Thoughts: Why Witty Anagrams Are Not Enough
Let me tell you all a story, or those of you who don't yet know it. I used to be in this fandom. It was pretty, it was ugly, it was the way a fandom is; its own little corner of the universe where the people who liked the same thing got together and wrote and talked and had fun. It had bad moments, it had good moments, it had ridiculous canon and awesome scenes, it had amazing communities and evil anon memes.
It had canon slash.
I left it because it got torn apart, and that's a story all by itself, a story I mourn and can still be angry about, and that will probably never change. A lot of my life, of my experiences, of my choices, are bound up in what I learned in and through that fandom, and a lot of what I do now, what I choose now, in terms of fandom, is bound up in how it ended.
But it had canon slash.
It had kind of awesome, subtle canon slash, where everyone was a little queer in some ways, and the people that were part of the canon slash existed for so far more, from start to finish, than being queer. They had lives and past loves and future ones and careers and friendships and oh, yeah, they were queer.
It had awesome canon slash.
I found a new fandom now, a place I think I can be and grow and that seems to suit me, and speaks to me in a myriad of ways. It has fail and stupidity and canon isn't always perfect, but I'm starting to love it, and maybe, just maybe, yeah. It has no canon slash. And I miss that. I miss that, because it has, like most fandoms I hang out in, it has this odd thing.
It has subtext.
And I've come to understand, lately more than before, how despicable and horrible subtext is. Because queer subtext is nothing like Lois & Clark: The New Adventures. It's dirty, hiding in a corner, hidden behind words, shrouded in deniability. And it holds no promises. (It also only applies to men. That's for another day, the erasure of queer women from television.) Subtext is not a witty anagram. Subtext is trying to sell me a laptop bag with a water bottle in it. Subtext is like a lottery ticket; tax on hope. Subtext is the antidote, the death of canon slash; it's the have your cake and eat it variety of masquerading as PC.
It's pretend.
It's playing at gay but not really, it's passing as something it's not. And it will never be and we, as fandom, keep buying it and therefore feeding it, sliding backward into the past. I'd like to imagine a world in which subtext is a promise, the sort of promise heterosexual subtext appears to be, where the tables don't get switched on you and actors don't flail when asked about it. It must be so nice to live in a world where television and films just give you what you want, show you people that are the way you are.
I really fucking hate subtext.
It had canon slash.
I left it because it got torn apart, and that's a story all by itself, a story I mourn and can still be angry about, and that will probably never change. A lot of my life, of my experiences, of my choices, are bound up in what I learned in and through that fandom, and a lot of what I do now, what I choose now, in terms of fandom, is bound up in how it ended.
But it had canon slash.
It had kind of awesome, subtle canon slash, where everyone was a little queer in some ways, and the people that were part of the canon slash existed for so far more, from start to finish, than being queer. They had lives and past loves and future ones and careers and friendships and oh, yeah, they were queer.
It had awesome canon slash.
I found a new fandom now, a place I think I can be and grow and that seems to suit me, and speaks to me in a myriad of ways. It has fail and stupidity and canon isn't always perfect, but I'm starting to love it, and maybe, just maybe, yeah. It has no canon slash. And I miss that. I miss that, because it has, like most fandoms I hang out in, it has this odd thing.
It has subtext.
And I've come to understand, lately more than before, how despicable and horrible subtext is. Because queer subtext is nothing like Lois & Clark: The New Adventures. It's dirty, hiding in a corner, hidden behind words, shrouded in deniability. And it holds no promises. (It also only applies to men. That's for another day, the erasure of queer women from television.) Subtext is not a witty anagram. Subtext is trying to sell me a laptop bag with a water bottle in it. Subtext is like a lottery ticket; tax on hope. Subtext is the antidote, the death of canon slash; it's the have your cake and eat it variety of masquerading as PC.
It's pretend.
It's playing at gay but not really, it's passing as something it's not. And it will never be and we, as fandom, keep buying it and therefore feeding it, sliding backward into the past. I'd like to imagine a world in which subtext is a promise, the sort of promise heterosexual subtext appears to be, where the tables don't get switched on you and actors don't flail when asked about it. It must be so nice to live in a world where television and films just give you what you want, show you people that are the way you are.
I really fucking hate subtext.