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I really wish someone would write an article about fanfic, and especially about slash, that isn't all "Look at the freaks!" I want one article, just one to actually go into motivation and (slash) fanfic culture/"community", something just a bit more in-depth.
Of course, this might be because I want to read such an article -- I want to see what fan culture looks like from the outside, but apparently no one really sees fan culture from the outside. Apparently, the "nerds and wankers" aura is too thick for people to realise there's a bit more behind it -- we are nerds and wankers, of course, but I like to think there's a bit more, as well. (If nothing else, a large group of tiny groups of writers banding together, which, to me, was one of the big revelations of discovering slash.)
I'm not making much sense, I know.
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This article exists
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If I can find it I'll send it you via e-mail.
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But seriously, yeah, I know what you're saying.
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I'd like to see some in-depth follow-up, myself. Like, maybe, the current state of ff.net? Having just lost a third of its population?
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[/pimp for Roz]
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What I'd really really like to see, though, is some sort of study of fannish culture/community from a mass psychology/sociology standpoint. (I am a geek. :D)
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Not the article I was talking about, but another not entirely anti-slash(part 1)
>>James T. Kirk and his trusty First Officer Spock soap each other in a bathtub. X-Files' Agent Mulder enjoys a merry threesome with boss Walter Skinner and arch-nemesis Krycek. Better yet, Jedi apprentice Obi-Wan gets hot and heavy with his master Qui-Gon Jinn.
Welcome to the strange world of "slash," a wild, wacky, and increasingly popular sub-genre of online fan fiction. But this is fan fiction with a difference.
Based on popular television or movie characters, Slash stories always involve a homoerotic relationship, usually between men. And they are written almost entirely by women.
"Slash is another way of representing erotica," said slash expert Henry Jenkins, director of comparative studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "It's what women want male sexuality to look like."
The central message of slash is hard to miss: Women are turned on by the idea of two men having sex.
"For me, it's hot. It's sexy," said slash writer Zoe Rayne. "I like one guy. I put him with another guy I like. It's exciting for me."
Slash writers say they are challenging conventional notions about female sexuality. "It's the 'sauce-for-the-goose' explanation," writer Mary Ellen Curtin said. "No one argues the appeal of (lesbian) sex for men. It's something we accept readily."
While the concept may sound novel, slash is hardly a recent phenomenon. The genre derives its name from the first Kirk-Spock stories inspired by the original Star Trek series in the '60s. Slash writers then moved on to buddy shows such as Starsky & Hutch and never looked back.
The community grew rapidly once writers started putting their stories on the Web.
In the early days, stories were circulated either by hand at conventions or through small zines. Slash has now gone almost entirely online.
"The Internet has popularized fandoms much faster. People begin reading, writing, and communicating more quickly," Rayne said. She points to the explosion of slash literature spawned by the 1999 release of Episode I: The Phantom Menace.
"Within a year, there were several thousands of stories posted on the Net," she said.
From Homicide to Due South, almost every popular show, past and present, has its own fandom. Online archives contain hundreds of stories based on a mind-boggling array of movie and television characters, listed meticulously in alphabetical order.
While many such stories contain only PG- or G-rated content, a lot of slash is highly explicit. And the adult stories often get more traffic.
"Most male-oriented porn is about escape from responsibility. It's about two anonymous bodies coming together," Jenkins said. "Here sex is embedded within long-standing relationships. It comes with baggage."
Although it focuses mostly on male/male relationships, slash is an expression of female desire. That may be why slash has a limited audience among gay men, but nearly 30 percent of its fans are lesbians. "Most gay porn is one-handed reading," Rayne said. "But that's not always the point of slash."
The relationship between the characters is usually highly emotional. Writers such as Rayne write stories that express the transcendence of love over sexual taboos. She is attracted to "first-time" scenarios, where straight male characters find themselves becoming sexually involved with one another.
"Slash explores the thin line between friendship and love," Jenkins said. "It slides over the line between homo-social and homoerotic."<<
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Re: Not the article I was talking about, but another not entirely anti-slash(part 1)
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Part 2, damn word limit
Apart from its sexual appeal, the focus on male/male relationships is also a result of the lack of strong women characters. Curtin says it's hard to construct a heterosexual relationship when most of the interesting lead characters on television are men.
"Female characters may start out interesting but they usually get progressively more cardboardish and stupid," she said. "So if you want to write a romance, it ends up being slash. It's the dynamics of what's available on screen."
The increasing number of female-led shows, such as Xena, Warrior Princess or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, has produced an explosion in female/female slash, but done little to dent its focus on men.
Slash writers say they avoid heterosexual relationships because they are inherently unequal. "A man and a woman are never going to start from the same place in terms of power," Rayne said.
But the genre's rapidly increasing popularity is creating lively debates about the definition of slash. Recent trends include Real Person Slash, which focuses on celebrities such as the Backstreet Boys, WWF stars, and NASCAR drivers.
But whatever the changes, slash is unlikely to get any less controversial. And slash writers will probably continue to receive a barrage of hate mail from outraged fans of popular shows.
"What I say about such people is that they don't know Kirk's ass from their own," Curtin said. "They identify too much."<<
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Re: Pro-Fanfic articles in mainstream media
http://www.usatoday.com/life/columnist/candy.htm
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