![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Slash & Het & Femmeslash
I had a whole bunch of friends come over for my belated birthday party, which was a blast. I'm really lucky in that my friends are friendly with each other, so if I step out for a minute I don't have to worry about anyone being left out of the conversation.
Only downside is that I'm super behind on comments, but that's a small price to pay. ^_^
And now, meta.
When people get to discussing slash and het (note: femmeslash is almost never mentioned in these discussions) there will be, at some point, at statement to the effect that 'slash and het are equally problematic' meaning that arguing that one is inherently better is pointless. The fact that neither genre is more feminist or subversive by default is true but what doesn't get mentioned is that het and slash and femmeslash are troublesome and empowering in different ways.
Before I begin, a few notes:
-no genre is quantitatively better or worse than any other. Romance novels are not less worth-while than lit novels, nor are they automatically written with less skill.
-every genre (especially in fanfic) is largely composed of horrible stories.
-not every story or fanfic says or is trying to say something subversive or culturally relevant. This is okay. Stories can be neutral. They can just be there to be PWP, they can just be there to watch the characters have adventures.
That said-
At its best, slash is both subversive and feminist, a genre written by women for women and comprised of narratives removed from the heteronormative culture standards.
At its worst, slash is misogynistic and forces blatantly sexist roles on the characters involved, while erasing and vilifying women and femininity. Additionally, it can be portray men in unrealistic and objectifying ways.
At its best, het is a way to celebrate relationships between equals as well as deconstruct and explore traditional and nontraditional gender roles. Also, it can be used to forfront forefront female characters who are often not given the same screentime as their male counterparts.
At it's worst, het supports sexist dynamics and glorifies the male point of view, as well as reinforcing the idea that all women must be in a relationship to be happy, that that The Man You Love > Everything Else In Your Life.
At it's best, femmeslash gives even more screen time and attention to the ladies and allows authors to explore issues that might feel unnatural or out of character for a male character to be party to. Additionally, because femmeslash is less popular within the fandom, I have noticed a trend for there to be more well-written fics when looked at proportionally.
At its worst, it objectifies women and supports the idea that lesbians do not get happily ever afters.
supports the idea that lesbian leads to death.
Your thoughts?
[ETA: I'VE EDITED THIS A BIT TO REFLECT POINTS THAT COMMENTATORS MENTIONED, TO CLARIFY SOME OF MY THOUGHTS, AND ADD THINGS I FORGOT.]
Only downside is that I'm super behind on comments, but that's a small price to pay. ^_^
And now, meta.
When people get to discussing slash and het (note: femmeslash is almost never mentioned in these discussions) there will be, at some point, at statement to the effect that 'slash and het are equally problematic' meaning that arguing that one is inherently better is pointless. The fact that neither genre is more feminist or subversive by default is true but what doesn't get mentioned is that het and slash and femmeslash are troublesome and empowering in different ways.
Before I begin, a few notes:
-no genre is quantitatively better or worse than any other. Romance novels are not less worth-while than lit novels, nor are they automatically written with less skill.
-every genre (especially in fanfic) is largely composed of horrible stories.
-not every story or fanfic says or is trying to say something subversive or culturally relevant. This is okay. Stories can be neutral. They can just be there to be PWP, they can just be there to watch the characters have adventures.
That said-
At its best, slash is both subversive and feminist, a genre written by women for women and comprised of narratives removed from the heteronormative culture standards.
At its worst, slash is misogynistic and forces blatantly sexist roles on the characters involved, while erasing and vilifying women and femininity. Additionally, it can be portray men in unrealistic and objectifying ways.
At its best, het is a way to celebrate relationships between equals as well as deconstruct and explore traditional and nontraditional gender roles. Also, it can be used to forfront forefront female characters who are often not given the same screentime as their male counterparts.
At it's worst, het supports sexist dynamics and glorifies the male point of view, as well as reinforcing the idea that all women must be in a relationship to be happy, that that The Man You Love > Everything Else In Your Life.
At it's best, femmeslash gives even more screen time and attention to the ladies and allows authors to explore issues that might feel unnatural or out of character for a male character to be party to. Additionally, because femmeslash is less popular within the fandom, I have noticed a trend for there to be more well-written fics when looked at proportionally.
At its worst, it objectifies women and supports the idea that lesbians do not get happily ever afters.
supports the idea that lesbian leads to death.
Your thoughts?
[ETA: I'VE EDITED THIS A BIT TO REFLECT POINTS THAT COMMENTATORS MENTIONED, TO CLARIFY SOME OF MY THOUGHTS, AND ADD THINGS I FORGOT.]
no subject
1. When yaoi was first introduced, it WAS intended as a feminist outlet. It was written by women for women because they were unhappy about the poor representation of women in manga. And it's unfortunate that they had to play into the male-dominant standard to do this, but they did what they had to do to get their stories and voices heard.
2. Yaoi, like many things, has shifted in relevance and meaning over the years tangentially to the changes in societal views. For the last 10-15 years, yaoi HAS been more about bringing awareness/celebrating gays rather than women expressing themselves through men. The same shift in meaning can also be applied to the seme/uke relationships. At the beginning, seme and uke was only used to help define the hidden female character in the story. Now, it's been twisted to mean the woman or submissive partner, which wasn't always the case in classic yaoi.
And I agree with you that being part of the slash fandom doesn't make you an advocate for gay rights. While there IS a certain element of it that is being used to help spread awareness and potentially change closed-minded perceptions of gays and lesbians, a lot of the slash fandom objectifies gay relationships by women-- much like lesbian relationships are objectified by men. So no, it's not by any means a perfect medium for getting the message through. But there are those who DO try and use it for positive results.