Proposal ponderings ....
Sep. 30th, 2009 11:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
d_aulnoyMy mind's a bit like an overgrown pond these days: still but murky, clearest when disturbed. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
vschanoes kindly tossed a breadcrumb in when she passed me a CFP for NEMLA. It asks,
How and why do fiction writers from the explosively experimental period of 1960 to the present use (subvert, disturb) the seemingly conventional form of the fairy tale?
Interesting question, right? It's prompting the little fish who've been hibernating at the bottom of the thought-pond to twist their tails sluggishly ("tales" was my first Freudian attempt at concluding this sentence, btw).
Last year, my MLA paper was on Princess Culture Industry, which I define as the marketing of goods associated with popular/conventional fairy tales. The interesting thing about it is, the tales themselves are certainly now among the commodities (the movie tickets, the DVDs, the adaptations that range from coloring books to serialized television shoes), but they're far from being the most profitable ones: it's the goods associated with the PCI that bring in the big bucks. The "authentic" princess costumes for ages 3 and up, the children's toys, the "big girl" toys (Hello, Kidada For Disney!), the honest-for-true Disney weddings.
What the CFP proceeds to mention in its examples of what they're looking for is probably familiar to most readers of this blog - Carter and Rushdie, Coover, Barthelme and Atwood (oh, my!). All creators of a traditional "form" (to go back to the original question, though probably not quite as the organizer intended), the literary fairy tale.
Now, I love all of these authors, and I most certainly want to reference them, but it's striking me that one of the most explosive/experimental forms of revision currently in play is the kind that's not commodified in any sense of the word, as in, no one's paying for it (well, aside from the fans who contribute of their own volition). Certainly not Hollywood producers (sorry, "Shrek," subversive as you are), or Broadway producers (... I liked your version of Shrek a lot less, actually), not even lovely literary publishers (I still adore you, Tor and Virago and Firebird! I do!).
Fairy tale ... fan-fic? Fan-filk? Mia Nutick, Seanan McGuire, S.J. Tucker. Newly available social strategies for reclaiming elements of the tales that've been occluded by convention and commodification, strategies which are more akin to cyber-salons then they are dependant upon the auspices and approvals of any commercial agency.
Hmmmmmmm.
Quick hit to the LJ genie: is there a repository or on-line sample of these author's work available? I have Mia's poetry and a few of Sooj's albums in my possession, but I'm moving, and thus, they're hiding. I know Seanan posts numerous beautiful examples to her LJ, but I'm wondering if they're categorized somewhere, or if I just need to suck it up and go digging through the archives. I'm also, very much, thinking of things like Cat Valente's Fairyland, of Goblin Fruit, of ... feel free to offer suggestions of non-commercial fairy tale enterprises, labors of love that are somehow earning their keep (or, rather, that of their creators) directly and without intermediaries. Or otherwise discuss in the comments, or say,d_aulnoy , that's the dumbest idea ever: write a proposal on The Princess and the Frog and have done with it!
Bite, fishies! Bite! Roil that murky well of creativity.
vschanoes kindly tossed a breadcrumb in when she passed me a CFP for NEMLA. It asks,How and why do fiction writers from the explosively experimental period of 1960 to the present use (subvert, disturb) the seemingly conventional form of the fairy tale?
Interesting question, right? It's prompting the little fish who've been hibernating at the bottom of the thought-pond to twist their tails sluggishly ("tales" was my first Freudian attempt at concluding this sentence, btw).
Last year, my MLA paper was on Princess Culture Industry, which I define as the marketing of goods associated with popular/conventional fairy tales. The interesting thing about it is, the tales themselves are certainly now among the commodities (the movie tickets, the DVDs, the adaptations that range from coloring books to serialized television shoes), but they're far from being the most profitable ones: it's the goods associated with the PCI that bring in the big bucks. The "authentic" princess costumes for ages 3 and up, the children's toys, the "big girl" toys (Hello, Kidada For Disney!), the honest-for-true Disney weddings.
What the CFP proceeds to mention in its examples of what they're looking for is probably familiar to most readers of this blog - Carter and Rushdie, Coover, Barthelme and Atwood (oh, my!). All creators of a traditional "form" (to go back to the original question, though probably not quite as the organizer intended), the literary fairy tale.
Now, I love all of these authors, and I most certainly want to reference them, but it's striking me that one of the most explosive/experimental forms of revision currently in play is the kind that's not commodified in any sense of the word, as in, no one's paying for it (well, aside from the fans who contribute of their own volition). Certainly not Hollywood producers (sorry, "Shrek," subversive as you are), or Broadway producers (... I liked your version of Shrek a lot less, actually), not even lovely literary publishers (I still adore you, Tor and Virago and Firebird! I do!).
Fairy tale ... fan-fic? Fan-filk? Mia Nutick, Seanan McGuire, S.J. Tucker. Newly available social strategies for reclaiming elements of the tales that've been occluded by convention and commodification, strategies which are more akin to cyber-salons then they are dependant upon the auspices and approvals of any commercial agency.
Hmmmmmmm.
Quick hit to the LJ genie: is there a repository or on-line sample of these author's work available? I have Mia's poetry and a few of Sooj's albums in my possession, but I'm moving, and thus, they're hiding. I know Seanan posts numerous beautiful examples to her LJ, but I'm wondering if they're categorized somewhere, or if I just need to suck it up and go digging through the archives. I'm also, very much, thinking of things like Cat Valente's Fairyland, of Goblin Fruit, of ... feel free to offer suggestions of non-commercial fairy tale enterprises, labors of love that are somehow earning their keep (or, rather, that of their creators) directly and without intermediaries. Or otherwise discuss in the comments, or say,
d_aulnoy , that's the dumbest idea ever: write a proposal on The Princess and the Frog and have done with it!Bite, fishies! Bite! Roil that murky well of creativity.