OKAY, SO. (I have Thoughts. Now I shall share them!)
That theorist's use of the phrase "dominant class" reminded me immediately of this post, in which ivyblossom discusses the recent Gabaldon thing by contextualising fandom and -fic as a communal language, or as a communally-developed and -understood way of communicating through our readings/enjoyment of media. As much as fannish activity either flatters or disgusts the people who make the media in the first place (and don't get me started on categorising TPTB as a "dominant class", because all my thoughts on that end up here), it usually has little if anything to do with *them*; I've seen Death of the Author references all over the Gabaldon thing, and while I know you, as a Published Author, have issues with Death in that sense (*g*), it's kind of a useful reference to make when explaining how the work can spawn fannish activities entirely separate from anything the author could have intended, wanted, or even conceived.
On an even simpler level, while there are certainly people who write fic and make vids and etc in explicit subversion of something to do with the source (like all the SPN vids critiquing the show's use of women), there are even more of us who use fandom and its creative expressions not, as you put it, "to resist the subordinating hegemonies of industrial production", but to share (and/or prolong) an enjoyable experience. As a culture, fandom allows both reasons for involvement (and probably more besides!), but yeah, that decades old K/S theory imposes a political interpretation where one does not necessarily exist.
Thoughts boiled down: I agree with you! I, personally, am not in fandom for political reasons; I'm here because I like certain stories a heck of a lot, and either want more of them than the canon story provides, or want to share them with likeminded others. (I also agree with your "fic can't fix the show" feeling. While I have written any number of spackle stories to address things that I felt weren't explored particularly well in the source, I am under no illusions that my fic will necessarily be seen as spackle by *anyone other than me*. I mean, I *hope* that my spackle will work for other people in the fandom, because that goes back to the "shared language/ experience" thing. If someone else comments to say that they've adopted my story into their personal fanon, that's *something*--and, like Scully's strawberry shampoo, it's occasionally something that has a widespread impact on the fannish community [heck, *I* get that reference, and I've never read a stitch of XF fic]--but it stops with fandom. Fanon != Canon. The end!)
...my boiled down version didn't boil down enough, apparently. Woooooooooooooooords!
no subject
That theorist's use of the phrase "dominant class" reminded me immediately of this post, in which
On an even simpler level, while there are certainly people who write fic and make vids and etc in explicit subversion of something to do with the source (like all the SPN vids critiquing the show's use of women), there are even more of us who use fandom and its creative expressions not, as you put it, "to resist the subordinating hegemonies of industrial production", but to share (and/or prolong) an enjoyable experience. As a culture, fandom allows both reasons for involvement (and probably more besides!), but yeah, that decades old K/S theory imposes a political interpretation where one does not necessarily exist.
Thoughts boiled down: I agree with you! I, personally, am not in fandom for political reasons; I'm here because I like certain stories a heck of a lot, and either want more of them than the canon story provides, or want to share them with likeminded others. (I also agree with your "fic can't fix the show" feeling. While I have written any number of spackle stories to address things that I felt weren't explored particularly well in the source, I am under no illusions that my fic will necessarily be seen as spackle by *anyone other than me*. I mean, I *hope* that my spackle will work for other people in the fandom, because that goes back to the "shared language/ experience" thing. If someone else comments to say that they've adopted my story into their personal fanon, that's *something*--and, like Scully's strawberry shampoo, it's occasionally something that has a widespread impact on the fannish community [heck, *I* get that reference, and I've never read a stitch of XF fic]--but it stops with fandom. Fanon != Canon. The end!)
...my boiled down version didn't boil down enough, apparently. Woooooooooooooooords!