Fannishness and whatnot

[snowgrouse]

-Just rewatched The Celluloid Closet and I wish there was a sequel looking at how things have progressed in the past 15-odd years. Also, thanks to the stuff about reading/translating some narratives into Gay, now I want to make a documentary from a slightly different angle, about slash. I know gay studies always have that problem where someone basically stomps their foot and says "if I can see gay in this, then it must be Really Gay and also this historical figure was Really Gay because I say so", but if you made one about slash culture, that wouldn't be an issue because we'd openly admit it was an interpretation, not what TPTB necessarily intended. Although that also reminds me of this (slightly scary) trend in fandom that's been building up in the recent years where fans are so, so used to TPTB serving them slash on the platter they actually get fucking furious and start to scream about homophobia if their favourite same-sex paring doesn't actually do the dirty on screen. (Of course, narratively, ship teasing and UST might actually be more interesting and just better for storytelling in general, but some people seem to forget that in their eagerness for hot man-on-man action.) But yeah, it'd be an interesting documentary, wouldn't it? Most of the best books on the subject, even, are a bit older and there's a whole generation--hell, probably two generations of slashers now to whom the fan world of Textual Poachers would be alien. And all the wonderful meta/critique/community/quality control stuff Sheenagh Pugh adores in The Democratic Genre pretty much died out a couple of years after the publication of the book. First came LJ and crit and betaing started to be seen as bad things, and now with the advent of other sites such as Tumblr, people don't even care about betas and have probably not even heard of those online writer's guides n00bs were always directed to in the late Nineties and early Noughties. And hell, I wonder if people even read *LJ* any more. But that progress would be an interesting thing to chart, wouldn't it? And imagine fandom talking heads discussing their favourite crackpot theories with glee...

-Is anyone actually believing those Cucumbermaster rumours going around? I'm not believing them until I see pics of him on set.

-There's something else fannish I meant to say but forgot. Urf.