Questions of Sexual Identity and Female Empowerment in Fan Fiction

Abstract

This thesis discusses questions of sexual identity and female empowerment in fan fiction. Fan fiction is created by the fans of a source narrative to expand on the original material and resolve its shortcomings. Because of its transformative nature, fan stories are unsanctioned and non-profit. Since fan fiction is not restricted by the commercial market, it offers a prime opportunity to examine the unadulterated psychology of its authors. The vast majority of fan writers in the most popular digital archives today are women belonging to completely different cultural, social, and religious backgrounds. Thus, the female identity is extremely relevant to comprehend fan fiction and its themes. Several fan fiction tropes are analyzed in this work, but particular attention is given to questions of gender roles, sexual identity and female empowerment. Slash and femslash fan fiction are closely analyzed, as the protagonists of these genres are queer. The abundance of such stories inspires hope for the development of queer-friendly communities across the globe, while the significant number of well-crafted women characters suggests that the precepts of feminist activists have successfully reached part of the younger generations. Fan fiction is also an informative genre, explaining delicate topics such as sexism, consent, psychological illnesses, homophobia and abuse. This educational potential can reach the level of any formal speech or essay due to the wide scope and appeal of fan fiction in comparison with other instructional material. For these reasons, this thesis advocates the entry of fan fiction in the academic world as a worthy object of study.