Weighing in on the Het/Slash/Gen debate

[clawofcat]

During the last few days, there have been posts on my flist regarding nominations at the sog_awardsand the nature of the categories that nominated fics have been grouped into. Questions about het/slash gen aren't new, not by a long shot, but I thought I'd explore the definitions a bit by using my work and the interesting way I've been nominated at the awards

Comments

[angearia]

I have to say, my musings are more from the fact that I've never consciously thought about the term before. I more easily understood slash, but Het and Gen have always blended together for me because when I write fic, I'm trying to write the characters as close to canon as I can get (as I understand it). So there'll be Spuffy, but also every other important relationship featured during that season.

But it's been very interesting to see how everyone else views what the word means to them. Because it's never really meant anything to me until the past few days. So I'm learning how people are self-identifying and that's neat. And I'm pondering where I fit in this milieu and finding that my Spuffy love makes me firmly Het, but that outside of that love, I only write Gen fic explorations. Fascinating (to me, at least).

:)

[clawofcat]

I think if you were to ask a lot of pairing writers, they'd say that many of their stories are really about characters themselves or themes, rather than being "about" a pairing. Sometimes a pairing is the point of a story, and sometimes it's simply a vehicle for a writer to explore the character's in the pairing individually or any number of themes. Steve remembered the kinky burns that Spike received from Buffy during a bout of rough sex, but the point of the fic isn't Buffy & Spike or even that they're getting it on. It's all about Buffy's relationship to pain and that she's earmarked a very specific pain and punishment for herself that's only ever been assigned to vampires - her enemies, the very things that she stands in opposition to

[rebcake]

I'm really bummed that I missed that Gen panel. It was up against a workshop that I'd signed up for, which ended up being really excellent. *sigh* Why can we not be in two places at once, when it's for a good reason

[clawofcat]

Why can we not be in two places at once, when it's for a good reason?
Poor design, I think. Temporal ubiquitousness wasn't taken into account during the evolutionary process. Total folly, if you ask me. Only mutants in comics get to have the fun. If only we all could be Multiple Man.

I more or less gave up on modern het romance in cinema...I was going to lots of gay cinema with the same themes that used to be in het romance
Which themes do you mean? I'm not well acquainted with gay cinema, so my ears are all perked up.

[rebcake]

Ack. I go to the Gay and Lesbian (and the horse they rode in on) Film Festival here just about every year, and most of the stuff I've seen is festival fodder, and so pretty hard to find (and harder yet to remember specifics about). Some big gay cinema moments that are easily available are Kiss of the Spiderwoman, The Crying Game, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Bound, and tons of stuff by Pedro Almodovar, my favorite of which might be Labyrinth of Passion.

I guess the theme that I'm talking about that doesn't work so much for modern het romance is that of external obstacles. Parental disapproval, church/state imposition of what makes an approved partner, the inability to engage in sexual activity without a whole heap of bad juju crashing down on you (pregnancy, disease, soiled reputations) are pretty much non-existent in the post Loving vs. Virginia, free condoms and/or abortions for all, quickie divorce era. There isn't much left for red-blooded hets to rail against, except their own neuroses.

Great for people, not so hot for