My First-Ever Fandom Rant!
I meant to post this a week ago, when it was more current, but everything has been super-crazy since then. So, yeah, I know it's late, but I thought I'd go ahead and post anyway.
This weekend, I went to a family gathering and had a nice conversation with my 14-year-old cousin about Harry Potter, Buffy and fanfiction. She reads Harry/Hermione and Spuffy almost exclusively. Until this conversation, the full extent of her experience with slash was stumbling across "like, two, Spike/Xander stories." And of course, she "didn't get" it. Completely understandable, considering that she's fourteen and not particularly intellectual (although she is intelligent--after all, she has some genes in common with me) and has been raised in a devoutly (almost psychotically) Christian home (where she's not actually allowed to watch Buffy most of the time) and sheltered from the queer influences in her life (our gay uncle and myself, and definitely any overtly queer media). Also, from what she said, it sounded like she had found some fluffy S/X, which even I don't really "get."
But after talking to her for a short while, I was able to get her to understand how some people can see Spike and Xander together, in certain contexts. Up until this point, she only "got" Spuffy and B/A (which she doesn't care for). I mentioned Buffy/Faith, but she seemed a little more skeptical, having seen very little of S3. But my point is: she's fourteen, she doesn't meta, she likes what she sees on the screen and she doesn't entirely understand visual subtext (or subtextual dialogue). But at least she's starting to recognize that 1) different people have different, and not entirely insane, takes on relationships in any fandom and 2) just because two characters are not presented as a couple in canon does not mean that there is no basis to pair them together in fic.
And then I get on LJ and read a few posts and skim the discussion on Fandom Wank only to find that the more militant Spuffyfen have yet to grasp either of these concepts and, furthermore, declared war on the slashers, who, of course, do not take this shit lying down (except, y'know, in a porny way). And here comes the rant.
First, let me just say: What. The. Fuck? This fandom has been around longer than you, and no matter how vocal and psychotic you can be, it does not belong to you. And, on the same note, it does not belong to the very narrow subtextless interpretation of canon that so many of you subscribe to. At all. So back the fuck off.
I myself am a latecomer to this fandom. I didn't see a single episode until "Hush" reran the summer between S4 and S5. I didn't really get into Buffy or the fandom until mid-S5. The first Angel episode I saw was "Through the Looking Glass," and I didn't start actively watching that show until mid-S3. And of course there are ships that I will never understand, ships that I will never read, ships that I hate, both het and slash. But when I discovered that the fandom extended far beyond the narrow confines of my OTP (Buffy/Faith, btw), I had the common decency to realize that, while (for example) B/G squicks me most of the time, it was not my place (or anyone's) to declare that B/G is evil and completely OOC and that everyone who ships it has an Electra complex.
Not so the Spuffyfen. I, apparently, am a heterosexual teenage girl who writes exclusively about men who are actually 100% straight having nasty butt-sex because I don't get enough dick. Suuuuuure. While we're throwing stereotypes around, let me say that at least I'm not a fat, middle-aged housewife who can't understand that attempted rape is not romantic. Oh, and for the record: I'm actually a 22-year-old queer-identified pre-op FTM transgender guy. And I write about chicks and dudes having all kinds of nasty sex, generally gayly. But I really don't get enough dick.
This rant is not directed at all Spuffy shippers, and certainly not people like my good friend redfaerie, or, obviously, my fourteen-year-old cousin.
This weekend, I went to a family gathering and had a nice conversation with my 14-year-old cousin about Harry Potter, Buffy and fanfiction. She reads Harry/Hermione and Spuffy almost exclusively. Until this conversation, the full extent of her experience with slash was stumbling across "like, two, Spike/Xander stories." And of course, she "didn't get" it. Completely understandable, considering that she's fourteen and not particularly intellectual (although she is intelligent--after all, she has some genes in common with me) and has been raised in a devoutly (almost psychotically) Christian home (where she's not actually allowed to watch Buffy most of the time) and sheltered from the queer influences in her life (our gay uncle and myself, and definitely any overtly queer media). Also, from what she said, it sounded like she had found some fluffy S/X, which even I don't really "get."
But after talking to her for a short while, I was able to get her to understand how some people can see Spike and Xander together, in certain contexts. Up until this point, she only "got" Spuffy and B/A (which she doesn't care for). I mentioned Buffy/Faith, but she seemed a little more skeptical, having seen very little of S3. But my point is: she's fourteen, she doesn't meta, she likes what she sees on the screen and she doesn't entirely understand visual subtext (or subtextual dialogue). But at least she's starting to recognize that 1) different people have different, and not entirely insane, takes on relationships in any fandom and 2) just because two characters are not presented as a couple in canon does not mean that there is no basis to pair them together in fic.
And then I get on LJ and read a few posts and skim the discussion on Fandom Wank only to find that the more militant Spuffyfen have yet to grasp either of these concepts and, furthermore, declared war on the slashers, who, of course, do not take this shit lying down (except, y'know, in a porny way). And here comes the rant.
First, let me just say: What. The. Fuck? This fandom has been around longer than you, and no matter how vocal and psychotic you can be, it does not belong to you. And, on the same note, it does not belong to the very narrow subtextless interpretation of canon that so many of you subscribe to. At all. So back the fuck off.
I myself am a latecomer to this fandom. I didn't see a single episode until "Hush" reran the summer between S4 and S5. I didn't really get into Buffy or the fandom until mid-S5. The first Angel episode I saw was "Through the Looking Glass," and I didn't start actively watching that show until mid-S3. And of course there are ships that I will never understand, ships that I will never read, ships that I hate, both het and slash. But when I discovered that the fandom extended far beyond the narrow confines of my OTP (Buffy/Faith, btw), I had the common decency to realize that, while (for example) B/G squicks me most of the time, it was not my place (or anyone's) to declare that B/G is evil and completely OOC and that everyone who ships it has an Electra complex.
Not so the Spuffyfen. I, apparently, am a heterosexual teenage girl who writes exclusively about men who are actually 100% straight having nasty butt-sex because I don't get enough dick. Suuuuuure. While we're throwing stereotypes around, let me say that at least I'm not a fat, middle-aged housewife who can't understand that attempted rape is not romantic. Oh, and for the record: I'm actually a 22-year-old queer-identified pre-op FTM transgender guy. And I write about chicks and dudes having all kinds of nasty sex, generally gayly. But I really don't get enough dick.
This rant is not directed at all Spuffy shippers, and certainly not people like my good friend redfaerie, or, obviously, my fourteen-year-old cousin.