Slash Manifesto
Greg Ayres is my new favorite. Let me tell you why.
I fully intended for this to be a short little "watch this YouTube clip" entry, but it became my fucking manifesto about slash, fandom, and the legitimacy of slash fans.
First things first: Not counting A:TLA, I've only watched FMA and Ouran, so I apologize in advance for basing this entire post on two (or three, if you wanna get technical) series. I've seen a handful of subbed movies, too, but have never been into the fandoms for any of them, so I'm not counting them.
Also, I watched dubbed anime. I will openly admit it and defend it and love it.
As is such, I've spent many an hour on YouTube just watching the shit out of con vids. I love the VA cast for FMA, and so I love the VA cast for Ouran. These are the people I've watched the most.
I fell pretty much immediately in love with Vic Mignogna before I knew anything about him, but he comes across as an awesome guy. He's good at what he does and he's passionate about it. He's gracious, and sincere, and seems like he genuinely enjoys talking to fans and doing cons and promoting his work. He's open and accepting about personal issues; he talks candidly to his fans about his faith, and actually wants to hear the answers to various questions he asks his fans. Fucking awesome, right? So I respect him out of the ass for that.
I never had strong feelings either way about Caitlin Glass. Tbh, she seemed kind of clueless at most times and everything she said just seemed forced, like she was always uncomfortable. Travis seemed more with it but just as uncomfortable, so I don't really care about him, either.
Even from my n00bie fangirling, I picked up on the fact that Vic and Travis both don't like yaoi. That's cool, I can respect that because it's totally their prerogative.
BUT IF ONLY, RIGHT?
Because look. I don't know that I'd ever actually go to a con, because I cringe just watching most of these videos. Let's be real--we all know that there'll be that handful of loud-mouth fans that ask uncomfortable, inappropriate, and invasive questions (that 9 times out of 9 are about fandom, fic, slash, or yaoi) that make us all want to shrink in our seats and apologize to the panelists who get asked them. WE ALL KNOW THIS HAPPENS.
Some actors take these questions with total aplomb, but others don't. Even when it makes them uncomfortable, most know how to retain some dignity and at least redirect the question. Every now and then, though, you get that panelist who's kind of tactless and, in the course of answering, either insults or offends the fans.
So here's the deal. DON'T ASK THOSE FUCKING QUESTIONS, OKAY? It should be a "don't ask, don't tell" policy. I don't want to hear first-hand that they don't like it, and they don't want to be asked about it, so let's stop putting ourselves in a position that requires both of these things to keep happening. Stop asking the male characters to confess their love for each other; stop requesting gay lines; just stop. The VAs have already done all of these things multiple times--go watch them on YouTube like the rest of us and stop subjecing us to more discomfort and second-hand embarrasment.
BUT THIS ISN'T THE POINT. None of this is new.
Here's what has really got me thinking lately.
I said above that I don't want to hear first-hand that the writers/VAs don't like yaoi/yuri. It makes me sad, and a little uncomfortable, to hear it put so bluntly. It's not because I have some crazy notions that they ship like the rest of us or are really fangirls/boys at heart. It's because yaoi is such a huge part of what I love about the anime and the fandom, and I want to be respected for that. Hearing the people who make this stuff say that they don't like what I enjoy about it fucking sucks, okay? It makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong, or getting the wrong thing out of their work, or that they'd rather I not do what I love doing.
It can totally be argued that it is their work and thus they can tell me to stop whenever the hell they want and I better listen to them. Valid (and legally binding) point, sure. (See: Anne Rice.) But it's a two-way street, dude. Writers would be nothing without their fans, yadda yadda. This is not the argument I'm here to present, so let's take fandom for granted and move on.
Bottom line, their dislike of yaoi makes me feel like I'm a fan for the wrong reasons, or that my enjoyment of it means less than that of non-shippers. I don't know why the creators/writers/VAs would want to make their fans feel this way, but if they want to be open about their dislike of yaoi, again, that's their business.
I'm also constantly amazed by the people who don't know that yaoi even exists at all. As it pertains to the rest of this post, I'll use Todd Haberkorn (Hikaru, Ling) as an example. In the below video, he admits that he didn't know what yaoi was when he was first working on Ouran. I mean, excuse me? It's sort of your fucking job, isn't it?
I'd argue that anime, for the most part, is kinkier and more open about its sexuality than other genres. From the outside, it's got a bit more notoriety regarding its culture and subculture. I would think that the people who work on anime would know this.
So what I want to know is, rather simply, how can they be so uncomfortable with it?
Maybe I can argue for FMA that the series is pretty much in no way at all gay or subtexty, so one can get away with working on it without accepting the yaoi because on the most straightforward level the series has nothing to do with it.
But let's look at Ouran for a second. Vic and Travis both dislike yaoi, yet they both worked on the show. Caitlin is apparently uncomfortable with blatant homosexual overtones, yet she fucking directed it--how does that even work? Todd didn't know that the twins were incestuous, yet he must have seen the animation/read the script (although apparently not too well) and took the job and recorded the scenes and is still uncomfortable about his own work.
This shit does not compute.
And it happens all of the fucking time! This general "I don't like it so I'll try not to talk about it but the fans make me uncomfortable" attitude towards yaoi and the gay part (read: majority) of fandom seems to be the norm. Fans seem to have come to accept and expect this attitude because, rightfully or not, we've accepted that we're doing it wrong. That we like the wrong thing, that we're a dirty little underground subculture that everyone would rather not be there.
And that pisses me the fuck off, when I really get down to thinking about it.
I'm not saying that we should just blow the roof on fandom. I'm not saying that slash and yaoi should be fair game at cons. I'm not saying that those uncomfortable questions by those loud-mouth fans should be accepted or freely asked. I'm not saying that VAs don't have the right to be sick of requests to say lines they're clearly uncomfortable saying.
I'm just saying that there should be a little more mutual respect. I'm saying that yaoi fucking happens, and we should stop trying to pretend that it doesn't. Let's get that out in the open before we deal with etiquette, before we enact that "don't ask, don't tell" policy I was talking about earlier.
That all being said, at long-fucking-last, here's why Greg Ayres is my new favorite.
Watch the last three minutes of this. Relevant bit begins around 7:06.
If you don't feel like watching it (but you should), here's the gist:
A girl asks Greg and Todd how it was doing all of the twincest on Ouran. Predictably, everyone's uncomfortable. EXCEPT GREG. To be fair, Todd actually holds himself together respectably, but jokes about it, saying, "I knew it was coming." Greg, though. He laughs, and then proceeds to answer the question. He tells this story about him, Todd, and Caitlin doing the commentary for one of the twins' scenes.
"[We get to] one of the 'Oh Kaoru, oh Hikaru, oh Kaoru' [scenes] and they both start falling over one another to find anything else to talk about but two boys almost kissing. And Todd's like, 'Well I really liked the writing,' and [Caitlin's] like, 'The animation is wonderful,' and you hear me go, 'Heh,' like a kind of laugh in the background 'cause I was gonna say, 'I just think it's hot.' But I knew that they would be like, 'ah...ah...ugghhh...'"
Another gem:
"When Todd first started working on this show, [to Todd] did you know they were gonna be all touchy-touchy? [Todd shakes his head.] No, he didn't know that. I knew that already. And Caitlin would go, 'These scenes really make Todd kind of uncomfortable,' so like, I would just gay them up a little bit, because it's funny."
First of all, it should be noted that this is one example of where a normally-potentially-awkward question really was fair game. She asked about a canon aspect of the show, so again, why is everyone uncomfortable?
I love Greg Ayres here because he's not. Because he doesn't make a big deal out of it, and because he doesn't avoid the question. He knows the content of his work and he appreciates it. He's not afraid to call out the others for being uncomfortable (although I wouldn't say he 'calls them out'--he's just super cool about it all). He doesn't make the chick who asked the question feel like crap for asking it. He doesn't make the fans who would've loved to ask the question but for a sense of propriety feel like shit for wanting to have asked it.
It's just fucking refreshing to hear that a VA likes the same thing about his show that the fans do.
Yes, Greg is a self-proclaimed fanboy, but I don't think that liking gay (sub)text is something that should be strictly exclusive to members of fandom.
Another vid. It's all one story, but the bit I quote starts at 3:45.
Greg is talking about this internet safety panel he was required to do at a con, and he said that he would try to answer any question he was asked. One of the parents in the audience asked about hentai.
"She said, 'Is it true y'all play pornographic cartoons?' And I was like, 'Yes, we do, absolutely. Yes, we do.' And I'll defend it! I was like, 'Yes, we do.'"
The parent goes on to ask why that's appropriate, to which he answers, "Adults are allowed to have adult entertainment."
(Just an FYI, he tells the full story (which is hilarious) about that parent at the end in this vid).
I love him so much, okay? He accepts what fans do and does not apologize for it. He respects that there are boundaries and responsibilities, and he expects to be respected in turn. THIS, right here, is how everyone should go about doing things in future.
Even if a VA or someone doesn't personally like yaoi or hentai or whatever (because we're all entilted to our own fucking opinions) there should still be respect for those who do, rather than thinly-veiled tolerance.
I used FMA above as an example of a series that doesn't have a whole lot of subtext, and that the VAs thus might not have to deal with slash/yaoi on the most basic level. But just because it's pretty straight on the surface doesn't mean that it won't come with a yaoi culture and a gay fandom, and those fans are just as legitimate as every other and their interest in the series deserves to be recognized.
Personal opinions on yaoi aside, those professionally involved with anime should be aware of the nature of fandom (and, often, the nature of their own fucking work) and the interests of a lot of their fans. Obviously they can't be forced into being comfortable with something, or magically possess tact or charisma, but yaoi and fandom is nothing new. So why is it still treated like such a taboo subject? How can such prolific and well-known VAs still be so uncomfortable about their own work, work they've agreed and are happy to do?
I just don't fucking get it, you guys.
I'd be interested in your thoughts.
I fully intended for this to be a short little "watch this YouTube clip" entry, but it became my fucking manifesto about slash, fandom, and the legitimacy of slash fans.
First things first: Not counting A:TLA, I've only watched FMA and Ouran, so I apologize in advance for basing this entire post on two (or three, if you wanna get technical) series. I've seen a handful of subbed movies, too, but have never been into the fandoms for any of them, so I'm not counting them.
Also, I watched dubbed anime. I will openly admit it and defend it and love it.
As is such, I've spent many an hour on YouTube just watching the shit out of con vids. I love the VA cast for FMA, and so I love the VA cast for Ouran. These are the people I've watched the most.
I fell pretty much immediately in love with Vic Mignogna before I knew anything about him, but he comes across as an awesome guy. He's good at what he does and he's passionate about it. He's gracious, and sincere, and seems like he genuinely enjoys talking to fans and doing cons and promoting his work. He's open and accepting about personal issues; he talks candidly to his fans about his faith, and actually wants to hear the answers to various questions he asks his fans. Fucking awesome, right? So I respect him out of the ass for that.
I never had strong feelings either way about Caitlin Glass. Tbh, she seemed kind of clueless at most times and everything she said just seemed forced, like she was always uncomfortable. Travis seemed more with it but just as uncomfortable, so I don't really care about him, either.
Even from my n00bie fangirling, I picked up on the fact that Vic and Travis both don't like yaoi. That's cool, I can respect that because it's totally their prerogative.
BUT IF ONLY, RIGHT?
Because look. I don't know that I'd ever actually go to a con, because I cringe just watching most of these videos. Let's be real--we all know that there'll be that handful of loud-mouth fans that ask uncomfortable, inappropriate, and invasive questions (that 9 times out of 9 are about fandom, fic, slash, or yaoi) that make us all want to shrink in our seats and apologize to the panelists who get asked them. WE ALL KNOW THIS HAPPENS.
Some actors take these questions with total aplomb, but others don't. Even when it makes them uncomfortable, most know how to retain some dignity and at least redirect the question. Every now and then, though, you get that panelist who's kind of tactless and, in the course of answering, either insults or offends the fans.
So here's the deal. DON'T ASK THOSE FUCKING QUESTIONS, OKAY? It should be a "don't ask, don't tell" policy. I don't want to hear first-hand that they don't like it, and they don't want to be asked about it, so let's stop putting ourselves in a position that requires both of these things to keep happening. Stop asking the male characters to confess their love for each other; stop requesting gay lines; just stop. The VAs have already done all of these things multiple times--go watch them on YouTube like the rest of us and stop subjecing us to more discomfort and second-hand embarrasment.
BUT THIS ISN'T THE POINT. None of this is new.
Here's what has really got me thinking lately.
I said above that I don't want to hear first-hand that the writers/VAs don't like yaoi/yuri. It makes me sad, and a little uncomfortable, to hear it put so bluntly. It's not because I have some crazy notions that they ship like the rest of us or are really fangirls/boys at heart. It's because yaoi is such a huge part of what I love about the anime and the fandom, and I want to be respected for that. Hearing the people who make this stuff say that they don't like what I enjoy about it fucking sucks, okay? It makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong, or getting the wrong thing out of their work, or that they'd rather I not do what I love doing.
It can totally be argued that it is their work and thus they can tell me to stop whenever the hell they want and I better listen to them. Valid (and legally binding) point, sure. (See: Anne Rice.) But it's a two-way street, dude. Writers would be nothing without their fans, yadda yadda. This is not the argument I'm here to present, so let's take fandom for granted and move on.
Bottom line, their dislike of yaoi makes me feel like I'm a fan for the wrong reasons, or that my enjoyment of it means less than that of non-shippers. I don't know why the creators/writers/VAs would want to make their fans feel this way, but if they want to be open about their dislike of yaoi, again, that's their business.
I'm also constantly amazed by the people who don't know that yaoi even exists at all. As it pertains to the rest of this post, I'll use Todd Haberkorn (Hikaru, Ling) as an example. In the below video, he admits that he didn't know what yaoi was when he was first working on Ouran. I mean, excuse me? It's sort of your fucking job, isn't it?
I'd argue that anime, for the most part, is kinkier and more open about its sexuality than other genres. From the outside, it's got a bit more notoriety regarding its culture and subculture. I would think that the people who work on anime would know this.
So what I want to know is, rather simply, how can they be so uncomfortable with it?
Maybe I can argue for FMA that the series is pretty much in no way at all gay or subtexty, so one can get away with working on it without accepting the yaoi because on the most straightforward level the series has nothing to do with it.
But let's look at Ouran for a second. Vic and Travis both dislike yaoi, yet they both worked on the show. Caitlin is apparently uncomfortable with blatant homosexual overtones, yet she fucking directed it--how does that even work? Todd didn't know that the twins were incestuous, yet he must have seen the animation/read the script (although apparently not too well) and took the job and recorded the scenes and is still uncomfortable about his own work.
This shit does not compute.
And it happens all of the fucking time! This general "I don't like it so I'll try not to talk about it but the fans make me uncomfortable" attitude towards yaoi and the gay part (read: majority) of fandom seems to be the norm. Fans seem to have come to accept and expect this attitude because, rightfully or not, we've accepted that we're doing it wrong. That we like the wrong thing, that we're a dirty little underground subculture that everyone would rather not be there.
And that pisses me the fuck off, when I really get down to thinking about it.
I'm not saying that we should just blow the roof on fandom. I'm not saying that slash and yaoi should be fair game at cons. I'm not saying that those uncomfortable questions by those loud-mouth fans should be accepted or freely asked. I'm not saying that VAs don't have the right to be sick of requests to say lines they're clearly uncomfortable saying.
I'm just saying that there should be a little more mutual respect. I'm saying that yaoi fucking happens, and we should stop trying to pretend that it doesn't. Let's get that out in the open before we deal with etiquette, before we enact that "don't ask, don't tell" policy I was talking about earlier.
That all being said, at long-fucking-last, here's why Greg Ayres is my new favorite.
Watch the last three minutes of this. Relevant bit begins around 7:06.
Click to viewIf you don't feel like watching it (but you should), here's the gist:
A girl asks Greg and Todd how it was doing all of the twincest on Ouran. Predictably, everyone's uncomfortable. EXCEPT GREG. To be fair, Todd actually holds himself together respectably, but jokes about it, saying, "I knew it was coming." Greg, though. He laughs, and then proceeds to answer the question. He tells this story about him, Todd, and Caitlin doing the commentary for one of the twins' scenes.
"[We get to] one of the 'Oh Kaoru, oh Hikaru, oh Kaoru' [scenes] and they both start falling over one another to find anything else to talk about but two boys almost kissing. And Todd's like, 'Well I really liked the writing,' and [Caitlin's] like, 'The animation is wonderful,' and you hear me go, 'Heh,' like a kind of laugh in the background 'cause I was gonna say, 'I just think it's hot.' But I knew that they would be like, 'ah...ah...ugghhh...'"
Another gem:
"When Todd first started working on this show, [to Todd] did you know they were gonna be all touchy-touchy? [Todd shakes his head.] No, he didn't know that. I knew that already. And Caitlin would go, 'These scenes really make Todd kind of uncomfortable,' so like, I would just gay them up a little bit, because it's funny."
First of all, it should be noted that this is one example of where a normally-potentially-awkward question really was fair game. She asked about a canon aspect of the show, so again, why is everyone uncomfortable?
I love Greg Ayres here because he's not. Because he doesn't make a big deal out of it, and because he doesn't avoid the question. He knows the content of his work and he appreciates it. He's not afraid to call out the others for being uncomfortable (although I wouldn't say he 'calls them out'--he's just super cool about it all). He doesn't make the chick who asked the question feel like crap for asking it. He doesn't make the fans who would've loved to ask the question but for a sense of propriety feel like shit for wanting to have asked it.
It's just fucking refreshing to hear that a VA likes the same thing about his show that the fans do.
Yes, Greg is a self-proclaimed fanboy, but I don't think that liking gay (sub)text is something that should be strictly exclusive to members of fandom.
Another vid. It's all one story, but the bit I quote starts at 3:45.
Greg is talking about this internet safety panel he was required to do at a con, and he said that he would try to answer any question he was asked. One of the parents in the audience asked about hentai.
"She said, 'Is it true y'all play pornographic cartoons?' And I was like, 'Yes, we do, absolutely. Yes, we do.' And I'll defend it! I was like, 'Yes, we do.'"
The parent goes on to ask why that's appropriate, to which he answers, "Adults are allowed to have adult entertainment."
(Just an FYI, he tells the full story (which is hilarious) about that parent at the end in this vid).
I love him so much, okay? He accepts what fans do and does not apologize for it. He respects that there are boundaries and responsibilities, and he expects to be respected in turn. THIS, right here, is how everyone should go about doing things in future.
Even if a VA or someone doesn't personally like yaoi or hentai or whatever (because we're all entilted to our own fucking opinions) there should still be respect for those who do, rather than thinly-veiled tolerance.
I used FMA above as an example of a series that doesn't have a whole lot of subtext, and that the VAs thus might not have to deal with slash/yaoi on the most basic level. But just because it's pretty straight on the surface doesn't mean that it won't come with a yaoi culture and a gay fandom, and those fans are just as legitimate as every other and their interest in the series deserves to be recognized.
Personal opinions on yaoi aside, those professionally involved with anime should be aware of the nature of fandom (and, often, the nature of their own fucking work) and the interests of a lot of their fans. Obviously they can't be forced into being comfortable with something, or magically possess tact or charisma, but yaoi and fandom is nothing new. So why is it still treated like such a taboo subject? How can such prolific and well-known VAs still be so uncomfortable about their own work, work they've agreed and are happy to do?
I just don't fucking get it, you guys.
I'd be interested in your thoughts.