Community High School

The Pen is Mightier than the Lightsaber

Gary Babaev paces through the halls of Community wielding his lightsaber, for which he receives strange looks and compliments.  He is a religious man, though he goes to no church, recites no prayers, he tries to convert no one.  Instead, Gary goes on internet forums, watches Star Wars fan films, and attacks random people with one of the many lightsabers in his collection.  He is a Jedi, but mostly he is a devoted fan of Star Wars.

A belief in the Force doesn’t guarantee any special powers, only a different way to see the world.  “Life is the Force, and the Force is life,” Gary, a sophomore at Community, affirms.

He says, however, that his religion doesn’t affect his life much.  “Mostly, this kind of thing is done for fun,” he explains.

Gary also watches (but doesn’t make) Star Wars fan films.  These are usually low-budget clips of Star Wars fans fighting with lightsabers, set to music from the soundtrack.  Often, there is some type of plot.

“If you want to make a very, very good fan film out of Star Wars, sometimes, you’ll read into the religions that they have, and expand the universe of the actual movies, and then use the Jedi religion or the Sith religion, and put it in your movie.  They actually know what they’re talking about in some of these fan films,” says Gary.

A fan film is inspired by some kind of book, movie, television show, or any other related source, that is made by a fan of the source (called the canon), rather than the original creator.  They vary in length and quality.

“Sometimes when you make a fan film, you just want to have to have fun with it.  See, you like something, and you make a movie based on that…Fan films can either, continue part of the trilogy or tell about it… I like all of them, basically, except for the ones that are like ten-year old kids making movies.”

Only some fans profess a belief in the force.  The rest just enjoy the whole idea of Star Wars.

Says Gary, “At first people thought it was fun, and then they started believing in it.”

Related to this is the form of art known as fan fiction, which is a written story set in the universe of a particular canon.  Esty Thomas, a writer and reader of fan fiction, began writing it when she was 12 years old, after watching the Lord of the Rings movies and wanting more stories with the same characters.  She enjoyed the stories she found and began to branch out into other canons.  Today, she primarily writes from Pirates of the Caribbean.  She wears the same style of boots as Jack Sparrow did in the movies, and participates in Talk Like A Pirate Day when it comes around.

“Most people writing are 13-year old girls with no sense of spelling or grammar,” Esty explains, excitedly.  “But some really good fan fiction is written by older people who might be in their thirties.”

Esty mentions one Harry Potter fan novel, called The Mirror of Maybe, which has 19 chapters and more are still being written.  As she claims, it is better than the latest Harry Potter book, or at least it would be if it had an editor.

“When I had finished reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, I read The Mirror of Maybe, and subconsciously thought that Half-Blood Prince was fan fiction….  In The Mirror of Maybe, the characters are more in tune with what I like about them and Harry is not an angsty dork who takes stupid risks.”

In addition, Harry has a sexual relationship with Snape.  This type of fan fiction is slash, called so because of the slash sign often contained in the description, with Kirk/Spock being the first ever example.  Slash fan fiction involves a romantic relationship between two or more characters in the canon’s universe, whether they are in the canon or not.

Esty writes primarily slash fan fiction about Pirates of the Caribbean, usually involving the characters of Captain Jack Sparrow and Admiral James Norrington, which falls under the category of Sparrow/Norrington fan fiction, or Sparrington for short.

Why would anyone do this?

“Well, most slash writers are heterosexual females…I have some crackpot psychobabble theories as to why.  Theory number one: Female fans often get jealous when female characters get to make out with attractive males.  You know, like, ‘She’s not good enough for him.’ There’s no competition between females if it’s two men in a relationship.

“Theory number two: Two men together in a relationship is more equal.  Gender roles are completely thrown out of the window with slash.”

To make slash fan fiction relatively “realistic,” authors need to find subtext for a relationship in the canon.  This is part of the challenge.

“There’s a lot of subtext between almost every pair of characters.  For example, Jack Sparrow has the whole ‘lack of personal space’ thing going.  Norrington is harder, because of prejudices against pirates and homosexuals.”

Though the appeal of fan fiction remains puzzling to most outsiders, its creators have no intention of showing it to the outside world.  It is illegal for them to make any money off of the art and there is little reward except for the minimal feedback received.

What they gain is known only to themselves.