Your Fandom is Scientifically Okay!!

[voiceinahead]

Hey there!

Some of you may have noticed this already, but for those of you who have been too busy reading/writing fanfiction: It's now scientifically proved that we're not seeing things when we see things during watching X-Men: First Class the movie. Yes. There's some professor (not professor x) who's got a theory on this! It's not fanfiction, but

Comments

[kindkit]

Literature scholars have been publishing queer readings of texts for about thirty years now. Although the purpose isn't quite the same, these academic analyses often draw on the same aspects of the text that fans do when talking about "slashiness."

[subarashiine]

“X-Men: First Love”

LOVE IT

[hermione_vader]

So, um, they just used academic language to tell us what we already knew. There were times in the past where homoerotic subtext was unintentional (like in Top Gun or The A-Team back in the '80s), but it's often intentional today (at least to a certain degree), so I don't get why the article is billed as being terribly shocking.

[voiceinahead]

True, and like kindkit also mentioned, queer studies has been doing this work for a long, long time and since gay people have been out of the closet for some time now and all sensible people can live with that, I agree. I don't see a shock in this article. I don't think First Class would look quite as slashy as it does if it wasn't planned that way. I don't think everyone knew what the article said already, at least fully. Most of us are just naturally talented in wearing slash goggles. :)

[hermione_vader]

It seems like the blog post's author is trying to paint it as this big, brand new thing; clearly, they never paid attention when Charles and Erik were older gentlemen---the subtext was there, too. For instance, they mention "playing chess" as a sex metaphor---at the end of X-Men, they play chess in Erik's cell. When I rewatched the film recently, I was thinking, "Yeah, let's pretend this isn't a conjugal visit."

It was also kind of annoying how they insisted on breaking the subtext down, like in the "Satellite of Love" scene and does anyone else know that name is an MST3K reference?---let the relationship speak for itself. Spelling it all out just makes it awkward. I guess, as a college student who has been reading and interacting with gender- and sexuality-related texts for four years, this sort of thing just doesn't impress me anymore.

[voiceinahead]

Hmm, I just got the feeling that it wasn't too new for the blogger either. Maybe the blog was written for audience that might not be familiar with the subject? That's the feel I got. And there's definitely loads of subtext in films and especially in comics on C&E when they're older..;)

If you want more academic-savvy text, I browsed through the professor's article linked in the blog and and that seemed better. That short one didn't impress me either - scientific-wise, it did give me a heartful giggle - that blog/article is a short, popularized science I wished would amuse some of the community members. I think it does explain its little theory quite well and manages to do it while still amusing me. Not meant for any study reference, I think the blogger knows that themselves!

[melawen_c]

Charles even asks Erik’s permission to penetrate him! So polite. And then they meld each other’s brains out.
*nods* Yeah, pretty much. :D Thanks for sharing - I hadn't seen this.

[anonymous]

This post...my life is complete!

[voiceinahead]

I feel good for completing your life by showing this to you! :D