taboo

Hannibal, a drama series which aired on NBC from 2014-2017, experienced an unexpected revival when the show was released for streaming on Netflix in 2020. New fans, many of whom had been too young for the show when it first aired, brought with them a disdain for “problematic” content—ironic given the show itself’s over-the-top engagement with subjects like murder, emotional abuse, and cannibalism. A public incident on Twitter involving series creator Bryan Fuller provoked the ire of these new fans, who perceived an immoral betrayal in his vehement disapproval of “anti-shipping” culture.The topic of this paper addresses an understudied yet integral element of contemporary fan practices in the new decade. “Anti-shipper” or “fancop” ideology, its followers often referred to simply as “antis,” casts itself against the similarly vehement “anti-anti” or “pro-shipper” faction. The former, made up of fans of all ages but predominated by teens and younger adults, posits that fictional works involving taboo content (rape, incest, underage sex, abuse) should not be created, consumed, or promoted, due to being “harmful.” This position, strongly held, induces “fancops” to heavily police the content created by others, to the extent of group harassment, doxxing, and public shaming. The latter, whose loudest voices are generally older, holds to the stance that since works of art and fiction involve no harm to real people, the positions held by “antis” are puritanical and ultimately counterproductive, especially towards those who create and consume “dark” content to cope with their own personal traumas.The outgrowth of media fandom as a primarily niche activity performed within private communities of the 2000s and earlier, to a widely recognized hobby and valid form of participatory digital culture in the 2010s and beyond, has brought fan-writers and fan-artists into the public eye, and thus in direct contact—and often conflict—with creators, non-fans, and the mainstream. “In the public visibility of online publication, the insular nature of fan fiction – which could practically be maintained in its previous offline mode – is dispelled” (Lam 2014).There is much research regarding the conflict in the 2010s between fans and non-fans, creators and actors specifically, as it relates to the “fourth wall” (Zubernis, Larsen 2012) but the newly & involuntarily public nature of fan practices, combined with the dominant and proactive Gen Z attitude towards social justice, has given rise to intense questions of what is permissible in fan activity, as of yet unexamined from an academic perspective.The commerce-driven algorithmic affordances of this era’s mainstream fandom platforms have had the effect of breaking down boundaries between formerly siloed communities—including subcultures with different ideological and philosophical priorities.This paper will use the Hannibal incident to explore sociological questions of anti-shipping behavior, its effects on fan literature production, and its origins within a wider digital environment dominated by discussions of free speech, social justice, and cancel culture. It will argue that the conflict is not new, but its new virulence and visibility can be attributed to drastic shifts in digital platform usage by fan communities.

What makes us human? Descartes believes it is the cogito – the rational mind, or the soul. “Reason,” he writes in the Discourse on the Method, “[is] the only thing that makes us men and distinguishes us from the beasts.” This categorical distinction between the human species and all other living things is embedded in the western philosophical tradition which has held, since antiquity and even before, that man has a privileged position in the natural world. Human life is endowed with intrinsic value, while other entities, such as animals, plants or minerals, are resources that may justifiably be exploited for the benefit of humankind.

If humankind’s core characteristic is intelligence, and the body (to quote Katherine Hayles) may be seen as a mere accessory, then the transference of intelligence to a different kind of body – let’s say, a machine – may create an even more perfect and entitled being. This is the underlying premise of post-humanism. Post-humanism envisions a condition in which humans and intelligent technology are becoming increasingly intertwined. It focuses on function rather than form and defines a species by the way it operates – in other words, processes information – rather than by the way it looks. The post-humanist worldview dethrones the human subject from his privileged status and transcends the boundaries of the human to include other intelligent systems, such as machines, animals and even aliens.

Trans-humanism does not aspire to transcend the boundaries of the human but rather to overcome its limitations. It seeks to enhance the functions of the human body via implants and prosthetics, and to modify human brain power and longevity with the help of technologies such as bio- or genetic engineering. While the post-humanist perspective denounces anthropocentrism, which celebrates the exclusivity and hegemony of the human species, trans-humanism may be described as “anthropocentrism on steroids”, because it centers on the enhancement of the human.

Both post-humanism and trans-humanism address the question of what makes us human, but offer two different answers. A third answer is suggested by the concept of the ecological self, coined by the Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess. We tend to confuse our self with the narrow ego, he argues, but “human nature is such that with sufficient, comprehensive (all sided) maturity we cannot help but identify our ‘self’ with all living beings.”

This is the attitude apparently adopted by the protagonist of The Vegetarian, a novel written by the South Korean female author Han Kang. Winner of the 2016 Man Booker prize, it describes a young woman who refuses to eat meat, repudiates her body and her very humanity and yearns to become a tree. The taboos she breaks, the transgressions she commits and her shocking and spellbinding transcendence of the human are the topic of this paper.