This blog posting is about sex. Now that I have your attention, let me clarify: it’s about what happened when I dared to explore the topic of Jessica’s sexuality in my fan fiction writing, and why this subject strikes a nerve with so many readers.
Because reading a story or book requires active imagination on the part of the reader, it is easy to start to identify with the protagonist. We look for reflections of our values and attitudes in them, and we’re disappointed when they prove to be other than our ideal, at least to a certain degree. This is of no consequence for characters that are purely the product of the author’s imagination – after all, who is the reader to challenge the writer’s presentation of their own creation? But it becomes more problematic in the realm of fan fiction, where authors borrow characters not of their own making with already established identities. The presentation of that character in the resulting fanfic will be a reflection of how one person - the author - sees him or her, a vision that will likely ring true for some and false for others. The volume of the praise or criticism that follows is largely determined by how closely the author hews to the reader’s own opinion of the character, and the context in which the author’s use (or abuse) of the character occurs.
I set myself up for a textbook demonstration of this principle when I wrote my MSW fan fiction story “On a Midsummer Eve.” After becoming frustrated with Donald Bain’s officially sanctioned books that seemed doomed to leave Jessica’s relationship with George Sutherland in a platonic limbo forever, I chose to write a story that addressed the subject of where the relationship, if set free, potentially could go head-on. And believe me, I have found that nothing stirs up readers more than when you mix sex with a well-established and beloved character.
How Jessica herself would respond to the subject if she were a real person is a matter of debate, although I think her characterization in the series provides enough clues to allow one to make an educated guess. Although in the earliest years of the series Jessica was portrayed as being a bit on the tweedy, old-fashioned side, as time went by her image became more refined with more care taken in her wardrobe and appearance. This was almost entirely Angela Lansbury’s doing: although Peter S. Fischer, who created the character, wanted to keep Jessica as something of a throwback to a simpler time in simpler places, in Angela’s opinion, “People didn’t want to see me looking frumpy. Women didn’t and neither did men.”(1) She later went on to add that her character was “a pretty good piece of feminine goods as far as I’m concerned.”(2) Jessica was attractive to men and she knew it, even if she didn’t flaunt the fact or use it as a means to an end. She was also clearly portrayed as open-minded and non-judgmental, or as Peter Fischer described her, “decent, fair-minded, unbigoted, warm … sunny without being a goody two-shoes. Forgiving of flaws, but not namby-pamby or corny. There’s still some steel there.”(3)
Jessica’s romantic life was one area of her character that was consistently avoided by the series. Angela Lansbury didn’t feel comfortable portraying Jessica in such scenes, and preferred that she remain “a woman alone.” As for Peter Fischer, he recognized that the show was a mystery, not a soap opera: “A romance would get in the way of the story, and serious one would spoil the arc of the series.”(4) But just because MSW eschewed the topic of romance doesn’t necessarily mean that Jessica herself would if the circumstances were right. And once Donald Bain was allowed to introduce the character of George Sutherland, the Pandora’s box was opened wide, at least in the imaginations of the fans, and most vividly so in the imaginations of fan fiction writers. The result of my own vision of following that imaginary thread was “Midsummer Eve” and the stories that followed.
I had flirted with the subject of George and Jessica’s relationship and the possibility that it could take a more interesting turn some years ago when I wrote the first story of what eventually became the “Legends and Songs” trilogy, “The Banks of Loch Lomond.” In that story I ultimately chose to play it safe (for the record: nothing happened that night in the cabin). When I started writing “Midsummer Eve” my intention was to ratchet up the temptation, but I honestly did not know to what kind of ending that would lead, at least not at first. It was not until a bout of insomnia at three o’clock in the morning led to my writing a purely experimental passage that I decided that I would attempt to break the “sex barrier.”
The decision was not made lightly. The “3 AM passage” (as I took to calling it) was rewritten and rewritten again as I sought to convey the power and beauty of a couple’s first intimate encounter in language that was as tasteful and inoffensive as possible. It was not enough for Jessica and George to respect each other in the morning; I had to respect them both as well. But in the end I was happy with what I wrote – in my opinion it was in keeping with the spirit of the characters, responsible adults capable of making considered choices for themselves independent of the dictates of society or other outside institutions. Furthermore it had a certain feel of “rightness” to it that made the whole story seem as though it was meant to culminate in this moment. What I was less certain of was how the people reading it would feel about it.
My trepidation was because “On a Midsummer Eve” was a ‘first’ in more ways than one: not only was it my first attempt at including a scene involving intimacy in a story, it was also the first story to be found anywhere in MSW fanficdom that crossed the line on that topic. I was more than a little nervous about this, which is why I made readers navigate through a disclaimer page on the website before they could get to the story itself. The disclaimer forewarned what was to come, and also begged readers to cool down for 24 hours after reading it before flaming me with the angry e-mails I was certain would follow.
Much to my surprise, the flaming e-mails never materialized. As of this posting I have since written three more stories of “questionable virtue,” those being “The Prayer of St. Brendan,” “Come as You Are,” and “Inner Demons” (written for the FanFic 100 challenge). The vast majority of comments about these stories have been positive if not downright enthusiastic, with only a few reviewers expressing reservations about whether it was in character for Jessica to be engaging in an intimate relationship outside of wedlock.
The impressions of all the reviewers are, of course, all equally legitimate, because how a reader is impressed by a story – or, in this context, a particular element of a story – is informed in large part by individual taste, and in even larger part by their own vision Jessica’s character, which, in turn, is to at least some degree a reflection of their own individual values and attitudes. The only opinion that I would not view favorably is the absolute opinion that denies the possibility of any other interpretation. All of our visions of Jessica are, to some extent, subjective – no one of us has a monopoly on who she is or what she would or would not do. As I said in my author’s notes to “Midsummer Eve," this is why fan fiction is such a wonderful thing: “since none of it is ‘official,’ we can all dabble in our own alternate realities without worrying about wrecking the canon, and in the fan fiction universe, no particular philosophy reigns supreme.
“Whatever you think about it, in the end, of course, it’s nothing more than one story written by one person.”
(1) Angela Lansbury: A Life on Stage and Screen by Rob Edelman and Audrey E. Kupferber p 219
(2) AL: A Life on Stage and Screen p 235
(3) Balancing Act: The Authorized Biography of Angela Lansbury by Martin Gottfried p 270
(4) Balancing Act p 276
