![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nestarOkay kiddies, gather 'round and I'll tell you a story.
Everything has a beginning,: blues music, pizza, fireworks, fanfiction cliche.
This story is about the last on the list.
Fan Written Fiction, or fanfic, had it's beginnings in the late 1960's with the TV show "Star Trek". Stories would be traded at conventions and fan published magazines would spread the stories across the fandom in the pre-internet days.
In one of the magazines a story was published that started with Kirk and Spock beaming down to an alien planet. The two officers end up stuck with out a way to contact the ship and after they miss the set contact time the crew on the ship starts to worry about them.
Now rather then track on to their personal homing beacons and beaming them up or scanning for a Human and a Vulcan life sign and beaming them up, Privet Mary Sue (who looked just like the women who authored the story) takes a shuttle craft and goes to save Kirk and Spock.
While she's gone Something Bad! happens to the ship. Instead of the best engineering staff in Starfleet doing their job, they run around crying that the ship is broken. But luckily Mary Sue has found the missing men and is now back on board in time to fix the problem.
The Trekkies/Trekkers of that time found this story to be the straw that broke the camels back. They demanded better written stories and any time a character was introduced that took over a role that could/should be played by a main character, who had knowledge/skills far beyond what their station called for, had the same name as the author, the in joke cry of "Mary Sue!" went up.
As time went on Trek fans began to share this term with other fandoms and it spread like wildfire.
The Urban Dictionary defines Mary Sue as:
A female fanfiction character who is so perfect as to be annoying. The male equivlalent is the Marty-Stu. Often abbreviated to "Sue". A Mary Sue character is usually written by a beginning author. Often, the Mary Sue is a self-insert with a few "improvements" (ex. better body, more popular, etc). The Mary Sue character is almost always beautiful, smart, etc... In short, she is the "perfect" girl. The Mary Sue usually falls in love with the author's favorite character(s) and winds up upstaging all of the other characters in the book/series/universe.
Star Trek fans took up this cry again when the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" introduced the character of Westley Crusher; which Gene Roddenberry confessed was an idealized version of his younger self.
Now the term has come back to the Star Trek fandom once more. The fanbrats on the interwebs have decided that Uhura is a Mary Sue.
This is why I really don't hang out around most of the fandom comms/forums (for any fandoms). You get these people with the mentality of a twelve year old girl who think that the only way for them to enjoy their idea of fandom is to bash the parts they don't like.
Uhura did her job - she didn't try to do everyone else job.
Uhura wasn't the pinnacle of the plot - she didn't rush in at the last minute to save the day
Uhura wasn't a femme fatal - Yes, she was involved with Spock. Yes, Kirk hit on her but Kirk hits on everyone. McCoy didn't fall for her, Scotty didn't fall for her, Sulu and Checkov didn't fight to the death for her.
So there goes the idea of Uhura being a Mary Sue, if you want to grok Spock you're going to have to find some other way of getting rid of her.
Everything has a beginning,: blues music, pizza, fireworks, fanfiction cliche.
This story is about the last on the list.
Fan Written Fiction, or fanfic, had it's beginnings in the late 1960's with the TV show "Star Trek". Stories would be traded at conventions and fan published magazines would spread the stories across the fandom in the pre-internet days.
In one of the magazines a story was published that started with Kirk and Spock beaming down to an alien planet. The two officers end up stuck with out a way to contact the ship and after they miss the set contact time the crew on the ship starts to worry about them.
Now rather then track on to their personal homing beacons and beaming them up or scanning for a Human and a Vulcan life sign and beaming them up, Privet Mary Sue (who looked just like the women who authored the story) takes a shuttle craft and goes to save Kirk and Spock.
While she's gone Something Bad! happens to the ship. Instead of the best engineering staff in Starfleet doing their job, they run around crying that the ship is broken. But luckily Mary Sue has found the missing men and is now back on board in time to fix the problem.
The Trekkies/Trekkers of that time found this story to be the straw that broke the camels back. They demanded better written stories and any time a character was introduced that took over a role that could/should be played by a main character, who had knowledge/skills far beyond what their station called for, had the same name as the author, the in joke cry of "Mary Sue!" went up.
As time went on Trek fans began to share this term with other fandoms and it spread like wildfire.
The Urban Dictionary defines Mary Sue as:
A female fanfiction character who is so perfect as to be annoying. The male equivlalent is the Marty-Stu. Often abbreviated to "Sue". A Mary Sue character is usually written by a beginning author. Often, the Mary Sue is a self-insert with a few "improvements" (ex. better body, more popular, etc). The Mary Sue character is almost always beautiful, smart, etc... In short, she is the "perfect" girl. The Mary Sue usually falls in love with the author's favorite character(s) and winds up upstaging all of the other characters in the book/series/universe.
Star Trek fans took up this cry again when the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" introduced the character of Westley Crusher; which Gene Roddenberry confessed was an idealized version of his younger self.
Now the term has come back to the Star Trek fandom once more. The fanbrats on the interwebs have decided that Uhura is a Mary Sue.
This is why I really don't hang out around most of the fandom comms/forums (for any fandoms). You get these people with the mentality of a twelve year old girl who think that the only way for them to enjoy their idea of fandom is to bash the parts they don't like.
Uhura did her job - she didn't try to do everyone else job.
Uhura wasn't the pinnacle of the plot - she didn't rush in at the last minute to save the day
Uhura wasn't a femme fatal - Yes, she was involved with Spock. Yes, Kirk hit on her but Kirk hits on everyone. McCoy didn't fall for her, Scotty didn't fall for her, Sulu and Checkov didn't fight to the death for her.
So there goes the idea of Uhura being a Mary Sue, if you want to grok Spock you're going to have to find some other way of getting rid of her.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-05-25 01:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-25 02:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-25 02:08 pm (UTC)And one of the things that really gets me is the slash authors who just miss the point.
I had to face this when Lord of the Rings came out, but Trek touches on this as well.
Friendship can mean more, and be closer, then a sexual relationship.
The idea that sex is a base need, but true friendship was something much purer has been around for hundreds of years.
So why take something truly moving and just make it about sex?
no subject
Date: 2009-05-26 06:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-26 07:11 pm (UTC)Historically women have had the stronger sex drive. In Victorian times Doctors would prescribe laudanum to women in order to lessen their sex drive.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-27 06:14 pm (UTC)