“Media-Based Fan Fiction
Another genre, focusing on
romantic/erotic relationships between male pairs, builds on both romances and
male buddy stories. Noncommercial, media-based fan fiction centering around
male-male relationships is written, privately circulated, and read almost entirely
by women. Typically, two heterosexual buddies are drawn reluctanty into a
homoerotic relationship based on their shared work. Their love is passionate,
tender, egalitarian, and adventurous. It is unique in their community, not part
of a homosexual subculture.
The
meaning of this genre to its audience is difficult to discover. Direct
questioning of fan-writers elicits such answers as “I like men and if one is
good, two is better” or less comprehensibly, “if one of them was a woman, there
would be housework and who wants a hero washing socks?”
Clever
scholarly indirection, however, uncovers an interesting sidelight on the
readers’ attitudes toward gender. This genre eschews female heroines. In fact,
the fan community cautions new writers against creating a “Mary Sue,” a heroine
wannabe who makes herself ridiculous by attempting too much: she is scornfully
characterized as “saving the universe six times before breakfast.” Another
tradition is that of the female minor character who “unfairly” thwarts a hero,
as did T’Pring of Star Trek, whom some fans angrily characterize as a “bitch.”
It
would not be going too far to say that this woman’s genre, which is supported
by a women’s community profoundly friendly to women, is actively hostile to
female characters. Arguably, this genere gives women a chance to imagine having
it all – adventures, status, primacy in hand-to-hand combat, and one true,
egalitarian, all-satisfying love – precisely because it gives readers a chance
to avoid thinking about women’s lives. Heroines are eschewed and villainesses
jeered because the presence of female characters threatens the fantasy about
egalitarian partners who are adventurous, technological overachievers. Women
authors seem to find the “I want it all” fantasy impossibly daring for female
characters; they project it onto male characters. Female images are there only
to be transcended and left behind.”
Kray, Susan. “The Things Women Don’t Say.” Chapter 4,
Science Fiction, Canonization, Marginalization, and the Academy”
I found this and it made me really happy. I'd never thought about looking at fic this way, but I think it is very insightful. It makes me wonder what she was reading, who she was talking to, and when. :) Wish she would have told us what fandom she was referencing... they are all so different!!
Also 21 Days till graduation...
"Waiting for the month of Come What May..."
