Maybe not a snob, Avi, but perhaps a bit ... unimaginative in your response to this text? It's true that it isn't a progressive, Marxist-based class analysis. But then, it isn't claiming to be, so isn't judging it on that criterion a bit ... odd? The point stands that meanings are not determined by producers.

I am a vidder - not an academic and I honestly couldn't sit through more than 10 minutes of Bleak House but, I really think this vid works well. My sense of the book/show is that it is primarily about complex legal wranglings over money after the death of a family member. I find this sort of topic about as tedious in fiction as I do in real life. The vidder has taken this story and pulled out of it a theme I find more interesting. She is exploring what it means to be beautiful in the context of this society. The woman who is the main character of the vid has a beautiful soul but, has been disfigured by smallpox. There is a moment that is quite moving when her hand brushes over a picture of an angel. It is quite clear that the picture was drawn for her and it is equally clear that the person who drew it has not seen her since the disfigurement and that when he does, he will think less of her. We also see Gillian Anderson's character who is clearly very beautiful but seems to be harboring secrets. I am hampered here by not being familiar with the source but she seems to have dark side. The social status of women in this world is based primarily on their appearance and the content of their character is completely irrelevant. That theme goes right to the heart of the psychological, social, and philosophical issues of self worth, jealousy and identity that I have to deal with every day. It seems far more relavent than class struggle or arguments about inheritance. The fact that the vidder chose to focus on that theme rather than the more directly economic one that is central to the story is, in a way, quite political. The fact that she was able to do this tells me that she does have pretty good critical skills. It is unlikely that she has academic litcrit credentials, though not impossible. I do know two English professors who vid and one art philosophy instructor who is an incredibly influential beta (Someone who offers constructive criticism to works in progress.) On the internet, people are judged by the effectiveness of their work - not their credentials or their faces. It makes a nice change. I think you may have a point about "equating liberatory play with liberation." Fan fiction and fan vids have a very long history. Historically, they have been made by women for other women about stuff women tend to like and men often scoff at. They have usually been exchanged furtively. I know a few writers/vidders whose boyfriends/husbands still don't know they do this. I can see how someone might view the historical norm as "liberatory play" but, putting the vid out on YouTube for the whole world to see and comment on looks more like liberation. (At least to me. This vidder may not have come out the older tradition and may not be aware that showing them to the world is a radically new and frightening concept for the rest of us. Is it still liberation if you never realized there was something to be liberated from?