What Fandoms Need To Know About Literary Theory
A lot of the controversy and toxicity in fandoms today comes from people who assert that their perspectives or interpretations are superior to all others, that there are certain inarguable facts about a character or story, and anything that contradicts that is “bad” or “wrong”. As an English teacher, this bothers the hell out of me. Here’s why:
In the world of literary criticism, we call the perspectives from which we approach a piece of art “lenses”: we might look at something through a queer lens, a feminist lens, a marxist lens, etc. The reason we have this term is because it is necessary to acknowledge that we are approaching the work with a specific focus, and anything we determine about the work will be affected by that focus.
A lens warps your perspective: it emphasizes some things and blurs out others, makes some things disappear but might make visible what was before unseen. The best, most interesting, most amazing parts of analysis come from working with these lenses, but we cannot forget that our perspective of the work is being affected by the lens we choose to use.
In short: When you are looking for something specific, you are more likely to find it. A feminist lens will reveal feminist themes; an LGBT+ lens will reveal LGBT+ themes; a psychoanalytical lens will reveal mental health themes; and so on. All of these could use the same evidence to support them. All of these are valid.
Fandom creators make fascinating, profound, valid assertions about their media that are thoughtful and possible, but too often, they don’t realize that their theory – indeed, any theory outside of the established canon – is not the absolute truth. They become more concerned with having the “correct” interpretation and don’t realize that in true analysis, all of these interpretations can be simultaneously valid, even if they contradict each other.
The text – in this case, the show / game / film / novel – always supports multiple different perspectives, readings, and interpretations. One interpretation of the evidence is not the only interpretation of the evidence, because there are so many diverse perspectives to come from.
And that is a good thing! If there was one absolute truth, fandoms would have nothing to draw and write and create! Multiple perspectives exist, and that is okay. If we start insisting that all interpretations come from one perspective, that is extremely limiting and even discriminatory.
Fandoms should stop looking for an absolute “truth” that does not exist, and start celebrating all of the possible interpretations and perspectives that analysis gives us.
