Article on fan fiction
Fifty Shades of Grey seems to be the current touchstone for mainstream media to try and quantify fan fiction and as usual, they haven't done a very good job. I don't think I've ever read an article regarding fan fiction that didn't come across as, at the very least, condescending, and at the worst, condemning. This article falls into the "vaguely disdainful and not really interested in the genre" category, as though the author was assigned the subject and really didn't give a damn about it.
Several things about the article annoyed me. First, the obligatory picture of Kirk and Spock. That's sort of journalistic shorthand for "whackadoodle geekfans who don't have lives" but is (as usual) referred to as ground zero for "homoerotic" fan fiction. Nowhere in the article is the word slash mentioned, which is okay, I guess, but employing the term homoerotic instead kind of inflates the tone of the writing. (Although, in stories like these, there's usually a facile explanation of the word slash somewhere in the article, so at least we were spared that!),
And I have to point out that while I know nothing about Fifty Shades, the article intimates that the erotica in it is heterosexual, so I'm not sure why it goes directly off into the homoerotic tangent, But what really threw me was a quote from Francesca Coppa (yes, I think it's that Francesca, given the reference to OTW and her academic props).
Regarding the influence of Star Trek on fan fiction:
"A lot of erotic (fan fiction) is actually queer," Coppa said. "A lot of people were writing gay and lesbian scenes at a time when there wasn't much out there."
It made sense to write these scenes around "Star Trek," she said, which featured a "very consciously diverse group of people. ... The one conspicuous absence was gays and lesbians. Fans rewrote those stories to put queer people at the table."
That is not a theory I'd ever heard before, that the Kirk and Spock dynamic was consciously or even subconsciously appropriated as an outlet for queer writings. I have no idea whether or not her statement is accurate, but it strikes me as a bit revisionist. And while she does not imply that this fertile beginning in the 60s is why we write slash fan fiction today, she also doesn't address the current status of the genre. No one ever does. It's always the same regurgitation - Star Trek, Sherlock, etc. - which seems to be taken as gospel, given how many times this theory has been trotted out in mainstream media,
The article does point out that not all fan fiction is erotic (and, by extension, homoerotic), so yay? And I'm sure that fan fiction as a genre has been studied at length, there are probably university courses centered around it, but geez, it's 2012 - why hasn't fan fiction's acceptance in the media evolved to the point where it isn't looked upon like that annoying, precocious cousin at the family reunion?
Several things about the article annoyed me. First, the obligatory picture of Kirk and Spock. That's sort of journalistic shorthand for "whackadoodle geekfans who don't have lives" but is (as usual) referred to as ground zero for "homoerotic" fan fiction. Nowhere in the article is the word slash mentioned, which is okay, I guess, but employing the term homoerotic instead kind of inflates the tone of the writing. (Although, in stories like these, there's usually a facile explanation of the word slash somewhere in the article, so at least we were spared that!),
And I have to point out that while I know nothing about Fifty Shades, the article intimates that the erotica in it is heterosexual, so I'm not sure why it goes directly off into the homoerotic tangent, But what really threw me was a quote from Francesca Coppa (yes, I think it's that Francesca, given the reference to OTW and her academic props).
Regarding the influence of Star Trek on fan fiction:
"A lot of erotic (fan fiction) is actually queer," Coppa said. "A lot of people were writing gay and lesbian scenes at a time when there wasn't much out there."
It made sense to write these scenes around "Star Trek," she said, which featured a "very consciously diverse group of people. ... The one conspicuous absence was gays and lesbians. Fans rewrote those stories to put queer people at the table."
That is not a theory I'd ever heard before, that the Kirk and Spock dynamic was consciously or even subconsciously appropriated as an outlet for queer writings. I have no idea whether or not her statement is accurate, but it strikes me as a bit revisionist. And while she does not imply that this fertile beginning in the 60s is why we write slash fan fiction today, she also doesn't address the current status of the genre. No one ever does. It's always the same regurgitation - Star Trek, Sherlock, etc. - which seems to be taken as gospel, given how many times this theory has been trotted out in mainstream media,
The article does point out that not all fan fiction is erotic (and, by extension, homoerotic), so yay? And I'm sure that fan fiction as a genre has been studied at length, there are probably university courses centered around it, but geez, it's 2012 - why hasn't fan fiction's acceptance in the media evolved to the point where it isn't looked upon like that annoying, precocious cousin at the family reunion?