----- Original Message ----- From: Neil Faulkner N.Faulkner@tesco.net
Huh? Whassat? I wasn't aware that sweating your
bollocks off in a hot,
noisy factory counted as any kind of academic
discipline.
You're well better up on the biological lit than I am, as you've just demonstrated, which is why I asked you. I'm no academic elitist :). Anyway, at the risk of winding up in one of those discussions in which the biological and the social scientist lock horns over nature/nurture and gets absolutely nowhere, here's a few of my thoughts:
Mate selection in human beings seems far too
complicated for me to want to
bother with, but one of the more interesting takes
on it that I've read
comes out of meme theory. If we think of ourselves
psychologically as a
collection of memes, just as we are physically a
collection of genes, then
partner-seeking will operate to at least some degree
on the basis of memetic
selection.
I'm not up on meme theory so perhaps I'm setting myself up for a fall here-- but I'd bring in as a counterargument Norbert Walter in "Cybernetics" (backed up by Barbara Smuts' primate studies) who argues that partner-seeking exists as much for reasons of social bonding as for producing offspring, if not more. Arguing that we go for the person with the most attractive genes (as Leah says) or memes (as Dawkins says, and which is the more interesting theory, as it explains why the girl prefers the nerd), still excludes the recreational and social aspects of sexual bonding.
etc, all displaying the trendiest memes for their
particular subcoterie. I
don't think anyone would argue that conforming to
prevailing fashion gives
you a head start if you want to get laid.
Actually I would, being someone who tends to go for the nonconformist type :).
Actors are, by profession, imitators. Although we
all perform to some
extent in most of our social interactions,
(I'd argue in most of them-- but that's another discussion)
Actors, at least the good ones, are the best imitators, and by inference
capable of imitating those
'trendiest memes' that one looks for in a partner.
Um, well, debatable. I'm not sure, for instance, that anybody particularly expected Patrick Stewart to become a sex symbol, and frankly I consider Bela Lugosi a very good actor, but I think very few people would choose him as a sex partner even if he weren't forty years in the grave :). Furthermore, actors' desirability and their acting ability are not fixed factors: Peter Cushing started out playing young hunky heroes, but is better known for the sinister villains he played in his fifties onwards, and the actors who seem to inspire the biggest crushes are not always the ones with the best acting/imitating abilities (witness Leonardo DiCaprio).
Additionally, I think Tavia's point about the crush often being either totally or partially a form of identification with the character the actor plays is a good one, and again suggests that the crush is more than a biological phenomenon.
You could say that we are genetically programmed to
develop crushes on
actors!
I would rather say that we are socially conditioned :)-- and repeat that I'm not entirely sure that the function of the crush is purely one related to the propagation of genes....
Successful actors tend to appear in the most
successful films and shows (a
complex interaction of star and vehicle that I can't
be arsed to analyse in
greater depth), and box-office success might be
gauged as a rough barometer
of memetic success - stars of big hits are trendy,
so their memes become
trendy, and hence the stars become desirable
partners. On top of that, stars
tend to be sexually attractive in the physical sense
(though this too is at
least partly memetic, since tastes vary from culture
to culture and over
time).
Which again makes fandom a rather interesting phenomenon. B7, for instance, has a cult following, but I would hardly describe it as a big international hit-- and it's been off the air since 1981, other than the occasional rerun. Which makes the trendiness of its actors' memes a bit questionable, even though we do seem to be sunk in the morass of an early-eighties revival right now (I have nightmares at the thought of the return of the poodle perm).
This is particularly true for actresses,
unfortunately. They pass
their sell-by date all too quickly.
Agreed, though I think that has more to do with social factors-- it seems to be more socially acceptable to view an older man as a sex symbol than an older woman.
So there are several factors directing us towards
developing crushes on
actors: their imitative ability, their physical
desirability, and their
professional success. Is it ever more than a crush?
In the overwhelming
majority of cases, probably not. Nevertheless,
there does seem to be a
small percentage of fans that seem to stake an
unreasonable (and quite
unrealistic) claim on particular actors.
True, and I'd add that this doesn't always have to be sexual, as witness your remark about people expecting actors to read their scripts or whatever.
That emphatic 'No' should be self-evident to
virtually everyone, yet to a
few it would seem not to be. However, two points
that strike me as valid:
- it's not unique to media fandom, as the well
documented phenomenon of
stalking celebrities (or indeed non-celebrities)
attests.
This is also true, which is why I tend to think it has roots in wider cultural trends.
- stalking is a manifestation of social
dysfunctionality that resides
within the stalker, not his or her society or
subculture.
Subculture, perhaps not-- but society, I'd take mild issue with. In some ways one can argue that Western culture perversely encourages celebrity obsession-- stalking cases tend to make the front pages, and in some ways seem to be presented as a measure of a star's success (witness the Doonesbury cartoon in which a fan says to Zonker something along the lines of: "You really made the big time. I heard you even had your own stalker!" and Zonker modestly replies "Well, I had to share one with Ryan O'Neil..."). It is possible to argue that this is just due to the media's fondness for sensationalistic reporting, but on the other hand the media doesn't always act this way: it seems, for instance, that last summer's "News of the World" vigilante attacks were deliberately underreported in order to lessen the chance of the attacks spreading. Exactly *why* this obsession is as much lauded as condemned is a debatable one-- I tend to think it comes down to capitalism, myself (publicity sells more movies, and encouraging obsessive behaviour sells more photographs of Gillian Anderson, etc.), but then I'm aware that not everyone takes the neo-Marxist view.
Paul Darrow has been sent, quite unsolicited,
explicit fan material that he
personally found upsetting, but I don't think fandom
or any particular
aspect of fandom - including slash fic or slash art
- can be held
responsible for that.
Nor do I, but I would argue that such behaviour does not emerge in a vacuum, and it can be interesting to investigate its roots. The same holds for your analogy of your schoolmate mailing top shelf magazines to a woman he fancies-- in a culture with no top-shelf magazines or postal service he wouldn't fancy her less, but he might find another way of expressing his interest (or, in a culture in which displaying outward signs of sexual attraction is seen as unacceptable, not).
However, the top-shelf-mag boy example may not be the most analogous to the actor/slash example which you cited above. For a bloke to send top-shelf mags to a woman is sad, annoying and IMO constitutes sexual harrassment. However, for the bloke to draw nude pictures of that same woman and to send them to her... well, if I was that woman I'd be ringing the police and looking into restraining orders. And if he continues to do this, and to show (even sell!) the pictures to his mates despite her protests... I agree that in both cases these are the actions of a disturbed minority-- but I think that sending slash to Paul Darrow is in a more extreme category than sending girlie mags to a workmate.
Where such dysfunctionality originates, and to what extent the
rest of us collude in
promulgating and/or perpetuating it, is another
question. (And not an
unimportant one.)
Indeed.
Of course, if you don't believe in memes and think
that Dawkins, Blackmore,
Dennett etc are a wunch of bankers, you're not going
to believe any of that.
And likewise, if you think that social scientists are all barking up the wrong tree (or all barking, anyway), I don't expect you to believe a word I've said either.
Fiona
The Posthumous Memoirs of Secretary Rontane Available for public perusal at http://nyder.r67.net
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