The Rec Center #208
Continuing our annual tradition, we’re taking a break from our standard format for the final newsletter of the year with recaps of our respective 2019s in fandom/culture/entertainment. We’ll be back next week with our usual mix of articles, fic recs, etc etc. <3
year in fandom: Gav
Once again, I arrive at our year-end newsletter with a forgetful, “Wait, DID I have a new fandom this year??” to which Elizabeth replied, “You wrote fanfic for IT: Chapter 2!” which is embarrassing because I can’t allow 2019 to be defined by a passing fling with a mediocre horror sequel.
Honestly, this month I’ve ended up back on familiar territory: Star Wars. Except instead of obsessing about the new movie in a good way, I’ve been spiralling into an abyss of morbid fascination. There’s been a lot of “end of an era” pop culture coverage this year—the 2010s, Star Wars, Game of Thrones, Avengers: Endgame—but Star Wars the only one of those I actually cared about. Which is unfortunate, because The Rise of Skywalker... was bad. Very bad! They screwed up basically everything! I still love Star Wars (obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t be so annoyed by the new movie), but this year I got SO MUCH MORE out of indie movies, fanworks and low-budget art than I did from any kind of mainstream franchise entertainment. And I’m increasingly frustrated by the amount of energy we’re all expending on deeply conservative corporations like Disney.
While it’s important to pressure commercial media to be more inclusive, my advice to fans is to a) consume more indie media, and b) reacquaint yourself with the old-fashioned idea of fully divorcing oneself from canon. If there’s any justice, TROS will lead Star Wars fans to do this en masse, in a kind of mutually-agreed-upon “let’s forget whatever the hell that was” response.
Thinking about it, my “fandom of the year” is actually something where I... didn’t personally participate in the fandom. This winter I fell in love with The Magnus Archives podcast, listening to all 160 episodes in November. (How!??) It’s a serialized horror podcast where every episode is written and narrated by the same guy, and it’s a perfect example of what I’ve been talking about here. I totally understand that a lot of people will not be as enthused as I am to watch indie movies like Portrait of a Lady on Fire or Parasite, but The Magnus Archives plays with familiar tropes in a fandom-friendly context, featuring a diverse cast led by a queer, asexual protagonist. It’s precisely the kind of thing we all want to see from more mainstream entertainment, but don’t. It was a strange experience to listen to four seasons of a thematically coherent, meticulously planned story like that, and then turn around and watch Star Wars—a product with much higher stakes in terms of commercial and cultural fallout, which collapsed due to the creators’ misunderstanding of fandom and storytelling.
So at the end of 2019, my conclusion is this: Support independent artists, create your own fanworks, and divest yourself of attachments to franchises controlled by rich, white men. Happy New Year!
year in fandom: Elizabeth
In case there was any doubt, I am still having a great time in the (transformative) X-Men film fandom (even the disaster that was Dark Phoenix could not bring me down, though to be fair I brought my own flask AND we saw it in 4DX—that’s when they shake the chairs and a soft rain falls on you at inappropriate moments—so it was more hilarious than anything else). People are still writing some fantastic fic (I will hopefully share a few recs in the new year) and I continue to feel blessed, as I wrote last year, to be in a fandom that had its critical mass like eight years ago, because new things...exhaust me!!!
As far as culture I loved this year, I’ll echo Gav a bit on the big franchise v smaller indie stuff. I can say without exception that I strongly disliked literally every ~blockbuster-type film I saw in 2019 and strongly liked nearly every smaller film. I even liked smaller films I didn’t really enjoy watching! (shoutout to the relentless anxiety attack that is Uncut Gems!!) My favorites list isn’t exactly groundbreaking, but if you haven’t seen them, I’d strongly endorse The Farewell, Booksmart, The Lighthouse, Knives Out, and, above all, Parasite. As would:
Actually, I suppose I did have a fresh fandom interest, because I watched all of Mad Men for the first time in the year of our Lord 2019 and got...too into it. Ask me for my coldest takes! It was really charming telling people I was watching it and having them ask after specific characters like I was visiting with their old friends. My interest in the early 1960s in particular luckily coincided with the opening of the TWA Hotel at JFK, so I got to engage in some ~historical cosplay~, or like, wear one of my 9,000 retro dresses in a truly fitting environment:
I did actually love a few shows that weren’t a decade old—my top two recommendations, despite my ambivalence about the network/platform, are Netflix Originals. The OA sadly doesn’t look like it’s going to be revived, but I’d recommend the first two seasons all the same (we wrote an explainer back in September). The other is Unbelievable, an 8-part miniseries about the investigations around several rape victims that was based on some extraordinary reporting. Obviously a giant content warning here because of the subject matter, but I’d strongly recommend listening to or reading the original story first—there’s something powerful about watching the early episodes knowing how it’s all going to be resolved, particularly around the dedication of the two female detectives. It’s got a great cast overall, but Merritt Wever in particular? 🙏🙏🙏
Generally it’s been a weirdly good year for me in terms of fandom-related things, which has been strange to watch as I felt like mass media franchise stuff has been imploding left and right around me. Fansplaining hosted our first SDCC panel and recorded our first live episode (at GeekGirlCon); I wrote about 75K words of fic and actually shared it with other humans (baby steps!!!). And, uh, not to be sappy, but this newsletter has continued to grow, and I’ve continued to be astounded by what wonderful readers we have—and I promise to catch up on our inbox soon. :-)))
FINAL THOUGHT
One more reminder: next week we’re continuing ANOTHER Rec Center annual tradition, starting the year off with Yuletide recs. Please send your favorite stuff from this year’s batch of stories, and be sure to tag it Yuletide in the tropes & themes field. — Elizabeth
Have a favorite one-off rec? Please send it our way! We’ll use it in a future list. Other fanworks—comics, vids, zines, etc—are strongly encouraged as well. And if you have any interest in doing an entire rec list, explainer, or ship manifesto, please get in touch! elizabethandgav at gmail dot com.
If you liked this, please share it with your friends! https://thereccenter.substack.com/. And find us on social media: Gav (twitter/tumblr) & Elizabeth (twitter/tumblr)