Real person fiction
Encyclopedia
Real person fiction is a type of fan fiction
featuring celebrities or other real people. In the past, terms such as actorfic were used to distinguish such stories from those based on fictional characters from movies or television series.
Before the term "real person fiction" came into common usage, fans came up with a variety of terms, which are still used for specific genres or cultural practices in the RPF community; for example, musicfic, popslash, or actorfic. The genre
includes stories about actors, athletes, comedians, historical figures, musicians, newsworthy people, reality show contestants and others, as well as fiction about the fans themselves.
, or with mention of the celebrity's real-life families, or with stories involving suicide, murder, or rape. Like most fan fiction, the RPF genre includes stories of every kind, from innocuous to sadistic to pornographic. Like many fan fiction writers whose subject matter is commercially-prepared entertainment, particularly before the advent of the Internet, a number of RPF authors report that they began writing on their own, without any awareness of a larger fan fiction community, and were surprised to learn that they were not alone. Many report having been completely unaware of media fandom's taboo
towards RPF; that is, many fans believe it is acceptable to write about the characters, but not about the actors who portray them.
Depictions of actors in RPF stories are often heavily influenced by characters the actors portray. This is particularly noticeable in The Lord of the Rings RPF, where Viggo Mortensen
is frequently shown as taking an Aragorn
-like leadership role, Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan
as lighthearted Hobbit
-like pranksters, and Elijah Wood
as more physically fragile and emotionally vulnerable than his colleagues.
Between one fifth and one third of these stories may take the form of a "Mary Sue" story. Mary Sue is a pejorative term used to describe a character, usually but not always female, who is described in extremely idealistic terms and is supposedly always a wish-fantasy image of the author. She or he may become romantically involved with a band member or actor, join the cast, prove to have superior acting or singing ability, and incredible beauty. A number of RPF fans find these Mary Sues (or Gary Stus) distasteful and sometimes bash
them. A small number of RPF writers are apparently under the belief
that a celebrity is involved in a real relationship with another celebrity, and go as far as to spend large amounts of time searching for proof of this relationship. By writing RPF stories, these people believe they can "prove" that a particular pair of celebrities are in a relationship
. Politician fic is sometimes used as a form of satire, or to highlight the underlying biases or attitudes of the politician being portrayed, although more recently there has been an increase in more 'ordinary' fanfiction about British politicians in particular, with a notable emphasis on slash.
children from 1826 to approximately 1844. Based on the children's roleplaying game about the Napoleonic Wars
, the series featured the Duke of Wellington
and his two (actual) sons Charles and Arthur, and their arch-nemesis Alexander Percy, partly based on Napoleon. Over the years, Arthur evolved into an amazingly charismatic and powerful figure, the Duke of Zamorna. Percy became a tragic villain, partly inspired by John Milton
's version of Satan from Paradise Lost
. These stories were not published until well over a hundred years later, but the children used them to polish their writing skills and eventually all became professional authors.
In the early 1920s, Seigneur Books published the series “Fatty Arbuckle
and the Time Pirates.” Inspired by the actor’s career-ending scandal, the novellas depicted a time-traveling Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle forcibly raping famous historical figures.
During the 1940s, the Whitman Publishing Company
released authorized editions of real-person fiction, possibly as a boost to the careers of the Hollywood stars of that era. Described as "The Newest, Up-To-The-Minute Mystery and Adventure Stories for Boys and Girls, featuring your favorite characters," a variety of famous actors and actresses were spotlighted, including Ginger Rogers
, Betty Grable
, John Payne
, Ann Sheridan
, Jane Withers
, Bonita Granville
, Gene Autry
, Deanna Durbin
and Ann Rutherford
. Along with the celebrity titles, Whitman also published books adapted from comic strip
s, including Boots and Her Buddies
, Terry and the Pirates
, Joyce and the Secret Squad, Tillie the Toiler
, Nina and Skeezix
, Invisible Scarlet O'Neil
, Polly the Powers Model, The Adventures of Smilin' Jack
, Red Ryder
, Blondie
and Dagwood, Little Orphan Annie
, Brenda Starr
, and Dick Tracy
. The hardcover publications had colorful dustjackets with a photo of the celebrity on the front, and several illustrations of the actor or actress inside the volume. Liberties were taken with the identities of the celebrities; for example, in the story "Ginger Rogers and the Riddle of the Scarlet Cloak," the "Ginger Rogers" character is not an actress at all, but is instead a humble telephone operator who becomes involved in a mystery.
Elliot Roosevelt wrote a series of detective novels casting his real-life mother Eleanor Roosevelt
in the role of a crimesolving sleuth, with titles like Murder and the First Lady
, Murder in the Oval Office
, and Murder in the Lincoln Bedroom.
Modern fan stories go back to Frank Sinatra
, The Beatles
, and Elvis Presley
. Jean Lorrah's Visit to a Weird Planet, published in Spockanalia 3 (1968), was a lighthearted two-parter about what would happen if a transporter malfunction caused the Star Trek characters to be swapped with the 20th-century actors who played them. Regina Marvinny, editor of Tricorder Readings, encouraged fans in the early 1970s to write "what-if" stories about meeting Leonard Nimoy
. However, some of the earliest known published cases of RPF come from 1977, when fanzine
s of the band Led Zeppelin
began to print some of the fan fiction being written. Due to the fact that these stories involved real Zeppelin bandmembers, most notably Jimmy Page
and Robert Plant
, names were changed to pseudonym
s such as "Tris" and "Alex".
A number of authors of modern bandfic – stories based on musical celebrities – began writing in the early 1980s, when MTV
brought musicians into close focus for millions of adolescents. Others wrote humorous short stories about Paul Darrow
from Blake's 7
. Some of these stories may have circulated in fanzine form, but there was little community and many authors remained unaware of others doing similar work. It was not until the 1990s and the spread of the Internet
that RPF began to increase in popularity.
The RPF community was, for a period of time, centered around the FanFiction.Net
website. When the RPF section was removed from Fanfiction.net, the community dispersed to smaller web archives and LiveJournal
communities. RPF is generally totally absent from Usenet, especially in older and more established newsgroups. However, Quizilla
is a popular choice these days for younger people wanting to read or write RPF.
Another popular website for RPF chosen by youth fanfic writers is Winglin.net or asianfanfics.com, which is more commonly centered around Taiwanese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese or Chinese musicians and actors, like TVXQ
, Super Junior
, Big Bang
, SHINee
, Mike He
, S.H.E
and others.
Some authors of traditional fan fiction
view real person fiction with suspicion, disdain, or outright disgust. Some feel that fanfic based on fictional characters is on shaky enough legal ground, barely tolerated by "the powers that be" (authors, producers, copyright owners) and that RPF, especially real person slash, may turn corporate and public opinion against fan fiction as a whole.
The often included disclaimer
in story headers, stating that the work is pure fiction
, protects Real Person Fiction from slander and libel.
To date, unlike traditional fan fiction, only one cease and desist
letter is known to have been issued against RPF: FanDomination.Net received this letter on March 17, 2003 from a representative of one of the members of the New York Yankees
baseball team. The substance of the complaint against the site was related to a story entitled "If There's Gray Hair On The Field, Play With Balls." The complaint alleged that the story's depiction of a present-day homosexual encounter between former Yankees players Virgil Trucks
, Rugger Ardizoia
, and Eddie Bockman
, all of whom are currently in their nineties, was harmful to the Yankees brand and to the reputations of the players depicted.
for more on the subtleties and variations in definition.) These are usually complete fabrications, not based on any real-life indications of the subject's sexual preference, but on the fantasies of the author and the desire to experiment with perceived or invented homoerotic subtext
between the idols in question. Slash is roughly equal in popularity to less controversial types of real person fiction.
The content of the stories can range from the mildly romantic, involving deep friendships and innocent boyhood or girlhood crush
es, to carefully written homosexual love stories, all the way to profoundly explicit erotica.
With the advent of boy bands, fans wrote an explosion of fictional stories about male members being involved in romantic relations with one another. In the 1990s, early online RPS communities were devoted to depictions of boy bands. Most of it was slash. Older RPF communities also began to see a rise in slash content, in contrast to earlier stories, which had generally featured original (non-"canon") female characters as partners for band members.
As slash became more acceptable, the amount of explicit sexual content in the stories also began to rise. Erotic fan stories have certainly been around for as long as other types of fanfic, but they were often a closed-door affair, circulated only in private among friends, and it is unclear whether homosexual content was a common theme. With the advent of the Internet
(allowing easy distribution of stories and relative anonymity for authors), stories with explicit content suddenly became much more widespread.
Due to the potentially libelous nature of some stories, and the knowledge or fear that some celebrities dislike slash fiction involving themselves, some fan fiction communities denounce RPS fiction and do not allow it on their websites.
, Elijah Wood
, Ian McKellen
, who were both given real person fic featuring them and their significant others in sexually explicit situations. Both Elijah Wood and Ian McKellen, as well as Karl Urban
, have stated that they do not mind RPF being written about them. Elijah Wood has publicly given a nod to the creativity of slash groups on the Graham Norton show during an interview post LOTR, this was a comment based on Manipulated photos that went with Slash and RPS stories on specific website. Elijah has also mentioned the web site numerous times stating that it is one of the most creative endeavors he's seen.
In 2008 a man was arrested in the UK for writing and publishing on the internet a story featuring various members of the band Girls Aloud
under the Obscene Publications Act
. The story described the kidnap, rape and murder of the girls. He was subsequently found not guilty and claimed that he had never intended to frighten or intimidate the band members.
Fan fiction
Fan fiction is a broadly-defined term for fan labor regarding stories about characters or settings written by fans of the original work, rather than by the original creator...
featuring celebrities or other real people. In the past, terms such as actorfic were used to distinguish such stories from those based on fictional characters from movies or television series.
Before the term "real person fiction" came into common usage, fans came up with a variety of terms, which are still used for specific genres or cultural practices in the RPF community; for example, musicfic, popslash, or actorfic. The genre
Genre
Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...
includes stories about actors, athletes, comedians, historical figures, musicians, newsworthy people, reality show contestants and others, as well as fiction about the fans themselves.
Description
In general, the authors seem to adopt the public personas of the celebrities in question as their own characters, building a fictional universe based on the supposed real-life histories of their idols. Information from interviews, documentaries, music videos and other publicity sources are assimilated into the "wank corpus" on which the stories are based. It is also very popular to write fiction about celebrity couples. Communities of writers build collective archetypes based on the celebrities' public personas. Communities also develop their own ethics on what sort of stories are acceptable – some are uncomfortable with slash fictionSlash fiction
Slash fiction is a genre of fan fiction that focuses on the depiction of romantic or sexual relationships between fictional characters of the same sex...
, or with mention of the celebrity's real-life families, or with stories involving suicide, murder, or rape. Like most fan fiction, the RPF genre includes stories of every kind, from innocuous to sadistic to pornographic. Like many fan fiction writers whose subject matter is commercially-prepared entertainment, particularly before the advent of the Internet, a number of RPF authors report that they began writing on their own, without any awareness of a larger fan fiction community, and were surprised to learn that they were not alone. Many report having been completely unaware of media fandom's taboo
Taboo
A taboo is a strong social prohibition relating to any area of human activity or social custom that is sacred and or forbidden based on moral judgment, religious beliefs and or scientific consensus. Breaking the taboo is usually considered objectionable or abhorrent by society...
towards RPF; that is, many fans believe it is acceptable to write about the characters, but not about the actors who portray them.
Depictions of actors in RPF stories are often heavily influenced by characters the actors portray. This is particularly noticeable in The Lord of the Rings RPF, where Viggo Mortensen
Viggo Mortensen
Viggo Peter Mortensen, Jr. is a Danish-American actor, poet, musician, photographer and painter. He made his film debut in Peter Weir's 1985 thriller Witness, and subsequently appeared in many notable films of the 1990s, including The Indian Runner , Carlito's Way , Crimson Tide , Daylight , The...
is frequently shown as taking an Aragorn
Aragorn
Aragorn II is a fictional character from J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, one of the main protagonists of The Lord of the Rings. He is first introduced by the name Strider, which the hobbits continue to call him...
-like leadership role, Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan
Dominic Monaghan
Dominic Bernard Patrick Luke Monaghan is an English actor. He has received international attention from playing Merry in Peter Jackson's adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and for his role as Charlie Pace on the television show Lost....
as lighthearted Hobbit
Hobbit
Hobbits are a fictional diminutive race who inhabit the lands of Middle-earth in J. R. R. Tolkien's fiction.Hobbits first appeared in the novel The Hobbit, in which the main protagonist, Bilbo Baggins, is the titular hobbit...
-like pranksters, and Elijah Wood
Elijah Wood
Elijah Jordan Wood is an American actor. He made his film debut with a minor part in Back to the Future Part II , then landed a succession of larger roles that made him a critically acclaimed child actor by age 9. He is best known for his high-profile role as Frodo Baggins in Peter Jackson's...
as more physically fragile and emotionally vulnerable than his colleagues.
Between one fifth and one third of these stories may take the form of a "Mary Sue" story. Mary Sue is a pejorative term used to describe a character, usually but not always female, who is described in extremely idealistic terms and is supposedly always a wish-fantasy image of the author. She or he may become romantically involved with a band member or actor, join the cast, prove to have superior acting or singing ability, and incredible beauty. A number of RPF fans find these Mary Sues (or Gary Stus) distasteful and sometimes bash
Bashing (pejorative)
Bashing is a harsh, gratuitous, prejudicial attack on a person, group or subject. Literally, bashing is a term meaning to hit or assault, but when it is used as a suffix, or in conjunction with a noun indicating the subject being attacked, it is normally used to imply that the act is motivated by...
them. A small number of RPF writers are apparently under the belief
OTP
Technology* One-time programmable, a type of programmable read-only memory in electronics* One-time pad in cryptography* One-time password, an authentication mechanism, usually in computer security...
that a celebrity is involved in a real relationship with another celebrity, and go as far as to spend large amounts of time searching for proof of this relationship. By writing RPF stories, these people believe they can "prove" that a particular pair of celebrities are in a relationship
Shipping (fandom)
Shipping, derived from the word relationship, is the belief that two fictional characters, typically from the same series, are in an intimate relationship, or have romantic feelings that could potentially lead to a relationship. It is considered a general term for fans' emotional involvement with...
. Politician fic is sometimes used as a form of satire, or to highlight the underlying biases or attitudes of the politician being portrayed, although more recently there has been an increase in more 'ordinary' fanfiction about British politicians in particular, with a notable emphasis on slash.
History
The earliest known RPF was written by the BrontëBrontë
The Brontës were a nineteenth-century literary family associated with Haworth in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. The sisters, Charlotte , Emily , and Anne , are well-known as poets and novelists...
children from 1826 to approximately 1844. Based on the children's roleplaying game about the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
, the series featured the Duke of Wellington
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS , was an Irish-born British soldier and statesman, and one of the leading military and political figures of the 19th century...
and his two (actual) sons Charles and Arthur, and their arch-nemesis Alexander Percy, partly based on Napoleon. Over the years, Arthur evolved into an amazingly charismatic and powerful figure, the Duke of Zamorna. Percy became a tragic villain, partly inspired by John Milton
John Milton
John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...
's version of Satan from Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse...
. These stories were not published until well over a hundred years later, but the children used them to polish their writing skills and eventually all became professional authors.
In the early 1920s, Seigneur Books published the series “Fatty Arbuckle
Fatty Arbuckle
Roscoe Conkling "Fatty" Arbuckle was an American silent film actor, comedian, director, and screenwriter. Starting at the Selig Polyscope Company he eventually moved to Keystone Studios where he worked with Mabel Normand and Harold Lloyd...
and the Time Pirates.” Inspired by the actor’s career-ending scandal, the novellas depicted a time-traveling Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle forcibly raping famous historical figures.
During the 1940s, the Whitman Publishing Company
Western Publishing
Western Publishing, also known as Western Printing and Lithographing Company was a Racine, Wisconsin firm responsible for publishing the Little Golden Books. Western Publishing also produced children's books and family-related entertainment products as Golden Books Family Entertainment...
released authorized editions of real-person fiction, possibly as a boost to the careers of the Hollywood stars of that era. Described as "The Newest, Up-To-The-Minute Mystery and Adventure Stories for Boys and Girls, featuring your favorite characters," a variety of famous actors and actresses were spotlighted, including Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers was an American actress, dancer, and singer who appeared in film, and on stage, radio, and television throughout much of the 20th century....
, Betty Grable
Betty Grable
Elizabeth Ruth "Betty" Grable was an American actress, dancer and singer.Her iconic bathing suit photo made her the number-one pin-up girl of the World War II era. It was later included in the LIFE magazine project "100 Photos that Changed the World"...
, John Payne
John Payne (actor)
John Payne was an American film actor who is mainly remembered as a singer in 20th Century Fox musical films, and for his leading roles in Miracle on 34th Street and the NBC western television series The Restless Gun.-Background:Payne was born in Roanoke, Virginia...
, Ann Sheridan
Ann Sheridan
-Life and career:Born Clara Lou Sheridan in Denton, Texas on February 21, 1915, she was a student at the University of North Texas when her sister sent a photograph of her to Paramount Pictures. She subsequently entered and won a beauty contest, with part of her prize being a bit part in a...
, Jane Withers
Jane Withers
Jane Withers is an American actress best known for being one of the most popular child film stars of the 1930s and early 1940s, as well as for her portrayal of "Josephine the Plumber" in a series of TV commercials for Comet cleanser in the 1960s and early 1970s.-Biography:Withers began her career...
, Bonita Granville
Bonita Granville
Bonita Granville was an American film actress and television producer.-Early life:Born in Chicago, Illinois, Granville was the daughter of stage actors, and made her film debut at the age of nine in Westward Passage...
, Gene Autry
Gene Autry
Orvon Grover Autry , better known as Gene Autry, was an American performer who gained fame as The Singing Cowboy on the radio, in movies and on television for more than three decades beginning in the 1930s...
, Deanna Durbin
Deanna Durbin
Deanna Durbin is a Canadian-born, Southern California-raised retired singer and actress, who appeared in a number of musical films in the 1930s and 1940s singing standards as well as operatic arias....
and Ann Rutherford
Ann Rutherford
Ann Rutherford is a Canadian-American actress in film, radio, and television. She has had a long career starring and co-starring in films, playing Polly Benedict on the big screen of the 1930s and 1940s in the Andy Hardy series, and on The Bob Newhart Show as Newhart's character's...
. Along with the celebrity titles, Whitman also published books adapted from comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
s, including Boots and Her Buddies
Boots and Her Buddies
Boots and Her Buddies is an American comic strip by Edgar Everett Martin. Syndicated by the Newspaper Enterprise Association, it ran from 1924 to 1969. Some newspapers ran the strip under the shortened title Boots...
, Terry and the Pirates
Terry and the Pirates
Terry and the Pirates is the title of:* Terry and the Pirates , the comic strip created by Milton Caniff* Terry and the Pirates , a radio serial based on the comic strip...
, Joyce and the Secret Squad, Tillie the Toiler
Tillie the Toiler
Tillie the Toiler was a newspaper comic strip created by cartoonist Russ Westover who initially worked on his concept of a flapper character in a strip he titled Rose of the Office...
, Nina and Skeezix
Gasoline Alley
Gasoline Alley is a comic strip created by Frank King and currently distributed by Tribune Media Services. First published November 24, 1918, it is the second longest running comic strip in the US and has received critical accolades for its influential innovations...
, Invisible Scarlet O'Neil
Invisible Scarlet O'Neil
Invisible Scarlet O'Neil is an American comic strip written and drawn by Russell Stamm. Published by the Chicago Times, it ran from June 3, 1940 to 1956....
, Polly the Powers Model, The Adventures of Smilin' Jack
The Adventures of Smilin' Jack
The Adventures of Smilin' Jack was an aviation comic strip that first appeared October 1, 1933 in the Chicago Tribune and ended April 1, 1973....
, Red Ryder
Red Ryder
Red Ryder was a popular long-running Western comic strip created by Stephen Slesinger and artist Fred Harman. Beginning Sunday, November 6, 1938, Red Ryder was syndicated by Newspaper Enterprise Association, expanding over the following decade to 750 newspapers, translations into ten languages and...
, Blondie
Blondie (comic strip)
Blondie is an American comic strip created by cartoonist Chic Young. Distributed by King Features Syndicate, the strip has been published in newspapers since September 8, 1930...
and Dagwood, Little Orphan Annie
Little Orphan Annie
Little Orphan Annie was a daily American comic strip created by Harold Gray and syndicated by Tribune Media Services. The strip took its name from the 1885 poem "Little Orphant Annie" by James Whitcomb Riley, and made its debut on August 5, 1924 in the New York Daily News...
, Brenda Starr
Brenda Starr
Brenda Starr may refer to:* Brenda Starr, Reporter, a comic strip about a female reporter* Brenda Starr, a 1989 film based on the comic strip* Brenda Starr, Reporter, a 1945 film serial based on the comic strip...
, and Dick Tracy
Dick Tracy
Dick Tracy is a comic strip featuring Dick Tracy, a hard-hitting, fast-shooting and intelligent police detective. Created by Chester Gould, the strip made its debut on October 4, 1931, in the Detroit Mirror. It was distributed by the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate...
. The hardcover publications had colorful dustjackets with a photo of the celebrity on the front, and several illustrations of the actor or actress inside the volume. Liberties were taken with the identities of the celebrities; for example, in the story "Ginger Rogers and the Riddle of the Scarlet Cloak," the "Ginger Rogers" character is not an actress at all, but is instead a humble telephone operator who becomes involved in a mystery.
Elliot Roosevelt wrote a series of detective novels casting his real-life mother Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was the First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945. She supported the New Deal policies of her husband, distant cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and became an advocate for civil rights. After her husband's death in 1945, Roosevelt continued to be an international...
in the role of a crimesolving sleuth, with titles like Murder and the First Lady
First Lady of the United States
First Lady of the United States is the title of the hostess of the White House. Because this position is traditionally filled by the wife of the president of the United States, the title is most often applied to the wife of a sitting president. The current first lady is Michelle Obama.-Current:The...
, Murder in the Oval Office
Oval Office
The Oval Office, located in the West Wing of the White House, is the official office of the President of the United States.The room features three large south-facing windows behind the president's desk, and a fireplace at the north end...
, and Murder in the Lincoln Bedroom.
Modern fan stories go back to Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
, The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
, and Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
. Jean Lorrah's Visit to a Weird Planet, published in Spockanalia 3 (1968), was a lighthearted two-parter about what would happen if a transporter malfunction caused the Star Trek characters to be swapped with the 20th-century actors who played them. Regina Marvinny, editor of Tricorder Readings, encouraged fans in the early 1970s to write "what-if" stories about meeting Leonard Nimoy
Leonard Nimoy
Leonard Simon Nimoy is an American actor, film director, poet, musician and photographer. Nimoy's most famous role is that of Spock in the original Star Trek series , multiple films, television and video game sequels....
. However, some of the earliest known published cases of RPF come from 1977, when fanzine
Fanzine
A fanzine is a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share their interest...
s of the band Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed in 1968, they consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham...
began to print some of the fan fiction being written. Due to the fact that these stories involved real Zeppelin bandmembers, most notably Jimmy Page
Jimmy Page
James Patrick "Jimmy" Page, OBE is an English multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and record producer. He began his career as a studio session guitarist in London and was subsequently a member of The Yardbirds from 1966 to 1968, after which he founded the English rock band Led Zeppelin.Jimmy Page...
and Robert Plant
Robert Plant
Robert Anthony Plant, CBE is an English singer and songwriter best known as the vocalist and lyricist of the iconic rock band Led Zeppelin. He has also had a successful solo career...
, names were changed to pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
s such as "Tris" and "Alex".
A number of authors of modern bandfic – stories based on musical celebrities – began writing in the early 1980s, when MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
brought musicians into close focus for millions of adolescents. Others wrote humorous short stories about Paul Darrow
Paul Darrow
Paul Darrow is an English actor best known for his portrayal of Kerr Avon in the BBC science fiction television series Blake's 7...
from Blake's 7
Blake's 7
Blake's 7 is a British science fiction television series produced by the BBC for its BBC1 channel. The series was created by Terry Nation, a prolific television writer and creator of the Daleks for the television series Doctor Who. Four series of Blake's 7 were produced and broadcast between 1978...
. Some of these stories may have circulated in fanzine form, but there was little community and many authors remained unaware of others doing similar work. It was not until the 1990s and the spread of the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
that RPF began to increase in popularity.
The RPF community was, for a period of time, centered around the FanFiction.Net
FanFiction.Net
FanFiction.Net is an automated fan fiction archive site. It was founded in late 1998 by Los Angeles computer programmer Xing Li, who also runs the site. The first fics to be posted were a few stories about Buffy the Vampire Slayer...
website. When the RPF section was removed from Fanfiction.net, the community dispersed to smaller web archives and LiveJournal
LiveJournal
LiveJournal is a virtual community where Internet users can keep a blog, journal or diary. LiveJournal is also the name of the free and open source server software that was designed to run the LiveJournal virtual community....
communities. RPF is generally totally absent from Usenet, especially in older and more established newsgroups. However, Quizilla
Quizilla
Quizilla is a user generated online quiz website. It originally started as a website for quizzes, such as personality quizzes. Many users were posting "quizzes" that were actually chapters of fan fiction, so a legitimate section for stories was added even though it is not always used...
is a popular choice these days for younger people wanting to read or write RPF.
Another popular website for RPF chosen by youth fanfic writers is Winglin.net or asianfanfics.com, which is more commonly centered around Taiwanese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese or Chinese musicians and actors, like TVXQ
TVXQ
TVXQ, an acronym for Tong Vfang Xien Qi , is a South Korean pop group formed in 2003 under SM Entertainment. In South Korea they are known as Dong Bang Shin Ki , often abbreviated by international fans as DBSK; they were later introduced in Japan as Tohoshinki under the Avex sub-label Rhythm Zone...
, Super Junior
Super Junior
Super Junior is a South Korean boy band. Formed in 2005 by producer Lee Soo-man of SM Entertainment, the group comprised a total of thirteen members at its peak, and was once claimed to be the world's largest boy band...
, Big Bang
Big Bang
The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological model that explains the early development of the Universe. According to the Big Bang theory, the Universe was once in an extremely hot and dense state which expanded rapidly. This rapid expansion caused the young Universe to cool and resulted in...
, SHINee
SHINee
Shinee is a contemporary R&B South Korean boy band. Formed by SM Entertainment in 2008, they made their debut on May 25, 2008 on SBS's Inkigayo with their promotional single, "Noona Neomu Yeppeo "...
, Mike He
Mike He
Mike He was born 28 December 1983. He is a Taiwanese actor who started his career as a model before switching to acting. As of 2010, He is managed by HIM International Music.-Biography:...
, S.H.E
S.H.E
S.H.E is a Taiwanese girl group whose members are Selina Jen, Hebe Tien, and Ella Chen. The name of the group is an alphabetism derived from the first letter of each member's name. Since releasing their first album Girls Dorm , S.H.E has recorded 12 albums with sales totalling over 15 million, and...
and others.
Morality and legality
The morality of Real Person Fiction is debated. Most RPF authors state that they have no intent to claim these fictional portrayals reflect the real activities of the "source figure" in any way.Some authors of traditional fan fiction
Fan fiction
Fan fiction is a broadly-defined term for fan labor regarding stories about characters or settings written by fans of the original work, rather than by the original creator...
view real person fiction with suspicion, disdain, or outright disgust. Some feel that fanfic based on fictional characters is on shaky enough legal ground, barely tolerated by "the powers that be" (authors, producers, copyright owners) and that RPF, especially real person slash, may turn corporate and public opinion against fan fiction as a whole.
The often included disclaimer
Disclaimer
A disclaimer is generally any statement intended to specify or delimit the scope of rights and obligations that may be exercised and enforced by parties in a legally recognized relationship...
in story headers, stating that the work is pure fiction
Fiction
Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...
, protects Real Person Fiction from slander and libel.
To date, unlike traditional fan fiction, only one cease and desist
Cease and desist
A cease and desist is an order or request to halt an activity and not to take it up again later or else face legal action. The recipient of the cease-and-desist may be an individual or an organization....
letter is known to have been issued against RPF: FanDomination.Net received this letter on March 17, 2003 from a representative of one of the members of the New York Yankees
New York Yankees
The New York Yankees are a professional baseball team based in the The Bronx, New York. They compete in Major League Baseball in the American League's East Division...
baseball team. The substance of the complaint against the site was related to a story entitled "If There's Gray Hair On The Field, Play With Balls." The complaint alleged that the story's depiction of a present-day homosexual encounter between former Yankees players Virgil Trucks
Virgil Trucks
Virgil Oliver Trucks is a former starting pitcher in Major League Baseball. From 1941 through 1958, Trucks played for the Detroit Tigers , St. Louis Browns , Chicago White Sox , Kansas City Athletics and New York Yankees . He batted and threw right-handed...
, Rugger Ardizoia
Rugger Ardizoia
Rinaldo Joseph "Rugger" Ardizoia is a former Major League Baseball pitcher. The 5"11", 180 lb. right-hander is, as of 2010, one of only six Italian natives to ever play in the big leagues, appearing in one game for the New York Yankees in 1947...
, and Eddie Bockman
Eddie Bockman
Eddie Bockman was a third baseman in Major League Baseball who played from through for the New York Yankees , Cleveland Indians and Pittsburgh Pirates . Listed at 5'9", 175 lb...
, all of whom are currently in their nineties, was harmful to the Yankees brand and to the reputations of the players depicted.
Real person slash
Real Person Slash (RPS), also known in some circles as real-life slash (RLS), involves homosexual relationships. (See slash fictionSlash fiction
Slash fiction is a genre of fan fiction that focuses on the depiction of romantic or sexual relationships between fictional characters of the same sex...
for more on the subtleties and variations in definition.) These are usually complete fabrications, not based on any real-life indications of the subject's sexual preference, but on the fantasies of the author and the desire to experiment with perceived or invented homoerotic subtext
Subtext
Subtext or undertone is content of a book, play, musical work, film, video game, or television series which is not announced explicitly by the characters but is implicit or becomes something understood by the observer of the work as the production unfolds. Subtext can also refer to the thoughts...
between the idols in question. Slash is roughly equal in popularity to less controversial types of real person fiction.
The content of the stories can range from the mildly romantic, involving deep friendships and innocent boyhood or girlhood crush
Unrequited love
Unrequited love is love that is not openly reciprocated or understood as such, even though reciprocation is usually deeply desired. The beloved may or may not be aware of the admirer's deep affections...
es, to carefully written homosexual love stories, all the way to profoundly explicit erotica.
With the advent of boy bands, fans wrote an explosion of fictional stories about male members being involved in romantic relations with one another. In the 1990s, early online RPS communities were devoted to depictions of boy bands. Most of it was slash. Older RPF communities also began to see a rise in slash content, in contrast to earlier stories, which had generally featured original (non-"canon") female characters as partners for band members.
As slash became more acceptable, the amount of explicit sexual content in the stories also began to rise. Erotic fan stories have certainly been around for as long as other types of fanfic, but they were often a closed-door affair, circulated only in private among friends, and it is unclear whether homosexual content was a common theme. With the advent of the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
(allowing easy distribution of stories and relative anonymity for authors), stories with explicit content suddenly became much more widespread.
Due to the potentially libelous nature of some stories, and the knowledge or fear that some celebrities dislike slash fiction involving themselves, some fan fiction communities denounce RPS fiction and do not allow it on their websites.
Reaction to real person fic
For the most part, celebrities remain indifferent to Real Person Fic. Problems begin to develop when fans of the celebrities try to bring the celebrity into the community or show their adoration for that celebrity by giving them examples of stories. This can lead to some uncomfortable moments as happened with Paul DarrowPaul Darrow
Paul Darrow is an English actor best known for his portrayal of Kerr Avon in the BBC science fiction television series Blake's 7...
, Elijah Wood
Elijah Wood
Elijah Jordan Wood is an American actor. He made his film debut with a minor part in Back to the Future Part II , then landed a succession of larger roles that made him a critically acclaimed child actor by age 9. He is best known for his high-profile role as Frodo Baggins in Peter Jackson's...
, Ian McKellen
Ian McKellen
Sir Ian Murray McKellen, CH, CBE is an English actor. He has received a Tony Award, two Academy Award nominations, and five Emmy Award nominations. His work has spanned genres from Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular fantasy and science fiction...
, who were both given real person fic featuring them and their significant others in sexually explicit situations. Both Elijah Wood and Ian McKellen, as well as Karl Urban
Karl Urban
Karl-Heinz Urban is a New Zealand actor.He is known for playing Éomer in the second and third installments of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy in the 2009 film Star Trek and Julius Caesar on Xena: Warrior Princess...
, have stated that they do not mind RPF being written about them. Elijah Wood has publicly given a nod to the creativity of slash groups on the Graham Norton show during an interview post LOTR, this was a comment based on Manipulated photos that went with Slash and RPS stories on specific website. Elijah has also mentioned the web site numerous times stating that it is one of the most creative endeavors he's seen.
In 2008 a man was arrested in the UK for writing and publishing on the internet a story featuring various members of the band Girls Aloud
Girls Aloud
Girls Aloud are a British and Irish pop girl group based in London. They were created through the ITV1 talent show Popstars The Rivals in 2002. The group consists of Cheryl Cole , Nadine Coyle, Sarah Harding, Nicola Roberts and Kimberley Walsh. They are signed to Fascination Records, a Polydor...
under the Obscene Publications Act
Obscene Publications Act
Since 1857, a series of obscenity laws known as the Obscene Publications Acts have governed what can be published in England and Wales. The classic definition of criminal obscenity is if it "tends to deprave and corrupt," stated in 1868 by John Duke Coleridge, 1st Baron Coleridge.There have been...
. The story described the kidnap, rape and murder of the girls. He was subsequently found not guilty and claimed that he had never intended to frighten or intimidate the band members.
Timeline
The following is a timeline of events in the Real Person Fan fiction community:- 1976 - the Star TrekStar TrekStar Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...
fanfic anthology New Voyages (Bantam) prints "Visit to a Weird Planet, Revisited" a sequel to the 1968 story "Visit to a Weird Planet," which had appeared in the fanzine Spockanalia 3. In the original, Star Trek characters Kirk, Spock and McCoy are involved in a transporter accident and are transported to a Burbank soundstage. In the sequel, we learn the fates of William ShatnerWilliam ShatnerWilliam Alan Shatner is a Canadian actor, musician, recording artist, and author. He gained worldwide fame and became a cultural icon for his portrayal of James T...
, Leonard NimoyLeonard NimoyLeonard Simon Nimoy is an American actor, film director, poet, musician and photographer. Nimoy's most famous role is that of Spock in the original Star Trek series , multiple films, television and video game sequels....
, and DeForest KelleyDeForest KelleyJackson DeForest Kelley was an American actor known for his iconic roles in Westerns and as Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy of the USS Enterprise in the television and film series Star Trek.-Early life:...
, who were transported to the Starship Enterprise. The New Voyages is particularly noteworthy because up until that time, Star Trek fanfiction was published only in small fanzines like Spockanlia, and known only to hardcore Trek fans. The New Voyages was a mass market paperback, available to all readers, and since its stories were introduced by Star Trek actors, it merged Star Trek fans into mainstream science fiction readers and vice versa. - From 1977 to 1983, Led Zeppelin slash fan fiction begins to circulate in fanzines. The early zines used the names Tris and Alex, or Allyn Sterling/Derek Quinn instead of Jimmy Page and Robert Plant.
- During the 1980s, ActorFic involving Paul Darrow (of Blake's 7), and slash actorfic of Martin Shaw and Lewis Collins (stars of The ProfessionalsThe Professionals (TV series)The Professionals was a British crime-action television drama series produced by Avengers Mk1 Productions and London Weekend Television that aired on the ITV network from 1977 to 1983. In all, 57 episodes were produced, filmed between 1977 and 1981. It starred Martin Shaw, Lewis Collins and Gordon...
) is privately distributed in. - Early 1980s - Star WarsStar WarsStar Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...
stories are published in which Harrison FordHarrison FordHarrison Ford is an American film actor and producer. He is famous for his performances as Han Solo in the original Star Wars trilogy and as the title character of the Indiana Jones film series. Ford is also known for his roles as Rick Deckard in Blade Runner, John Book in Witness and Jack Ryan in...
meets Han SoloHan SoloHan Solo is a fictional character in the Star Wars franchise played by Harrison Ford. Introduced in the film Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope , Solo and his Wookiee co-pilot, Chewbacca , become involved in the Rebel Alliance against the Galactic Empire...
. - 1980s - numerous Duran Duran and other bandfic authors began to write in isolation, spurred by MTV
- 1984 - Elliot Roosevelt published the first of his detective novels starring his mother Eleanor.
- 1991 - Duran Duran slash and het fic begins to be circulated in fanzines. According to Sidewinder, Duran Duran zine people said that Duran Duran were aware of the fan fiction. Sidewinder also notes that the RPF people at the time did not seem to come from the same community as "traditional fan fiction fans" were coming from.
- March, 1993 - The Nifty Archive came on-line, a repository of boy band and celebrity erotica.
- Late 1990s - Inspired by t-shirts showing Clinton and Gore's heads on embracing twink bodies, a few Clinton/Gore stories are written.
- October 15, 1998 - FanFiction.Net enacts a policy specifically forbidding ActorSlash.
2001
- On December 28, LOTR_RPS appears, the first The Lord of the RingsThe Lord of the RingsThe Lord of the Rings is a high fantasy epic written by English philologist and University of Oxford professor J. R. R. Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to Tolkien's earlier, less complex children's fantasy novel The Hobbit , but eventually developed into a much larger work. It was written in...
real person fiction community.
2002
- September 12 - FanFiction.Net removes all Real Person Fic from the site and bans all Real Person Fic that does not tie in to other media directly.
2004
- April 26 - The website rockfic.com appears. This is a repository and community for RPF involving rock stars. Its inaugural story is a slash pairing between MetallicaMetallicaMetallica is an American heavy metal band from Los Angeles, California. Formed in 1981 when James Hetfield responded to an advertisement that drummer Lars Ulrich had posted in a local newspaper. The current line-up features long-time lead guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Robert Trujillo ...
's James HetfieldJames HetfieldJames Alan Hetfield is the rhythm guitarist, co-founder, main songwriter, and lead vocalist for the American heavy metal band Metallica. Hetfield co-founded Metallica in October 1981 after answering a classified advertisement by drummer Lars Ulrich in the Los Angeles newspaper The Recycler,...
and Kirk HammettKirk HammettKirk Lee Hammett is the lead guitarist and a songwriter in the heavy metal band Metallica and has been a member of the band since 1983. Before joining Metallica he formed and named the band Exodus. In 2003, Hammett was ranked 11th on Rolling Stones list of The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time...
entitled "Eazy Rider."
- Between July and November, political slash involving John KerryJohn KerryJohn Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior U.S. Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to former President George W...
and John EdwardsJohn EdwardsJohnny Reid "John" Edwards is an American politician, who served as a U.S. Senator from North Carolina. He was the Democratic nominee for Vice President in 2004, and was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 and 2008.He defeated incumbent Republican Lauch Faircloth in...
began to circulate online.
2007
- "Hitchdawk", a sub-genre of RPF slash involving Richard DawkinsRichard DawkinsClinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL , known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author...
and Christopher HitchensChristopher HitchensChristopher Eric Hitchens is an Anglo-American author and journalist whose books, essays, and journalistic career span more than four decades. He has been a columnist and literary critic at The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Slate, World Affairs, The Nation, Free Inquiry, and became a media fellow at the...
, enjoys a brief surge of popularity. In reaction, members of the religious right release three Bible-themed RPF slash stories (Gog/Magog, Ham/Job, John The Baptist/Darkwing Duck) which garner little success within the community.
2009
- Shatnoy RPF on LiveJournal.com was created as a community for slashSlash fictionSlash fiction is a genre of fan fiction that focuses on the depiction of romantic or sexual relationships between fictional characters of the same sex...
RPF mainly between Star Trek actors Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner and occasionally DeForest Kelley, Zachary Quinto and Chris Pine.
- November 14 - The Organization for Transformative WorksOrganization for Transformative WorksThe Organization For Transformative Works is a non-profit organization that advocates for the transformative and legitimate nature of fan labor activities, including fan fiction, fan vids, anime music videos, and real person fiction...
opened Archive of Our Own to public open beta. Categories for real person fiction are dedicated to bring RPF back to a major all-inclusive archive
- Metal Fic (metalfic.foroactivo.net) was opened as a free community of writers and readers who enjoys fanfic-stories about musicians and composers inside the Heavy MetalHeavy metal musicHeavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
music. Includes femmeslash (most of them, protagonized by Gothic MetalGothic metalGothic metal or goth metal is a subgenre of heavy metal music that combines the aggression of doom metal with the dark melancholy of gothic rock. The music of gothic metal is diverse with bands known to adopt the gothic approach to different styles of heavy metal music...
vocalists), slashSlash fictionSlash fiction is a genre of fan fiction that focuses on the depiction of romantic or sexual relationships between fictional characters of the same sex...
and a special section dedicated to all the stories where there are multiple pairings and a deeper plots beyond love and sex.