The other night I decided to sit down and watch Conclave, which I enjoyed quite a bit. As is tradition with films that I enjoy, I immediately went to social media to see what others were saying about it. Of course, TikTok had to be a part of my survey, and I found this (wonderfully made) edit, which combined scenes from the film along with Charli XCX and Ariana Grande’s “Sympathy is a knife,” captioned, “conclave IS brat <3 so many haters in the vatican fr!!”
Honestly, I went looking for edits because I knew I would find a Brat themed one. After all, the film was filled with gossip, religious guilt, questions of power and fame, and I saw a fair share of folks on Letterboxd refer to it as what would happen if Mean Girls or Rupaul’s Drag Race took place in Vatican City (incredibly fair comparisons, honestly).
But, this specific instance reminded me of something I have noticed for a while. I’ve existed in fandom spaces online since I was about ten years old– I’m coming on nearly a decade now, and growing up in fandoms changed a lot of how I perceived the world as a tween, teen, and now as I make my way into young adulthood. I know it may seem silly, but I have always thought these spaces to be hotbeds for innovation, analysis, and thoughtful discussion on media, as toxic and ridiculous as they can become.
I want to focus on the integration of music into these spaces– not with music as the center, like in “bandom,” but as a tool for deepening connection with the focal media of obsession. Edits can be made to any song, with any set of characters, from any fandom, and they typically consist of a supercut of aesthetically pleasing and/or emotionally significant scenes. They can make crossovers between media (this Barbenheimer edit has to be one of my favorites of all time), or just be homages to the media itself, a true labor of love. Sometimes the songs used relate to the character struggles or narrative arcs lyrically, but other times, people just pick cool music– this edit of Wolverine from X-Men to a K-Pop song, “Crazy” by Le Sserafim makes no narrative or characteristic sense, but the song has taken the internet by storm and has a fun beat! By choosing more “off topic” songs, there is almost an exercise in irony, which therefore makes a commentary and creates an in-group with viewers of all the combined media. The use of lyrics like “all the girls are girling” in that song alone create referential understanding to vogue culture and online slang, even if it is a little silly. Pairing these lyrics with a hyper-masculine character (along with a sparkly border around the footage) creates dissonance, but also signals the audience of the X-Men franchise, their interests, and their views on gender performance. Perhaps it shows what messages the viewers are taking away from the films– the X-Men have always been a commentary on existing as a marginalized person, so queerness is not lost on this edit but rather, in fact, emphasized.
Or, another Conclave edit, in which the song “Let’s Have a Kiki” by the Scissor Sisters is used, making a point to have the words “LET’S HAVE A CONCLAVE” appear in text. Clearly, the original song references an elevated queer gender performance and the joy and community that comes with that, talking about working and serving and putting on “the wigs and the heels / And the lashes and the hair.” But, it is being placed with scenes from a quite serious film about older men who serve as cardinals in the Catholic church– you don’t have to analyze anything to see the dissonance here! (Though, without giving too much from the film away, the themes of complicated gender identity and expression within the film are also not lost on these edits and again, rather are analyzed and presented when paired, as silly as they may seem.) Again, though, that is part of the point. (This, also, for me, brings up the phenomenon of target audience, and how the actual audience can often stray far from that which was expected.) By creating this edit, or ones like it, the creators poke fun at themselves, the media, and fan culture as a whole. They are able to highlight the unseriousness of their fandom happenings, and how they like silly songs and “blorbos from shows,” but also add levity to a piece of artwork.
All of this is not to say that they are not also creating art– these edits can take hours or days, and this shows that they are taking part in labors of love. This sort of self-referential humor connects the fanwork creators with their audience, but also the audience with the media itself.
Animatics are related to this, as well. Animatics are, essentially, roughly animated music videos created by independent artists. They can also be either humorous or serious, but more often lean toward the serious side. They can range in detail, as well– some are super rough, and some are basically completely finished works. It all depends on what the artist wants to create, how long they’d like to spend, and what point they are trying to get across. Obviously, this requires immense talent and dedication, meaning that the creator has to have honed their craft and made an effort to learn how to accurately depict the characters and scenes that they love, on top of using skills such as art direction and storyboarding to tell a narrative. By using pre-existing music that may have deep emotional content, they are often able to delve into facets of their favorite characters that were perhaps not explored by the canon storyline, or that were only hinted at, therefore showing that they have analyzed the character and thought into the writing choices and psyche.
Another facet of music in fandom that I find incredibly entertaining, both to consume and create, is the “character playlist” or its closely related alternative the “ship playlist.” (Ship = relationship) The concept here is to pick out songs that remind one of a character, whether that be through general vibes (such as genre or sound) or lyrical content. Sometimes, they can be music that one feels like a character would actually listen to, but this is rarer than the first type.
Think of a character, type their name into Spotify’s search bar, and I’m sure you’ll find a playlist for them– hopefully, one that you like! (Or, if you cannot think of one, take my magnum opus character playlist as an example.) They also do not just have to be for pre-created characters– many use playlists as moodboards or inspiration for their own personal works, which can help with the writing and character building process! The concept of the character playlist is simple enough on the surface, but the actual execution can be quite tricky. For example, just searching “character playlist” in TikTok’s search bar led me to several videos slandering inaccurate songs being repeatedly used in character playlists across the web. The joke here is not that these songs are bad (I will always love “505” by Arctic Monkeys, I promise), but that some people do not take the time or energy to make playlists that match with the characters that they claim to like enough to represent. This shows that within fandom spaces, the songs chosen are not random or insignificant– they’re meant to have coherence and consistency, as well as canon relevance.This also shows that people who partake in this association of music to characters or works actually do a fair amount of deep analysis in order to do so. In fact, they are doing it twofold– they are piecing together meaning not only from the media they like, reading deeply into character arcs, but also doing lyrical analysis to see what fits and what does not. They have to pay attention to the songs they’re hearing, and dissect what the lyricist might have been thinking or the emotions imbued.
Taking it a step further, if the creator wants to make it sound like something that they think the character would listen to, or even to just make a specific aesthetic vibe, they draw on an understanding of genre, era (a character from a period piece may not like KESHA, thank you very much), instrumentation, and general composition.
These are only a few examples of fanworks involving music– we didn’t even get into animation memes or fansongs. Even so, these examples show that fanworks, as silly as they might seem, are works of not only creative expression but also analysis. On top of this, the creators of the fanworks are able to connect themselves and others to the media they are consuming via mashing up their own personal musical taste and their favorite books, movies, or video games. Since they have their own personal musical taste, an individual expression of emotions or themes that they consider important already, when they place a song they like in an edit or a playlist based on a character, they are adding their own personal perspective into the mix, connecting them further to the media. Furthermore, many who make character playlists do so because they relate to these characters, for a variety of reasons. By using songs that they like, and perhaps relate to as well, in accordance with these characters, they are able to perform catharsis and gain comfort from the media they consume and love.
Doing all of this, they prove that their fandom creations and consumptions are rooted in an attempt at genuine literary analysis and cultural commentary, and often achieve that height. Plus, they prove an incredible amount of love and dedication to these works– and is that not admirable enough?
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Laszlo Huening declares (slight) conflict of interest: He’s a veteran Tumblrina, for god’s sake.
