Author Topic: SLATE: "Why Do Gays Write Fan Fiction? To See Themselves in Mainstream Culture."  (Read 16608 times)

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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Interesting....


FYI: for obvious reasons, I also posted this in the Check Please! thread
HERE. (Click above if you wish.)

(Like the London Spy thread, the Check Please! thread has quite a bit of FanFic--and a LOT of FanArt--posted.)





http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2016/05/30/queer_people_write_fan_fiction_to_see_themselves_in_mainstream_culture.html


EXPANDING THE LGBTQ CONVERSATION
Why Do Queer People Write Fan Fiction?
To See Themselves in Mainstream Culture.

By Rae Binstock
MAY 30 2016 9:30 AM



Why shouldn't Kirk be with Spock, Knope with Perkins, or Stark with Rogers?
Illustration by Natalie Matthews-Ramo




Being a queer consumer of entertainment is a little like being a diabetic invited to an ice-cream social: It’s fun until it starts to hurt, and at some point you’ll inevitably feel left out. While some media seem to be moving further ahead than others—see the influx of TV shows like Transparent, Sense8, and Orange Is the New Black, which feature queer characters from a range of backgrounds—as long as Hollywood is still making movies like Stonewall, where white cisgender men are insistently transformed into ahistorical heroes, representation is still a problem. For many queer viewers, favorite movies and TV shows offer a world in which complex, dynamic, actively queer people—people like them—do not exist.

However, as history has taught us, queer folk can always make a space for themselves, even in the most hostile of conditions. Fan fiction (or fanfiction, fan fic, fic, or any of number of abbreviations used around the web) is a term that can cause a lot of spontaneous eyerolling and sarcasm-flinging in some circles, but in others, it’s a tradition that has long united fan communities. Using characters, settings, plots, or any combination of these elements, amateur writers reimagine existing works—fiction and nonfiction—in new ways. The Brontë sisters wrote “fantasy stories” about the Duke of Wellington, and expanding upon the Sherlock Holmes canon has been a professional pastime for dozens of published writers. Nowadays, most fan fiction is on the internet, accumulated in vast archives like Archive of Our Own (Ao3) and FanFiction.net.

Fan fiction empowers authors because, in a longtime fan fiction writer’s words, “It doesn’t have limits, and it doesn’t prescribe them.” With the basic foundations already laid, fan fiction authors can change anything they don’t like about the original story by adding, removing, or inventing at will. Missed moments, new romances, alternate universes where their favorite characters are talking squirrels who live in a magic oak tree—or, perhaps, where two canonically straight characters are in a queer relationship.

Actually, there’s not much perhaps about it. Queer fan fiction, or slash—a term usually used for male/male stories, femslash for women—goes right back to the roots of modern fan fiction, when fan magazines in the 1960s published pulpy romances between Star Trek ’s Capt. Kirk and Mr. Spock. (If that surprises you, you’ve clearly never seen the way William Shatner used to look at Leonard Nimoy.) The majority of television’s and movies’ most popular franchises are full of characters whose heterosexuality is unquestioned, but that doesn’t kill the chemistry that can arise between well-written characters and talented actors. In those instances, queer audiences long for same-sex characters to have an equal shot at romance or at least an approach to queerness that isn’t “all-or-nothing”—something a little like bisexuality, for example, which has recently been acknowledged and realistically portrayed on several television shows (hello, American Horror Story: Hotel, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and Orange Is the New Black), but sadly remains pretty scarce in movies.

One writer of slash fan fiction, who wished to remain anonymous—professing, like many I interviewed for this article, to being “ashamed” of her involvement with the fan fiction community—pointed to the double standard between onscreen romances for straight and queer couples. “The sort of love stories I like are totally reflected and visible in [mainstream media’s] canon straight romances,” she said. “Professionally produced media doesn’t give me that sort of well-written, emotionally devastating love story with LGBT+ characters.” The eroticism, the passion, the high stakes—in most cases, these are all reserved for straight characters. It’s up to the queer fans to claim them for themselves.

Take, for instance, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, where the superpowered members of the Avengers are mostly male, toned as hell, and love to banter: Right out of the gate, fans were eagerly exploring the possibilities of Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, and Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, becoming lovers. On Ao3, there are almost 10,000 stories pairing the two romantically; that’s 3,000 more than the next most popular pairing, which also features two male characters in a queer relationship (Agent Coulson and Hawkeye). Parks and Recreation, one of television’s most beloved sitcoms, has more stories that romantically pair protagonist Leslie Knope with her female best friend, Ann Perkins, than with her husband, Ben Wyatt. And in case you were wondering, Shakespeare fan fiction does exist, and yes, Henry IV’s Prince Hal does fall in love with his childhood friend Ned.

This re-pairing of characters can be written off as unsatisfied fans indulging in wish fulfillment and the occasional erotic daydream. Outsiders who have ventured into the world of fan fiction—including Slate ’s David Plotz and Laura Miller—have struggled to remain neutral while describing the genre, referring to an “obsession with emotional intensity” that has “spawned slash” or raising eyebrows at “romances, often torrid, between ostensibly straight male characters.” But when you are a member of the product’s original target audience—when you identify with characters whose sexualities are socially approved and unthreatening—you are much less likely to understand how empowered one can feel when writing queer romance into straight stories. There is power in giving Harry Potter a crush on Draco Malfoy, or creating a world in which Scandal ’s Olivia and Mellie leave Fitz for each other; there is power in creating a means by which those in the mainstream might see from your sidelined point of view. It’s easy to trivialize, but the fact is that fan fiction is one of the few outlets that an increasingly frustrated queer audience has to engage with material that refuses to engage with them.

Authors of queer fan fiction make no bones about the fact that their work has political and social implications. “[Queer fan fiction] turns an essential but societally marginalized part of our identities into a tool for creating real and recognized art,” insists one fan fiction author. You don’t have to be queer to appreciate queer fan fiction, or even to write it—in fact, a recent census of Ao3 showed that at least one-third of slash fan fiction authors identify as heterosexual—but, as many writers will tell you, it helps to know the scene before you write about it.

In populist media like film and television, the history of queer representation is one long yellow brick road of insulting punchlines, drag queen gags, and after-school specials. Queer characters are traditionally relegated to secondary status and only brought into focus when storylines touch on topics of sexuality. If a queer person ever does get a shot at the spotlight, they often fall victim to a host of unfortunate tropes that are as insulting as they are tired and overdone. Indeed, increasingly out-of-date standards are a huge part of the problem as TV and film have struggled to toe the line between groundbreaking and offensive. The most obvious example that comes to mind is Will & Grace ’s Jack McFarland, who was once a trailblazer but now appears to us as a screaming bundle of stereotypes. McFarland’s original portrayal was bold and proud in a time when queer men were invisible; now that visibility is no longer quite as limited a commodity, starting and ending at the extremes is a poor strategy for representing the vast expanse of queer identity.

Then again, at least Will & Grace had more than one queer character. Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and to a much greater extent, transgender audience members are worn out from watching straight characters speak to every experience but theirs. We have been waiting for that simple, yet apparently impossible creation: the queer main character, with three whole dimensions and a life of their own that includes, but does not necessarily revolve around, an active love life. “Fan fiction provides a world where your favorite characters don’t have to be queer or, but have every opportunity to be queer and,” says Menzosarres, a femslash author and community member. “Queer and alive, queer and three-dimensional, queer and happily ever after, queer and successful, queer and strong, queer and robot dragon women from a colony of underwater space pirates. In being a world where queer is expected, fan fiction opens up the rest of the story to be anything you can imagine: Queer is the jumping off point, not the end goal. And, because of that, it creates a world where the young queer consumer can be all the same things.”

That said, it’s important to remember that the world of queer fan fiction is not immune to the same prejudices and exclusionary frameworks that are at play everywhere else. Menzosarres, who identifies as a white cisgender woman, and has made many online and offline connections with other fan fiction writers, readily admits this. “People of color are hugely underrepresented,” she says, “as are trans people, people with disabilities, people with mental illnesses and, yes, women. The [male]slash side of fandom is always quick to praise how groundbreaking their writing is, how subversive, while ignoring the gross misogyny they so often perpetuate in their haste to do away with the female love interests getting between their two favorite (white, cis) men. This isn’t the dawn of all things slash where Kirk and Spock were first written out of the heteropatriarchy and into a gay space relationship. We’re expected to see ourselves in those white men, for them to somehow represent all of society, and if all we do is continue to use those same characters as the end-all-be-all exploration of queerness, we aren’t doing much of anything at all.”

Menzosarres’ criticism delivers direct hits to several tender spots in the fan fiction community. In part because the entertainment industry continues to be overwhelmingly dominated by white and cisgender actors, as well as by programming that relegates actors of color and trans actors to “niche” projects, there is far less fan fiction exploring characters of color and transgender characters in the same depth as white, cis ones. In the same way queer authors will write queerness into straight-dominated universes, authors of color may do the same with countless white-dominated narratives. And the exclusion of women is an all-around problem: Misogynistic inequality, racism, and violence pervades fan fiction just as it pervades the source material.

“I collaborated with my childhood bestie on a Harry Potter fic entitled ‘Harry Potter and the Asian Invasion,’ ” recalls author Jo Chiang. “In hindsight, it’s become clear to me that one of the reasons why I started writing was because I wanted to see myself, a young Asian American girl, in the stories that I was reading.” Chiang, who now reads more than she writes, advocates for fan fiction as a way to address the disappointments and isolation that marginalized audience members encounter. In her words, “people write fan fiction partly out of love, but also partly out of a deep dissatisfaction with what is available. Fan fiction is an incredibly transformative approach to literature. It is both appreciative, but also irreverent. Fan writers, by taking an established canon and shaping it, twisting it, remolding it, are challenging authorial intent and taking a swipe at the assumption of authority and dogma.”

When you see the words authorial and authority so close together in the same sentence—referring to the same interest, no less—it may be a little jarring. Many writers’ rooms are full of people who have worked incredibly hard for the chance to tell one story, let alone an entire season, and their creative impulses are tightly controlled by networks and producers. It is unlikely that any of them feel more authoritative than the writers who post to fan fiction forums.

And yet, their stories are the ones that reach millions. Their stories come to life. And those lives belong to straight white people. Make no mistake, a straight white character can still be extremely compelling and well-written; but for viewers of color, for queer viewers, for everybody out there who is tired of their culture and identity being treated as a passing thought, fan fiction represents something crucial. It represents a challenge to the notion that being created in a straight world means one must live a straight life—a notion that queer people have been fighting forever. It represents an outlet of expression that begins on a populist level and hasn’t yet stopped. It represents a refusal to be punchlines anymore, a refusal to express ourselves less because it’s more convenient for everyone else.

In writing fan fiction, we do more than rewrite our favorite stories. We take those stories and make them strong enough to handle people like us.

Rae Binstock is a playwright, web-series creator, and essayist.
"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline milomorris

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I think it is odd that Binstock sees fanfic that turns hetero characters into homo characters as "empowers" anybody. Such stories can be very entertaining to be sure. But I don't see anything "empowering" about re-hashing something hetero and turning it homo. Its an "also ran" position, and a reminder of our other-ness.

What I have seen in black fiction going back to the 70s is a canon of unique black characters who are placed into heretofore "white" scenarios. I think that is more empowering than taking an established character forcing the suspension of disbelief on the reader. Looking at the most recent wave of black slash, the most popular sub-genre is about black homo men in hip-hop culture. Black women are eating that stuff up. I think part of the appeal is that the authors are creating unique and recognizable characters and stories.     
  The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

--Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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I think it is odd that Binstock sees fanfic that turns hetero characters into homo characters as "empowers" anybody. Such stories can be very entertaining to be sure. But I don't see anything "empowering" about re-hashing something hetero and turning it homo. Its an "also ran" position, and a reminder of our other-ness.

What I have seen in black fiction going back to the 70s is a canon of unique black characters who are placed into heretofore "white" scenarios. I think that is more empowering than taking an established character forcing the suspension of disbelief on the reader. Looking at the most recent wave of black slash, the most popular sub-genre is about black homo men in hip-hop culture. Black women are eating that stuff up. I think part of the appeal is that the authors are creating unique and recognizable characters and stories.    



Quite possibly. For my taste (for whatever that's worth) I far more prefer reading fanfic about well-established fictional characters who are already gay or are newly created characters who are gay or are discovering their gayness/are coming out. Reading fanfic about gay romances with well-established 'canon' characters who are ostensibly straight completely bores me. As a now 62 year-old who (at 12) first watched the original Star Trek on September 8 1966 in a kind of ecstasy, even attempting to read fanfic stories about 'Spock and Jim Kirk in love' would leave me rolling my eyes.



However.



Take, for instance, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, where the superpowered members of the Avengers are mostly male, toned as hell, and love to banter: Right out of the gate, fans were eagerly exploring the possibilities of Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, and Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, becoming lovers. On Ao3, there are almost 10,000 stories pairing the two romantically; that’s 3,000 more than the next most popular pairing, which also features two male characters in a queer relationship (Agent Coulson and Hawkeye). Parks and Recreation, one of television’s most beloved sitcoms, has more stories that romantically pair protagonist Leslie Knope with her female best friend, Ann Perkins, than with her husband, Ben Wyatt. And in case you were wondering, Shakespeare fan fiction does exist, and yes, Henry IV’s Prince Hal does fall in love with his childhood friend Ned.



All I can say is--Wow. That's a lot of passion and that's a lot of commitment. I've only really been seriously looking at fanfic and fanart since this January, and I'm pretty much impressed by the level of talent (keeping in mind SF author Theodore Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything in crap: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law ). And even if some of it seems silly, but puts homosexuality in a good light, hey, I'm for it.
 
"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline milomorris

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Quite possibly. For my taste (for whatever that's worth) I far more prefer reading fanfic about well-established fictional characters who are already gay or are newly created characters who are gay or are discovering their gayness/are coming out. Reading fanfic about gay romances with well-established 'canon' characters who are ostensibly straight completely bores me. As a now 62 year-old who (at 12) first watched the original Star Trek on September 8 1966 in a kind of ecstasy, even attempting to read fanfic stories about 'Spock and Jim Kirk in love' would leave me rolling my eyes.

WOW!!! You and I actually have a common feeling about this!!
  The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

--Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Is this a generational thing?  ???  A gender thing?  ???  A generational-gender thing?  ??? I do not feel "left out" or "hurt" because virtually all the characters in the TV shows I watch are straight and cisgender (Lordy, I hate that word!). But then again I'm a white cisgender male, even if I am gay, so what do I know?  ::)

Anybody else want to bet that Binstock's sources skew female, cis- or otherwise? I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with that, but I do think it might be a good idea to tell her readers, if that's the case.
« Last Edit: May 31, 2016, 11:04:59 pm by Jeff Wrangler »
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline milomorris

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Its an entitlement thing. Its all about identity politics. The black population went through it and continues to whine about it...see Jada Pinket Smith.

What I have never been able to understand is why minorities talk about watching straight/white people doing things and not being able to relate to those things just because a straight/white person is doing it. And its stupid shit too. Like since when is wearing a Polo shirt a "white thing?" Since when is reading a book, or getting good grades a "white thing." Honestly, black folks have identified themselves right out of successful lifestyles.
  The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

--Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Its an entitlement thing. Its all about identity politics.

"Identity politics" went through my mind, too.

What makes somebody think he or she is "entitled" to anything in TV or movies?

FWIW. in the type of TV show that I enjoy, the characters are generally straight, and that doesn't bother me one bit, because in these shows--predominantly "procedurals"--the sexual orientation of the characters is irrelevant.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline CellarDweller

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I will admit up front that I didn't read the whole article, so I may have  missed this.

The author's title talks about gay writing fan fiction.  Does the author address the high numbers of straight women who write slash/fan fiction?   The majority of slash authors I met from my travels as a Brokie have been straight women.  I can probably count on one hand the number of male authors I met.


Tell him when l come up to him and ask to play the record, l'm gonna say: ''Voulez-vous jouer ce disque?''
'Voulez-vous, will you kiss my dick?'
Will you play my record? One-track mind!

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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I will admit up front that I didn't read the whole article, so I may have  missed this.

The author's title talks about gay writing fan fiction.  Does the author address the high numbers of straight women who write slash/fan fiction?   The majority of slash authors I met from my travels as a Brokie have been straight women.  I can probably count on one hand the number of male authors I met.

If I remember correctly from reading it last night, she mainly writes about queer women who write fan fiction.

Maybe it's been done already, or maybe there isn't really any way to do it, but I would really be interested to know what percentages of slash fiction are written by straight women, what by gay women, and what by gay men.

Do straight men write any fan fiction? I'm assuming straight men aren't interested in a love affair between Tony Stark and Steve Rogers.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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WOW!!! You and I actually have a common feeling about this!!



Hmmm.  Re some types of fanfic, I guess I can be very stick-in-the-mud. A stickler. After my stroke ten years ago (lots of problems re language, concepts, comprehension) I became extremely literal.  Monomanically monotrack, comically so.

In Peter's Jackson's Fellowship, Gandalf says something to Strider that was the completely opposite to Gandalf's meaning and tone in Tolkein's Fellowship, and I hated it, thought the movie was garbage. (Ok, it's true, I'm outed! I do hate Peter Jackson and all those movies! Shoot me! But I was told about Tolkein's Middle Earth (it was revealed  to me!) when I was ELEVEN YEARS OLD and I read the Hobbit and 'The Trilogy' many scores of times before I even hit puberty, so, I AM SET IN MY WAYS, ok?   :laugh:)

In the 'real' world (historical), I only read about HBO's miniseries lauded “John Adams” (2008) (which I never actually watched), and I hated it! because in the series, JA's cousin, Samuel Adams, is supposedly portrayed as a dangerous extremist, and JA is supposedly shown as clearly disliking SA. (People can roll eyes now, and say, "Whatever!")

But.

As in the Peter Jackson movies (and bad movies in general), this kind of 'creative' juggling is supposedly necessary to create 'conflict' to move the story along, but to me, it is actually lying, and the reputations of real historical people (and even the reputations of fictional characters!) are besmirched. I hate it.

As a result, I have personal, emotional issues with certain types of fanfic, AU (Alternate Universe) and otherwise. If a character (or real person) is straight, well, in a fanfic narrative, he or she is straight, goddamit!

Oh well, stick-in-the-mud!   ::)





Is this a generational thing?  ???  A gender thing?  ???  A generational-gender thing?  ??? I do not feel "left out" or "hurt" because virtually all the characters in the TV shows I watch are straight and cisgender (Lordy, I hate that word!). But then again I'm a white cisgender male, even if I am gay, so what do I know?  ::)

Anybody else want to bet that Binstock's sources skew female, cis- or otherwise? I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with that, but I do think it might be a good idea to tell her readers, if that's the case.



A few centuries ago, I took a couple of semesters of Chemistry, and learned about cis- and trans-. It never bothered me at all that, (decades later??) the prefixes became vogue, then common usage as is today--they seemed to 'mirror' (like chemistry! like isomers!) types of selfhood, and seemed like good metaphors. As gay as I was and am, I never doubted I was male (however unconventionally so, to the uptight world of the 50s-80s) and, like you, I'm a cisgender male. Who knew!





The author's title talks about gay writing fan fiction.  Does the author address the high numbers of straight women who write slash/fan fiction?   The majority of slash authors I met from my travels as a Brokie have been straight women.  I can probably count on one hand the number of male authors I met.



BINGO! I was going to comment about it (re the title in particular) and you beat me to the punch, Chuck!
 ;)





Maybe it's been done already, or maybe there isn't really any way to do it, but I would really be interested to know what percentages of slash fiction are written by straight women, what by gay women, and what by gay men.



Yes!
« Last Edit: June 01, 2016, 07:58:18 pm by Aloysius J. Gleek »
"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"