het, slash, femslash, gen: I hate these labels
I hate the fic labels het, slash, femslash and gen.
Het and slash function as warnings: here there be m/f, f/f, or m/m relationship stuff; enter at your own risk. Or alternately, as beacons: slight femslash, come one, come all. Who cares what the story is actually about? They also have the effect of seeming to change the content of a story. "I don't read femslash." And so you miss out on a 300,000 word swashbuckling adventure, because Anna Maria and Elizabeth Swann happen to share a few kisses. "I don't read gen." And so you miss out on a satisfying story about lifelong friendship that has all the hallmarks of the het, slash and femslash stories you enjoy. The romantic labels het, slash and femslash, trump all other content tags save warnings. The story is het before it is horror; femslash before it is a character study.
Gen, in contrast, is a categorical ghetto for misfit stories - stories that are none of the above. It's a category that's simultaneous too wide, and too narrow, to mean much of anything. There's an unending argument over how we can define gen, and that is because gen has no actual content: it's defined negatively. Gen ISN'T het, slash or femslash. Gen is everything else.
Let me throw in some anecdotal evidence now: most fic is not out and out romance. Shipping is a major component of fic fandom, but it's not everything. A romantic subplot in an adventure story =/= a romance story. The appearance of a romantic relationship in a horror story, does not make it a romance, and it does not make it any less of a horror story. There are an awful lot of first time stories, and fluffy romances, but there are tons and tons of stories that deal with ships, without being romances. So why is it important to label a story het, slash, femslash or gen, in addition to pairing and character tags?
There was a time where slash was a genre unto itself, I think. If you read the really old stuff, slash seemed to indicate not just the presence of a m/m relationship, but that what you are about to read, draws on a certain subset of story types and tropes. Slash and femslash are so much bigger now - they are whatever they want to be. A story about gingerbread dudes falling in love can be slash. A story about girls fighting back the apocalypse, and occasionally having sex, can be femslash. So is there still genre called slash, or a genre called femslash? (Seriously people, is there? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this).
As a reader, I find it much more useful to know what kind of story I'm about to read, than to have two different notifications of the genitals contained therein. Femslash, Buffy/Faith, Summary. But What the hell is the story about? Is the Buffy/Faith relationship central to the story - is it about the relationship? If not, then throw me a bone, in the form of a genre indicator. A hint about what tropes you're drawing on. And for god's sake, I get it, Buffy/Faith does indeed imply hot lesbian action. I don't need the reminder.
I know that some people love these labels to death, for whatever reason, but I think that the changing landscape of fic fandom makes them increasingly meaningless. But that, of course, is just my opinion.
Alternate: http://schmevil.dreamwidth.org/201460.html.
Het and slash function as warnings: here there be m/f, f/f, or m/m relationship stuff; enter at your own risk. Or alternately, as beacons: slight femslash, come one, come all. Who cares what the story is actually about? They also have the effect of seeming to change the content of a story. "I don't read femslash." And so you miss out on a 300,000 word swashbuckling adventure, because Anna Maria and Elizabeth Swann happen to share a few kisses. "I don't read gen." And so you miss out on a satisfying story about lifelong friendship that has all the hallmarks of the het, slash and femslash stories you enjoy. The romantic labels het, slash and femslash, trump all other content tags save warnings. The story is het before it is horror; femslash before it is a character study.
Gen, in contrast, is a categorical ghetto for misfit stories - stories that are none of the above. It's a category that's simultaneous too wide, and too narrow, to mean much of anything. There's an unending argument over how we can define gen, and that is because gen has no actual content: it's defined negatively. Gen ISN'T het, slash or femslash. Gen is everything else.
Let me throw in some anecdotal evidence now: most fic is not out and out romance. Shipping is a major component of fic fandom, but it's not everything. A romantic subplot in an adventure story =/= a romance story. The appearance of a romantic relationship in a horror story, does not make it a romance, and it does not make it any less of a horror story. There are an awful lot of first time stories, and fluffy romances, but there are tons and tons of stories that deal with ships, without being romances. So why is it important to label a story het, slash, femslash or gen, in addition to pairing and character tags?
There was a time where slash was a genre unto itself, I think. If you read the really old stuff, slash seemed to indicate not just the presence of a m/m relationship, but that what you are about to read, draws on a certain subset of story types and tropes. Slash and femslash are so much bigger now - they are whatever they want to be. A story about gingerbread dudes falling in love can be slash. A story about girls fighting back the apocalypse, and occasionally having sex, can be femslash. So is there still genre called slash, or a genre called femslash? (Seriously people, is there? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this).
As a reader, I find it much more useful to know what kind of story I'm about to read, than to have two different notifications of the genitals contained therein. Femslash, Buffy/Faith, Summary. But What the hell is the story about? Is the Buffy/Faith relationship central to the story - is it about the relationship? If not, then throw me a bone, in the form of a genre indicator. A hint about what tropes you're drawing on. And for god's sake, I get it, Buffy/Faith does indeed imply hot lesbian action. I don't need the reminder.
I know that some people love these labels to death, for whatever reason, but I think that the changing landscape of fic fandom makes them increasingly meaningless. But that, of course, is just my opinion.
Alternate: http://schmevil.dreamwidth.org/201460.html.