“Be Gay, Do Crime”: A Look at Queer Expression in the Lupin III Fanfiction Community

Date

2022-08

Journal Title

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Volume Title

Publisher

MAPC, The University of Tampa

Abstract

Members of marginalized groups such as the queer community often face difficulty when trying to find and create safe physical spaces for themselves. As a result, many take to virtual spaces, such as that of the fanfiction groups, as places to express their identities and connect with others. Many smaller fanfiction communities have yet to be studied for this. This includes the fanfiction community for the Japanese franchise Lupin III, which has numerous fanfiction pieces that include queer representation and expression and many queer-identifying members. Methods for this thesis include textual analysis of fanfiction and canon pieces of the Lupin III franchise and an autoethnographic study of myself as a queer member of the Lupin III fanfiction community. This study presents examples of fanfiction for the Lupin/Jigen pairing, how these examples showcase queer expression, how instances within the franchise support queer identities being placed upon these characters, and how my own experiences as a queer individual are reflected in my writing Lupin III fanfiction. This study concludes that there is importance in researching not only larger fanfiction communities for queer expression, but also smaller ones.

Description

Keywords

Fanfiction, Queer, Lupin III, Fan fiction, Anime, Queer theory, Lupin the 3rd, Lupin the Third, LGBT, LGBTQIA+, Autoenthography, Queer representation in media, Bisexual, Internet culture, Yaoi

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DOI

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