Meet the Failcrew – Cleolinda Jones

This week brings us a very special person to us all – after all, she’s the source of most our following. Cleolinda Jones steps up to the plate!

What is your role in Made of Fail Productions?

Generally I’m on guest retainer for Twilight (Senior Sparkle Correspondent, as it were) and Harry Potter episodes of Made of Fail, although I’ve been on for at least two other subjects, I think, and served as Not Dayna a couple of times. I really would like to branch out THE HUNGER GAMES and talk about other LORD OF THE RINGS subjects BATMAN, though.

What fascinates you the most about your fandoms, or fandom as a whole?

Besides the basic “oh my God, what is wrong with people” fanthropology aspect, I’m really interested by the reasons people engage with a certain property—what the appeal of the text (as it were) is, what the themes are, how fantasies are constructed, why some have a greater pull than others. Obviously Twilight has a lot to do with this, but it’s also interesting how Harry Potter essentially begins off as childhood wish fulfillment… and then turns into a series of little love stories. Not romantic stories—little family love stories between Harry and his many parent/mentor figures. I try not to get too obnoxiously academic about what a given story is Really About, but figuring out how something works psychologically, and why that appeals to people, can be a major key to understanding subsequent fan behavior, and even, possibly, how to make your own storytelling more effective.

What is your proudest accomplishment or achievement?

1) Getting my own Wikipedia page.

2) Episode 32.

What do you do when you’re not online?

Hang out at House of Bark; go see the occasional movie; read, mostly. I have a deep love of biographies, in addition to the historical research I end up doing anyway for writing (I count writing as being online). As much as I read about the Victorian era, I have a major secondary interest in the Tudor/Elizabethan period, and I’ll read pretty much anything Alison Weir writes about that (her medieval biographies as well). But really, I just like well-written historical nonfiction — The Devil in the White City, Amanda Foreman’s Duchess of Devonshire bio, Antonia Fraser’s Marie Antoinette, Philip Sugden’s Jack the Ripper, and just about anything on historical royals, actresses/courtesans, and murderers, for some reason. Pretty much every January is spent reading all the books I got for Christmas.

What is your dream job?

Writing the way I do now, except getting paid more/at all for it.

What is your greatest pet peeve?

People who demand that I parody completely random movies. I mean, God bless, but it’s hard enough to do the ones I think I might be able to do. I’m not a vending machine; don’t try to shove quarters in my mouth.

Also, “free reign.” People, it’s giving a horse more rein! A king has all the reign he needs! FREE REIN!!!

Cleolinda can be followed on Twitter (@cleolinda) and LiveJournal (cleolinda, Movies in Fifteen Minutes)

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