Kristina Busse and I are planning a book called Reading Fanfiction/Fanfiction Readings, which will be a collection of close readings of fanfiction stories. The goal is to treat the stories as literary works with their own preoccupations quite apart from the source text’s meanings and pre-occupations; our collection will ask the question, “What is the fanfiction writer using the fandom to think about?”
In putting this proposal together, I found myself reviewing the works of particularly literary fanfiction scholars, so I might do a few posts shouting out literary acafans, particularly those who do readings of particular stories. One scholar who came to mind was Khaliah Reed, and her essay Fanfiction as Performative Criticism: Harry Potter Racebending. Reed argues that fanfiction writers “are blurring demarcation lines between creative writing and literary criticism,” but comes down in many ways on the creative side of that equation with particular style and verve.
Reed starts with a quote from Tumblr user Vondellswain about racebending; this quote serves as an excellent manifesto for fanfiction writing in general:
All my interpretations are based squarely in canon. But if they weren’t, that would be damn well acceptable. Squeeze representation out of anywhere you can feel it and fabricate the rest. Own your fiction.
Reed later analyzes the fanfiction story “Black” by Potterworm and celebrates the way the story is interested in the particular social and political realities of people of color. This is the part of the story that that Potterworm innovates. As Reed notes:
Racebending allows Potterworm to directly insert perspectives of marginalized people where they explore and vocalize the experience and concerns of people of color. Consider, for example, the way that Potterworm writes Hermione’s discovery of her blackness. Potterworm takes the canonical backstory of Hermione—her intelligence and ‘know-it-all’ attitude isolated her from her peers—and uses this to set the backdrop for her first encounter with racism. Hermione considered Bobby her first (and only) friend, and unfortunately, one day he abruptly refuses to play with her anymore:
“Get away from me,” he yells, and then he screams a word that Hermione hasn’t read and doesn’t know. But she’s a smart girl – she’s never gotten less than a perfect report card – and she can read his body language. She knows he just said a mean word, and she knows friends don’t yell mean words at friends …(Years later, Hermione’s parents will tell her that Bobby’s father was an abusive drunk, and he hated black people, and he told Bobbynot to be friends with her. Bobby was just a scared little boy … Now, though, it doesn’t matter. Now he’s just a little boy, and Hermione is just a little girl, and they are not friends anymore). (“Black” Ch.1)
Reed further argues that ““Black” and fanfiction that uses racebending forces the reader to not only think about race but also to think about it in ways that may create discomfort for the reader,” and notes that “In Potterworm’s story, in spite of Ron’s personal experience with class prejudice, Hermione still must explain to Ron what being black and being muggleborn means.” It’s Potterworm who brings the intersectionality, having Hermione note: “I’m black in the muggle world, and I’m black and a muggleborn here.”
For a long time, we’ve seen fanfiction as doing a reading of the source text – and of course it is. But fanfiction is also about expressing fanfiction writers’ own preoccupations, which are sometimes not in the source text. The preoccupation with the Black experience isn’t Rowling’s; it’s Potterworm’s own contribution. Squeeze representation out anywhere you can feel it. Fabricate the rest. Own your fiction.