(Untitled)

[circa_eve]

Several conversations I've had in the past few days have been marinating in my head and gotten me thinking about some trends I've seen in fandom and how they relate to that world outside of fandom.

Comments

[gilenaki]

Very interesting, and I agree totally. I've always thought that fandom requires a certain amount of freedom from canon, because otherwise it ceases to be a production of creative works. If we know too much, we can't make it up on our own, and that (at least in my opinion) is where most of the interesting, meaningful, original stuff in fandom comes out.

...maybe everyone will just start writing AUs all the time.

[circa_eve]

I kind of hope so. They are my favorite anyway :)

[merelyn]

Leaving this here rather than on gchat!

Good stuff here. I think there is definitely an argument to made that when gay relationships become more prevalent in media, it might not be quite the positive change for fandom as one would initially think. Rather, it could effectively be as though TPTB are appropriating fandom's subversive space and rendering it on screen, thereby eliminating the "need" for a slash fandom and quashing traditional slash fans level of engagement with the text.

[circa_eve]

That's exactly what they are doing! But since women still are pretty marginalized in terms of the writing/directing/conceptualizing of television and movies, we are forced to call hotlines and press 1 in order to have any creative input.

My issue is I'm not sure if we should be working towards getting more creative input, or if it would be better for fandom to remain outside of the mainstream.

[inlovewithnight]

Brothers & Sisters airs on ABC and shows canonical gay relationships that are as well-developed and functional as the straight relationships on the show. The fandom organized around the show is small, but the fic/icons/etc devoted to the gay couples actually outweigh the straight couples, and features both porn and character development in similar proportions

[allegraconbrio]

I absolutely agree. I wish I had read the comments before I replied, you summarized my thoughts on this beautifully.

Lesson learned, read and agree before babbling. :)

[vee_fic]

I feel old. (*) I remember reading conversations in... 1999? About how Beecher/Keller (both male) on Oz, being canon, might screw up people's defintion of the word "slash" and might, I don't know, kill fandom or something. But in fact, Beecher/Keller is the only thing people write about Oz. I don't think I have ever seen a story about anything else. (Not that I was actively looking.)

Maybe the distinction you're making is between a gay storyline done badly in canon and one not done at all, where the former doesn't leave enough open narrative hooks for a writer to insert herself (whereas the latter is like, fair game, bring out the wizards and unicorns, you name it). But the mere presence of gay canon does not, to my knowledge, have a categorical effect on the fanfic written: since the days of Oz, fandom decided that "slash," the word, would continue to mean "fic about gay romance" whether or not that gay romance was canonical. The gay romance fanfic survives, even if canon gets there first

[circa_eve]

I think there definitely is a distinction between gay relationships being handled badly and those being handled well

[vee_fic]

I'm not sure the Oz couple was handled better than anything network could provide; I know it was handled more explicitly. I can certainly see how, if you're strongly attuned to "how is canon handling this?" then you might find it dries up your ability or interest in writing it.

You'll laugh, but I actually saw and early part of the Luke/Noah stuff on ATWT, just clicking around the channels one day last summer, and suddenly there were two wet, shirtless boys staring at each other That Way, and I was like, Wait, did I... really see that??

Because the soaps when I was younger would never ever in a billion years have shown that. I gather that the ATWT writers chickened out, and then lately have been chickening back in, but just seeing same-sex chemistry on a soap is such a big difference! It amuses the hell out of me how these lumbering old dinosaurs of television slooooowly haul themselves into the current century.

[circa_eve]

That is so funny! I wish more random channel surfing yielded scenes of half naked boys kissing. Still its cool to think that Luke/Noah scenes are playing during daytime hours

[ladysorka]

Very honestly, I tend to get bored reading about a relationship that's portrayed in canon, no matter what the gender of the characters involved. I enjoy a lot of het relationships, but I don't read much het fic because most of the ships I really enjoy are already paired onscreen. I suspect that if many of my favorite slash ships were paired onscreen, I wouldn't read a lot of them, either. When it's already being given to me onscreen, I just don't feel the need to look for fic for it. And when I don't feel the need to look for fic for it, generally I'm not in a fandom at all. I become just a casual viewer.