Slash, analyzed by an expert!
...I’d like to let you all know how stupid I am. I was typing up this massive excerpt from that book, and I went to minimize the window, and instead I closed it. I effing closed it. And after all that hard work.. it’s even harder typing now than usual because I donated blood earlier and my arm is feeling sore and a bit weak.
So, because it’s so good and I really want to share with you all, I’m typing it again. But please PLEASE read this because then my repeated effort won’t be in vain!
Okay. So if you missed my last post, while I was at work yesterday (I catalog new books for my school library) I came across this book, and long story short, I found a section on slash fanfiction. It’s very cool and very clear, I like it a lot, so I’m sharing!
ETA: This is only one of two excerpts, because my arms are getting tired. I’ll post the other one later. But this one has most of the meat.
The book is called “Media Reception Stuides” by Janet Staiger.
I would just like to make very clear that I did not write this. It is all copyrighted information, and I am not laying any claim to it whatsoever.
Pg 103-104
“Slash” fiction has been of great interest. Written mostly by heterosexual women, slash stories posit a same-sex relation among male protagonists in some textual world. Called “hatstands” (which has connotations of homosexuality) in Britain, fan stories involving the two male leads in the BBc television program The Professionals appeared in the early 1980s. By 1993, fans had produced more than three thousand such stories and novels. Constance Penley states these had appeared in the United States “at least by 1976,” and by 1991 had so proliferated that they produced “juried prizes;… a house organ, On the Double; annual meetings…; music videos (with scenes from Star Trek reedited for their ‘slash’ meanings); brilliant built in market research techniques…; and, increasingly, the elements of a critical apparatus, with its own theorists and historians.” While the most famous pairs for slash fanfic are Kirk and Spock of Star Trek, Starsky and Hutch, Simon and Simon, Crockett and Tubbs (or Castillo from Miami Vice), numerous textual worlds have produced such fan efforts. Many of the stories are “first times” and for Kirk/Spock fiction have a formulaic narrative described by Jenkins as beginning with an initial relationship establishing some degree of desire, moving to a fear of rejection or self-accusations about proper masculinity and confessions between the two men, and concluding with “an erotics of emotional release and mutual acceptance.”
Although I shall expand on explanations for fan behavior later, it is worth nothing that slash fiction has produced some specific debates. Penley believes that since science fiction has few females and the fan fiction often creates the males as androgynouse, the stories are instances of fans making do with what they have. Additionally, the stories express a desire for a “retooling” of masculinity in the future in which men learn how to express their emotions. Jenkins disagrees with her; he believes the fiction is a stronger critique of traditional masculinity. Bacon-Smith postulates that the fiction is sexually exciting for the women writers. Moreover, because the women identify with both characters, this fictional arrangement allows them to both be one man and have the other man. Finally, she notes that it is difficult to create a credible strong female character, so the men are surrogates for women in a relationship that has equality and good communication. Mirna Cicioni adds that the issues about equity may involve “the writers’ tensions about heterosexual relations.” Thrupkaew extends Bacon-Smith’s views: “Slash enables its writers to subvert TV’s tired male/female relationships while interacting with and showing mastery over the original raw material of a show (key for all fanfic).” Thrupkaew claims that such fiction produces a “richer sense of possibility than duplicating the well-worn boy/girl romances coughed up by most TV shows.” She also thinks the fiction displays a strong feminist gesture: “They’re not only laying claim to images of men but reconfiguring male behavior - a powerful way to make men their own, too.” As Thrupkaew argues, likely no single thesis covers all this behavior; rather, individuals are writing the fiction from the basis of several of these motivations.”
[My commentary: This analysis suffers from the assumption that most slash fic is written within science fiction -verses; clearly, this is no longer the case (I feel like some of the information here is a bit dated, I mean, Starsky and Hutch?) and thus some of the conclusions are rendered mostly invalid. However, the rest of this makes a lot of sense; parts of it resonate strongly with what I wrote in my email a little while ago. I like the idea that it is due to exploration and desire for more options, because so much m/f stuff is overdone - this way of looking at it makes it seem very normal, which is so cool. Yay, we’re not perverts! :) ETA: I didn't mean that we think we're perverts, I just meant that generally, external analyses of us would come to some sort of conclusion that we're wrong somehow]
So, because it’s so good and I really want to share with you all, I’m typing it again. But please PLEASE read this because then my repeated effort won’t be in vain!
Okay. So if you missed my last post, while I was at work yesterday (I catalog new books for my school library) I came across this book, and long story short, I found a section on slash fanfiction. It’s very cool and very clear, I like it a lot, so I’m sharing!
ETA: This is only one of two excerpts, because my arms are getting tired. I’ll post the other one later. But this one has most of the meat.
The book is called “Media Reception Stuides” by Janet Staiger.
I would just like to make very clear that I did not write this. It is all copyrighted information, and I am not laying any claim to it whatsoever.
Pg 103-104
“Slash” fiction has been of great interest. Written mostly by heterosexual women, slash stories posit a same-sex relation among male protagonists in some textual world. Called “hatstands” (which has connotations of homosexuality) in Britain, fan stories involving the two male leads in the BBc television program The Professionals appeared in the early 1980s. By 1993, fans had produced more than three thousand such stories and novels. Constance Penley states these had appeared in the United States “at least by 1976,” and by 1991 had so proliferated that they produced “juried prizes;… a house organ, On the Double; annual meetings…; music videos (with scenes from Star Trek reedited for their ‘slash’ meanings); brilliant built in market research techniques…; and, increasingly, the elements of a critical apparatus, with its own theorists and historians.” While the most famous pairs for slash fanfic are Kirk and Spock of Star Trek, Starsky and Hutch, Simon and Simon, Crockett and Tubbs (or Castillo from Miami Vice), numerous textual worlds have produced such fan efforts. Many of the stories are “first times” and for Kirk/Spock fiction have a formulaic narrative described by Jenkins as beginning with an initial relationship establishing some degree of desire, moving to a fear of rejection or self-accusations about proper masculinity and confessions between the two men, and concluding with “an erotics of emotional release and mutual acceptance.”
Although I shall expand on explanations for fan behavior later, it is worth nothing that slash fiction has produced some specific debates. Penley believes that since science fiction has few females and the fan fiction often creates the males as androgynouse, the stories are instances of fans making do with what they have. Additionally, the stories express a desire for a “retooling” of masculinity in the future in which men learn how to express their emotions. Jenkins disagrees with her; he believes the fiction is a stronger critique of traditional masculinity. Bacon-Smith postulates that the fiction is sexually exciting for the women writers. Moreover, because the women identify with both characters, this fictional arrangement allows them to both be one man and have the other man. Finally, she notes that it is difficult to create a credible strong female character, so the men are surrogates for women in a relationship that has equality and good communication. Mirna Cicioni adds that the issues about equity may involve “the writers’ tensions about heterosexual relations.” Thrupkaew extends Bacon-Smith’s views: “Slash enables its writers to subvert TV’s tired male/female relationships while interacting with and showing mastery over the original raw material of a show (key for all fanfic).” Thrupkaew claims that such fiction produces a “richer sense of possibility than duplicating the well-worn boy/girl romances coughed up by most TV shows.” She also thinks the fiction displays a strong feminist gesture: “They’re not only laying claim to images of men but reconfiguring male behavior - a powerful way to make men their own, too.” As Thrupkaew argues, likely no single thesis covers all this behavior; rather, individuals are writing the fiction from the basis of several of these motivations.”
[My commentary: This analysis suffers from the assumption that most slash fic is written within science fiction -verses; clearly, this is no longer the case (I feel like some of the information here is a bit dated, I mean, Starsky and Hutch?) and thus some of the conclusions are rendered mostly invalid. However, the rest of this makes a lot of sense; parts of it resonate strongly with what I wrote in my email a little while ago. I like the idea that it is due to exploration and desire for more options, because so much m/f stuff is overdone - this way of looking at it makes it seem very normal, which is so cool. Yay, we’re not perverts! :) ETA: I didn't mean that we think we're perverts, I just meant that generally, external analyses of us would come to some sort of conclusion that we're wrong somehow]