Because romanticizing a character in of itself isn't bad. We all do it. Whole nature of being a fan. Fans by definition obsess over and to an extent idealize (defined as envision or represent as the ideal) certain types or archetypical characters.
Can't quite agree that romanticizing a character or character type is by definition essential to being a fan, even in the all-out, fic-reading/writing term-of-art sense, though doing so certainly takes up a big portion of a lot (most?) of individual fannish readings. I've been a Star Trek fan since the mid-seventies, but I don't think there's been significant romaticizing element in the ways I've thought about any Trek characters, even when taking those characters actual romantic story arcs--such as they were--into account.
That may simply be a function of romance just never being a strong suit for the writers of any of the Trek series, including the original (my apologies to disagreeing K/Sers)--there've certainly been media characters I've found hard not to romanticize (The X-Files' Scully, Season Four Buffy, early-1980s Kitty Pryde at the time)--but I think one can also be a strong, even obsessive fan of a given source without necessarily romanticizing even characters with whom one closely identifies/sympathizes. As you say, "Something in that series grabbed at your heart, yanked it, and made you go weak in the knees"--but that something can be a straightforward appreciation of the characters' struggles, or even of a larger story arc or Big Idea (Trek again, or Babylon 5); it doesn't have to involve romanticization, though it helps.
Unlike romanticizing, which is merely fantasizing about a character, idealizing - takes it to a whole other level. Here you've created a shrine. You are worshipping them. When you hunt for people to be romantically involved with? You look for that character.
...yeah, that can happen. I suspect with unfortunate results, at least emotionally.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2005-06-29 07:17 pm (UTC)Can't quite agree that romanticizing a character or character type is by definition essential to being a fan, even in the all-out, fic-reading/writing term-of-art sense, though doing so certainly takes up a big portion of a lot (most?) of individual fannish readings. I've been a Star Trek fan since the mid-seventies, but I don't think there's been significant romaticizing element in the ways I've thought about any Trek characters, even when taking those characters actual romantic story arcs--such as they were--into account.
That may simply be a function of romance just never being a strong suit for the writers of any of the Trek series, including the original (my apologies to disagreeing K/Sers)--there've certainly been media characters I've found hard not to romanticize (The X-Files' Scully, Season Four Buffy, early-1980s Kitty Pryde at the time)--but I think one can also be a strong, even obsessive fan of a given source without necessarily romanticizing even characters with whom one closely identifies/sympathizes. As you say, "Something in that series grabbed at your heart, yanked it, and made you go weak in the knees"--but that something can be a straightforward appreciation of the characters' struggles, or even of a larger story arc or Big Idea (Trek again, or Babylon 5); it doesn't have to involve romanticization, though it helps.
...yeah, that can happen. I suspect with unfortunate results, at least emotionally.