Has fandom become too prudish and unoriginal? (NSFW)

I happened across some photo galleries of cosplaying (although there wasn't a word for it back then, it was just "wearing costumes") from science fiction conventions in the 1970's. It made me wonder, has fandom gotten too prudish and puritanical, too Politically Correct, and too slavishly imitative of mass media?

(NSFW below the fold)

She's running around
barefoot! The hussy...

First of all, take a gander here and here. Both of those are very NSFW, by the way, unless you work with Zak, that is.

That's what fandom used to be like. It was wild, and it was free, and it was inventive, and it was Bohemian (or, perhaps Hippie might be a better word), and it wasn't afraid to show tits, and asses were okay, too, and the occasional untrimmed bush. Those were the days when conventions needed to say "no costume is not a costume", and "food is not a costume" (presaging Lady Gaga and her meat-dresses).

Morning Glory, who invented the term
polyamory, and Oberon Zell,
founder of the Church of
All Worlds, itself based on
a book by Robert Heinlein.

More to the point, it was a time when sex was still fun, and at least in the fandom community, we were open to such things, and Feminism meant that women were free to express - nay, revel in - their femininity and sexuality.

Hell, I see a couple of photos in there of Oberon Zell and Morning Glory, who helped jump-start the hedonistic neopagan movement in the 1960's and 70's. There was a marvelous cross-pollination between science fiction/fantasy fandom, paganism, the SCA, and early Renfairs. There was even a large amount of crossover with the gaming community, especially as D&D took off. The Panzerblitz crowd was, admittedly, a little more stodgy.

There are some notable exceptions, without doubt. But they are constantly under siege, and the prudish forces of Political Correctness are ever pushing against them.

But if you can, look beyond the boobs and nipples in these pictures, and the many more in the links above. How many of those costumes are trying to emulate things that some studio produced? I see a Luke and Leia, and a Wonder Woman, and maybe one or two others, but for the most part I see original costumes, or costumes based on descriptions in books rather than slavish restatements of costumes seen in movies or on TV. I don't see lots of absolutely-authentic Logan's Run costumes, or spacemen out of Forbidden Planet, complete with ribbed chest-pieces and huge shoulder boards.

I see a lot of original characters.

Contrast that with today's cosplaying scene. Oftentimes, the criteria for judging costume contests is how strictly a costume adheres to the original, usually seen in a movie, television show, or cartoon. I've been in contests where you were expected to provide a picture of the character you were cosplaying. There's some lip-service paid to doing OC cosplaying, but the message is clear. "Don't tell me about your character." If you doubt me, just look at the winner of San Diego Comic Con's "Best Original Design" award in 2013, "Marvel Mumbai":

Gender-bending and cultural appropriation makes a
design "original," apparently.

I realize that we don't live in the sexually permissive 1970's any more. AIDS opened the door to a revival of Christian Right puritanical "sex is dangerous" thought, and Third Wave Feminism ironically allied with them, shutting that door tight against healthy expressions of feminine sexuality, essentially decreeing that women shouldn't try to make themselves sexually desirable to men. But does showing some tits (or parading around in a loincloth, for that matter) really hurt anyone? Can we possibly get back to embracing the Bohemian, Hippie, and sex-friendly culture that fandom used to embrace?

Try this at Comic-con
today. I dare you.

And hand-in-hand with that (or whatever body part you choose to use) is the embrace of originality. Let's not just do endless repetitions of Batman, or the Avengers, or Master Chief, or whatever. Let's get back to our creative roots, and embrace characters that were created in our imaginations, rather than some corporate conference room.

I would love to get back to a place where fanzines published original fiction (or at least fan-fiction that didn't involve trysts between Kirk and Spock, or Obi-Wan and Annakin). Back when there was a bit of the Wild West in fandom, and anything went, sex and sexuality was a Good Thing, and people were a lot less judgmental and a lot less tied in with the corporate-decreed "look" of what fandom was supposed to be.

1970's Sci-Fi Marathon

If I was going to organize a movie marathon of pre-Star Wars 1970's science fiction movies, I'd probably pick:

• Rollerball
• Logan's Run
• Westworld
• Soylent Green
• Colossus: The Forbin Project

Coincidentally, TCM is running all but the last of those movies tonight (they chose Close Encounters of the Third Kind instead of Colossus: The Forbin Project, which is a choice I can understand even if I don't agree with it). The only problem is, how do I stay up 'till 5 AM to watch them all?

Space Battleship Yamato 2199

ICV2 had this up this morning. I knew Space Battleship Yamato (known in the US as Starblazers) was popular, but had no idea they were re-doing it. The clip below is in Japanese, but wow... just... wow...

Speak Out with your Geek Out: Star Trek and Me

I'm sure many of my readers are familiar with the Speak Out With your Geek Out campaign currently sweeping selected corners of the blogosphere and beyond. If not, well, http://www.speakoutwithyourgeekout.com will have all the salient information for you.

There are quite a few topics I could write about on this one, as you might imagine. Wargaming, my early love of computers (back in the 1970's, when all I had to work with was a teletype terminal connected to a HP 2000F timeshare machine the size of a room, at our local school board), and of course role-playing. But I'm going to talk about what I think was the first geekiness in my life.

Star Trek.

I was just a bit too young to remember watching Trek when it was in first-run on television (but I was alive then, and it's certainly possible that I was present while the TV was on), but I vividly remember watching it in reruns in New York City, on channel 11 right at dinner time on weeknights (sandwiched around The Odd Couple and Beat the Clock, at least for a time). I don't know what it was about that show that struck a chord with me, but something definitely did, and I tried to never miss an episode. My parents didn't think anything of it, and happily indulged my passion with Star Trek toys, model kits, and action figures (back then we had the big 8" action figures, with uniforms made of real material, not just molded plastic, and removable phasers, communicators, tricorders, etc.). I had almost every one of those things you could get (in some cases more than one, and I would put the uniforms on other figures to beef up my team of red shirts to go down to the planet and get vaporized). I remember getting up extra early to watch the Animated Series once I discovered it, and being bewildered when I couldn't find it any more.

I had the earliest of the books; one of the first book reports I remember doing was on "Spock Must Die!" The old James Blish adaptations of the original Trek scripts were favorites, and I devoured "making of" books like "The Trouble with Tribbles ("the book on how to write for TV," as the subtitle claimed), "The World of Star Trek," and "The Making of Star Trek." I got several copies of the Star Fleet Technical Manual by Franz Joseph, and still have a rather large collection of 1st printings, for which I scour used bookstores when I have the opportunity. I have no idea if they're worth anything, but I like having them and other things, like the original Star Trek Maps, blueprints, and so forth.

In the aftermath of Star Wars, Trek became once more a hot property. Star Trek: The Motion Picture came out, and with it a slew of new novelizations. From the awfulness that was anything by Diane Duane to the ultimate coolness that was the John Ford Klingons, it was a great time to be a Trek fan. (Trekkie? Trekker? I didn't, and don't to this day, consider one cooler or more derogatory than the other.) Wrath of Khan followed, and things were rolling. A few friends in high school shared my passion, but not to the same extent as me, and it wasn't until college that I actually met others who were into Trek as much as I was. My best friend Bob and I took in our first Trek convention together that year in Boston, and I was in hog heaven. Bob had even written his own Trek novel, set on a ship other than the Enterprise (which at the time was a novelty), and even had insignia made up for the ship (I still have one, Bob, if you're reading this).

Over the years my love of Trek never diminished, and gradually turned into full-blown fandom. Conventions, uniforms, Trek-related games, fan clubs (I performed a wedding at a Shore Leave convention in Maryland, dressed as a Mirror Universe chaplain; "Let us prey... upon those who are weaker than ourselves..."). In fact, it was while in a Star Trek fan club that I met my wife*, and to this day some of my closest friends stem from those grand days of friendship and fellowship, built around our mutual obsession. Sure, I'm a fan of most if not all science fiction that comes down the pike, and Star Wars holds a place dear in my heart, Dr. Who is mostly great, but to this day I'll watch Star Trek if it's on in any form; whether it be one of the series (yes, I even like Star Trek Voyager), the movies, or even a special on a channel like Biography. My wife and I currently have our "can't miss together time" around watching Star Trek Deep Space Nine on DVD from start to finish.

So there's my Geek Out. Trek's made a lasting impression on my life, and made me some of the best friends I've had. And I don't think it's any odder than being able to quote baseball statistics or spending hundreds of dollars on football tickets.

__________
* The first year we were married, we both tried to get the other a print of "New Borg City" for Christmas. Trouble is, the store only had one, and we were both trying to do it behind the other's back! It was a hoot once we and the guys at the store all realized what was going on.

JMS's signature contribution to media

If you were writing an article, and had to let folks know who J. Michael Straczynski is with but a single phrase, what would you pick? 

Babylon 5, you might be thinking? No. The New Twilight Zone? Captain Power? His Canne-competing film Changeling? No, no, and no again. If you're writing an article about him, apparently the thing to mention out of his entire body of work is Murder She Wrote.

I kid you not.

Robert Gibbs can't be all bad

Not that I like to inject politics into this blog, but I saw this on the Drudge Report and couldn't resist (it *is* fandom-related, after all). For those who can't read the title, it's the Star Wars Pop-Up Guide to the Galaxy (ages 9-12) he's carrying.

Oh, and Robert Gibbs is the White House press secretary, in case you didn't know.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to Leonard Nimoy. 79 years old today and a huge part of my childhood.

I'll see your Shatnerday and raise you...

...one barbershop quartet.





(With all due apologies and love to Jeff!)

Two Sad RIP's

The genre has lost two of its stalwarts. Both Ricardo Montalban and Patrick McGoohan died today. They were 88 and 80 years old, respectively.

Ricardo Montalban was, of course, Khan Noonien Singh, the genetically enhanced superman who conquered a quarter of the Earth in 1992 and ended up fighting Captain Kirk in both the original series of Star Trek and the generally-acknowledged-best of the Trek films, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. He also played Mr. Roarke on the long-running television show Fantasy Island, and a host of minor roles on television for decades. But it was that role as Khan that will always stick with me. He was just so... perfect. It's not just that Khan as a character was a match for Kirk, but Montalban as an actor was a match for Shatner, chewing up the scenery and commanding the screen in every scene. A terrific actor and one to be missed. EDIT: And curse me for a mongoose, I failed to mention that he also played Senior Armando in Escape From and Conquest Of the Planet of the Apes.

Patric McGoohan is perhaps a more enigmatic, but no less important, genre presence. He was, of course, Number Six in the baffling and brilliant British television show The Prisoner. He was also, we must remember, a fine actor of stage and screen, star of multiple television series ("Danger Man", etc.) as well as the villainous king in Braveheart. He won an Emmy for his work as a guest villain on Columbo. And a quick check of IMDB reminds me that he was also one of the bad guys in Scanners. But it will always be The Prisoner that draws me to this terrific actor (he also created the series). To this day, having seen every one of its seventeen episodes umpteen times, I still don't know exactly what was going on. Especially with that final episode. But each was imprinted with his undeniable presence and charisma, and he commanded every scene in which he appeared.

Two giants lost. Alas.

Rest in Peace, Forrie

Forrest J. Ackerman, Grand Old Man of science fiction fandom, has died at the age of 92. As a boy growing up, I remember waiting for the new issue of his magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland to hit the local newsstand, with its wonderful write-ups of modern and classic science fiction, fantasy, and horror films, stars, and behind-the-scenes folks, complete with scads of pictures. The advertisements alone were worth the price of the magazine to an eight-to-fifteen year old like me, with their promises of film clips from the Golden Voyage of Sinbad and Murder in the Rue Morgue, latex masks of the Creature from the Black Lagoon, Robbie the Robot toys, and Planet of the Apes model kits.

I would credit Famous Monsters, and the late Mr. Ackerman who was its editor for so long, with sparking my life-long love affair with all things "genre" related, and nothing else so neatly encapsulates what that genre really is. Although he and I never crossed paths at conventions, I know the fandom community will feel the loss it has suffered.