Throwing Shade
How Fifty Shades of Grey Broke Fandom’s Rules
D/S, BDSM, S&M … there are a lot of letters that come to mind when discussing the sexy doings of erotic fiction. Two that you may not know about? The capital “F” Fandom and the lowercase “f” fandom. Capital “F” Fandom is the all-encompassing term for the entire culture of primarily internet-based fan communities who participate in individual lowercase “f” fandoms. E. L. James was a celebrated member of Twilight fandom, whose success with Fifty Shades of Grey would eventually turn the floodlights on Fandom as a whole.
Fandom, you see, is like Fight Club. The first rule of Fandom is that you don’t talk about Fandom. It’s a subculture, like any other, that operates largely under the radar of mainstream society. Sure, you may use Facebook, you might have a Tumblr or a Twitter account, but engaging in discussion and creation of fanworks with others is a whole different level of interaction. There’s a secret handshake, a subtle head nod, a sense of being a part of something that spans time zones and countries and languages. It requires a certain amount of mutual respect (and often some mutual disdain as well) and trust. It’s a trust that no one is going to laugh at you for liking My Little Pony. It’s a trust that someone else understands what it’s like to watch BBC’s Sherlock and think Benedict Cumberbatch is the hottest thing since sliced bread. It’s a trust that you can write whatever you want and someone, somewhere, will find it wonderful.
When E. L. James altered her wildly popular Edward and Bella alternate universe fanfic “Master of the Universe” and published it with a new title and new character names, she broke one of Fandom’s oldest social contracts: Thou shalt not profit from thy fanfiction. A “rule” instituted long ago, primarily for legal purposes—studios and publishing houses were far more “cease and desist”–happy than they are now; it would’ve been a given that Stephenie Meyer’s people would take on Fifty Shades of Grey—it also serves the purpose of keeping fanworks for the fans. “Going pro” with your fic means going public—and involving people outside the fan community. Once you involve a showrunner, actors, an author, or the media, it’s like someone standing over your shoulder as you organize your stamp collection—or your sex toy collection. You’re being judged for your geekery, for your “mommy porn” (heaven forbid!), and your autographed season two cast shot of La Femme Nikita. It changes the fannish experience.
Why is that such a big deal? Because the fannish experience, for many, is a deeply personal one. For a lot of women, it’s a way to explore their creativity and their sexuality without facing scorn and censure. There’s a long-standing joke about the internet known as Rule No. 34: if it exists, there’s porn about it. There is nothing under the sun that hasn’t been written about and posted in fanfiction forums, on journaling sites like Live-Journal.com, or on large-scale fiction archives like FanFiction. Net. A lot of the so-called “porn” is written by women and consumed by women.
Similar to the published romance and erotic fiction industry, fanfiction is a haven for self-expression, for exploration of kinks and tropes that you can’t necessarily talk about with your friends over a glass of wine. You don’t have to be ashamed if you like forced seduction or May/December romance or ménage—you’ll find a group or an archive or an anonymous meme that’s into the same thing. Because of the relative anonymity of internet handles and commenting systems and the ability to present yourself however you see fit, it is all done in a way that makes the writers and the readers feel safe. And there’s no money being traded in the process. It’s done for pure enjoyment, for the satisfaction of sharing a story and perhaps receiving a few comments in return.
Sometimes, fans receive even more. The CW’s Supernatural acknowledged vocal portions of their fanbase in meta commentary–laced episodes featuring Becky the fangirl. The team behind MTV’s Teen Wolf was entreated to involve characters in a same-sex relationship. And while many authors, like Anne Rice, Diana Gabaldon, and George R.R. Martin are vocally anti-fanfiction, still others—E. L. James’ inspiration, Stephenie Meyer, among them—are openly supportive of fanworks. Fandom advocate and bestselling author Naomi Novik (the Temeraire series) even continues to write fanfiction.
At the core, fanfiction and participation in Fandom is about a shared passion for the source material. So when E. L. James put a price tag on something that was previously free, it changed the very intent of her stories. “Master of the Universe,” something written for fellow Twilight fans, turned into something that needed—no, demanded—a wider audience. One that was willing to pay for what previously had been shared with a select community of readers. It doesn’t matter if you wrote under a name like Snowqueens Icedragon (James’ alias) or SamDean-Fan42: when you shed that persona and outgrow the audience who supported you when you wore it, a certain amount of hurt feelings ensue. It’s as though positive comments aren’t enough—as though tangible profit has become a bigger draw than the give-and-take of your favorite fandom. And that, to some, is yet another broken rule of the fannish Fight Club. (It should probably be noted that I’ve broken several just by writing this.)
Mainstream media, in their lurid, almost viciously gleeful coverage of the Fifty Shades phenomenon, have tarred legions of female readers with a torrid brush. They’ve called out the women who hunch over their Kindles on the subway, laughed at the library hold lists that number in the hundreds, and offered a general sense of bewilderment at the idea that women might find something with adult content enjoyable to read. But for decades, even before the advent of the internet, Fandom was welcoming such women with open arms: bring us your tired, your poor, your kinky masses. Creating this constantly shifting and expanding home for the sexually curious is not a professional, paid endeavor but a philosophical one. Consequently, Fifty Shades of Grey’s success, and the ensuing media circus, has a lot of people who have lived in the virtual neighborhood for years shaking their canes and muttering, “Get off my lawn,” at those who come in wielding cameras and waving microphones.
After all, women were successfully indulging in their fantasies online, and off, long before Christian Grey handed Ana Steele a contract and started monitoring what she ate. This isn’t new. Spanking, beating, toys … I can guarantee that everybody from Harry Potter to Buffy Summers to the members of ‘NSync have been chained up and flogged into next Tuesday because someone thought it might be hot … and because it was perfectly acceptable within the confines of Fandom to do so. Fanworks have never been “mommy porn.” Fandom is not a skit on Saturday Night Live or a set of buzzwords in every newspaper’s competition to boost their sales—and it’s certainly not over 20 million copies sold and counting.
Fandom is like Fight Club. The first rule is that you don’t talk about it. But, rules and regulations be damned, Fifty Shades of Grey certainly started one hell of a conversation about women, reading, and sex.
Longtime pop culture writer MALA BHATTACHARJEE is the former news editor of Soap Opera Weekly and current features editor at RT Book Reviews magazine. She also writes interracial and multicultural romance under the name Suleikha Snyder. Mala lives in New York, where she constantly refurbishes her soapbox and occasionally shares the results at her blog, www.badnecklace.com.