(Kristin Chenoweth) and Elphaba - Camera Obscura: Feminism ...

Wicked Divas and Internet Girl Fans • 55
where I get to rant about how much i am IN LOVE WITH EDEN???
Because I tend to do that a lot. Eden will you please come live with
me and sing me to sleep every night with the unfinished lullaby?
Because that would be amazing.” 65 Fan sites become spaces that
encourage such outpourings of adoration. In a culture in which
heterosexualization very much dominates a young woman’s world,
a space that permits homoerotic expression is radical and important,
both personally and politically. Wicked validates girl fans’
attachments to women performers as a legible emotional and
social force (whatever the girl fans’ present or future sexuality or
sexual identification). 66
The stage-door meeting is the ultimate encounter of passion
regularly expressed on fan sites for each performer. When
fans recount their experiences of seeing Wicked, their stories are
always punctuated by an attempt to see the performers, talk to
them, and get their autographs and photos. 67 The stage-door meeting
has several functions for Wicked fans. First, it caps off detailed
accounts (“reviews”) that they post of the performance attended.
While each spectator writes pages that recount and judge every
song and scene of the performance, dissect the performances of
actors, and measure her experience against her expectations or
against other productions of the show, the stage-door scene is the
required and expected ending. Extending the performance frame
to after the curtain falls — “the cool down,” as Richard Schechner
would call it — is not really an extension at all. 68 It proves that the
spectator was there and saw the diva in the flesh and had access to
her. Fans post photos to the site; one girl even provided a link to a
four-minute video clip of her stage-door meeting.
The stage-door meeting also ensures that the diva on stage
is indeed a diva in life; that is, for Wicked girl fans, she is a really
nice girl who is also a star. The important markers of “sincerity or
authenticity” — requisite star qualities that Richard Dyer notes —
are, for these divas, that they are “cute,” “funny,” “sweet,” and “nice.” 69
They accept gifts and tokens of affection graciously; they enthusiastically
engage in conversation; they sincerely ask if the girl wants
to be an actress; they give hugs; they take pictures. As “writteninveggies”
tells it: “I’m really shy, and I have never stage-doored . . .