Thoughts: Our Accidental Utopia? (or why vidding makes me gleeful)

[verasteine]

So, a while back, I promised y'all a thoughts post on the topic of gender in fanvids. And you know, I planned to do this sooner, but well... LJ, life, things intervened. This is that post

Comments

[eumelia]

I'm not a big vid viewer, but do enjoy them from time time (mainly it's that usually the music used isn't to my taste) and "Cupid's Chokehold" is particularly clever because of gender play and the connotations with a bigger queer narrative.

The mainstream narrative on queer male bodies is that they are less than "real men" and such. But what I found really nice in this video is how it related to queer male slang (at least in my locale) and how everyone, no matter who, is "a girlfriend".

I'm not sure if what's happening is so much a redefinition as much a re-imagining within a (re)context. That's just as a powerful, if not more so, because gender in the media is rigid, while we (irl) know that gender has much more play in it than hegemonic binary heterosexuality is willing to admit.

[verasteine]

I think it's a reimagining, but maybe a redefinition in fandom spheres only? You're right about gender in media being (too) rigid; I agree and it's one of my pet peeves (you know this.)

So basically, yes, what you said :).

[51stcenturyfox]

Do you mind hearing from someone who's not a vidder, except in my head? :D (I HAVE SO MANY FANVIDS STORYBOARDED IN MY HEAD.)

To me, sometimes the dynamic in a song's lyrics just transcends the gender characteristics in it. Like, "You Give Love A Bad Name" is about the feelings the singer feels, and the blood-red nails and other female descriptions in it are kind of secondary to the "you give love a bad name, you made me feel bad!" point. There are songs which describe similar bad things a man has done, but they're usually sung by women, so it's a tradeoff since most of these things are written and performed assuming a heterosexual dynamic.

Like if a video used "F You" by Ceelo Green, there's "fuck you, and fuck her too". But that's not to say a woman can't feel the same emotions Ceelo is singing about. I think it can be transgressive or it could be a case of "everything else in this song really fits this relationship dynamic".

[verasteine]

No, not at all, everyone can weigh in (I'm not a vidder, but I know what you mean!)

I like your point about gender transcending songs, because it's about relationship dynamics. I like that; I think it's very fannish, and the way, also, that I use songs as a writer when trying to find inspiration for fic. Hmmm. Must ponder.

[alba17]

That's pretty much how I feel about it, from a viewer's perspective. It's the relationship dynamic in the song rather than the pronouns. However, if I'm making a vid myself, it bothers me to have female pronouns in a song I'm using for a m/m relationship. (Hmm, well, most of my vids haven't been relationship vids anyway.)

[verasteine]

This is interesting: you don't mind female pronouns as a viewer of vids, but it can bother you as a vidder? I'm not a vidder, so you know, bowing to your expertise here, but can I ask why? Do you know why?

[sparkindarkness]

I can't say I find it very transgressive at all. It's very much a mainstream view that gay and bisexual men are more feminine or less masculine than straight men even using female pronouns and assuming more stereotypically feminine presentation and behaviour

In fact, taking men who are straight and masculine canonically, putting them in a same-sex relationship THEN using feminine pronouns and references seems the very opposite of transgressive to me - it's like you take a man, but to put him in a same-sex relationship you have to reduce stereotypical masculinity and add stereotypical femininity. It's fairly typical, I think.

[verasteine]

Those are valid points; looking at it from that perspective I can see how it doesn't code as transgressive at all. I think my opinion is coloured by the fact that I'm looking at the vids from a woman's perspective. Attempting to look at them from a different angle, I can see how they code very differently for you.

[eumelia]

The way they're presented in the video undermines the "less than" masculine stigma mainstream society places on gay men.
The pejorative of feminine pronouns is taken away in this context.
The characters are the same stereotypical (not so much on "Hawaii 5-0", btw, but regardless) action hero men, and there's an explicitly gay (or slash, not the same, but them's the words we have) narrative within the fanvid.

ETA: Sorry for the horrendous grammar!

[verasteine]

I don't mind at all; welcome on board!

because it feels like recasting a M/M relationship as a traditional M/F relationshipThis intrigues me. I have actually watched vids where I've had that same response; one of the reasons why I'm so fond of the cupid's chokehold vid is that it flips POV mid-way through and therefore doesn't create a "male" and a "female" partner. I do think, btw, that sometimes what vidders intend and what we all, subconsciously, mix into our art (be it fic, vidding, etc.) of our internal sexism etc. can lead to uncomfortable vibes sometimes

[verasteine]

You know, the second vid I listed here keeps them assigned to the song's prescribed gender roles, and I think if you had a character any less masculine than Steve (I think already, for me, if you switched out Steve and Danny) I probably would be uncomfortable, too. It's very much a personal reading and very much also determined by your reading of canon. I have a fondness for the way that H50, while worshipping at the altar of the cult of masculinity, does not actively deride femininity in its source material. That probably helps me see vids using that canon material as gender neutral or gender fluid.

I love discussions, too, so discuss away! You're very welcome :).

[alba17]

I totally see your point and that was one of the funny things about that Cupid's Chokehold vid, that it was subverting the whole girlfriend thing by applying the song to Steve/Danny. (Even if, like I said, I prefer not to use songs that use female pronouns when I'm making my own vids. Not that I would never do it, just, when I'm listening to songs and thinking about them from a fan vid perspective, hearing female pronouns "takes me out of the story" so to speak.)

What I'm really stuck on in this post is that you don't think slash is transgressive. I don't really understand that. To me it seems extremely transgressive. Taking straight male characters (and the case of H50, very traditionally masculine) and putting them in a gay sexual relationship with each other - how is that not transgressive? I feel like I'm missing something. Can you expand on that?

[verasteine]

Slash, for me, is not inherently transgressive just by the mere act of slashing, of assigning a different sexual identity to presumed heterosexual characters. The reason for this is mostly that a very good portion of fandom replicates traditional gender roles in their slash fanfic, often very sexist roles, recreating the gender dichotomy that is actually missing from a lot of same sex relationships. I don't want this to read as a comment on how/what same sex relationships are, but for me, any transgression is negated by authors' inability to recognise what it is they're looking at.

There's a second point, which is that slash is inherently adopting a culture that is not your own, perverting it for your own use. As much as I, too, do that, it does not make it transgressive. Homophobia and sexism are rife in fandom, alas, and calling the act of slashing in and of itself transgressive bypasses the fact that a good 50% of fandom (estimating here) is a member of the dominant ruling class, at least as it pertains to sexuality

[alba17]

Ack, I've got to run, replying quickly. Slash, for me, is not inherently transgressive just by the mere act of slashing, of assigning a different sexual identity to presumed heterosexual characters. Yeah, to me that's the transgressive part. Something to do with subverting assumptions about sexuality, perhaps. Guess we just disagree about that. I see what you're saying about how most fic is heteronormative, although I'm not sure I agree, or maybe it doesn't bother me? Not sure. Some fic is worse than others in this regard, obviously. I think the part of my brain that's involved with fic isn't terribly analytical. :) I don't think fic is really much about telling stories about gay people (actual queer content)- it's more in the realm of fantasy, a thing unto itself.

The whole 'appropriation of another culture' is an interesting question and an uncomfortable one. I do think that slashing is an inherently feminist act; Agree, for reasons you state.

[verasteine]

I think, for me, when it's merely the same gender roles projected onto two guys, it's exchangeable for me, like the names and characters don't matter and it could have just been a man and a woman, because they're not behaving like two men. (This is especially true for the majority of slash fandoms, where the men who are slashed are very masculine in their gender presentation.)

That said, I am very allergic to any slash that reeks of gender dichotomy or essentialism, because I hate that, and I don't want to see it in my slash. So maybe I'm extra harsh :). I agree that slash does not try to show actual queer content, slash is a genre by itself, that borrows from queer culture when it suits it.