Thursday, November 14, 2013

The Walking Dead Fanfiction: Way Over The Rainbow

By Mickey Jhonny


It was many years ago, in the tender years of my misspent teenage youth that I joined some friends for a midnight viewing of the Wizard of Oz. No, there was no Pink Floyd involved. It was just the plain old Wizard of Oz, as I'd seen it in my childhood dozens, if not hundreds of times. Perhaps, being the callow and wanton youth we were, all this may have been under the influence of certain controlled substances. Though I don't recall that clearly, I do recall sitting in that theater watching the film unfold yet again.

This time though had a different quality to it. The munchkins and witches all went about their usual business, as they had all those previous times. But while they did so in the foreground, my attention was preoccupied with the background. There were these cornball, hand painted studio backdrops of distant mountains. And I was totally fixated on them. I just kept wondering, okay, the Yellow Brick Road, the Emerald City, fine, I know about all that. What I want to know though is what in the world is over the top of those mountains.

This I think it's fair to say is the impulse that inspires the phenomenon of fanfiction. Fanfiction is the art form by which a fan of a pre-established work of art tells a tale within the context of the world created by the original. Though a very old practice, it became something of a pop culture (subculture) phenomenon in the 60s when a major fanfiction cottage industry grew up around The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Star Trek. The fans took this as an opportunity to see things, which the original show didn't, wouldn't or couldn't provide: from a Klingon conquered universe to Kirk and Spock as homosexual lovers. Fanfiction truly did provide the opportunity for fans to boldly go where no staff writer had gone before.

Originally the fiction was produced in fanzines, which were mimeographed and stapled collections mailed out to subscribers within a narrow clique of aficionados and conference attendees. The rise of the Internet and particularly the World Wide Web in the early 90s changed all that and has allowed for a great blossoming of fanfiction of all kinds. In recent years, the proliferation of a vast inventory of video material available to be manipulated, edited and reinterpreted has taken fanfiction away from the written word into the YouTube editing room of any fan's bedroom. What remains consistent through it all though is the desire to see what lay beyond those distant mountains - to speak metaphorically.

The shows upon which the fan creators based their efforts always left passages unexplored. There were rooms never seen, alleys next entered, action never taken, hopes never spoken. The original show can only wind through but a single plot line. In doing so, though, countless other portals to new possibilities are left open, unexplored. It is these that the fanfiction creators explore. In the case of The Walking Dead this has been a pretty fertile undertaking. Fanfiction.net to cite just one case has over two thousand stories within the world of the walkers. And that's just skimming the surface of what is out there.

There are recurring themes in the Walking Dead fanfiction. One of the most popular is to delve more deeply into the background or makeup of one or more of the characters -- to understand better where they come from and where they're coming from (if you follow the distinction). Andrea and Daryl have been popular topics for this kind of writing. Others are more interested in getting beyond those mountains off in the distance. They look to tell a story of people that Rick Grimes and crew may never meet, but who are dealing with the same challenges of this walker infested world. In some cases it seems likely that the creators in fact are transparently putting themselves into this world of the Walking Dead. Pondering how they would rise to its challenges. How would they respond?

The Walking Dead fanfiction is a great resource for exploring the multilayered possibilities of the show's world. It is a testament to the creativity of the fan base and just a whole lot of fun. But, in closing, there is the question of why there is such fan fascination with the context of the show.

Maybe the great popularity of The Walking Dead says more about us and our society than seems immediately obvious. If you'd like to know more about that prospect, have a look at another piece we have at Pretty Much Dead Already.




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