Subversive!sue--the study of Mary Sue as empowerment in fan fiction

• Main Author: Santiago, Maria Katerina
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2007
• Subjects: Fantasy fiction > History and criticism; Subversive activities; Intertextuality; Plots (Drama; novel; etc); Fiction
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/2287
• Institution: De La Salle University

This thesis, like all Mary Sue fan fics, is all about Mary Sue -- specifically, how her being larger-than-life is, in fact, a perfect fit within fan fiction. She too is but a form of fantasy fulfillment, and thus should be right at home within fan fiction -- it is simply from the viewpoint of those who constrain themselves within the box of the believable and the real that see her as a deviant, even a nuisance. The thesis adopts John Fiske's view of television popular culture as a means of subversion against the homogenization and control of the culture that controls television: that television's adherence to what is accepted as real and logical is simply a discourse that the dominant group uses to naturalize what they believe is natural and, therefore, right. This struggle can also be seen within the ranks of popular culture-- within fan culture and fandoms, to be precise. A fandom's strict adherence to the reality and logic of its canon text can be seen as an attempt to impose its chosen -- its logical, natural -- interpretations of the canon text as the only good way of interpreting it, and therefore the Mary Sue becomes an attempt at subversion.