RPS

[likeamadonna.livejournal.com]

I think most of you remember an article about slash that appeared in Bitch magazine a month or two ago. I have the new issue, and this was in the letters section:

Certainly, "many writers of fictional-people slash...frown on the morally dubious RPS [real people slash] genre," because after all, every community of outsiders likes to have another community to look down on. Morally dubious purveyors of real-person fiction include such reprobates as Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours; Charlie Kaufman, Oscar-nominated screenwriter of Being John Malkovich and Adaptation; and Michael Ondaatje and Peter Carey, who wrote about Billy the Kid and Ned Kelly, respectively. A list of evil, I tell you!

I would keep going, but since writing about famous people is as old as Homer, it would be a little too long. Did I forget Shakespeare and his awful, wrong plays about the kings of England?

It's hard to think of something more morally dubious than writing fictional stories about celebrities and labeling them as fiction. Except for actually morally dubious things like writing fiction about celebrities, calling it the truth, and selling it as a tabloid. Or stalking celebrities and selling the photos taken from the bushes. I think I feel more comfortable reading the works of Shakespeare than the Enquirer.

Sandy Keene
Portland, OR

Made me smile, anyway.