Comments | herongale: Slash and the appropriation/objectification of The Other

herongale

Slash and the appropriation/objectification of The Other

Jan 13, 2010 23:31

This post, on the topic of female slashers writing about gay men, really struck a chord with me. A kind of annoyed, exasperated chord. So I started writing up a response, and as it got longer and longer, I realized that the most appropriate place for me to post this was in my own journal. I don't post about my opinions as often as I should in my ( Read more... )

Comments 41

silverthunder January 14 2010, 05:18:07 UTC

I... don't really know what to say to this person. Sorry that my slash fiction writing ways offend you?

Some people objectify others in their writing. This may be a problem (depends on the situation), but it's hardly limited to slash fiction written by women. It's a problem that exists outside of a particular genre of fiction. I don't understand how picking on one particular group provides a solution to this problem.

crocky_wock January 14 2010, 23:54:52 UTC

I... don't really know what to say to this person. Sorry that my slash fiction writing ways offend you?
If you have written this kind of slash, this sounds like a promising start to me. Mothwing, on the other hand, seems to be expecting self-reflection and self-criticism rather than formalities. She is that way.

I also don't believe the original post was intended to provide solutions to any problem. It used to be a rant, I seem to remember. But regarding the topic of objectification in other genres: problematic, too. Need to be addressed, too. No one here is stating the opposite, I think.

herongale January 15 2010, 03:36:05 UTC

My feeling is that I can only deal with the criticism that comes before me. If ever there was a gay man who was hurt by something I wrote, I would hope he'd say something about it, because otherwise how am I to know? I am more than happy to apologize if I agree with the complaint, and to discuss things civilly even if I don't.

So far, this has never happened, and I think it's because I write the kind of stuff I wouldn't be ashamed to have any of my gay friends read.

karanseraph January 14 2010, 06:00:54 UTC

I did try to read that linked post, but it was a bit hard to follow. I would agree it was not very clear in presenting a desired course of action ( ... )

lordhellebore January 14 2010, 06:49:37 UTC

May I step in for a moment? I'm a friend of mothwing's, and I think I understand part of her point.

I *think* the point there was that *some* actual gay men get squicked or traumatized by *some* badly written and/or high romanticized stories featuring male characters in love with each other.

Also, but not only. The point is also, from what I gathered from conversations with her, that those unrealistic/idealised fictional gay men paint a distorted picture of real gay men in those who read m/m, because people don't draw a sharp line between fiction and reality.

karanseraph January 14 2010, 07:15:13 UTC

Ah. I see. Thank you for the clarification ( ... )

crocky_wock January 14 2010, 20:48:08 UTC

All this would be the case, undoubtedly, if every person on the planet had a degree in literary science. Sorry, but your sound as though you are trying to say that there exists a fairly small group of very dumb readers who are the only people affected by literary tropes and/or stereotypes. This comes across as rather elitist, if you excuse the blunt feedback, because stereotyping in particular is clearly not something that works only on the uneducated masses ( ... )

Thread 27

mikkeneko January 14 2010, 08:11:25 UTC

I have a feeling that if I read this, it's just going to give me a headache and piss me off, so instead I'm going to bed. I'll limit my commentary to: If some people are unable to distinguish between reality and fiction, it is not our obligation as writers to confine our fiction to only things which would be believable in real life in order to avoid confusing them.

militsa January 14 2010, 14:16:26 UTC

herongale January 15 2010, 04:43:01 UTC

And so we have! I just want to thank you for the discussion; it was very productive and I enjoyed it. XD

mothwing January 14 2010, 20:07:09 UTC

Hey there! I replied. Do you write original m/m fiction or slash fanfiction? Because I think that due to the fact that in fanfic one of the reasons there are so many slash pairings is because there are so many interesting male characters and so few interesting female characters in the first place, so fanfic slash is a completely different ballgame altogether.

I think it is possible to write fiction based on a lack of first hand knowledge which honors the experience of those who have it.
Well, I don't think so, especially if this involves a majority writing minority experience. We'll have to agree to disagree here.

So let's say someone writes a story where there is man who is straight falling in love with another man, and who at the end of the day continues to claim he is straight.
Oh, that does happen more often than you think. :)

So let's say someone writes a story where there is man who is straight falling in love with another man, and who at the end of the day continues to claim he is straight.This is a large part of the ( ... )

herongale January 15 2010, 04:56:22 UTC

To answer your first question, yes, I write almost exclusively fanfiction based slash.

This is a large part of the problem - no one sets out to write slash to harm gay people (at least I hope so o.O), but the cumulative effect of all people doing this and flooding the M/M with their view -which is bound to be informed by their experience as straight women - is harmful for the prevalence of gay males stories about themselves. Does that make sense? It's not that people write about gay men, it's the danger that they do so in an exploitative fashion and that these many, many stories replace the first-hand accounts in their effect and significance. Does that make sense?

It does, but I have no idea what can be done about it. Instead, I will quote to you from a reply I made to jonquil, here"I just think it's hard, if not impossible, to relate to the world based on generalities. Think about the situation in Haiti. Many thousands of people died today-- well, yesterday, now-- in an earthquake. It's hard to care. I don't mean that I shouldn't ( ... )

mothwing January 15 2010, 18:52:58 UTC

But when it comes to the greater overarching issue of general harm caused by cumulative effects of ignorance... I have no answer as to how to fix it. I don't know that it can be fixed, at least not on its own.
Nor do I. But I don't think that continuing the way things are going can.

All I can say is that I don't think such ignorance in fanfiction drives stereotypes in society so much as it is a product of stereotypes that already exist.
Exactly! And it does provide an interesting corpus of prevalent stereotypes. Still, even though fanfiction is so, SO much better in dealing with topics relating LGBT characters than at least the real-life society I live in, it does perpetuate its own share of stereotypes. Stereotypes which are harmful if they are perpetuated.

I think that it is society in general that needs to be fixed, and hopefully as that happens, the amount of prevailing ignorance will become less, and then those remaining outliers who choose to be willfully ignorant will at least become the minority, in the way that outspoken ( ... )