Black Women, Slash, Fandom, and Canon (Long Meta Is Long)
There are so many thoughts tumbling around in my head regarding subsections of fandom and how they respond to each other, particularly certain types of slashers and certain het ships. I’m particularly focused on slashers, specifically m/m slashers and het ships in two particular fandoms-Star Trek and Merlin because those are the two that dominate my fandom life right now. This isn’t to say this is my first time thinking about it. And I want to assert, before I go any further, that I am not anti-slash. I don’t generally read it, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t, or that I haven’t even written it, or done RPG featuring homosexual pairings. Nevertheless, anyone currently or formerly involved in the Harry Potter fandom knows just how much slash fiction there is (speaking of RPG, one of my favorite characters I’ve done was Dean Thomas, and he had very loving relationships with men *snuggles Dean/Ernie*). But, honestly, I didn’t think about it too much because I more liked the world JK Rowling created and really could take or leave a majority of its main characters. But in Star Trek and Merlin, I care about the main characters. There are some I care more about than others, admittedly, but the ones I care about the most are the black female characters. So, now, when the discussion of slash/het/misogyny comes about, I have a different relationship to it than when I’d been involved in Harry Potter. That is to say, whenever there were discussions and examples of misogyny in that fandom, the women still mattered-even if negatively or stereotypically. They were never removed from the male narrative; they were featured in it, even if just to be maligned. They were present and a foil on one hand or an avid supporter of the slash in another. In what I’ve seen regarding Uhura from Star Trek and Gwen from Merlin (and, to link it a little back to Harry Potter and mention Cho Chang), in some subsections of slashers, these women shouldn’t even exist. That a black woman is cast as (future) queen who in some versions of Arthurian legend will betray her husband further muddies these waters. But ultimately, there is a very present insistence that these women “know their place”, and the assumption of these specific subsets of slashers is their “place” is not significant to the narrative, let alone with one of the male leads.
“It’s not canon.”
And as I continue to read comment after similar comment to that above statement, it struck me that these people are not merely discussing the source material. On the meta/subconscious level, they are discussing society at large; because no matter how much we like to say fandom is an escape of “real life” the source materials with which we interact are dealing with “real life” in one way or another. In fact, one cannot “escape” something without acknowledging that “something” is there. And what fandom does-it works in the parameters of that “something”; improves upon that “something” or destroys the “something” and substitutes it for “something” else. Slash does this in a variety of ways-whether to validate/give credence to same-sex relationships in general; to “go there” where the source material won’t for one reason or another even though the material leaves the door open to that particular version of interpretation; to expand and challenge the heteronormative paradigm of meaningful relationships and love. And some is just for porn. I’m not here to say yea or nay about people’s reasons for writing and reading slash. For me, personally, one of the main reasons I don’t generally read or write slash is because, well, I already see and follow the men in the source material. I’m satisfied in that regard. In most source material, it is the women whose journeys we don’t fully know, especially as separate from the men. And with respects to Star Trek and Merlin, the more important women of these shows are black.
That’s certainly “not canon”.
How often are black women ever set up as someone we should care about in and of themselves (outside of the occasionally rare biopic)-especially if the target audience extends beyond black people/people of color (PoC)? Even in material targeted to black/PoC audiences, black women are rarely given her own goals and motivations unless the story is targeted to black women/PoC (which occurs even less frequently). And in those black women-driven stories, she’s either far, far down on her luck (and man rescues her) or so high up in status that she’s all alone (and then a man brings her back to earth, but that’s another meta/rant). So, in these black/PoC-targeted films, the heteronormative construct does reign; the black woman is still someone’s prize or reward, or she isn’t truly “fulfilled” until some man considers her worthy of love. In some respects, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, a black woman being loved; a black woman being prized; a black woman being deemed worthy, because too often we are bombarded with the exact opposite image.
However, in Star Trek and Merlin, Uhura and Gwen, respectively, aren’t put in the narrative for “getting the girl is the end goal” or as the reward for “a job well done”. In fact, Spock and Arthur’s journeys aren’t with Uhura and Gwen at the finish line, but rather are taking that journey with them by their side. Also, Uhura and Gwen have goals and aspirations of their own that have, at the most, tangential relations to the men with whom they are being paired. But life happens. Love, luckily for them, happens.
And that is definitely “not canon.”
Not only that, at least in Merlin, it is Arthur who falls in love with Gwen first. One may cite Gwen’s scenes in 1x13 as being “in love” with Arthur, or at least “in like”, but I didn’t interpret those scenes like that. You contrast that with when Merlin had been on death’s door earlier in S1 and she was just as distraught (even going so far as to kiss him in relief!). She didn’t do that with Arthur. She encouraged him to live, to be the king she thought he could be, which would be a vast upgrade from the king his father had been. She has a vested interest in this as she is one of the most vulnerable people in Camelot, being a servant, a woman, and alone. Yet when Merlin brings Arthur to her house at the beginning of season two, she’s not coquettishly shy or excited about “using her wiles” to get him to fall in love with her-she’s all “why is he here and how soon can he leave?!” She couldn’t wait to get him out her house! He was annoying, rude, brash, arrogant, and just not the business. And it isn’t until she tells him off and he starts becoming the man she’d seen him to have the potential to be that she softens to him. And it is Arthur who insinuates ‘care’ first-and not just as a future king to a subject, but as a man to a woman. And it is Arthur who kisses her (and Gwen doesn’t respond until he’s ending it). And it is Arthur who “ends” whatever had started between them. But fandom should be upset when Gwen finds Lancelot, someone who all the way back in S1 recognized Gwen as a lady first and a servant second, if at all? Someone she knows likes her and could love her and someone she could love in return? For Gwen, there is no possibility for her and Arthur. He’s said as much. Yet she’s supposed to pine away and be lonely, be doomed to unrequited love?
Oh. Okay. Black women single and alone are “canon” after all.
Which brings me to Uhura. In TOS, she’s never in a romance though everyone else (but Sulu, no-so-ironically) got some lovin’ at some point. And even if we remove the romance angle from Uhura’s narrative, there was never really a story “about” her, although all the other characters (again, except Sulu) got moderate to significant back story about them. Notable that the only two “chromatics” on the bridge never got first names in canon until after TOS and TOS movies came and went. At least we know where Sulu is born (STIV); but all we know about Uhura is she speaks Swahili and is born in the United States of Africa (Africa is quite large); and in TAS we find out she ran track. But that information, as with most of her interactions in terms of the narrative, are “asides” or details that aren’t necessarily important to the plot outside of fleshing out her character. Yet, even when she is important to the plot…poor Uhura has been through some things. She’s harassed (“Naked Time”, “Mirror, Mirror”); insulted (“Squire of Gothos”, “The Savage Curtain”, “Elaan of Troyius”); assaulted (“Charlie X”, “Space Seed”, “The Changeling”, “Mirror, Mirror”, “The Gamesters of Triskelion”, “Return to Tomorrow”, “Plato’s Stepchildren”); pat on the head like a child (“The Trouble with Tribbles”, “That Which Survives”); met with disbelief (“Tomorrow Is Yesterday”) or disregard (“The Tholian Web”, “By Any Other Name”).
Or, at least, those are the moments people would remember before the others I’ve already mentioned.
In the Reboot, she shows more of a proactive, geeky side, the side that, in TOS had always been shown albeit with her in the background, doing her job. In the Reboot, Uhura is now foreground, someone who cannot be ignored or handwaved away. Not only that, but the “out of nowhere” aspect of the Spock/Uhura relationship that many cry foul about further asserts that relationship is not Uhura’s primary narrative. And isn’t it ironic that people who claim they wished Uhura wasn’t just “a love object” are many of the same people who are whining about the “out of nowhere” part of the romance. Except, up until then, Uhura is framed as being serious about her job (staying late to intercept the Klingon message) and rejecting a romance makes the “love object” part null and void. She isn’t a passive person, taking whoever is positioned by the text to be with her. She chose someone else. And not only that, how she chose that person is hers and her partner’s business. Their relationship is not the story. I think the writers struck the right note with how it was presented. Yes, (some of) the audience was shocked. But the one person who wasn’t shocked about her kissing him in the turbolift is the same person who was being kissed…who looked to her after he stopped whoopin’ that behind…who kissed her on the transporter pad…who was about to declare his love for her when he thought he was on a suicide mission.
Coincidence? I think not.
But that relationship “isn’t canon” and “it doesn’t make sense” and, since this is more directed to certain subsections of K/S slashers, “Uhura didn’t matter to Spock (and by extension Kirk, and by extension nobody else on the ship)!” “They barely interacted!” Just like in Merlin, where the main stories revolve around Merlin and Arthur and the women (both Morgana and Gwen) are only there for set dressing or to give one or two lines. They don’t matter! They don’t matter so much that we’ll denigrate their characters and erase them from the narrative in our prose. “Not our fault they’re weak/boring/ugly/aggressive/hussy/jezebel characters!” some of these slashers say. Because they are rarely seen interacting in the plot, that is a convenient reason to deride, dismiss and erase what they mean to the overall narrative and the men with whom they’re being paired. And the mental gymnastics some of these people do to get there is truly astounding, even when there is ample proof in the source material that these women are not immaterial to them men who love them. I’m all for shipping who you want, but disrespecting a character that isn’t put on the show to be disrespected makes no sense to me. I know I primarily ship Arthur and Gwen and Spock and Uhura; I know Arthur and Merlin have a close relationship as do Spock and Kirk. I don’t see any conflict, when I write my fic, to show that close relationship between the men and then have Arthur and Spock love their women. Better yet-I can even show Uhura and Gwen loving and respecting Kirk and Merlin too!
But, apparently, healthy, loving relationships that aren’t just about eros isn’t “canon” either.
And even if there are clues-obvious or otherwise-about the possibility of romantic homosexual relationships in the source material, why is it that those who wish to explore heterosexual relationships are scoffed, or even, almost maligned for it? Just because I don’t see Kirk and Spock as soul mates in the romantic sense (and, if I’m completely honest, I ship TOS McCoy/Spock first), I don’t call people “stupid” for doing so. And the scenes many Spock/Uhura or even Kirk/Uhura supporters cite in TOS to give a reason why they ship it in fandom, the response is either “you’re seeing things” or “well, there’s more Kirk/Spock so there!”
So what if there’s “more”? This is fandom. If I want to take a glance that happens in one scene for one second and construct a relationship out of it, that’s my right as someone involved in the fandom. Part of the fun is playing “what if”, isn’t it? The reason why slashers go there in fandom is because the source material doesn’t go there. And considering the women I gravitate to are the women of color, and the black women especially, I write my fiction because the source material rarely goes there; and if it does, it lasts for five minutes before she gets erased from the narrative (anyone familiar with Passions and what they did to Fox and Whitney…or anyone familiar with General Hospital and what they did to Jason/Keesha/AJ…or Nikolas/Gia…or anyone familiar with One Life to Live and what they did with Evangeline and just about every male on the soap because they were ALL in her yard…I really could go on). That anytime I or other fic writers who support certain pairings and then take a scene and interpret it in a way to fit their pairing, the reply is “you’re seeing too much” or “you’re stretching” with the implicit directive to stop doing so.
Um, why can’t people in fandom consider Kirk and Spock or Arthur and Merlin (or Sheppard and McKay, to give a shoutout to the SGA fandom, because apparently some of these issues have very firm homes in this fandom also) just be best friends and that’s it? Or even, why can’t the black women in their lives be their friends without being cheerleaders for the slash ship or even being “friends with ulterior motives” or needing to be erased from the narrative? What does that say that different dimensions of love and respect cannot be explored or acknowledged, especially when there is canonical/textual proof that these men hold these women in high regard? Do people get rid of McCoy in Star Trek slash fic where he’s not in the pairing? Is Sir Leon not discussed or handwaved away in Merlin?
Because it’s not canon for a black woman/PoC to matter in a good way. She’s either the best friend of the woman who does/should (hence the calls for “Why not Chapel?” in Star Trek Reboot, even though there’s definite canonical proof Spock didn’t think of her “that way” in TOS or the willingness to include Morgana in either A/M fic or even romantically even though she’s set up as Arthur’s adopted sister in Merlin). But then again, Chapel did have more lines than “hailing frequencies open” and Morgana can do magic.
“They’re more interesting.”
Which, if that’s your position, fine. I don’t happen to agree they’re “more interesting”; but rather, they’re interesting in different ways. For my money, I’m intrigued as to why a prince would be interested in a servant, especially a servant who isn’t one who curries favors on her back; who is far more mature and pragmatic than he is; who doesn’t need or even want a fairytale ending; and why this prince is working so hard to impress someone he shouldn’t even give a second of his day. Or I’m intrigued why this half-Vulcan, who is dedicated to being more Vulcan than Vulcan, allows this woman to tease him, to touch him, someone he always has an eye on while they’re on the bridge; probably the only person he ever compliments-someone to whom he said “I value your intelligence”; someone who tells him off, and rightly so, for not initially putting her on the ship she deserves; someone who is his last thought before he flies to, what he thinks, is his doom. If for nothing else, those reasons should make them “interesting”.
But it’s not about “interesting” in and of itself; it’s about being worthy of that interest or respect, and black women are rarely ever “worthy” of that interest. So they’re handwaved away, dismissed, disregarded, disrespected.
That, is apparently “canon”, even if the source material gives ample examples (or even flat-out says it) to the contrary.
That a woman-of color or otherwise-cannot be deemed worthy enough for that interest/respect/love without being “the most beautiful” or “the smartest” or any other superlative for the partners in the source material or the fans who interact with it…what message does that send? I’m certainly not a superlative of anything, but I would like to think I could interesting/worthy to somebody. And the fact that, at least in Uhura’s case, she is, in text, several superlatives, but that because she is singular she should be single (or those superlatives just don’t matter)…or that Gwen is “just a servant” (who can’t do magic) and “who should give a crap about her story?” to a huge subsection of some parts in fandom (within slash and het) says some things folks are getting carpal tunnel to deny.
I’m going to end it here because long meta is long, but I don’t think I’m done. And I want to be clear that I don’t think this is all slashers, and I don’t know enough about that part of fandom to even say it’s most slashers. But the majority of the ones I’ve encountered as fandom discusses various ships/canonical direction…made me pause and contemplate.
“It’s not canon.”
And as I continue to read comment after similar comment to that above statement, it struck me that these people are not merely discussing the source material. On the meta/subconscious level, they are discussing society at large; because no matter how much we like to say fandom is an escape of “real life” the source materials with which we interact are dealing with “real life” in one way or another. In fact, one cannot “escape” something without acknowledging that “something” is there. And what fandom does-it works in the parameters of that “something”; improves upon that “something” or destroys the “something” and substitutes it for “something” else. Slash does this in a variety of ways-whether to validate/give credence to same-sex relationships in general; to “go there” where the source material won’t for one reason or another even though the material leaves the door open to that particular version of interpretation; to expand and challenge the heteronormative paradigm of meaningful relationships and love. And some is just for porn. I’m not here to say yea or nay about people’s reasons for writing and reading slash. For me, personally, one of the main reasons I don’t generally read or write slash is because, well, I already see and follow the men in the source material. I’m satisfied in that regard. In most source material, it is the women whose journeys we don’t fully know, especially as separate from the men. And with respects to Star Trek and Merlin, the more important women of these shows are black.
That’s certainly “not canon”.
How often are black women ever set up as someone we should care about in and of themselves (outside of the occasionally rare biopic)-especially if the target audience extends beyond black people/people of color (PoC)? Even in material targeted to black/PoC audiences, black women are rarely given her own goals and motivations unless the story is targeted to black women/PoC (which occurs even less frequently). And in those black women-driven stories, she’s either far, far down on her luck (and man rescues her) or so high up in status that she’s all alone (and then a man brings her back to earth, but that’s another meta/rant). So, in these black/PoC-targeted films, the heteronormative construct does reign; the black woman is still someone’s prize or reward, or she isn’t truly “fulfilled” until some man considers her worthy of love. In some respects, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, a black woman being loved; a black woman being prized; a black woman being deemed worthy, because too often we are bombarded with the exact opposite image.
However, in Star Trek and Merlin, Uhura and Gwen, respectively, aren’t put in the narrative for “getting the girl is the end goal” or as the reward for “a job well done”. In fact, Spock and Arthur’s journeys aren’t with Uhura and Gwen at the finish line, but rather are taking that journey with them by their side. Also, Uhura and Gwen have goals and aspirations of their own that have, at the most, tangential relations to the men with whom they are being paired. But life happens. Love, luckily for them, happens.
And that is definitely “not canon.”
Not only that, at least in Merlin, it is Arthur who falls in love with Gwen first. One may cite Gwen’s scenes in 1x13 as being “in love” with Arthur, or at least “in like”, but I didn’t interpret those scenes like that. You contrast that with when Merlin had been on death’s door earlier in S1 and she was just as distraught (even going so far as to kiss him in relief!). She didn’t do that with Arthur. She encouraged him to live, to be the king she thought he could be, which would be a vast upgrade from the king his father had been. She has a vested interest in this as she is one of the most vulnerable people in Camelot, being a servant, a woman, and alone. Yet when Merlin brings Arthur to her house at the beginning of season two, she’s not coquettishly shy or excited about “using her wiles” to get him to fall in love with her-she’s all “why is he here and how soon can he leave?!” She couldn’t wait to get him out her house! He was annoying, rude, brash, arrogant, and just not the business. And it isn’t until she tells him off and he starts becoming the man she’d seen him to have the potential to be that she softens to him. And it is Arthur who insinuates ‘care’ first-and not just as a future king to a subject, but as a man to a woman. And it is Arthur who kisses her (and Gwen doesn’t respond until he’s ending it). And it is Arthur who “ends” whatever had started between them. But fandom should be upset when Gwen finds Lancelot, someone who all the way back in S1 recognized Gwen as a lady first and a servant second, if at all? Someone she knows likes her and could love her and someone she could love in return? For Gwen, there is no possibility for her and Arthur. He’s said as much. Yet she’s supposed to pine away and be lonely, be doomed to unrequited love?
Oh. Okay. Black women single and alone are “canon” after all.
Which brings me to Uhura. In TOS, she’s never in a romance though everyone else (but Sulu, no-so-ironically) got some lovin’ at some point. And even if we remove the romance angle from Uhura’s narrative, there was never really a story “about” her, although all the other characters (again, except Sulu) got moderate to significant back story about them. Notable that the only two “chromatics” on the bridge never got first names in canon until after TOS and TOS movies came and went. At least we know where Sulu is born (STIV); but all we know about Uhura is she speaks Swahili and is born in the United States of Africa (Africa is quite large); and in TAS we find out she ran track. But that information, as with most of her interactions in terms of the narrative, are “asides” or details that aren’t necessarily important to the plot outside of fleshing out her character. Yet, even when she is important to the plot…poor Uhura has been through some things. She’s harassed (“Naked Time”, “Mirror, Mirror”); insulted (“Squire of Gothos”, “The Savage Curtain”, “Elaan of Troyius”); assaulted (“Charlie X”, “Space Seed”, “The Changeling”, “Mirror, Mirror”, “The Gamesters of Triskelion”, “Return to Tomorrow”, “Plato’s Stepchildren”); pat on the head like a child (“The Trouble with Tribbles”, “That Which Survives”); met with disbelief (“Tomorrow Is Yesterday”) or disregard (“The Tholian Web”, “By Any Other Name”).
Or, at least, those are the moments people would remember before the others I’ve already mentioned.
In the Reboot, she shows more of a proactive, geeky side, the side that, in TOS had always been shown albeit with her in the background, doing her job. In the Reboot, Uhura is now foreground, someone who cannot be ignored or handwaved away. Not only that, but the “out of nowhere” aspect of the Spock/Uhura relationship that many cry foul about further asserts that relationship is not Uhura’s primary narrative. And isn’t it ironic that people who claim they wished Uhura wasn’t just “a love object” are many of the same people who are whining about the “out of nowhere” part of the romance. Except, up until then, Uhura is framed as being serious about her job (staying late to intercept the Klingon message) and rejecting a romance makes the “love object” part null and void. She isn’t a passive person, taking whoever is positioned by the text to be with her. She chose someone else. And not only that, how she chose that person is hers and her partner’s business. Their relationship is not the story. I think the writers struck the right note with how it was presented. Yes, (some of) the audience was shocked. But the one person who wasn’t shocked about her kissing him in the turbolift is the same person who was being kissed…who looked to her after he stopped whoopin’ that behind…who kissed her on the transporter pad…who was about to declare his love for her when he thought he was on a suicide mission.
Coincidence? I think not.
But that relationship “isn’t canon” and “it doesn’t make sense” and, since this is more directed to certain subsections of K/S slashers, “Uhura didn’t matter to Spock (and by extension Kirk, and by extension nobody else on the ship)!” “They barely interacted!” Just like in Merlin, where the main stories revolve around Merlin and Arthur and the women (both Morgana and Gwen) are only there for set dressing or to give one or two lines. They don’t matter! They don’t matter so much that we’ll denigrate their characters and erase them from the narrative in our prose. “Not our fault they’re weak/boring/ugly/aggressive/hussy/jezebel characters!” some of these slashers say. Because they are rarely seen interacting in the plot, that is a convenient reason to deride, dismiss and erase what they mean to the overall narrative and the men with whom they’re being paired. And the mental gymnastics some of these people do to get there is truly astounding, even when there is ample proof in the source material that these women are not immaterial to them men who love them. I’m all for shipping who you want, but disrespecting a character that isn’t put on the show to be disrespected makes no sense to me. I know I primarily ship Arthur and Gwen and Spock and Uhura; I know Arthur and Merlin have a close relationship as do Spock and Kirk. I don’t see any conflict, when I write my fic, to show that close relationship between the men and then have Arthur and Spock love their women. Better yet-I can even show Uhura and Gwen loving and respecting Kirk and Merlin too!
But, apparently, healthy, loving relationships that aren’t just about eros isn’t “canon” either.
And even if there are clues-obvious or otherwise-about the possibility of romantic homosexual relationships in the source material, why is it that those who wish to explore heterosexual relationships are scoffed, or even, almost maligned for it? Just because I don’t see Kirk and Spock as soul mates in the romantic sense (and, if I’m completely honest, I ship TOS McCoy/Spock first), I don’t call people “stupid” for doing so. And the scenes many Spock/Uhura or even Kirk/Uhura supporters cite in TOS to give a reason why they ship it in fandom, the response is either “you’re seeing things” or “well, there’s more Kirk/Spock so there!”
So what if there’s “more”? This is fandom. If I want to take a glance that happens in one scene for one second and construct a relationship out of it, that’s my right as someone involved in the fandom. Part of the fun is playing “what if”, isn’t it? The reason why slashers go there in fandom is because the source material doesn’t go there. And considering the women I gravitate to are the women of color, and the black women especially, I write my fiction because the source material rarely goes there; and if it does, it lasts for five minutes before she gets erased from the narrative (anyone familiar with Passions and what they did to Fox and Whitney…or anyone familiar with General Hospital and what they did to Jason/Keesha/AJ…or Nikolas/Gia…or anyone familiar with One Life to Live and what they did with Evangeline and just about every male on the soap because they were ALL in her yard…I really could go on). That anytime I or other fic writers who support certain pairings and then take a scene and interpret it in a way to fit their pairing, the reply is “you’re seeing too much” or “you’re stretching” with the implicit directive to stop doing so.
Um, why can’t people in fandom consider Kirk and Spock or Arthur and Merlin (or Sheppard and McKay, to give a shoutout to the SGA fandom, because apparently some of these issues have very firm homes in this fandom also) just be best friends and that’s it? Or even, why can’t the black women in their lives be their friends without being cheerleaders for the slash ship or even being “friends with ulterior motives” or needing to be erased from the narrative? What does that say that different dimensions of love and respect cannot be explored or acknowledged, especially when there is canonical/textual proof that these men hold these women in high regard? Do people get rid of McCoy in Star Trek slash fic where he’s not in the pairing? Is Sir Leon not discussed or handwaved away in Merlin?
Because it’s not canon for a black woman/PoC to matter in a good way. She’s either the best friend of the woman who does/should (hence the calls for “Why not Chapel?” in Star Trek Reboot, even though there’s definite canonical proof Spock didn’t think of her “that way” in TOS or the willingness to include Morgana in either A/M fic or even romantically even though she’s set up as Arthur’s adopted sister in Merlin). But then again, Chapel did have more lines than “hailing frequencies open” and Morgana can do magic.
“They’re more interesting.”
Which, if that’s your position, fine. I don’t happen to agree they’re “more interesting”; but rather, they’re interesting in different ways. For my money, I’m intrigued as to why a prince would be interested in a servant, especially a servant who isn’t one who curries favors on her back; who is far more mature and pragmatic than he is; who doesn’t need or even want a fairytale ending; and why this prince is working so hard to impress someone he shouldn’t even give a second of his day. Or I’m intrigued why this half-Vulcan, who is dedicated to being more Vulcan than Vulcan, allows this woman to tease him, to touch him, someone he always has an eye on while they’re on the bridge; probably the only person he ever compliments-someone to whom he said “I value your intelligence”; someone who tells him off, and rightly so, for not initially putting her on the ship she deserves; someone who is his last thought before he flies to, what he thinks, is his doom. If for nothing else, those reasons should make them “interesting”.
But it’s not about “interesting” in and of itself; it’s about being worthy of that interest or respect, and black women are rarely ever “worthy” of that interest. So they’re handwaved away, dismissed, disregarded, disrespected.
That, is apparently “canon”, even if the source material gives ample examples (or even flat-out says it) to the contrary.
That a woman-of color or otherwise-cannot be deemed worthy enough for that interest/respect/love without being “the most beautiful” or “the smartest” or any other superlative for the partners in the source material or the fans who interact with it…what message does that send? I’m certainly not a superlative of anything, but I would like to think I could interesting/worthy to somebody. And the fact that, at least in Uhura’s case, she is, in text, several superlatives, but that because she is singular she should be single (or those superlatives just don’t matter)…or that Gwen is “just a servant” (who can’t do magic) and “who should give a crap about her story?” to a huge subsection of some parts in fandom (within slash and het) says some things folks are getting carpal tunnel to deny.
I’m going to end it here because long meta is long, but I don’t think I’m done. And I want to be clear that I don’t think this is all slashers, and I don’t know enough about that part of fandom to even say it’s most slashers. But the majority of the ones I’ve encountered as fandom discusses various ships/canonical direction…made me pause and contemplate.