Journal articles on the topic 'Sofia Coppola'

Sofia Coppola and Kirsten Dunst share a long-standing collaboration that has lasted from Dunst's adolescence onwards and into mature womanhood. As a former child star, Dunst has grown up in front of Coppola's camera and has come to be closely associated with the director's rarefied and highly aestheticised cinematic world. I have argued elsewhere that a cardinal and abiding concern of Coppola's oeuvre is how images come to be collectively and culturally understood; moreover, Coppola is especially concerned with how the (en)gendering of an image can either open up or foreclose sites of contestation. Coppola is positioned in contrast to readings of her work as strictly postfeminist. I argue that Coppola's work is postfeminist to the extent that it exhibits an indebtedness to, in particular, second wave feminism, but I also contend that Coppola is concerned with critiquing the mores and norms of postfeminism from a resolutely feminist perspective

As a filmmaker, Sofia Coppola is often under critiques considering her visual excess frivolous. This article is an auteur study towards the thematic and stylistic tendencies of Sofia Coppola’s films. Through analysis of her mise-en-scene, I contend that Coppola, as a film auteur, tends to glorify the image of the lost generation. This glorification is bolstered by her signature style that echoes the spirit of the Decadent movement in the late-nineteenth-century European art scenes, which was preoccupied with the idea of fin de siècle or society in transition at the end of time. This idea is exemplified most vividly by motifs such as hedonistic behavior, visual excess, and cultural decline.

Review of: Sofia Coppola: The Politics of Visual Pleasure, Anna Backman Rogers (2019) New York: Berghahn Books, 200pp., ISBN: 9781785339660 (ebk), $27.95, ISBN: 9781785339653 (hbk), $150.00, ISBN: 9781785339752 (pbk), $27.95

Resumo: por muitos anos o caráter artístico da publicidade foi negado por diferentes correntes teóricas que se opunham radicalmente em vê-la fazendo parte do “sagrado mundo das artes”. Buscamos neste artigo, analisar e dar legitimidade artística a um tipo muito particular de filme publicitário, pelo seu viés estético e artístico. Concretamente, nos debruçamos sobre uma classe de publicidade audiovisual que pode ser incluída no que o cinema rotula como arte, chamando de cinema de autor ou cinema autoral. Passamos, portanto, a partir deste trabalho, a considerar o que nomeamos de publicidade autoral, após analisarmos um corpus composto por filmes publicitários de uma renomada realizadora cinematográfica, que se adequaram a essa classificação. Nossa proposta se aproxima teoricamente de teorias contemporâneas da arte, da politique des auteurs e da teoria do autor.

O trabalho explora expressividades poéticas que configuram, nos filmes O palhaço (Selton Mello, Brasil, 2011) e Um lugar qualquer (Somewhere, Sofia Coppola, EUA, 2010), a emergência de um modo subjetivo e objetivo de estar no mundo. Ele se apresenta e se coloca de forma atípica em relação à situação dos lugares convencionalmente estabelecidos na sociedade contemporânea, um modo de o sujeito experimentar o cotidiano acomodado/desacomodado em uma dimensão topológica imaginária que se caracteriza como deslugar.

A pesquisa tem a intenção de investigar a relação memória-roupa, a fim de explorar a forma como a relembrança através das imagens cria duplos – que permeiam conceitos como o dos artefatos memoriais, os próprios museus e exposições de moda: a exposição do figurino produzido para o filme “Maria Antonieta” de Sofia Coppola (2006), “Marie Antoinette: I Costume de una Regina da Oscar” é tida como objeto do estudo para a compreensão das relações de passado e presente, memória e lembrança.

Há um relato oitocentista sobre a rainha francesa Maria Antonieta, no começo de um baile da corte, usando “um vestido azul repleto de safiras e diamantes. Ela era jovem, bela e adorada por todos – ainda assim, já estava próxima do abismo” (MENDEHLSOHN, 2006)2 . Essa passagem foi citada na crítica de Daniel Mendehlsohn sobre o filme Marie Antoinette, de Sofia Coppola, para destacar o que ele acreditava ser o ponto fraco do longa: Coppola, ele diz, “oferece o vestido, mas não o abismo” (MENDEHLSOHN, 2006, p. 22). Aquela descrição verbal da aparência da rainha era, resumidamente, mais reveladora, mais dramática do que as imagens deslumbrantes do filme. O contraste feito por Mendehlsohn em seu relato levanta o questionamento de porque algo tão visual quanto o vestir deveria ser considerado no contexto da literatura. O que as palavras fazem pelo vestir? Para o crítico, era a sugestão das palavras – a implicação de haver profundezas abaixo da superfície – que concedia o drama. Vestir-se, para Roland Barthes (2009), é a matéria poética ideal: tocando o corpo, revela-se o eu, mas também se interage com o social – conformando-se, rejeitando, enganando ou seduzindo.[...]

Este trabalho delineia alguns aspectos dos entrelaçamentos entre passado e presente nos figurinos do filme “Maria Antonieta”, de Sofia Coppola. São analisados todos os figurinos do primeiro arco narrativo do filme, focalizando a transformação da protagonista de princesa austríaca em rainha da França. A análise sugere que os figurinos contam uma história paralela, às vezes mesmo contradizendo a narrativa “histórica” principal. Isso acontece ao menos de três maneiras: (1) fazendo referências à moda contemporânea; (2) usando um conceito moderno de “juventude” ao representar a vida da protagonista na corte francesa; (3) mostrando as roupas da protagonista como metáfora de seu caráter e atitudes. Esses elementos são estudados a partir das questões entre representação e história no figurino cinematográfico.

Both Sofia Coppola and Mia Hansen-Løve’s first three films can be understood as trilogies of female coming of age. These are thematic or conceptual trilogies, declared as such after the fact by their directors, and thus a self-conscious declaration of authorial agency, but the trilogy itself is not given a definitive name. This article explores the complex position these trilogies thus occupy. On the one hand, they testify to the impact of feminist activism and theorising on filmmaking, as they demonstrate the creative power and autonomy of the postfeminist auteur. On the other, they concentrate on narrow, girlish worlds, and remain marked by hesitancy and containment, demonstrating the persistent restrictions for women within postfeminist cultural norms.

Este artigo traz uma abordagem sobre as intersecções entre moda e política, presentes na vida da última rainha da França, Maria Antonieta. Por meio da análise do filme da diretora Sofia Coppola - lançado em 2006 no Festival de Cannes – mostraremos que Antonieta fez da moda, um instrumento político, traçaremos paralelos entre a vida da rainha e o modo como construiu sua imagem por meio do vestuário e, como isto resultou em implicações que culminaram com a Revolução Francesa e com a queda do Antigo Regime. Além de, também discutirmos como a monarca ainda hoje influencia a moda e também como o filme – que é uma recriação contemporânea do imaginário francês do século XVIII, faz referências explícitas à contemporaneidade

The Beguiled (Sofia Coppola, USA, 2017) is one of several recent films to feature mushrooms as a prominent plot device. In this essay, I argue that the use of mushrooms here allows cinema to engage with issues surrounding the Anthropocene, or the period in which capitalist man has shaped the world more than the world has shaped capitalist man. I shall in particular propose that the association between women and fungi suggests that the Anthropocene entails an anthropocentric and patriarchal worldview. That is, The Beguiledsuggests that the Anthropocene is defined specifically by capitalist man – whose world must now be replaced by one that might be deemed feminist and posthuman, not least because of how the women at the film’s all-girls’ private school work with mushrooms to bring down the central male figure, Civil War soldier Corporal John McBurney. However, The Beguiled also posits the limits of such a feminist and posthuman world. For despite the film’s Civil War setting, and despite its status as a remake-cum-adaptation of both Don Siegel’s 1971 film of the same name and Thomas P. Cullinan’s source novel, the film only deals with race as at best a structuring absence. Coppola’s (characteristic) refusal to deal directly with race nonetheless allows us to identify the whiteness of those wider issues with which the film deals, namely the Anthropocene, posthumanism, (much) feminism and perhaps cinema itself. In particular, we can draw out this latter suggestion by considering the film’s use of the Madewood Plantation House, which also features in music videos for artists like J. Cole and Beyoncé. For if cinema is a force for the white Anthropocene, it is perhaps in supposedly “unruly” media outside of cinema that black and other feminisms can intersect with posthumanism to emerge as a genuine alternative to the Anthropocene.

El objetivo principal de este capítulo es la caracterización de un fenómeno audiovisual reciente que definiremos como nueva sinceridad televisiva, es decir, el traslado de los valores de una cinematografía post-pop (Wes Anderson, Richard Linklater, Sofia Coppola) a la pequeña pantalla. En primer lugar veremos cómo la apuesta por el formato serial favorece la expresión de emociones complejas al mismo tiempo que cumple con las intenciones artísticas de estos directores de explorar la vida afectiva de sus personajes. Para ello, se propondrá un modelo narrativo de emociones con el fin de justificar esta transición del cine a la televisión. Nuestro caso de estudio será la nostalgia, entendida esta como una emoción narrativa autobiográfica. Una emoción comúnmente enmarcada en la categoría de emociones sentimentales pero que, en la nueva sinceridad, adquiere una dimensión reflexiva aportando valor estético y ético salvando así a este conjunto de series de las acusaciones propias del sentimentalismo. Palabras clave: Estética Analítica, Filosofía De Las Emociones, Nostalgia, Sentimentalismo, Nueva Sinceridad.

En la década de 1970, en una ciudad norteamericana, cinco hermanas entre los trece y los diecisiete años cometieron suicidio, comenzado por Cecilia, la menor de las hermanas Lisbon. Una ola de tristeza plagada de interrogantes inundó las mentes de aquellos que convivieron con ellas y de todos aquellos fueron testigos de cómo poco a poco fueron perdiendo su alegría, sus motivaciones y su esencia hasta convertirse en sombras inexpresivas de lo que una vez fueron. Ante las peculiaridades descritas entre las muertes de las hermanas en las Vírgenes suicidas de Sofía Coppola 1999, el espectador puede plantearse diversas cuestiones relacionadas con el manejo sanitario adecuado y el papel del personal de salud para abordar de manera óptima la salud mental durante la adolescencia y de las medidas de prevención recomendables tanto en lo individual como en lo colectivo. El presente artículo se ofrece como un análisis a propósito de las conductas suicidas ficticias reportadas en el filme, como si de algún modo, las hermanas Lisbon pudiesen atenderse con los recursos y conocimientos que tienen en la actualidad los médicos contemporáneos a través del sistema sanitario, sin pasar por alto las condiciones en las cuales sucedieron sus trágicas muertes.

The films The Bling Ring (Sofia Coppola, 2013), Spring Breakers (Harmony Korine, 2012), and Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2011), were all dismissed for their depthlessness. This article argues that we need to explore the depths and variety of their engagement with surface in order to fully appreciate what these films are trying to say. The article proposes that these films in fact employ three different “strategies” of surface engagement, in and through their aesthetics; The Bling Ring relies on a sense of “skimming”, Spring Breakers engages ideas of “drifting”, while Drive promotes a sense of “gliding” or “coasting”. Analysis of these strategies of surface aesthetics reveals that the films make dialectic categories of depth and surface, sign and meaning, form and content, indistinguishable, and it is precisely in doing so that they offer complex critique on the crimes they display, and the state of our current hyper-mediated and networked world. These films are not only about the stories they tell but about how the very function that the films themselves perform is intricately intertwined with those stories. This makes the films self-reflexive and postmodern, but it also shows that surface itself, in the cinema, cannot and should not be dismissed as a monolithic, indeterminate nothing. The article argues that we must analyse and engage the depths of surface if we want to understand meaning in cinema today.

Abstract Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring explores the contemporary obsession with commodities and celebrity culture which leads a group of Californian teenagers to break into the homes of celebrities, in order to steal their clothes and accessories. This article examines Coppola's critique of celebrity culture and consumerism through the movie itself, and through her casting of British actor Emma Watson and the ways in which she mobilizes the celebrity persona of Watson in order to further her critique. The Bling Ring will be compared to Coppola's work to understand how it contributes to her postfeminist image. Coppola's position as a celebrity figure through her association with her father, through her own work and through her participation within the worlds of fashion and music are also explored, in order to problematize the position from which she critiques celebrity culture.

ZusammenfassungAusgehend von Überlegungen zum Konzept der Kontaktzone von der Literaturwissenschaftlerin Mary Louise Pratt analysiert der Beitrag Filmszenen der US-Fernsehserie Shogun von 1980 und Sofia Coppolas Spielfilm Lost in Translation von 2003. Unter dem Begriff der Kontaktzone wird dabei ein Rezeptionsakt verstanden, der seine Geltungsansprüche an fluktuierende Zeichenprozesse knüpft. Eine Kontaktzone entsteht sowohl im Aufeinandertreffen von Akteuren verschiedener Kulturen als auch im Aufeinandertreffen kultureller Produkte und deren Publikum. In den Filmbeispielen erweist sich die Inszenierung von Gesten als zentrales Darstellungsmittel im interkulturellen Kontakt, das (in Lernprozessen) zwischen Aneignung und Unverfügbarkeit oszilliert.

Teorizando sobre la conceptualización cinematográfica del espacio, este trabajo pone bajo escrutinio dos largometrajes de la directora y guionista estadounidense Sofía Coppola, Lost in Translation (2003) y Somewhere (2010), para analizar las técnicas personales de la representación espacial y cómo éstas ayudan en el planteamiento ideológico y/o moral de la obra. Se relacionará el espacio fílmico con el espacio real, subrayando la diferencia entre la creación metódica del primero —la cual tiene el fin estético de paralelar o contrastar el ánima humana que lo transita— y la inabarcable existencia del segundo —que también resulta indiferente a sus ocupantes—. Tomando el concepto de «no-lugar» ideado por Marc Augé y ampliando su abanico de utilización al traerlo al campo del espacio representado de manera audiovisual, se discute cómo la acepción de este término puede concordar con la construcción del espacio fílmico llevada a cabo por la directora, ejemplificando con escenas y demás aspectos de cada filme en particular. Además, se aplican las ideas antropológicas de Manuel Delgado en la discusión sobre la posible filiación moral del espacio fílmico con la del espacio real, para finalmente adoptar el punto de vista sociológico a partir del trabajo de David Riesman en un intento por establecer la posibilidad de redención o apropiación del espacio por parte de los personajes de cada filme.

This paper contains a discussion of the structures of Adjacency Pairs as uttered in the conversations of Lost in Translation movie script in terms of conversational analysis study. A conversation consists of at least two turns and two utterances which contain two acts of speech. Such utterances consisting of a first pair part which is followed by a second pair part form adjacent pairs which can be either preferred or dispreferred responses. Adjacency Pairs in term of preferred responses include twenty eight structures, while those in term of dispreferred responses include fourteen structures. The choice of a variety of responses is influenced by habits and cultures through which speakers convey meaning. Different habits and cultures of the speakers allow them to produce particular utterances which contain particular acts of speech. Subjectivity and intention influence the second speaker to respond the first speaker’s act based on what is intended. This is psychologically subjective rather than illogical. The complex structures of Adjacency Pairs are also caused by noises, unclear voices, and complex sentence patterns. The variations of adjacent pairs are basically contextual and situational which imply that Adjacency Pairs emerge in different structures within different contexts of conversations. Keywords: Adjacency pairs, turn taking, conversation, speech act, utterance PASANGAN BERDAMPINGAN PADA UJARAN PERCAKAPAN DI NASKAH FILM LOST IN TRANSLATION KARYA SOFIA COPPOLAAbstrakArtikel ini berisi pembahasan tentang pola Pasangan Berdampingan berdasarkan ujaran percakapan pada naskah filem Lost in Translation melalui teori analisis percakapan. Percakapan terdiri atas dua giliran and ujaran yang mengandung dua tindak tutur. Ujaran-ujaran yang terdiri atas bagian berdampingan pertama dan diikuti bagian berdampingan kedua sehingga membentuk pasangan berdampingan baik dengan respon yang diharapkan maupun yang tidak diharapkan. Pasangan Berdampingan khususnya respon yang diharapkan terdiri atas dua puluh delapan pola berdampingan, sedangkan respon yang tidak diharapkan terdiri atas empat belas pola. Ragam respon dapat dipengaruhi oleh kebiasaan dan budaya pembicara pada saat berbicara. Perbedaan kebiasaan dan budaya mempengaruhi pembicara dalam membuat ujaran yang mengandung tindak tutur tertentu. Subjektifitas dan intensi juga dapat mempengaruhi respon pembicara kedua terhadap tindak tutur pembicara pertama. Hal ini bersifat subjektif namun bukan tidak logis. Pola yang komplels pada Pasangan Berdampingan juga dapat dipengaruhi oleh suasana ribut, suara yang kurang jelas, dan struktur kalimat yang kompleks. Ragam pola tersebut pada dasarnya bersifat kontekstual dan situasional yang berarti bahwa pola Pasangan Berdampingan akan berbeda pada konteks percakapan yang berbeda. Kata kunci: Pasangan berdampingan, giliran berbicara, konversasi, tindak tutur, ujaran

In ’Costume Cinema and Materiality: Telling the Story of Marie Antoinette through Dress’ a materiality-based approach for analysing film narratives through costumes is examined. Sofia Coppola’s film Marie Antoinette (2006) serves as the empirical starting point and the theme of dressing and redressing is pursued throughout the film, crystallizing costume as a significant feature for reading the movie. The article argues that costumes, on a symbolic level, work as agents. It thus focuses on the interdependence between costume and interpretations of the screenplay’s main character. A theoretical notion of costumes and materiality is explored, and the idea is further developed in relation to stylistics constituted as emotions materialised in costume. As costumes are the main object for analysis, the discussion immediately centres on costumes produced by professional costume designers for the two-dimensional format of the film frame. In other words, costumes made for the moment: for a specific narrative and aesthetic expression.

There is a lot of literary work that can be found as a reference in writing the article. In this article, the writer decided to choose film as a main resource of writing. The main reason for choosing The Virgin Suicides film is because there is a lesson that can be taken from the movie. The Virgin Suicides is a well-structured movie that tells the genesis series of successive film stories starting from authoritarian parents and emotional abuse from the parents until the effects of those behaviors on the children. Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon create rigid and strict rules causing their children to live under pressure, living with major depression, borderline personality disorder, and even the worst part, they commit suicides (suicidal behavior). In analyzing this movie, the writer uses a psychological approach because the movie is related to the psychological disorder of Lisbon sisters. In relating with that, the writer elaborates the behavior changes of Lisbon sisters as a result of parental methods which are being too over protective.. There are symptoms that Lisbon sisters show due to their suffering from psychological disorder. Due to authoritarian rules and emotional abuse from the parents, the children live under pressure causing several bad effects such as depression, borderline personality disorder, and, the worst case, commiting a suicide.

From the Temple to the cathedral: the calvary of Louis XVII In 2004, more than 200 years after his death in the Temple prison, the heart of Louis XVII, the successor to France’s last king of the Ancien Régime, Louis XVI, was buried in the royal necropolis of Saint-Denis. Despite numerous publications on the destiny of the Little Prince, the chronology of his short life was not determined by historians and biographers, but by scientists who, in 2000, performed DNA tests on the petrified organ, which was miraculously preserved. Before this date, the biographies of the many pretenders to Louis XVII’s throne (that of Naundorff in particular) were better-known than the lifehistory of Marie Antoinette’s youngest son. Since then, various publications have changed this state of affairs, including an historical novel by one of France’s most knowledgeable authors on the monarchy of the 17th and 18th centuries and a biographical novel by a member of the Bourbon family. Antonia Fraser’s (2001) biography on Marie Antoinette and Sofia Coppola’s (2006) film on her life have rekindled interest in the events of the French revolution. The story of Louis XVII, who was used as a pawn by the revolutionaries, is one the most tragic of that period in the country’s history. This article provides an overview of key events gleaned from various sources, translated into Afrikaans for the first time.

This article will examine the playing with aesthetical surfaces in postmodern theatre and how itreflects the poetics and the cultural logic of late capitalism. Surfaces are examined as aestheticelements of the postmodern culture of the image. This culture is not neutral as it seems toreject the modern spiritual depth, for instance, sense of history and hermeneutic depth. Thearticle examines the riddle concerning how the absence of these aspects of human thought insurfaces generates the spectators' need to produce coherent individual activities, trajectories,and eventually acoherent culture. This reflexive mechanism of surfacesis analyzed within theframework of Donald Norman's (2005) cognitive principles of design. Starting from thepremise of Gilles Deleuze's and Felix Guattari's (1987) and Lev Vygotsky's (1978) notions ofplay, it is interpreted that postmodern stage and culture works, metaphorically, like the plane ofimmanence, the way of thinking in which an agent is able to move, make transitions andcrossings in a revolutionary way without restrictions of reality's conditions. However,culturally the blurring of boundaries between play and reality may lead to delirium andill-founded practices. Theatre and art examine these ill-founded practices but involve in theirpoetics a strong dimension of reflexive level of human cognition. This reflexive level is anexplanatory perspective, which helps spectators examine theatre's mechanisms as metaphors ofcultural logic, to achieve a critical position extrinsic from the flux of postmodern culture. Thispoetics is examined in several cases of theatrical representation including Sofia Coppola's filmThe Bling Ring (2013), The Need Company's production The Lobster Shop (2006), KristianSmeds' production The Unknown Soldier (2007) and in several casesof postmodern art and stagedesign.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">Esse artigo trata da relação entre o filme Maria Antonieta e o estilo Rococó. Numa retomada contemporânea, a diretora Sofia Coppola propõe uma nova leitura estética para esta escola artística considerada por alguns críticos como Barroco tardio. A trilha sonora pautada nos anos 1980 introduz no filme uma ambientação mais familiar ao público de massas. Ancorada na atuação da atriz Kirsten Dunst emerge um novo olhar sobre a personalidade da delfina. As relações com a Pop-art também contribuem para a identificação do público com a narrativa.</span></span></p>

The scene of Sofia Coppola’s movie, Marie Antoinette, is made in dialectic with pictorial works, which occur primarily in three forms: classical painting within diegetic space, as an element of scenography; painting as a scene, when the film picture incorporates the pictorial aesthetics of a canonical work; and the re-appropriation of a canonical painting according to the aesthetic molds of the fictional universe of the film in question, which was placed as scenic object.

Se propone una perspectiva feminista emancipatoria orientada a destacar la forma como las directoras Margareth Von Trota, Deepa Mehta y Sofia Coppola abordan las emociones, la corporalidad y formas de reacción de las protagonistas de sus films. Las directoras exploran terrenos afectivos, corporales y políticos en momentos de tensión: cuando la comunidad de mujeres de un internado es amenazada por un predador sexual en la posguerra en el sur convulsionado por la guerra civil El Seductor (Coppola,2017); o a través de la tensa relación político-filial Las Hermanas Alemanas (Von Trotta,1981); o bajo ordenamientos culturales de la cultura India que no considera sujetos jurídicos a las mujeres Fuego, Tierra, Aire, Agua y Cielo (Mehta,1996, 1998, 2005, 2008). Desde perspectivas culturales diversas, las tres directoras han impactado en los feminismos contemporáneos, sin caer en las trivialidades del igualitarismo ni en estereotipos; en contraste con algunas películas comerciales que responden con frivolidad a la creciente demanda de cine feminista.

To the often-studied relationship between dance and cinema, kindred arts of the moving body-moving image, I propose to add an original analysis of the relationship between the sub-genres of historical dance (in particular the social and theatrical dances of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries) and period cinema. To that end, it is not only important to question the extent to which dance is merely illustrative, or serves as a narrative instrument in this type of films, but also how period cinema contributes to the construction of a historical memory of dance.There are several contexts that justify the introduction of a staged dance on film and they depend on a number of choices on the part of the artistic team. In period cinema these choices are particularly delicate, especially when the “world of the play” is relatively unconcerned with historical accuracy. Based on a selection of films including Valmont (1989), by Milos Forman, Jefferson in Paris (1995), by James Ivory, Le Roi danse (1999), by Gérard Corbiau, Marie Antoinette (2006), by Sofia Coppola, and Alan Rickman’s A Little Chaos (2014), I analyse the criteria for the introduction of dance scenes, and reflect not only on their aesthetic and metaphorical effects, but also on their power of transmission, as well as of (de)construction, of a stereotype of historical dance.

In August 2006 the LiveJournal (hereafter LJ) community sga_flashfic posted its bimonthly challenge: a “Mission Report” challenge. Challenge communities are fandom-specific sites where moderators pick a theme or prompt to which writers respond and then post their specific fan works. The terms of this challenge were to encourage participants to invent a new mission and create a piece of fan fiction in the form of a mission report from the point of view of the Stargate Atlantis team of explorers. As an alternative possibility, and this is where the trouble started, the challenge also allowed to “take another author’s story and write a report” of its mission. Moderator Cesperanza then explained, “if you choose to write a mission report of somebody else’s story, we’ll ask you to credit them, but we won’t require you to ask their permission” (sga_flashfic LJ, 21 Aug. 2006, emphasis added). Whereas most announcement posts would only gather a few comments, this reached more than a hundred responses within hours, mostly complaints. Even though the community administrators quickly backtracked and posted a revision of the challenge not 12 hours later, the fannish LiveJournal sphere debated the challenge for days, reaching far beyond the specific fandom of Stargate Atlantis to discuss the ethical questions surrounding fannish appropriation and remix. At the center of the debate were the last eight words: “we won’t require you to ask their permission.” By encouraging fans to effectively write fan fiction of fan fiction and by not requiring permission, the moderators had violated an unwritten norm within this fannish community. Like all fan communities, western media fans have developed internal rules covering everything from what to include in a story header to how long to include a spoiler warning following aired episodes (for a definition and overview of western media fandom, see Coppa). In this example, the mods violated the fannish prohibition against the borrowing of original characters, settings, plot points, or narrative structures from other fan writers without permission—even though as fan fiction, the source of the inspiration engages in such borrowing itself. These kinds of normative rules can be altered, of course, but any change requires long and involved discussions. In this essay, we look at various debates that showcase how this fan community—media fandom on LiveJournal—creates and enforces but also discusses and changes its normative behavior. Fan fiction authors’ desire to prevent their work from being remixed may seem hypocritical, but we argue that underlying these conversations are complex negotiations of online privacy and control, affective aesthetics, and the value of fan labor. This is not to say that all fan communities address issues of remixing in the same way media fandom at this point in time did nor to suggest that they should; rather, we want to highlight a specific community’s internal ethics, the fervor with which members defend their rules, and the complex arguments that evolve from all sides when rules are questioned. Moreover, we suggest that these conversations offer insight into the specific relation many fan writers have to their stories and how it may differ from a more universal authorial affect. In order to fully understand the underlying motivations and the community ethos that spawned the sga_flashfic debates, we first want to differentiate between forms of unauthorised (re)uses and the legal, moral, and artistic concerns they create. Only with a clear definition of copyright infringement and plagiarism, as well as a clear understanding of who is affected (and in what ways) in any of these cases, can we fully understand the social and moral intersection of fan remixing of fan fiction. Only when sidestepping the legal and economic concerns surrounding remix can we focus on the ethical intricacies between copyright holders and fan writers and, more importantly, within fan communities. Fan communities differ greatly over time, between fandoms, and even depending on their central social interfaces (such as con-based zines, email-based listservs, journal-based online communities, etc.), and as a result they also develop a diverse range of internal community rules (Busse and Hellekson, “Works”; Busker). Much strife is caused when different traditions and their associated mores intersect. We’d argue, however, that the issues in the case of the Stargate Atlantis Remix Challenge were less the confrontation of different communities and more the slowly changing attitudes within one. In fact, looking at media fandom today, we may already be seeing changed attitudes—even as the debates continue over remix permission and unauthorised use. Why Remixes Are Not Copyright Infringement In discussing the limits of unauthorised use, it is important to distinguish plagiarism and copyright violation from forms of remix. While we are more concerned with the ethical issues surrounding plagiarism, we want to briefly address copyright infringement, simply because it often gets mixed into the ethics of remixes. Copyright is strictly defined as a matter of law; in many of the online debates in media fandom, it is often further restricted to U.S. Law, because a large number of the source texts are owned by U.S. companies. According to the U.S. Constitution (Article I, Section 8), Congress has the power to secure an “exclusive Right” “for limited Times.” Given that intellectual property rights have to be granted and are limited, legal scholars read this statute as a delicate balance between offering authors exclusive rights and allowing the public to flourish by building on these works. Over the years, however, intellectual property rights have been expanded and increased at the expense of the public commons (Lessig, Boyle). The main exception to this exclusive right is the concept of “fair use,” defined as use “for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching..., scholarship, or research” (§107). Case law circumscribes the limits of fair use, distinguishing works that are merely “derivative” from those that are “transformative” and thus add value (Chander and Sunder, Fiesler, Katyal, McCardle, Tushnet). The legal status of fan fiction remains undefined without a specific case that would test the fair use doctrine in regards to fan fiction, yet fair use and fan fiction advocates argue that fan fiction should be understood as eminently transformative and thus protected under fair use. The nonprofit fan advocacy group, the Organization for Transformative Works, in fact makes clear its position by including the legal term in their name, reflecting a changing understanding of both fans and scholars. Why Remixes Are Not Plagiarism Whereas copyright infringement is a legal concept that punishes violations between fan writers and commercial copyright holders, plagiarism instead is defined by the norms of the audience for which a piece is written: definitions of plagiarism thus differ from academic to journalist to literary contexts. Within fandom one of the most blatant (and most easily detectable) forms of plagiarism is when a fan copies another work wholesale and publishes it under their own name, either within the same fandom or by simply searching and replacing names to make it fit another fandom. Other times, fan writers may take selections of published pro or fan fiction and insert them into their works. Within fandom accusations of plagiarism are taken seriously, and fandom as a whole polices itself with regards to plagiarism: the LiveJournal community stop_plagiarism, for example, was created in 2005 specifically to report and pursue accusations of plagiarism within fandom. The community keeps a list of known plagiarisers that include the names of over 100 fan writers. Fan fiction plagiarism can only be determined on a case-by-case basis—and fans remain hypervigilant simply because they are all too often falsely accused as merely plagiarising when instead they are interpreting, translating, and transforming. There is another form of fannish offense that does not actually constitute plagiarism but is closely connected to it, namely the wholesale reposting of stories with attributions intact. This practice is frowned upon for two main reasons. Writers like to maintain at least some control over their works, often deriving from anxieties over being able to delete one’s digital footprint if desired or necessary. Archiving stories without authorial permission strips authors of this ability. More importantly, media fandom is a gift economy, in which labor is not reimbursed economically but rather rewarded with feedback (such as comments and kudos) and the growth of a writer’s reputation (Hellekson, Scott). Hosting a story in a place where readers cannot easily give thanks and feedback to the author, the rewards for the writer’s fan labor are effectively taken from her. Reposting thus removes the story from the fannish gift exchange—or, worse, inserts the archivist in lieu of the author as the recipient of thanks and comments. Unauthorised reposting is not plagiarism, as the author’s name remains attached, but it tends to go against fannish mores nonetheless as it deprives the writer of her “payment” of feedback and recognition. When Copyright Holders Object to Fan Fiction A small group of professional authors vocally proclaim fan fiction as unethical, illegal, or both. In her “Fan Fiction Rant” Robin Hobbs declares that “Fan fiction is to writing what a cake mix is to gourmet cooking” and then calls it outright theft: “Fan fiction is like any other form of identity theft. It injures the name of the party whose identity is stolen.” Anne Rice shares her feelings about fan fiction on her web site with a permanent message: “I do not allow fan fiction. The characters are copyrighted. It upsets me terribly to even think about fan fiction with my characters. I advise my readers to write your own original stories with your own characters. It is absolutely essential that you respect my wishes.” Diana Gabaldon calls fan fiction immoral and describes, “it makes me want to barf whenever I’ve inadvertently encountered some of it involving my characters.” Moreover, in a move shared by other anti-fan fiction writers, she compares her characters to family members: “I wouldn’t like people writing sex fantasies for public consumption about me or members of my family—why would I be all right with them doing it to the intimate creations of my imagination and personality?” George R.R. Martin similarly evokes familial intimacy when he writes, “My characters are my children, I have been heard to say. I don’t want people making off with them.” What is interesting in these—and other authors’—articulations of why they disapprove of fan fiction of their works is that their strongest and ultimate argument is neither legal nor economic reasoning but an emotional plea: being a good fan means coloring within the lines laid out by the initial creator, putting one’s toys back exactly as one found them, and never ever getting creative or transformative with them. Many fan fiction writers respect these wishes and do not write in book fandoms where the authors have expressed their desires clearly. Sometimes entire archives respect an author’s desires: fanfiction.net, the largest repository of fic online, removed all stories based on Rice’s work and does not allow any new ones to be posted. However, fandom is a heterogeneous culture with no centralised authority, and it is not difficult to find fic based on Rice’s characters and settings if one knows where to look. Most of these debates are restricted to book fandoms, likely for two reasons: (1) film and TV fan fiction alters the medium, so that there is no possibility that the two works might be mistaken for one another; and (2) film and TV authorship tends to be collaborative and thus lowers the individual sense of ownership (Mann, Sellors). How Fannish Remixes Are like Fan Fiction Most fan fiction writers strongly dismiss accusations of plagiarism and theft, two accusations that all too easily are raised against fan fiction and yet, as we have shown, such accusations actually misdefine terms. Fans extensively debate the artistic values of fan fiction, often drawing from classical literary discussions and examples. Clearly echoing Wilde’s creed that “there is no such thing as a moral or immoral book,” Kalichan, for example, argues in one LJ conversation that “whenever I hear about writers asserting that other writing is immoral, I become violently ill. Aside from this, morality & legality are far from necessarily connected. Lots of things are immoral and legal, illegal and moral and so on, in every permutation imaginable, so let’s just not confuse the two, shall we” (Kalichan LJ, 3 May 2010). Aja Romano concludes an epic list of remixed works ranging from the Aeneid to The Wind Done Gone, from All’s Well That Ends Well to Wicked with a passionate appeal to authors objecting to fan fiction: the story is not defined by the barriers you place around it. The moment you gave it to us, those walls broke. You may hate the fact people are imagining more to your story than what you put there. But if I were you, I’d be grateful that I got the chance to create a story that has a culture around it, a story that people want to keep talking about, reworking, remixing, living in, fantasizing about, thinking about, writing about. (Bookshop LJ, 3 May 2010)Many fan writers view their own remixes as part of a larger cultural movement that appropriates found objects and culturally relevant materials to create new things, much like larger twentieth century movements that include Dada and Pop Art, as well as feminist and postcolonial challenges to the literary canon. Finally, fan fiction partakes in 21st century ideas of social anarchy to create a cultural creative commons of openly shared ideas. Fan Cupidsbow describes strong parallels and cross-connection between all sorts of different movements, from Warhol to opensource, DeviantArt to AMV, fanfiction to mashups, sampling to critique and review. All these things are about how people are interacting with technology every day, and not just digital technology, but pens and paper and clothes and food fusions and everything else. (Cupidsbow LJ, 20 May 2009) Legally, of course, these reuses of collectively shared materials are often treated quite differently, which is why fan fiction advocates often maintain that all remixes be treated equally—regardless of whether their source text is film, TV, literature, or fan fiction. The Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works, for example, does not distinguish in its Content and Abuse Policy section between commercial and fan works in regard to plagiarism and copyright. Returning to the initial case of the Stargate Atlantis Mission Report Challenge, we can thus see how the moderator clearly positions herself within a framework that considers all remixes equally remixable. Even after changing the guidelines to require permission for the remixing of existing fan stories, moderator Cesperanza notes that she “remain[s] philosophically committed to the idea that people have the right to make art based on other art provided that due credit is given the original artist” (sga_flashfic LJ, 21 Aug. 2006). Indeed, other fans agree with her position in the ensuing discussions, drawing attention to the hypocrisy of demanding different rules for what appears to be the exact same actions: “So explain to me how you can defend fanfiction as legitimate derivative work if it’s based on one type of source material (professional writing or TV shows), yet decry it as ‘stealing’ and plagiarism if it’s based on another type of source material (fanfiction)” (Marythefan LJ, 21 Aug. 2006). Many fans assert that all remixes should be tolerated by the creators of their respective source texts—be they pro or fan. Fans expect Rowling to be accepting of Harry Potter’s underage romance with a nice and insecure Severus Snape, and they expect Matthew Weiner to be accepting of stories that kill off Don Draper and have his (ex)wives join a commune together. So fans should equally accept fan fiction that presents the grand love of Rodney McKay and John Sheppard, the most popular non-canonical fan fiction pairing on Stargate Atlantis, to be transformed into an abusive and manipulative relationship or rewritten with one of them dying tragically. Lydiabell, for example, argues that “there’s [no]thing wrong with creating a piece of art that uses elements of another work to create something new, always assuming that proper credit is given to the original... even if your interpretation is at odds with everything the original artist wanted to convey” (Lydiabell LJ, 22 Aug. 2006). Transforming works can often move them into territory that is critical of the source text, mocks the source text, rearranges relationships, and alters characterisations. It is here that we reach the central issue of this article: many fans indeed do view intrafandom interactions as fundamentally different to their interactions with professional authors or commercial entertainment companies. While everyone agrees that there are no legal, economic, or even ultimately moral arguments to be made against remixing fan fiction (because any such argument would nullify the fan’s right to create their fan fiction in the first place), the discourses against open remixing tend to revolve around community norms, politeness, and respect. How Fannish Remixes Are Not like Fan Fiction At the heart of the debate lie issues of community norms: taking another fan’s stories as the basis for one’s own fiction is regarded as a violation of manners, at least the way certain sections of the community define them. This, in fact, is not unlike the way many fan academics engage with fandom research. While it may be perfectly legal to directly cite fans’ blog posts, and while it may even be in compliance with institutional ethical research requirements (such as Internal Review Boards at U.S. universities), the academic fan writing about her own community may indeed choose to take extra precautions to protect herself and that community. As Kristina Busse and Karen Hellekson have argued, fan studies often exists at the intersection of language and social studies, and thus written text may simultaneously be treated as artistic works and as utterances by human subjects (“Identity”). In this essay (and elsewhere), we thus limit direct linking into fannish spaces, instead giving site, date, and author, and we have consent from all fans we cite in this essay. The community of fans who write fic in a particular fandom is relatively small, and most of them are familiar with each other, or can trace a connection via one or two degrees of separation only. While writing fan fiction about Harry Potter may influence the way you and your particular circle of friends interpret the novels, it is unlikely to affect the overall reception of the work. During the remix debate, fan no_pseud articulates the differing power dynamic: When someone bases fanfic on another piece of fanfic, the balance of power in the relationship between the two things is completely different to the relationship between a piece of fanfic and the canon source. The two stories have exactly equal authority, exactly equal validity, exactly equal ‘reality’ in fandom. (nopseud LJ, 21 Aug. 2006) Within fandom, there are few stories that have the kind of reach that professional fiction does, and it is just as likely that a fan will come across an unauthorised remix of a piece of fan fiction as the original piece itself. In that way, the reception of fan fiction is more fragile, and fans are justifiably anxious about it. In a recent conversation about proper etiquette within Glee fandom, fan writer flaming_muse articulates her reasons for expecting different behavior from fandom writers who borrow ideas from each other: But there’s a huge difference between fanfic of media and fanfic of other fanfic authors. Part of it is a question of the relationship of the author to the source material … but part of it is just about not hurting or diminishing the other creative people around you. We aren’t hurting Glee by writing fic in their ‘verse; we are hurting other people if we write fanfic of fanfic. We’re taking away what’s special about their particular stories and all of the work they put into them. (Stoney321 LJ, 12 Feb. 2012)Flaming_muse brings together several concepts but underlying all is a sense of community. Thus she equates remixing within the community without permission as a violation of fannish etiquette. The sense of community also plays a role in another reason given by fans who prefer permission, which is the actual ease of getting it. Many fandoms are fairly small communities, which makes it more possible to ask for permission before doing a translation, adaptation, or other kind of rewrite of another person’s fic. Often a fan may have already given feedback to the story or shared some form of conversation with the writer, so that requesting permission seems fairly innocuous. Moreover, fandom is a community based on the economy of gifting and sharing (Hellekson), so that etiquette becomes that much more important. Unlike pro authors who are financially reimbursed for their works, feedback is effectively a fan writer’s only payment. Getting comments, kudos, or recommendations for their stories are ways in which readers reward and thank the writers for their work. Many fans feel that a gift economy functions only through the goodwill of all its participants, which remixing without permission violates. How Fan Writing May Differ From Pro Writing Fans have a different emotional investment in their creations, only partially connected to writing solely for love (as opposed to professional writers who may write for love but also write for their livelihood in the best-case scenarios). One fan, who writes both pro and fan fiction, describes her more distanced emotional involvement with her professional writing as follows, When I’m writing for money, I limit my emotional investment in the material I produce. Ultimately what I am producing does not belong to me. Someone else is buying it and I am serving their needs, not my own. (St_Crispins LJ, 27 Aug. 2006)The sense of writing for oneself as part of a community also comes through in a comment by pro and fan writer Matociquala, who describes the specificity and often quite limited audience of fan fiction as follows: Fanfiction is written in the expectation of being enjoyed in an open membership but tight-knit community, and the writer has an expectation of being included in the enjoyment and discussion. It is the difference, in other words, between throwing a fair on the high road, and a party in a back yard. Sure, you might be able to see what’s going on from the street, but you’re expected not to stare. (Matociquala LJ, 18 May 2006)What we find important here is the way both writers seem to suggest that fan fiction allows for a greater intimacy and immediacy on the whole. So while not all writers write to fulfill (their own or other’s) emotional and narrative desires, this seems to be more acceptable in fan fiction. Intimacy, i.e., the emotional and, often sexual, openness and vulnerability readers and writers exhibit in the stories and surrounding interaction, can thus constitute a central aspect for readers and writers alike. Again, none of these aspects are particular to fan fiction alone, but, unlike in much other writing, they are such a central component that the stories divorced from their context—textual, social, and emotional—may not be fully comprehensible. In a discussion several years ago, Ellen Fremedon coined the term Id Vortex, by which she refers to that very tailored and customised writing that caters to the writers’ and/or readers’ kinks, that creates stories that not only move us emotionally because we already care about the characters but also because it uses tropes, characterisations, and scenes that appeal very viscerally: In fandom, we’ve all got this agreement to just suspend shame. I mean, a lot of what we write is masturbation material, and we all know it, and so we can’t really pretend that we’re only trying to write for our readers’ most rarefied sensibilities, you know? We all know right where the Id Vortex is, and we have this agreement to approach it with caution, but without any shame at all. (Ellen Fremedon LJ, 2 Dec. 2004)Writing stories for a particular sexual kink may be the most obvious way fans tailor stories to their own (or others’) desires, but in general, fan stories often seem to be more immediate, more intimate, more revealing than most published writing. This attachment is only strengthened by fans’ immense emotional attachment to the characters, as they may spend years if not decades rewatching their show, discussing all its details, and reading and writing stories upon stories. From Community to Commons These norms and mores continue to evolve as fannish activity becomes more and more visible to the mainstream, and new generations of fans enter fandom within a culture where media is increasingly spreadable across social networks and all fannish activity is collectively described and recognised as “fandom” (Jenkins, Ford, and Green). The default mode of the mainstream often treats “found” material as disseminable, and interfaces encourage such engagement by inviting users to “share” on their collection of social networks. As a result, many new fans see remixing as not only part of their fannish right, but engage in their activity on platforms that make sharing with or without attribution both increasingly easy and normative. Tumblr is the most recent and obvious example of a platform in which reblogging other users’ posts, with or without commentary, is the normative mode. Instead of (or in addition to) uploading one’s story to an archive, a fan writer might post it on Tumblr and consider reblogs as another form of feedback. In fact, our case study and its associated differentiation of legal, moral, and artistic justifications for and against remixing fan works, may indeed be an historical artifact in its own right: media fandom as a small and well-defined community of fans with a common interest and a shared history is the exception rather than the norm in today’s fan culture. When access to stories and other fans required personal initiation, it was easy to teach and enforce a community ethos. Now, however, fan fiction tops Google searches for strings that include both Harry and Draco or Spock and Uhura, and fan art is readily reblogged by sites for shows ranging from MTV’s Teen Wolf to NBC’s Hannibal. 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