paints Jerome as being just on this side of psychotic in his obsession with the characters from his comic book fantasies, he also makes it clear that Jerome has never once tried to live in his own life, or face his own reality. I hold that it is every fan's right (as long as we are, obviously, well-established in our own realities), to hold our characters as dear and think of them as passionately as we like. Of course, if JKR does make Hermione a lesbian, or announce that, yes, Remus and Sirius were humping like dogs, no one will be happier than I; but faced with the more serious possibility that she will continue to make Draco a one-dimensional unredeemable bully, my status as a fan of the series will not be jeopardized. I will read and continue to enjoy Harry Potter, and freely criticize what I don't like, while still holding to "my" Harry and "my" Draco. There is a reason that finishing my fan fic has always been one of my highest priorities, and that is because I feel it is just as much "mine" as anything else I have ever written. It is important to me; I have lavished many happy hours away thinking about it and writing about it, and I feel that regardless of what it owes to JK Rowling the characters are ultimately my characters.
Robert Rodi's take on this side of fandom and fan writers is significant because he doesn't stop at painting Jerome as a hopeless loser hiding from reality in comic books; he shows that ultimately Jerome (who attempts to write his own sloppy, awful version of Princess Paragon's lesbian arc in which she is the virtuous straight hero battling the evil lesbian dominatrix villain) can indeed be happy and settled in both worlds at once: he can continue to passionately enjoy his fan community and the worlds of his fictional obsessions, and be an active participant in the reality of his daily existence. This duality is, I feel, something that fan fic writers and in fact any fans of anything don't put enough stock behind. So many times people tell us that we're just hiding from reality, but I think that's a cop-out. If there weren't a definite satisfaction into being able to retreat into that world of fantasy, none of us would be here, none of us would spend so much time talking to one another about characters, canon, fanon, you name it.
I think that ultimately the charm and the magic of being a fan, whatever you are a fan of, is that being able to delve into these kinds of other-worlds makes us appreciate our real lives and the people in them more. What's great about What They Did to Princess Paragon is that while taking a look at the ethics of ownership and authorial intent versus fan possessiveness, Robert Rodi doesn't undermine the intrinsic value of being a fan, or attempt to say that because you're a fan, your feelings don't matter. What's important is that they matter to you. At one point, Rodi writes:
Jerome seemed about to say something, but apparently tought better of it. He put the car in gear and started driving. After a few minutes, he said, "You know, if you were Moonman or the Centipede or--"
"Jerome, please," Brian said in disgust.
"No, hear me out! This matters to me. Because you're one of the people who writes these stories, and I take what they say very seriously. If you were Moonman or the Centipede or Speed-Demon or Buster Brainpower or any of those heroes, you wouldn't let your fears fester like this for so many years, making you all hysterical. If you were the kind of hero you write about, you'd face your fears. That's what you'd do. Don't you even believe what you write?"
Brian was astonished that he actually had to explain it to him. "This is real life, Jerome," he said with as little sarcasm as possible.
"No, it's bigger than that," Jerome said at last. "It means more than that."
At the risk of anyone thinking that reality, the reality of friendships, of responsibilities, work, play, love, and life, are less important to me than what happens to a bunch of characters in a novel, I think that I side with Jerome. And I don't think there's a damn thing wrong with that.