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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
I've read f/f slash for Western media sources, and a handful for anime/manga fandoms. From what I've seen, death!fic is pretty rare, unless it's based on a canon heavily weighted towards doom and gloom. I've also seen fic that retroactively femslashed characters where one was already dead in canon. But those were more outlier cases. I think lesbian death happens more in original media sources; at least the U.S. ones. Japanese media tends to portray f/f (yuri) as a passing phase, and how het is the only "real" type of relationship.
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.
I'd say that from a feminist perspective, the best thing about femslash could be that it explores relationships between female characters. Male characters just end up getting marginalized.
And I actually think that m/m slash and f/f slash overlap in how they're both removed from heteronormativity, and written primarily by women (http://community.livejournal.com/girlwank/3704.html). They have that in common, but m/m and f/f do operate differently. M/m slash and het can put the female gaze on men, which is the opposite of how it usually works in the mainstream. Het and f/f slash can be about women writing about female characters.
no subject
Yep, lesbianism=death is very common in western television, and within fandom, that is often represented as lesbians not getting a HEA (I've edited my post to clarify this.)
They have that in common, but m/m and f/f do operate differently. M/m slash and het can put the female gaze on men, which is the opposite of how it usually works in the mainstream. Het and f/f slash can be about women writing about female characters.
That is a very good point.