That was a bad idea.

Found an interesting article about a reporter attending a Harry Potter Con in Las Vegas. There's some bits in it that remind me of the whole Writercon kafuffle. Her reactions remind me a bit of my own first visit to Media*West, only magnified significantly.

You've heard of Star Trek conventions, I say. It's not so different.
'Nuh-huh,' says one. 'There it's all about the merchandising and maybe, you know, you get to meet William Shatner. It's not about wearing a cape and going to lectures.'

The bartenders obviously have a coloured opinion conventions, probably brought about by Creation's behemoth events in Vegas.

This quote makes me wonder, though:

But then, there's something so very female about this. It's the first time that women have ever dominated fandom in this way, and so of course it's all about doing extra homework and making sure your uniform is nicely pressed. It's really not a coincidence that one of the most popular characters to dress as is Hermione Granger, Harry's over-achieving little-miss-perfectionist friend.

Taken mostly out of context, it's an interesting observation on the author's part. I've never been part of any female dominated fandoms (technically, I've never been a part of a 'fandom'. I have hobbies and interests, but I tend to stop there).

Is there a substantive difference? I doubt it. I mean, the James Marsters show had a surprising dearth of literary analyses, although the attendees were usually dressed quite nicely.

Frederick Crews's sequel, Postmodern Pooh, is infinitely more ridiculous than his Sixties original because in the past 40 years, the literary theory establishment has almost collapsed under the weight of its own jargon. I think that if I hear the word 'discourse' again, I'll scream, although it's when I go to 'Out of Bounds: Transgressive Fiction' that I get really annoyed. It's a seminar analysing Hermione Granger-Professor Snape fan fiction. That is to say, a relationship between a teenage girl and a fortysomething man, which often, it transpires, takes the form of a rape narrative. There are 200 women in the room. And a whole lot of talk about female empowerment and gender reversals, but, frankly, if it was 200 men talking about rape narratives involving underage schoolchildren, it would be a matter for the police, and I don't think this is empowering anybody.

Okay, it's true that my exposure to Harry Potter outside the canon is pretty much nil (other than the utterly DELIGHTFUL Miss Scribe & Cassie Claire stuff that's practically Enquirer worthy). In fact, my entire personal exposure to fanfic and slash doesn't go a lot further than clucking my tongue and shaking my head like an old patriarch at his offsprings attachment to the Beatles whenever redeem147 or anidada mention, well, anything.

If you recall, I ran from Media*West like Road Runner from the Coyote. Meep Meep, and I was out of there. And I, ladies and gentlemen, consider myself something of someone who's been through the fandom hoops and around the fandom blocks. I can only imagine what some poor Guardian reporter (I will eschew the term "mundane", as I'm not a total asshole) would feel, para- dropped into Sin City to wander around a HP con.

Of course, slash involving the cast of HP would probably be a little more disturbing, considering the characters tend to be split 35/65 between adults and people under 16. I mean, all that ‘whatever floats your boat’ and GGG stuff has to work its way past a lot of societal taboos, especially if you haven’t seen Emma’s b-day party photos.

I dunno. It's just a bit weird, like seeing a particularly clueless astronaut exploring an alien society.