Vampires, Werewolves, and Appropriation

Although my heavily caffeinated state could be influencing my reaction to our reading at the moment, I found the Jenkins "white paper" to be an absolutely fascinating read. For this week's entry, I'd like to focus my discussion on the section of the paper where Jenkins talks about appropriation which he defines as "…the ability to meaningfully sample and remix media content… a process by which students learn by taking culture apart and putting it back together" (32). Rather than jumping straight into a lengthy, and potentially boring analysis of the article itself (after all, I haven't won BOTW yet!), I'd instead like to switch things up and SHOW you some salient examples of how this idea of appropriation is working with a particular artifact of current youth participatory culture – the fan fiction surrounding Stephenie Meyer's Twilight saga. The following video examples of individuals "manipulating" video trailers to the upcoming second installment in the Twilight Saga titled New Moon are exactly what Jenkins discusses – individuals creating meaning(s) by "taking culture apart and putting it back together" (32).

However, before I show you and walk you through these examples, I'd like to quickly touch on the means by which these video trailers where generated and the resulting implications that my use of these particular examples introduce while considering the idea of appropriation. Jenkins discusses the notion of piracy as he states, "Fan fiction (stories about characters or settings in original works written by fans of the original work, not by the original authors) clearly involves the transformative use of existing media content, yet it is often treated as if it were simply a new form of piracy" (32). Although these fans of the series are indeed appropriating the original content of the Twilight saga, this particular example of appropriation is an actual example of the piracy Jenkins describes as no official trailer or source material has been officially, or what we would call "legally," released to appropriate from. Instead, all of the appropriated content that you will view in the following videos has been somehow illegally "leaked" from the studio. Although I'll hold off commenting on my particular stance on the ethics of this issue until a little later, I would simply like to illuminate the idea that copyrighting as we now know it is a relatively new construction that bucks the past pattern of recreation from previous creation that Jenkins describes: "…Homer remixed Greek myths to construct the Iliad and The Odyssey; Shakespeare samples his plots and characters from other author's plays… Many core works of the western cannon emerged through a process of retelling and elaboration…" (32). Legalese aside, the following examples of appropriation illustrate intelligent close analysis and commentary on these texts, as well as a keen sense of audience and purpose, to create new meaning(s) for the viewer (Jenkins 33).

To frame your initial reaction to the following fan created trailers, the basic plot summary to New Moon is as follows:

-Edward (a vampire), falls forever in love with Bella (a mortal), and is concerned that he is robbing her of a "real," human life that he believes that she deserves.

-In reaction to his feelings, Edward decides to lie to Bella, telling her that he no longer wants and loves her, for her own good / so that she can lead a normal life.

-Edward disappears, and Bella falls into an extreme state of depression.

-While away, Bella begins spending time with and developing unique feelings for her friend Jacob, who has a crush on her. Also, he is a werewolf.

-Bella and Jacob form a special relationship. Jacob falls in love with Bella, and Bella doesn't know how she feels about Jacob. The reader may perceive that Bella is "stringing" him along.

-Bella goes cliff diving, and Edward's sister Alice who can see into the future, has a vision of Bella jumping off the cliff which she perceives as Bella trying to kill herself in response to Edward leaving her.

-Alice tells Edward, he thinks Bella is dead, and goes to Italy to provoke and be killed by a rival vampire clan called the Volturi.

-Alice goes to find Bella, discovering that she is not harmed. They then go to save Edward, and Bella ditches Jacob despite the concern he expresses. Jacob feels hurt, betrayed, and lapses into an extreme depression of his own.

-Bella saves Edward, he confesses his true feelings and the reason for his leaving, he promises never to leave her again, THE END.

In the following videos, try to draw your attention to how the "artists" combined and altered different leaked video and images with user-created text and music to emphasize the particular feelings and plot points as outlined above.

Look at how this user chose to emphasis Bella's depression and the slow passage of time that she most likely perceived during Edward's absense with short spurts of text ("He Left Her," the sequential naming of each month that had passed since Edward's departure) with images (Bella looking depressed and grabbing her face in sepia tone) and music (a gentle, depressing sound).

Look at how this video communicates a different set of emotions, as well as perspective, as the user combines an extremely harsh rock soundtrack with images of Jacob morphing violently and painfully into his werewolf self. All of this to potentially illustrate the inner pain that Jacob is feeling as he experiences feelings of loss and betrayal.

Finally, look at this actual student created video that I found posted on TeacherTube and how this student combines text, images, and music to communicate yet another set of meanings.

Overall, regardless of the fact that 2 out of 3 of these examples are technically appropriated by illegal means, I feel as though these particular examples do a wonderful job of showing that these users have a very deep understanding of New Media Literacy and how these elements can be analyzed, combined, and recombined together to intelligently achieve a certain purpose for a certain audience. From this educator's perspective, if this type of appropriation can be responsible for teaching students the skills that they will need to be competent in a world filled with New Literacies, I say to hell with copyright laws. If the appropriation of fan-fiction in youth participatory culture affords students a perceived sense of relevance, engagement, and overall purpose with what they are doing, I say we march on Washington to overturn this copyright bullshit tomorrow! If only it were that easy.

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Resource

http://writing.umn.edu/sws/quicktips/quicktips.htm

Because we have been talking about integrating grammar instruction into our writing instruction in both CI 5644 and CI 5661, this is a link to the Center for Wrting's "Quick Tips." To briefly summarize, they are free, short documents that you can download in both .doc and .pdf form that focus on the three following categories:

• Documentation
  
• Writing process
• Style and grammar
• Punctuation

Believe me when I say that these are EXTREMELY HELPFUL. Not a day goes by that I don't turn to this resource during my own practice. Check it out!