Slash and the appropriation/objectification of The Other
This post, on the topic of female slashers writing about gay men, really struck a chord with me. A kind of annoyed, exasperated chord. So I started writing up a response, and as it got longer and longer, I realized that the most appropriate place for me to post this was in my own journal. I don't post about my opinions as often as I should in my
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I think it is possible to write fiction based on a lack of first hand knowledge which honors the experience of those who have it.
Well, I don't think so, especially if this involves a majority writing minority experience. We'll have to agree to disagree here.
So let's say someone writes a story where there is man who is straight falling in love with another man, and who at the end of the day continues to claim he is straight.
Oh, that does happen more often than you think. :)
So let's say someone writes a story where there is man who is straight falling in love with another man, and who at the end of the day continues to claim he is straight.
This is a large part of the problem - no one sets out to write slash to harm gay people (at least I hope so o.O), but the cumulative effect of all people doing this and flooding the M/M with their view -which is bound to be informed by their experience as straight women - is harmful for the prevalence of gay males stories about themselves. Does that make sense? It's not that people write about gay men, it's the danger that they do so in an exploitative fashion and that these many, many stories replace the first-hand accounts in their effect and significance. Does that make sense?
For one thing, the assumption that slash is about fetishizing the "other" doesn't address a real subcurrent in slash that I find is true... women who identify with gay men. Who are not writing about other gay men, but the gay man who exists inside of themselves.
There is no gay man inside a straight women. At least not if they are cisgendered, I am not sure about bigendered people. I don't see any problem exploring this notion with female characters, though, that might be very interesting!
What DO you want female slashers to do?
I want them to be aware of what they are doing, why they are doing it, and what implications that could have for real-life gay men. To think about why they feel it is fine to appropriate and colonise another person's real experiences in a story that is essentially about themselves, and I want their readers to do the same.
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This is a large part of the problem - no one sets out to write slash to harm gay people (at least I hope so o.O), but the cumulative effect of all people doing this and flooding the M/M with their view -which is bound to be informed by their experience as straight women - is harmful for the prevalence of gay males stories about themselves. Does that make sense? It's not that people write about gay men, it's the danger that they do so in an exploitative fashion and that these many, many stories replace the first-hand accounts in their effect and significance. Does that make sense?
It does, but I have no idea what can be done about it. Instead, I will quote to you from a reply I made to jonquil, here:
"I just think it's hard, if not impossible, to relate to the world based on generalities. Think about the situation in Haiti. Many thousands of people died today-- well, yesterday, now-- in an earthquake. It's hard to care. I don't mean that I shouldn't care, or don't. But it's hard. You know how they say one death is a tragedy, but a million is a statistic? It's true. The human brain is not designed to process large-scale disaster in the same way it would something far smaller and yet more personal.
So I don't think about how my stories affect "gay people." I think about how the gay people I actually know will react to them. Will they be disappointed in me, or will they say "good job?" This is my criteria for authenticity. I can't worry about hurting a whole group of people, because it's just too hard to care. I mean that emotionally, there is no resonance, and therefore I have no stakes in getting things right, since there's no cost to me if I don't. But there IS a cost if I alienate my friends by writing offensive things. This means that a part of my responsibility as a writer is to actually know people who are like those I write about. Not just in some abstract sense, but in a way that makes me accountable, where there will be true consequences if I fail.
So at some point, even though I know that being thoughtful about what I do is important, the only way I can be sure that I'm doing the right thing, and not just the best that I can, is to be accountable for what I write. To make myself as accountable as possible, so that real people who COULD be hurt find no occasion to be, by stories written by me."
This is my solution to the problem. I think that greater exposure to real-life gay people is a must for anyone who wishes to write about them, and having gay friends is important in order to make sure that such writing avoids being harmful or stereotypical, as much as is possible. This is the approach I would recommend to any writer on an individual level.
But when it comes to the greater overarching issue of general harm caused by cumulative effects of ignorance... I have no answer as to how to fix it. I don't know that it can be fixed, at least not on its own. All I can say is that I don't think such ignorance in fanfiction drives stereotypes in society so much as it is a product of stereotypes that already exist. I think that it is society in general that needs to be fixed, and hopefully as that happens, the amount of prevailing ignorance will become less, and then those remaining outliers who choose to be willfully ignorant will at least become the minority, in the way that outspoken racists are becoming the minority now, and that people with stereotypical views will be the ones forced to closet themselves for self protection. Someday, of course, I'd like to see all racism and sexism and anything-ism abolished. But until then, what I mostly want is for the power dynamic in society to shift in favour of enlightenment. And that is something that is driven by interpersonal relationships a lot more than it is driven by fictional works.
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Nor do I. But I don't think that continuing the way things are going can.
All I can say is that I don't think such ignorance in fanfiction drives stereotypes in society so much as it is a product of stereotypes that already exist.
Exactly! And it does provide an interesting corpus of prevalent stereotypes. Still, even though fanfiction is so, SO much better in dealing with topics relating LGBT characters than at least the real-life society I live in, it does perpetuate its own share of stereotypes. Stereotypes which are harmful if they are perpetuated.
I think that it is society in general that needs to be fixed, and hopefully as that happens, the amount of prevailing ignorance will become less, and then those remaining outliers who choose to be willfully ignorant will at least become the minority, in the way that outspoken racists are becoming the minority now, and that people with stereotypical views will be the ones forced to closet themselves for self protection.
That's what I hope. I have no magic wand that can fix this, but I do hope that strengthening the voices of harmed minorities so that they can be heard, so that they get to tell their own stories, is a way to do this.
Someday, of course, I'd like to see all racism and sexism and anything-ism abolished. But until then, what I mostly want is for the power dynamic in society to shift in favour of enlightenment. And that is something that is driven by interpersonal relationships a lot more than it is driven by fictional works.
Fanfiction especially is social fiction in many, many respects, and fiction is not free of interpersonal implications, either.
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