Fandom, Now in Color: A Collection of Voices

by Rukmini Pande

Fandom, Now in Color gathers together seemingly contradictory narratives that intersect at the (in)visibility of race/ism in fandom and fan studies. This collection engages the problem by undertaking the different tactics of decolonization—diversifying methodologies, destabilizing canons of “must-read” scholarship by engaging with multiple disciplines, making whiteness visible but not the default against which all other kinds of racialization must compete, and decentering white fans even in those fandoms where they are the assumed majority. These new narratives concern themselves with a broad swath of media, from cosplay and comics to tabletop roleplay and video games, and fandoms from Jane the Virgin to Japan’s K-pop scene. Fandom, Now in Color asserts that no one answer or approach can sufficiently come to grips with the shifting categories of race, racism, and racial identity. Contributors: McKenna Boeckner, Angie Fazekas, Monica Flegel, Elizabeth Hornsby, Katherine Anderson Howell, Carina Lapointe, Miranda Ruth Larsen, Judith Leggatt, Jenni Lehtinen, joan miller, Swati Moitra, Samira Nadkarni, Indira Neill Hoch, Sam Pack, Rukmini Pande, Deepa Sivarajan, Al Valentín

Genres: Nonfiction, Fandom

272 pages, Paperback

Published December 15, 2020

Reviews

[Varshini · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an absolutely gorgeous book and I'm so sad I've finished it (I know the fact that this is a collection of essays means I can go out and search for more, but stillll)

I've been in fandom for a long while now, and for a shorter while, I've definitely thought a lot about the intersection between race/culture and fandom, and how fandom tends to stereotype everyone as white. I've also been following Dr. Pande's tweets/thoughts on fandom, and once I saw this book was being created, I had to, had to go pick it up.

Even if you don't consider yourself a fandom person, I would recommend reading this book, because it speaks so well to culture as a whole through fandom. If you don't know what fandom is, hit me up maybe?

If I went into what got me specifically excited within the book, this review would basically be me quoting the absolute entire book.

But highlights (basically the pages that I remembered to take pictures of, because I wanted to hold onto them)
1. From 'Raceplay: Whiteness and Erasure in Cross-Racial Cosplay' by joan miller

Fandom is not isolated from the world and therefore should not be immune to the same ethical and moral scrutiny applied to all other aspects of daily life.

2. From 'Alpha/Beta/Omega: Racialized Narratves and Fandom's Investment in Whiteness' by Angie Fazekas

When women do appear (in male/male fiction), they tend to be persistently devalued or outright villainized to prop up the male/male pairing, particularly when these characters are women of color.

3. The entirety of 'Waiting in the Wings: Inclusivity and the Limits of Racebending' by Samira Nadkarni and Deepa Sivarajan

(p.s I tweeted about this, and got replies back from both Samira Nadkarni and Rukmini Pande, which definitely made me fangirl) (Yes, I know it's on the nose to use the word fangirl but that's what I did, sooo)

4. From 'Whose Representation Is It Anyway? Contemporary Debates in Femslash Fandoms' by Rukmini Pande and Swati Moitra (This is definitely the one that I related to, abso-f*cking-lutely the most)

Fans of color often must choose between participating in an assumedly universal joy or outrage over certain characters or pairings or risk being labeled as people who bring drama into fandom spaces, harsh people's squee, or seek to impose purity tests on fannish behavior

5. From 'Jane the Virgen or Virgin? The Dis-United States of (Latino) Fandom' by Jenni M. Lehtinen

Many fans from nonanglophone countries see communicating in English on social media, as well as consuming fan products in English, as a way of belonging to the wider fan community. Yet assuming that nonanglophone communities are nonexistent, unimportant and peripheral means misinterpreting and overlooking the very nature of transnational fandom