The Fourth Fence, Blurry Boundaries, and...Something Else Alliterative

A post linked from metafandom tonight, a post that had very little (if anything) to do with RPF, had me thinking.

We, and by we I mean RPFers (although maybe I should specify sane RPFers ;]), do have a fourth wall. It isn't necessarily as pronounced or obvious as the fourth wall in FPFandom, but it's most certainly there.

Because at the end of the day, anyone who writes about a public person is writing about a fictional character. To varying degrees, everyone who makes their living in the public eye acts. The Jon Bon Jovi on stage is not the same as the John Bongiovi who goes home to his wife and kids (but just take a minute to savor the image of JBJ, mid-coitus, spouting off one of his favorite stage phrases..."How we doin' so far, okay?"); the Gerard Way giving a magazine interview isn't the same as the Gerard Way hanging out with his friends.

There are fans who don't get this, certainly. I remember a reply to a post from a while back about "stage gay", a person (x) who took offense to someone's interpretation of the performers' motives. Everything x cited in her response as evidence the initial comment was wrong was, of course, something that had been done in public - stage chatter, interviews, etc. It's easy to forget what someone says to Blender isn't necessarily something they believe (and here I'll point out it isn't necessarily something they don't believe, either - the point is, you don't know how John Bongiovi feels based on what Jon Bon Jovi says).

But I think, for the most part, even the people who have trouble with the blurred lines between real person and public character get it, get that there is a difference. To that end, "Real Person" is a bit of a misnomer - the Richie Sambora I base my Richie on isn't any more a person than Dean Winchester.

Our fourth wall is more of a picket fence sometimes, and some of these public figures are so genuine there have to be a few places where the fence has fallen into disrepair and you can see through it. But gaps or not, it's there, and the overwhelming majority of us know that, and we know not to try to rip it down.

I have trouble with the notion that RPF is, by definition, invasive and disrespectful. I may not have much respect for JBJ, but I sure as Hell respect his privacy and his wishes in that regard. He doesn't like media attention aimed at his kids, and you'll never see me use his real life children in fic. And I've argued against the use of non-public people in RPF - ie, Tico Torres' first wife is off-limits to me, his second (Eva Herzigova) isn't; Dorothea Bongiovi is not someone I'll ever write past a mention of her name (and even that I try to avoid), Heather Locklear is fair game.

Respect is absolutely, positively, essential in RPF.

Following a trail of links from the post I mentioned, I saw a commenter somewhere note that RPF made them uncomfortable because of the use of real people's bodies in pornographic fantasy. And while I understand that pov to some extent, in a lot of ways it baffles me.

I won't argue it with the idea that most people have, at one point or another, fantasized about boinking a celeb. Partly because not necessarily everyone has, partly because I recognize the difference between thinking something and speaking it through a megaphone. But I will put that idea out there, because I wonder how many people make that connection.

My initial response to that is to wonder what people who feel like that visualize when they read. Because movieverse Harry Potter has Dan Radcliffe's body, Sam and Dean Winchester have Jared and Jensen's bodies, respectively. I don't read much tv/movie-based fic, but when I do I see the characters as portrayed - I see the actors.

There's a difference, to some extent - Christian Bale's body isn't the same in The Machinist and Batman Begins...but it's still Christian Bale's body. So I wonder - and I mean genuinely wonder, not wonder in the snarky sense - if these people who feel like that visualize differently than I do, if they're seeing something other than Jensen Ackles when they read about Dean Winchester. Or is it not necessarily the body that's the issue, but the conjunction of body and name?

An example, and it's a fairly silly one, would be Richie Sambora in On The Line. He's in it for maybe a minute total, which is why this is a silly example, but his character is essentially "mildly egotistical but fairly nice-guy rock star". Is there a difference between me writing Mick Silver, the mildly egotistical but fairly nice-guy rock star with Richie Sambora's body, and writing Richie Sambora, mildly egotistical but fairly nice-guy rock star with Richie Sambora's body?

Less silly would be Jon Bon Jovi in The Leading Man, where he plays a smarmy douchebag with a big ego who uses his buns o'steel to seduce all the ladies. So, again, where's the line between "character nearly identical to JBJ with the same body" and "JBJ"? And why is it there?

I'm not necessarily trying to change anyone's mind; I'm well aware even if one of those "it's squicky because it's a real body" people read this and thought "oh, well that makes perfect sense" most people's aversion to RPF is on a less logical, more emotional plane where you can't just turn off the squick based on a good argument even if you wanted to. I'm posing these not really rhetorically, but close - questions aimed more at myself and the ether than anyone else.

Back to my original point (I had a point?), I wonder if that line is where it is because of the perception of RPF as something inherently disrespectful. Mick Silver is different from Richie Sambora because he isn't real, because the fourth wall is there and it's not fuzzy, or flimsy, or full of gaps. I couldn't possibly cross a line into Mick Silver's personal life, invade his privacy, because there isn't one. Richie Sambora damn sure has a private life, and the tabloids in the past year or two have knocked some big holes in the fourth fence, and he has boundaries I can cross.

But again I say RPF is not inherently disrespectful. The fact that it is possible for me to cross lines doesn't mean I will; the boundaries are there and in some places they're kind of flimsy but I won't be using that as an excuse to constantly push them.

Our fourth wall is more of a fence and our respect issues have some pretty significant differences; but we have a fence and we understand respect. The difference between fantasy and reality is less pronounced, but it's there, and the smart ones know that.