Parasocial relationships, fan communities and content creators: who owns the canon of the X-men?

Critical to the understanding of fan-made content and fan-culture is an examination of the parasocial relationships that develop between individuals and fictional characters, and the relationships that develop between groups of fans producing and consuming fan-made content. Parasocial relationships have been acknowledged as a powerful tool in ‘provid(ing) a place for safety, connection and resolution of problems’ (Sullivan, 2008), and one that can provide metaphors for people through which they can ‘process… their own situations (while) maintaining safety and distance’ (Gannon, 2018).

Conversely, the fandoms generated from parasocial relationships can produce their own internal politics and canons, and become fragmented into sub-groups. Disagreements between sub-groups can produce intense online conflict (DareEdwards, 2014).

Fandoms have come into conflict with the authors of the work from which fan-culture has developed (Duggan, 2021). My 2020 paper, “Alone Amidst X-Men: Rogue, Sexuality, and Mental Illness, is as much an investigation into my own parasocial relationship with the fictional character of Rogue, owned by Marvel and a regular in their X-men franchise. Acting almost as an academic fanwork, I examined her canonical history through a post-Freudian analysis and present my own argument on the meaning of her sexuality and body.

Academics writing on fan culture and comics and graphic novels like myself are also engaged in parasocial relationships and acting as a subgroup of a larger fandom.