The Common Tongue
Jul. 20th, 2006 09:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wombat_sochoGod knows I'm not trying to dredge up the dead and extremely stinky past here, but I was mulling over the concept of the canon as it applies to contemporary SF&F fandom, partially as a result of what ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
windelina had to say in this post (sorry, it's f-locked) about her reaction to some younger fans who didn't quite get the mockup of HAL9000 that sat outside Main Programming this year at Convergence. It occurred to me that every time we get a big influx of fans, part of what leads the mainstream -however you define it at the time- to exclude the neos is that they just don't speak the language. There are just too many referents to films and TV shows they haven't seen, books and stories they haven't read, and all that sort of thing.
Nowadays, of course, I suppose it's not such a big deal, because there are sufficient ghettos within fandom that you don't really have to deal with anyone outside your circle of Trek fans, Harry Potter fans, or whatever your particular fandom might be. On the other hand, when you venture out to a convention, especially a ginormous Gathering of the Tribes such as Convergence, squatting in your little familiar circle is really a waste of time and money. So as we approach the end of the seventh decade of SF conventions, what is the canon? What do fans need to have experienced to interact intelligently with most of the other fans at Convergence? Is there a canon any more, or has the very notion of a central body of knowledge in fandom become obsolete? If there is a canon, what do you think belongs in it?
windelina had to say in this post (sorry, it's f-locked) about her reaction to some younger fans who didn't quite get the mockup of HAL9000 that sat outside Main Programming this year at Convergence. It occurred to me that every time we get a big influx of fans, part of what leads the mainstream -however you define it at the time- to exclude the neos is that they just don't speak the language. There are just too many referents to films and TV shows they haven't seen, books and stories they haven't read, and all that sort of thing. Nowadays, of course, I suppose it's not such a big deal, because there are sufficient ghettos within fandom that you don't really have to deal with anyone outside your circle of Trek fans, Harry Potter fans, or whatever your particular fandom might be. On the other hand, when you venture out to a convention, especially a ginormous Gathering of the Tribes such as Convergence, squatting in your little familiar circle is really a waste of time and money. So as we approach the end of the seventh decade of SF conventions, what is the canon? What do fans need to have experienced to interact intelligently with most of the other fans at Convergence? Is there a canon any more, or has the very notion of a central body of knowledge in fandom become obsolete? If there is a canon, what do you think belongs in it?
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 05:36 pm (UTC)There are tons of people into it that are also in SF/F fandom I know of.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 06:39 pm (UTC)Oh, absolutely. One could make the same claim regarding Danielle Steel, Tom Clancy or a dozen other mainstream authors & shows, though. I'm mainly interested in genre films, TV shows and books here, though I do agree that Shakespeare belongs because (like the Bible) our culture contains so many references to his work.