Meta rec

[sholio]

xparrot has a a great breakdown on the writers of SGA, which episodes they wrote and an overall analysis of their writing style. (Subjective, of course, but it's impossible not to be, and she's very up-front about that

Comments

[rhymer23]

Interesting. A friend of mine has commented several times how, in his experience, fandom in "the old days" (i.e. pre-internet) was much more interested in out-of-universe matters - analysing episodes from a technical point of view, studying different writers' styles etc. - whereas "modern" fandom is much more focused on in-universe things. He's found very few modern-day fans who even want to know who's written an episode. They want to suspend their disbelief and talk about it as if it's real. (Although I hardly dare say it, I've also noticed that his "olden days" fandom was largely male, and his "modern day" fandom is largely female, and I wonder if this is a slight factor in the differing approaches.)

Fanfic writing, I feel, tends to push one towards the in-universe approach. I was chatting to a friend earlier today in email, trying to reconcile two slightly contradictory things from two different episodes and make coherent characterisation out of them. "Of course," she said, "you know that the discrepancy is because the writers messed up." "Of course I do," I said, "but that makes no difference. I'm writing about them as real people, so I have to reconcile them in a way that feels real." So, yes, I find it actually inhibits me from writing the characters if I think overmuch about the writers behind them. I'm also not really interested in meeting actors, and don't often listen to commentaries.

That said, I do remember the fanfic writing side of X-Files fandom in the mid-nineties being very aware of the different preferences and styles of each writer, even as we wrote stories that presupposed that the characters were real. *shrugs*

[xparrot]

!!! You're right! I wrote my whole post not thinking that way way back in X-files, we were all about analyzing Vince Gilligan's MSR or Darin Morgan's mad genius! (...it frightens me a bit that I remember their names. I wonder sometimes what I could know, if my head were filled with things not from TV shows ^^;;;)

I also agree the difference in fanning is definitely male-fan vs female-fan related (that was my first thought when reading your first sentence) - in my experience fanboys and fangirls are both very much into trivia, but different kinds of trivia and for different purposes; fanboys like to know esoteric factoids about the show to challenge one another and show off their knowledge, while as fangirls are more into cataloging every detail in order to build a cohesive picture of a character/world (--I speak very broadly of course; fans of both sexes cover the whole range of fanning, but there are elements that tend to be found more with men or with women...)

This is odd to me because I usually think I fan more in a female way, but I'm into both internal and external analysis. It doesn't inhibit me to consider the external, but at the same time I'm always wanting explanations that are internally satisfying as well.

[rhymer23]

Oh yes. It's years since I've watched a single episode of The X-Files, but I can still reel off lists of episodes written by each recurring writer. I was never a shipper, but Vince Gilligan was my god... and, oh, the dread we all felt when a John Shiban episode was approaching...!

I'm so glad that you agree with my very tentatively-expressed male fan/female fan thing. You have no idea how often I wrote and deleted and rewrote and qualified that bit of my comment, afraid I'd be jumped on as sexist. I was quite put out when I realised that I relate to fandom in a "female" way, since in non-fandom life I have no interest in all those things that are deemed "female" by the media and much prefer "male" hobbies. I tend to score slightly as "male brain" on those (very simplistic) online tests, yet here I am writing angsty, hurt/comforty fanfic about emotions and feelings.

[xparrot]

Oh, John Shiban!! I remember when I first starting watching Supernatural, seeing his name in the credits gave me a start! (really, he wasn't that bad, all things considered. Especially considering what happened to the show later seasons... XP)

I often analyze male vs female fanning (my bro's a big fanboy himself, so I've got a fair bit of fodder) and don't think it's especially sexist to do so, especially since it's broad trends more than specific individuals, and I don't think one way is particularly superior to another. Though I think fanning might show a difference in male/female behavior that is really not reflected at all in the standard stereotypes. A lot of female fans that I know tend to be more masculine in certain interests, and not really into/prejudiced against 'girly' things (some of this comes, I think, from being scifi/action show fans, which are traditionally male entertainment, so we female sf fans tend to be a bit, hmm, defensive? or proud of our non-traditional tastes) but we still fan quite differently from the fanboys. I also think certain beliefs about what constitutes classic 'female' entertainment are very misleading (like, I've seen it expressed a lot of places that women are more interested in stories about relationships, and this is largely very true - but people often take "relationships" to mean only "romance" and that's inaccurate.)

But then, some guys can do brilliant h/c (look at The Lord of the Rings, books or movies) - and I've never been able to determine if they're getting the same thing out of it emotionally that we fangirls do (and then, a lot of fangirls don't get h/c, not to mention even among we h/c fans there's a huge range of what the appeal is)...so maybe there's not such a big difference after all.

(Ah, excuse me for going off, this question has long fascinated me, so I tend to leap at chances to discuss it!)

[rhymer23]

I only really started noticing the differences once I got involved in fanfic and online fandom. At university (before the days of the internet), I was in the Star Trek society (one of very few women) and in the Tolkien Society (equally mixed) and never noticed any difference between how the different sexes related to the source material. Maybe I was naively missing things back then, but I do something wonder if things are polarising more and more. I was away from online (female) fandom between 1998 and... well, 2007, really (though I'd pottered for a bit in tiny fandoms from 2005), and it had changed beyond recognition. Squeeing, the enormous prevalence of shipping, etc. etc. It was quite a culture shock to come back.

[xparrot]

I believe the web does make it easier for fans (male and female) to find like-minded fans, but I actually think the polarization predates the internet. The female fanculture was harder to find previously, however; slash was very much underground for years. 'Trekkies' became famous, but they were mostly the male-style side of fandoms, with their devotion to trivia and rebuilding ship models and things (cosplay is cross-gender so not going to mention people dressing up). But at the same time there was the growing zine culture - and there were male-fandom zines, but there were also Kirk/Spock fanfics and vids and such, which were largely unknown to the male side, from what I know.

Though I'm curious - when you were in the Star Trek society, did you have any exposure to fanfic? Especially of the h/c or slash variety? I do wonder, because some of the original officially published Star Trek novels were clearly written by female fanfic authors, with impressive amounts of h/c and angst and borderline slash...I found them in my mid-teens, before I discovered fanfic or online fandom, and was blown away, because they were filled with something I'd only found in dribs and drabs in other books. This is, anecdotally, why I started to believe in differences between male and female fanning, because while I fanned on Star Trek with my brother in more male ways (trivia, universe analyses) and really enjoyed such fanning (and still do), I also became obsessed with the female-authored ST:TOS novels and Kirk-Spock h/c in a way he didn't comprehend; they met a desire in me that few male-written (and published) novels did or do. (Which isn't to say that some men can't write fantastic h/c, but they're rare enough to surprise me...)

[rhymer23]

(Sorry, friendshipper, for slight thread hijack!)

I'm sure you're right that a lot of this was happening all along, but I just happened to be unaware of it. I was an enormous Star Trek fan at 14, but totally unaware of the existence of fandom. It was just me at home with the TV, and it never crossed my mind that there might be places out there where I could interact with others.

I didn't have any exposure to fanfic in the university Star Trek society. It was just a video-watching thing, really, and no more than that - certainly without the strong social side that my other societies had. Aged 14, though, I used to make up stories in my head in which Kirk saved the day despite serious wounds, so I would so have read it had I known about it.

[sholio]

(Sorry, friendshipper, for slight thread hijack!)

Ha, no worries, I like seeing people have interesting discussions in the comments. Chat away!

[xparrot]

Yes, I think that many fangirls were unaware of the existence of fandom (as a full social experience) before the internet - even gatherings like Trekkie conventions can be a far cry from the sort of connections and interaction that develop in true fandom. There are more guys than girls into scifi (though most of them not as obsessively as dedicated fans), so for a while the dominant fandoms were male (because guys had an easier time finding other guys who liked what they liked, while as girls were more likely to find the guy circles than other girls sharing their interests.) But now that fangirls can find each other across distances, we're building our own spaces.

...Er, or something like that. I'm not sure this is all that's going on, but I think it's one reason why the face of fandom seems to have changed with the rise of the internet, but what people like hasn't really changed. Even before the 'net, there were many of us 'proto-fangirls' who did the squee and h/c and fic-in-our-heads and whatnot all by our lonesomes - which is why I think a certain type of fanning is innate to certain types of psyches (some of which can be designated, broadly, 'male' and 'female'). We're not just being influenced by our social circles; we're finding and creating social circles based on our personal tastes.

[sholio]

The male fan/female fan thing makes sense to me, too. And this is not to say that EVERY male fan or EVERY female fan conforms to even the most general of stereotypes. But I've been in a number of fandoms and exposed to a number of different types of fanning, and I'd say that male-dominated fandoms have a very different focus than female-dominated fandoms -- I agree with xparrot that male fen, as a group, tend towards trivia and towards figuring out how things work in the canon world (i.e. building model X-Wing fighters) whereas female fen lean more towards exploring the emotional and story-related possibilities of the canon world. In all honesty, I think the motivations are pretty similar in either case (to connect with fellow fen and to immerse themselves in a canon world that gives them pleasure) but the outlets are somewhat different. I tend to have a knee-jerk negative reaction to the idea of "fixing" the problems with SGA by adding female writers, but I'm not sure if that's even internally consistent with my whole belief system, since I obviously do believe that males and females, taken as a group, lean in different directions in their fannish inclinations ...

[rhymer23]

I've quite often seen the opinion expressed that no male writer can ever properly write a woman (or vice versa) and that really bothers me, since it implies to me that sex is the single most important thing about a person - that I, as a woman, am better able to understand any woman than any man, regardless of their background, interests, educational background etc. Which is kind of slightly off topic, but has strayed onto a pet peeve of mine. ;-)

I'm actually quite happy for the show itself to carry on not giving me tonnes and tonnes of character stuff and emotional stuff every week (which may or may not be a consequence of having male writers). I love fanfic... but I wouldn't want to show to be like fanfic. I rather like having a subtle, "aagh, they've missed the chance for a good character moment again!" approach, so I can rush off and fill in the gaps. Which is also strayed off topic... Sorry.

[xparrot]

--Just jumping in to say I agree with both points - a lot of male writers do struggle with female characters, but some do quite well (especially if they know to think of them as characters and people first, rather than Women). And some women have difficulty writing men (though I think we have an easier time of it, as especially in scifi and action fiction, most of our sources will be male-written, so we've got better models.)

And yes, I love SGA because it's got a perfect balance of what it gives us and what it doesn't - enough character moments that we know we're not imagining friendships, etc; but few enough that we are compelled to write in more!