Breaking the Fourth wall: When Fanfic object meets Fanfic

product
Celia Lam
Abstract
Online reactions to the popular television show Sherlock are passionate, opinionated
and, thanks to the speed of social media, very immediate. It is no surprise then that
reaction to a stunt at a recent series launch created its own newspaper headlines. The
stunt in question involved the shows lead actors, at the behest of the event host,
reading explicit Fanfic aloud to the audience. The online response was swift and
outraged, mostly aimed at the host for not only failing to elicit permission from the
author to use her work, but also for enabling the transgression of the fourth wall a
notion which suggests Fanfic is to remain a private affair. Privacy in this instance
does not refer to the arena of distribution or specific location of construction. It is a
conceptual privacy wherein fantasy (and the Fanfic in which it is played out) is
differentiated from the reality of the fiction that inspired it. Yet the online publication
of most Fanfic offers it as an easily accessible source of material for distribution by
fans, and is appropriated by mainstream media as tangible evidence of a celebritys
fame.
The public nature of Fanfic is not an unfamiliar concept yet there was distinct
discomfort when the stunt was deemed too public, when fantasy came close to
actualization and the fourth wall was broken. Yet what exactly does the fourth wall
demarcate: the line between actor and Fanfic actor/character (most Fanfic inspired
by visual mediums will incorporate the physical attributes of the actors into the
work), between actor and character, or between official character and Fanfic
character? This paper will explore some of these questions in light of the current
technological milieu in which private thoughts can and are publicly expressed with
instantaneous speed.
Key Words: Fanfic,

fandom, online, fourth wall, media.

*****

1. Introduction: The BFI incident

On 16th December 2013 the British Film Institute hosted a premier screening of
the first episode of Sherlock season three. Present were key creative, cast and crew,
media, and a large number of fans. Towards the end of proceedings, author and host
for the evening Caitlin Moran requested the leads of the show to read slash fan
fiction aloud to the audience. While some were amused at the stunt, most headlines
in the mainstream press in the days following were focused both on the online
outrage evidence by fans bombardment of Morans Twitter account, and the
transgression of the fourth wall presumably between fiction and reality.

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For the purposes of this discussion, it is prudent to examine both these claims.
Despite the headlines, fans online response to the stunt and subsequent fall out
was in reality rather mixed. Undoubtedly, the fans that took to Twitter to express
their displeasure were unhappy with the incident and specifically Morans actions.
Yet online discussion in response to a series of blog posts by fans suggests a more
nuanced reaction. In particular a post from fan blogger Dogris suggested that the
problem lay not with Moran, but with the impression that the creators of the show
did not like fan fiction.1 Dogris post garnered 42 comments from 23 users who,
while offering their views to dispute or agree with his position, highlighted some
ancillary issues more broadly related to online Fandom and its relationship with
mainstream media.
Issues of respect for fans (or lack thereof), humiliation of the (perceived)
vulnerable, and stifling of fans creativity were mentioned. As was the fine line that
online publication treads between exposure and exploitation: as the Internet becomes
the primary and chosen method of distribution, so does it become a site for
opportunistic abuse. While not all agreed with the so-called unspoken rule of the
Internet that what is uploaded becomes public and can be used by all in the public
domain, all were in agreement that Moran should have sought permission even if she
was not obligated to. Lastly the question of taste, and whether Morans stunt was
in good taste or not, was addressed through the lens of context and audience
awareness. In the words of one poster: BFI was the event for the FANS [sic]What
Moran did was...to take for granted their devotion in the midst of the very event
where the fandom was [present].2
Thus the reported sense of universal outrage on the part of the fandom is an
altogether overly generalized description that fails to account for the intricate sets of
relationships between agents in both fandom and media the stunt affronted, or the
(often measured) range of responses to the incident. While the generalization of fan
response as universally outraged speaks more to mainstream medias view of
fandom than to actual fan reaction, it is the secondary headline on which this paper
will be primarily focused. A presumptive reason for fans discomfort with the stunt
was the notion that a fourth wall had been transgressed. This begs the question of
how a fourth wall is constituted in the context of fan fiction and what lines are
crossed when it is breached.
2. The Fourth Wall
The fourth wall is a dramaturgic construct applied to the conceptualisation of the
theatrical space in which, in addition to the backdrop and two sides of the
proscenium arch, an imaginary fourth wall separates performer from spectator at
the front of stage. In the camera-mediated mediums of film and television, the
principle is transferred to the camera lens. Instances of performer reference to, or

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direct looks at, the camera are known as a breaking of the fourth wall. When a
stage actor speaks directly to the audience a similar line is transgressed.
In this context, the boundary represented is a demarcation between fiction and
reality; more specifically between diegetic reality and real world reality. In the
instant the boundary is traversed through a look or a line the viewing subject's
position as a spectator is revealed both to the object of gaze and to the observer. At
the same time the artifice of the performance is acknowledged and the constructed
nature of the diegetic reality exposed. It is for this revealing quality that the
technique is employed in narrative fiction as a means of invoking postmodern selfreferentiality. In the theatre it highlights certain dramatic moments or themes related
to the overall play, and more commonly in its filmic and televisual form, it is used in
jest through a shared knowingness between audience and producer.
In the context of fan fiction however the demarcation is less clear, and indeed
could refer to various manifestations of fiction and reality. In reference to
fandom in general, Katherine Larsen and Lynn Zubernis3 define breaking the fourth
wall as acknowledgement of fandom within the context of canon (i.e a television
show that incorporates its fandom into the plot). The implication is the line between
fiction and reality is crossed or at least blurred when real world practice is referenced
in a fictional context. In fan fiction straightforward instances of fourth wall
transgression are found in works in which the reader is directly addressed by the
author or characters, when characters reference real world occurrences, or when
character/author references canon or other fanon defined by Kaplan as the
noncanoncial knowledge about a source text4 characterisation of the same
character. These instances of fourth wall transgression conform to a general
understanding of the notion in which the line between fictional and real world reality
breached by references in the creative act. As such within the construction of fan
fiction itself is the condition in which actors (real world persona) are separate from
characters (fictional identities); and canon characterisation differentiated from fanon
characterisation.
However the events of the BFI incident conforms to none of these scenarios.
Indeed at face value the act consisted of nothing more than actors reading lines
written for their - albeit non canonical - characters. Surely it was an example of
performance rather than the self-referential, artifice illuminating, postmodern
understanding associated with the technique? Therein lies the rub. A consideration of
the concept as an applied narrative technique fails to engage with broader dynamics
at play within fandom.
In its theatrical origins, the fourth wall demarcated the line between performance
and reception, between immersion in and awareness of artificially. Yet, as Larsen and
Zubernis'5 description of references to fandom in canonical text suggests, it also
distinguishes real world practice from fictional imagining of said phenomena. Rather
than a strictly dichotomous conceptualization of a real/fiction divide, a certain
interpretive flexibility enables the articulation of milieu-based distinction. In other

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words it theorizes relational dynamics within a highly contextualised set of creative
practice, and accounts for a third divide implicit in the claims of fourth wall
transgression following the BFI incident: the line between actor and actor-ascharacter.
3. Dynamics of Fandom: Operating within a safe space
Theorists and fan bloggers alike have made reference to a safe space6 or safe
environment7 in which fandom is perceived to operate. The notion manifests in a
protective capacity when applied to the creation of fan fiction in which an author's
burgeoning creativity is fostered through an insular circle of fellow fan writers and
beta readers8 who ensure a supportive reception context. In the public visibility of
online publication the insular nature of fan fiction which could practically be
maintained in its previous offline mode is dispelled. It is for this reason that both
bloggers and theorists speak of the safe space with some degree of scepticism.
However there is some merit to the conceptualization of a zone in which
practices are insular. This insularity refers not to the publishing practices of fan
fiction but to methods through which the virtual community of specific fandoms
manufacture unique group identities.
A. In-group sub-cultural milieu
When Hall wrote of National cultures as a discourse in which cultures
construct identities by producing meanings about "the nation with which we can
identify; these are contained in the stories which are told about it, memories which
connect its present with its past, and images which are constructed of it9, he was
referring to the common historical, emotional and cultural artefacts that connected
individuals and fostered a sense of belonging and community within Nations. In a
similar way community building is a core component of fandom. While both fans
and academics are quick to point out the diversity of fandoms and fan practice, one
unifying factor is the use of commonality to generate sensations of in-groupness
and build community.
Fandom in general, and in particular fan fiction, comes replete with linguistic
idiosyncrasies and short hand terminology (classifications such as gen general
het heterosexual and slash generally denoting homoerotic, are examples),
unwritten rules (never write real person slash), and general codes of conduct (always
flag spoilers) that form behavioural practices within the fandom. Indeed part of the
work of newbies10 is to master the terminology, hierarchy and codes of conduct
within fan communities as part of their enculturation. Adopting behavioural and
linguistic tropes of a fan community thus become the first step to acceptance within
the subculture; a connection that is reinforced and strengthened through interactive
communication.

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Online fandom does operate in full view of the public unless steps are taken to
limit members and make content exclusive yet a public visibility/private practice
dichotomy is too clean a distinction. When an individual becomes enculturated into
the fandom, a sense of inclusiveness develops that marks their fandom as separate
and unique from other online users. In this sense the sub-cultural milieu is itself a
conceptually private safe space in which a self-selected community governs its
operation through highly specific and contextual patterns of behaviour, language,
and creations. While there may be no rites of initiation, there is nonetheless a mode
of belonging in which markers of inclusion and exclusion exist.
The privateness of the group, embedded as it is within a unique subculture, is
thus contrasted against the otherness of casual viewers, other online users, and
mainstream media who have access to, but nonetheless remain outside the
community that produces (or fosters the production of) fan fiction. Exposing fan
fiction (conceptualised as the product of a sub-culture) without consent contravenes
the safety of the inner sanctum and constitutes a breach of the wall separating the
security of the in-group and the publicity of mainstream glare.
B. Audience awareness
Psychological motivations behind production of fan fiction, in particular female
authors of slash fiction, have been explored from the perspectives of pleasure,11
subversion,12 13 personal expression,14 and as expressions of differences between
male and female mating psychology.15 Within the embedded and communal creation
context of the sub-cultural milieu, audience awareness becomes as important a
stimulus as personal psychological motivators.
Fan fiction authors create in full view of their audience as publication is often
episodic or serialized over lengthy periods of time. Fan fiction readers openly
comment on text in fast feed-back loops that suggest modifications or narrative
directions to an author or vidder (fans who create song videos). The reciprocal
interactivity of fandom community positions fans (potentially) as both writers and
readers, thereby equalizing the one-sided modes of author/reader relationship
suggested in Halls encoding/decoding model.16 Fan fiction writers are more likely
to creatively interact with their readers and produce works that explore
narrative/character possibilities at the behest of others for fun, in jest, or as playful
allusion to ongoing in-jokes. Additionally, Busse and Hellekson detail fan authors
who specialise in writing 'bad' fan fiction for similar reasons. Thus taking these texts
out of the context of the sub-cultural groups strips them of their nuanced, intertextual
or subtextual meanings.17
C. Amateur and Professional
The safety offered by the sub-cultural milieu can in some instances be literal, as
the majority of fan writers are non-professionals who produce fan works in their

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spare time. A supportive community thus becomes a safety net that allows for the
exploration and development of craft.
D. Between Fantasy and Reality
A specific detail of the BFI incident was the utilisation of slash fiction. For
Moran this presumably added to the weirdness of the situation and was selected
for its anticipated ability to make the actors squirm. For fans this trod an
uncomfortably fine line between slash and Real Person Slash (RPS), as comments
from fan blogger Swanpride suggests:
My attitude concerning this matter is one a lot of fanfiction [sic]
writers share. By giving a story featuring the character to the
actors to read, Caitlin Moran crossed the line between fictional
character and real person.18
Busse and Hellekson refer to RPS as an unwritten rule19 in fan fiction authorship,
yet its very existence reveals RPS to be an exception that Busse describes as an
aspect of fandom that fans do not often talk about in public.20 Viewed through the
lens of RPS/Slash, the BFI incident does not necessarily traverse any boundaries as
the highly performative contextualisation of the reading left no doubt events
described a homoerotic imagining of the characters Sherlock and John (collectively
known as Johnlock), and not the actors who embodied them.
Yet the discomfort of fans seeks resolution; one that can be found in the
identificatory practices of celebrity culture. A consequence of the public visibility of
celebrity culture is the ability for fans to construct their own image of the celebrity
who informs their fandom. The complex identity construction and identificatory
practices of online fans described by Soukup21 provide some context to the
following discussion. Fans are active participants in the celebrity game,22 at once
aware of the constructed nature of celebrity identities in representational media,23
and equipped with the means to construct their own. In online environments such as
website dedicated to specific celebrities, fans find a means to mould an image of the
celebrity that conforms to their imagining of the star. Thus an idealised version of the
star's image, controlled by the fan, is formed. At the same time, the fan is able to
vicariously express their own identities through alignment with presented celebrity
values. As Soukup suggests:
As a means of self-expression, the fan can use the iconic
representation of the celebrity to promote particular cultural
values.24

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Additionally, contrary to implications in the terminology, RPS does not engage
with the celebrity figure, but positions him/her in an exercise of fictional
embellishment. In Goffmans dramaturgical analogy of identity management as
performance, it is in the backstage space of an individuals private moments that
the publicly performed persona is shed and the true or inner self revealed.25
While fans have little opportunity to glimpse this backstage space, it is precisely
the unknown area behind the celebritys public persona that invites speculation and
imagination. RPS is thus situated as fictive speculation in which the celebrity image
is not considered as a rendering of the individuals real self, but a fictional
characterisation of the entity behind the performed celebrity persona. As Busse
states: RPSis both about a collectively created fan space and about a desire to
read the private persona behind the public one; it functions in the constant paradox
of being simultaneously real and constructed.26
Rather than representing the blurring of the reality (or fictive reality) of RPS,
and the fantasy of fictional slash, the BFI incident represents tensions between the
identities of actor-as-character and actor; or more precisely, actor-rendered-character
and actor-as-star. Fan fiction can be interpreted as coded expressions of hidden or
subversive desires for actors, however more often than not they are viewed as
explorations of the thematic possibilities of digetically embedded characters whose
lives and thus thematic representations are extended, multiplied or inverted in the
imagination of the fan fiction author. Thus when creating slash between characters
that draws upon the physicality of an actor, the actor is represented as a
personification of a character rather than as the entity of the actor him/herself.
Within the reality of the diegetic world, especially in fandoms associated with
television or film, the actor's appearance becomes aligned with the character and is
appropriated to give the fan work universal recognition. In essence the physical
attributes of the actor becomes part of the raw materials with which fan works play.
Contrasted to the image of the actor-as-star, a necessary distance is kept.
Whatever the motivations may be for fan fiction, in the process of writing there will
be an element of self-expression. Thus while a character in a fan created text might
look like the actor who embodies it on screen, it is more likely to resemble the
psyche of the author in its psychological constitution. The image of the actor-ascharacter and the actor-as-person is then considered to be separate and needs to
remain so as traversing the boundary blurs the constructed image of the actor-as-star
with the actor/character proxy of the self.
4. Conclusion
Application of the fourth wall in fictional contexts invariably exploits the
performativity of the diegesis to posit self-reflectivity as a narrative tool. Indeed,
seen as a technique, breaking the fourth wall renders the actor/camera as a liminal
space through which performer and spectator transcend the digetic and non-diegetic.
As such as claims of fourth wall breaking arising from the BFI incident in early 2014

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are incongruent. However a strictly performative view of the concept limits its
application to narrative constructs. A more flexible interpretation enables exploration
of embedded sub-cultural behaviour and the processes of community-building that
construct similar walls of division between fan and non-fan, professional and
amateur. Additionally, nuanced identificatory practices are revealed, in which
fictionalised private selves are created in reaction to the public visibility of
constructed celebrity personas.

Endnotes

11 Darren Jones, Sherlock Caitlin Moran: BFI Q+A (SPOILER FREE), Beware of the Dorg Where fantasy and reality
collide. Or something like that (blog), December 17, 2013, http://dorgris.wordpress.com/2013/12/17/sherlock-caitlinmoran-bfi-qa-spoiler-free/
22 JI, December 20, 2013 (1:25 p.m.), comment on Darren Jones, Sherlock Caitlin Moran: BFI Q+A (SPOILER FREE),
Beware of the Dorg Where fantasy and reality collide. Or something like that (blog), December 17, 2013,
http://dorgris.wordpress.com/2013/12/17/sherlock-caitlin-moran-bfi-qa-spoiler-free/
33 Katherine Larsen and Lynn Zubernis interviewed by Henry Jenkins, Fan Studies at the Crossroads: An Interview with
Lynn Zubernis and Katherine Larsen (Part Four), Confessions of an Aca-Fan the official weblog of Henry Jenkins (blog),
September 12, 2012, http://henryjenkins.org/2012/09/fan-studies-at-the-crossroads-an-interview-with-lynn-zubernis-andkatherine-larsen-part-four.html
44 Deborah Kaplan, Construction of the Fan Fiction Character Through Narrative, in Fan Fiction and fan communities in
the age of the Internet: new essays, eds. Kristina Busse and Karen Hellekson (North Carolina: McFarland & Company,
Inc. Publishers, 2006), 134-152.

55 Jenkins, Fan Studies at the Crossroads: An Interview with Lynn Zubernis and Katherine Larsen.
66 Ibid.
77 Jessica Holzhausen, Professionalising Fanart and Fanfiction The Tumbling of the Fourth Wall, 20onemagazine,
January 13, 2014, http://20onemagazine.com/2014/01/13/professionalising-fanart-and-fanfiction-the-tumbling-of-thefourth-wall/
88 Kristina Busse and Karen Hellekson, Introduction to Fan Fiction and fan communities in the age of the Internet: new
essays, by Kristina Busse and Karen Hellekson (North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc. Publishers, 2006), 5-32.
99 Stuart Hall, Introduction: Identity in Question, in Modernity: An introduction to modern societies, eds. Stuart Hall,
David Held, Don Hubert, and Kenneth Thompson (Blackwell Publishers, 1996), 596-600.
1
10
Busse and Hellekson, Introduction, 12.
111 Joanna Russ, Pornography by Women, for Women, with Love, in Magic mommas, trembling sisters, Puritans and
perverts: Feminist essays (Trumansburg, NY: The Crossing Press, 1985), 79-99.
112 Patricia Frazer Lamb and Diane Veith, Romantic myth, transcendence, and Star Trek zines, in Erotic universe:
Sexuality and fantastic literature, ed. Donald Palumbo, (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1986), 236-255.
113 Elizabeth Woledge, Intimatopia: Genre Intersections Between Slash and the Mainstream, in Fan Fiction and fan
communities in the age of the Internet: new essays, eds. Kristina Busse and Karen Hellekson (North Carolina: McFarland
& Company, Inc. Publishers, 2006), 97-114.
1
14
Lamb and Veith, Romantic myth, transcendence, and Star Trek zines, 236-255.
115 Catherine Salmon and Don Symons, Warrior lovers: Erotic fiction, evolution and female sexuality, (London: Orion,
2001).
116 Stuart Hall, Encoding/decoding, in Culture, media, language: Working papers in cultural studies, 1972-79, rev. eds.
Stuart Hall, Dorothy Hobson, Andrew Lowe and Paul Willis (London: Hutchinson, 1991), 128-138.
1
17
Busse and Hellekson, Introduction, 11.
118 Swanpride, Thoughts about the fanfiction-incident, The Science of Adaptation how BBC Sherlock relates to canon
(blog), December 17, 2013, http://swanpride2.wordpress.com/2013/12/17/thoughts-about-the-fanfiction-incident/
1
19
Busse and Hellekson, Introduction, 13.
220 Kristina Busse, My Life Is a WIP on My LJ: Slashing the Slasher and the Reality of Celebrity and Internet
Performances, in Fan Fiction and fan communities in the age of the Internet: new essays, eds. Kristina Busse and Karen
Hellekson (North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc. Publishers, 2006), 207-225.

221 Charles Soukup, Hitching a Ride on a Star: Celebrity, Fandom, and Identification on the World Wide Web, Southern
Communication Journal 71, 4 (2006): 319-337.
222 Joshua Gamson, Claims to Fame: Celebrity in Contemporary America, (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1994)
223 P David Marshall, New media, new self: the changing power of the Celebrity, in The celebrity culture reader,
(London: Routledge, 2006), 634644.
2
24
Soukup, Hitching a Ride on a Star, 330.
2
25
Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, (New York: Anchor, 1959).
2
26
Busse, My Life Is a WIP on My LJ, 216.