yeah, this.
From Sophistory over on Tumblr:
I… have nothing against slash ships? I slash characters all the time! What I have a problem with is the overwhelming devotion of large sections of fandom to the OTP of White Penis/Other White Penis, at the expense of female characters, characters of colour, and pretty much everyone else who isn’t a moderately attractive white cis dude.
What bothers me is when this turns into actively maligning those characters in fandom (e.g. bashing ‘those sluts’ who ~come between~ a male OTP, fridging them or making them Evil Harpies[tm] in fic, etc.), or when fandom’s favourite White Dude Show or White Dude Actor does/says something egregiously offensive, and fandom leaps to defend them (usually themselves being pretty damn offensive and hurtful in the process).
What gets my goat is when shows or books or movies play directly into these fandom fetishes, erasing and marginalising women, POC, queer people, trans people, etc. from the narrative, and instead of calling them out on it or critiquing it, fandom laps it up and begs for more.
What aggravates me is when canons deliberately queer-bait, flirting with homoerotic tension and then laughing about it and going, “No homo!”; when they ruthlessly exploit the popularity factor of slashiness without ever allowing their central ~BROTP~ to really, actually, just for once, be textually gay - and when fandom lauds that as progressive and queer-friendly.
I don’t have anything against slash ships - but I have a lot against the culture that surrounds them and the things they enable.
Excellent summation. And I have no clue how to fix any of this, or even contribute to fixing it, apart from doing my best not to be an asshole myself.
I… have nothing against slash ships? I slash characters all the time! What I have a problem with is the overwhelming devotion of large sections of fandom to the OTP of White Penis/Other White Penis, at the expense of female characters, characters of colour, and pretty much everyone else who isn’t a moderately attractive white cis dude.
What bothers me is when this turns into actively maligning those characters in fandom (e.g. bashing ‘those sluts’ who ~come between~ a male OTP, fridging them or making them Evil Harpies[tm] in fic, etc.), or when fandom’s favourite White Dude Show or White Dude Actor does/says something egregiously offensive, and fandom leaps to defend them (usually themselves being pretty damn offensive and hurtful in the process).
What gets my goat is when shows or books or movies play directly into these fandom fetishes, erasing and marginalising women, POC, queer people, trans people, etc. from the narrative, and instead of calling them out on it or critiquing it, fandom laps it up and begs for more.
What aggravates me is when canons deliberately queer-bait, flirting with homoerotic tension and then laughing about it and going, “No homo!”; when they ruthlessly exploit the popularity factor of slashiness without ever allowing their central ~BROTP~ to really, actually, just for once, be textually gay - and when fandom lauds that as progressive and queer-friendly.
I don’t have anything against slash ships - but I have a lot against the culture that surrounds them and the things they enable.
Excellent summation. And I have no clue how to fix any of this, or even contribute to fixing it, apart from doing my best not to be an asshole myself.