Definitions
I was reading a LJ newsletter and the subject, When is Gen not Gen? arose. I wandered over to the journal to read the piece and follow the comments and decided that I'd been around fandom far too long as I'd heard it all before. I offer you my definition of General fiction and my reasoning around the all too frequent mislabelling of it
Gen fiction:
Something that you could expect to see as an episode on the TV, or within the film or book, that is the basis of canon for your fandom. Established relationship are obviously canon, but for a story claiming to be Gen you would not expect the emphasis to be on any relationship, but to be about people and events occurring around the main characters, and that they are part of. Gen can range from child friendly to adult eyes only according to the level of violence etc.
So, why do we have so many problems with people berating writers, often accurately, with mislabelling a Gen story, when it's so damn easy and pretty obvious when a story should be labelled het or slash? This is my, somewhat cynical, suggestion.
If we take for an example Stargate SG-1, in a story labelled Gen I would not expect to see a sexual relationship depicted between any of the team members since there are none canonically beyond friendship (and occasional doe-eyed yearning(tm)) whatever the Jack/Sam shippers might wish. However because I love Daniel/Vala I'd be happy to read flirting, or because I enjoy Jack/Daniel I'd be happy to have implied subtle slashy undertones, but I’d be less than happy to read any suggestion of Jack/Sam because I’m just not interested in the pairing. I'm therefore more likely to accept something as Gen that fits with my bias, but cry foul for the story that includes the implication of a relationship in the pairing I dislike. Hypocritical one might say, and that's quite obviously true. IMO it explains why some writers write, and some readers happily accept, a little bit of relationship stuff in a fic labelled Gen because it just so happens to be the pairing they adore and/or think should be canon anyway. That those self same writers/readers will scream blue murder should another writer do something similar, but with a pairing they detest seems to be all part of the (un)merry game of fandom, partiality and bias.
Did I mention that I think I'm becoming a rather jaded and far too cynical an observer of fandom. *g*
If all the world was good and philosophical it would be a very dull place - Diderat
Gen fiction:
Something that you could expect to see as an episode on the TV, or within the film or book, that is the basis of canon for your fandom. Established relationship are obviously canon, but for a story claiming to be Gen you would not expect the emphasis to be on any relationship, but to be about people and events occurring around the main characters, and that they are part of. Gen can range from child friendly to adult eyes only according to the level of violence etc.
So, why do we have so many problems with people berating writers, often accurately, with mislabelling a Gen story, when it's so damn easy and pretty obvious when a story should be labelled het or slash? This is my, somewhat cynical, suggestion.
If we take for an example Stargate SG-1, in a story labelled Gen I would not expect to see a sexual relationship depicted between any of the team members since there are none canonically beyond friendship (and occasional doe-eyed yearning(tm)) whatever the Jack/Sam shippers might wish. However because I love Daniel/Vala I'd be happy to read flirting, or because I enjoy Jack/Daniel I'd be happy to have implied subtle slashy undertones, but I’d be less than happy to read any suggestion of Jack/Sam because I’m just not interested in the pairing. I'm therefore more likely to accept something as Gen that fits with my bias, but cry foul for the story that includes the implication of a relationship in the pairing I dislike. Hypocritical one might say, and that's quite obviously true. IMO it explains why some writers write, and some readers happily accept, a little bit of relationship stuff in a fic labelled Gen because it just so happens to be the pairing they adore and/or think should be canon anyway. That those self same writers/readers will scream blue murder should another writer do something similar, but with a pairing they detest seems to be all part of the (un)merry game of fandom, partiality and bias.
Did I mention that I think I'm becoming a rather jaded and far too cynical an observer of fandom. *g*
If all the world was good and philosophical it would be a very dull place - Diderat