I'm Sorry, You Are Not Today's Lucky Winner

[lebateleur]

In which, directed by bloody_american, I enter the fray created by another pseudo-academic essay outlining why fanfiction and slash are OMG, leik so retrogressive!

Below are some of the outtakes nutty enough to awaken me from my lj slumber, and my responses to each:

...in their writing [fanficcers] rarely, if ever, do anything that questions or contradicts the ideologies underwriting the original texts.

Congratulations. Three hundred words into the essay and you've already proven that you know fuckall about what you're claiming to intelligently discuss. This woman mentions Harry Potter as a big name fandom. I'm hard pressed to think of another fandom (especially slash fandom) that does more to question the "ideologies underwriting" its original texts.



I'm also especially fond of this little gem:

So what slash writers are actually doing is merely recognising the homosocialism that exists in film and literature, as well as everywhere else in our society. To say they are drawing out a ‘gay subtext,’ and to attempt to attach revolutionary potential to this act is highly inaccurate, since homosocialism is one of the foundation stones of male supremacy, and fanfic authors who endorse and strengthen the homosocial relationships of male fictional characters by portraying them as homosexual are committing an act in support of patriarchy, not against it.

Wow. I hope everyone out there self-identifying as "queer," "dyke," or similar is sitting up and taking note that their co-optation of these labels is not only not attaching any "revolutionary potential" to them, "since drawing boundaries between normative heterosexuality and all other sexualities is one of the foundation stones of male supremacy/heteronormality, and individuals who endorse and strengthen binary gender and sexual orientation norms by portraying themselves as queer are committing an act in support of heteronormality/patriarchy, not against it."

Sex is generally portrayed pornographically, with an emphasis on penetration, force and pain, and the overwhelming/uncontrollable need the masculine character has for the feminine character, and the feminine character’s need to be needed by the masculine character in order to have a legitimate identity.

Ah, there's the problem. She needs to stop reading shit written by eighth graders.

sooner or later most of the characters ‘turn’ heterosexual and get married, it apparently being beyond the ability of most slash writers to imagine anyone actually choosing a non-heterosexual identity permanently. It is evidence of in-built lesbophobia and homophobia, since this use-by date mentality means that same sex relationships in slash are generally portrayed as being illegitimate, transient, unstable, and not able to last.

I'll let this statement stand on its own as a testament to her "expertise" in the genre.

Slash comes about because women under patriarchy cannot recognise their own sexual desires, or the possibility of a female-centric sexuality, and they therefore take to writing erotic stories about homosexual men as a way to deal with and relieve all of those sexual desires they supposedly don’t have, though of course, the very existence and popularity of slash proves the existence of female sexual desire, albeit a female sexual desire that is still trapped within patriarchal (non)understanding.

Or, it comes about because women--even under patriarchy--like to get their ::cough:: rocks off. (Context makes clear that she's only considering PWP slashfic here, not anything that...gasp!...is plot- and development-driven.) And what on earth is unradical about women knowing what turns them on, especially when the trigger fails to conform to the expectations of anyone, including upholders of patriarchy and radical feminists both?

The second great irony of slash is that most women who read and write slash are not only heterosexual, but defensively so.

This argument declared dead at at 1,560 words. Cause of death: blunt force trauma to its logical underpinnings resulting in critical inability to persuade.

For a good laugh, I also recommend the section on "radical feminist rewriting" where fanfiction/slash=bad, m'kay? and feminist rewriting=any story of which I approve, as well as her admission that she's deleted everything save the only two postive comments she's received. I mean, isn't silencing dissenting voices exactly what radical feminists are supposed to stand against?

これで以上です。