Gen, Slash, and Het: Warnings or Genres?
Mar. 27th, 2007 07:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
After--what? a week? a week and a half?--of the gen vs. ship debates (cf.
metafandom), I've finally come to a conclusion. They--with "they" being pretty much everyone with whom I disagree, on every side of the table--don't want genre labels. They want warning labels. (Admittedly, this wasn't so much my brilliant inspiration, as some of them coming out and admitting it.)
When we look for Serenity in the DVD store we look under "Science Fiction" (if the store has an S.F. section), because the movie is more science fiction than it is a western. You won't find a sticker on it saying "Warning: This film contains Western elements" and even if you read the entire back cover you won't find any indication that some people consider the film to be a western in addition to being science-fiction (in part because the cover sucks, but what can one do). (I'd use Firefly rather than Serenity to make my example, as the former has more western elements than the latter, but it'd probably more than likely be found in a "Television" section--which shows that fannish categories don't make any less sense than any others.)
If I go to the bookstore and browse through the science fiction section--which I do less than I used to, since I have an insane number of books already purchased and unread--they are in that section because they belong to the genre. They do not, however, have warnings that say: "Warning: This book may contain mystery elements" or "This book contains a boy and a dog" or "This book has a romance in it." No, it gets filed under the dominant genre, the best fit. The summary, if the book has one (not all do), might give a sense of the secondary or tertiary genres if there are any. (And even then the summaries aren't written by the author, so sometimes the summaries suck and give away too much, and sometimes they seem to be for a completely different story altogether, like the summary on the back of my copy of Time Enough for Love.) Then again, it might not, and you might find out half-way through the science fiction mystery you've been enjoying so much so far that it also includes a romance and a boy with a dog. If you hate these elements so much you can't go on, then tough, you're out $6.50 you could have spent on a different book.
In the fanfiction world, things are much better for the ridiculously fragile: all fanfics come with a money-back satisfaction guarantee.
"Het" is a genre which includes texts that focus on m/f romantic or sexual relationships. It is not a warning; I refuse to label my stories for someone so ridiculously fragile they will be crushed if they come across a reference to a heterosexual couple, even (what they, using their hermeneutic, consider to be) a non-canon couple. "Femslash" and "m/m slash" are genres as well, not warnings. I absolutely will not label my stories for someone so ridiculously fragile (or homophobic, although in these cases I don't think my interlocutors are) they will be crushed if they come across a reference to a homosexual couple, even (what they, using their [heteronormative] hermeneutic, consider to be) a non-canon couple.
Indeed, the best way one can tell that "gen" isn't a genre the way the gen fans (or at least the vocal gen fans with whom I've been disagreeing) have been using it is that it can be defined far too precisely. Genres don't work that way; their edges are always-already fuzzy. Warnings--or, in this case, the lack thereof--do. A genre specifies what a work is about, whether it's about falling in love or solving a mystery or fighting demons, which is subjective. A warning specifies if a given element is present--think of those warnings for peanuts on products that don't even include peanuts, because people can be just that sensitive to the oils--which is not subjective.
"Milk Chocolate" M&M's may contain peanuts; it says so on the wrappers. That doesn't make them Peanut M&M's, and anyone looking for Peanut M&M's and finding Milk Chocolate ones isn't going to be satisfied.
Anymore, the only time I warn, ever, is for non-con. I wouldn't (I don't think--I'm not making any promises) withhold pairing information if the relevant pairing was incestuous, even if it was very brief, and I think I might even add a note in the case of a pairing like "Cindy Mackenzie/Lauren Sinclair" making clear the relationship, so you could say I'd warn for incest. But I don't warn for death, and I don't warn for pregnancy, and if I've already said it, I don't care, I'll say it again: I will not warn for het or femslash or m/m slash. Absolutely out of the question.
I provide a Genre Index so people can find the sorts of fic they'll probably like, like putting all the science fiction books together in the bookstore--not so they can be protected from stuff they don't like. If you like homoerotic stories about women which are romantic and/or sexual, you'll probably like the stories I classify under "femslash." But that doesn't mean you won't find elements you don't like there. Tough. As I said, money-back satisfaction guarantee. (Stealing a
languagelog chestnut even more, I'll even throw in a free year's subscription to this journal.) Stories are frequently listed under more than one genre, and yes, a story about fighting demons in which Dawn and Giles just happen to be married will be listed under both gen and het. (And I suspect the reader going in expecting pure het is going to be more disappointed than the reader expecting pure gen.)
Admittedly, it's not just gen fans who want warnings when it comes to pairings. 'Shippers can be just as bad, with a Buffy/Angel fan not wanting to hear a mention of Buffy/Spike or Spike/Angel even if the fic is post-"NFA," or some such. A plague on both their houses, I'll say--if a couple paragraphs referencing some (in your mind noncanon) pairing in a long plotty multichapter epic can ruin your entire reading experience, you really have to get over yourself.
But this is the first time I've heard anyone suggest that we subvert the entire genre classificatory system to turn it into a warning system. Because just, erm, no.
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When we look for Serenity in the DVD store we look under "Science Fiction" (if the store has an S.F. section), because the movie is more science fiction than it is a western. You won't find a sticker on it saying "Warning: This film contains Western elements" and even if you read the entire back cover you won't find any indication that some people consider the film to be a western in addition to being science-fiction (in part because the cover sucks, but what can one do). (I'd use Firefly rather than Serenity to make my example, as the former has more western elements than the latter, but it'd probably more than likely be found in a "Television" section--which shows that fannish categories don't make any less sense than any others.)
If I go to the bookstore and browse through the science fiction section--which I do less than I used to, since I have an insane number of books already purchased and unread--they are in that section because they belong to the genre. They do not, however, have warnings that say: "Warning: This book may contain mystery elements" or "This book contains a boy and a dog" or "This book has a romance in it." No, it gets filed under the dominant genre, the best fit. The summary, if the book has one (not all do), might give a sense of the secondary or tertiary genres if there are any. (And even then the summaries aren't written by the author, so sometimes the summaries suck and give away too much, and sometimes they seem to be for a completely different story altogether, like the summary on the back of my copy of Time Enough for Love.) Then again, it might not, and you might find out half-way through the science fiction mystery you've been enjoying so much so far that it also includes a romance and a boy with a dog. If you hate these elements so much you can't go on, then tough, you're out $6.50 you could have spent on a different book.
In the fanfiction world, things are much better for the ridiculously fragile: all fanfics come with a money-back satisfaction guarantee.
"Het" is a genre which includes texts that focus on m/f romantic or sexual relationships. It is not a warning; I refuse to label my stories for someone so ridiculously fragile they will be crushed if they come across a reference to a heterosexual couple, even (what they, using their hermeneutic, consider to be) a non-canon couple. "Femslash" and "m/m slash" are genres as well, not warnings. I absolutely will not label my stories for someone so ridiculously fragile (or homophobic, although in these cases I don't think my interlocutors are) they will be crushed if they come across a reference to a homosexual couple, even (what they, using their [heteronormative] hermeneutic, consider to be) a non-canon couple.
Indeed, the best way one can tell that "gen" isn't a genre the way the gen fans (or at least the vocal gen fans with whom I've been disagreeing) have been using it is that it can be defined far too precisely. Genres don't work that way; their edges are always-already fuzzy. Warnings--or, in this case, the lack thereof--do. A genre specifies what a work is about, whether it's about falling in love or solving a mystery or fighting demons, which is subjective. A warning specifies if a given element is present--think of those warnings for peanuts on products that don't even include peanuts, because people can be just that sensitive to the oils--which is not subjective.
"Milk Chocolate" M&M's may contain peanuts; it says so on the wrappers. That doesn't make them Peanut M&M's, and anyone looking for Peanut M&M's and finding Milk Chocolate ones isn't going to be satisfied.
Anymore, the only time I warn, ever, is for non-con. I wouldn't (I don't think--I'm not making any promises) withhold pairing information if the relevant pairing was incestuous, even if it was very brief, and I think I might even add a note in the case of a pairing like "Cindy Mackenzie/Lauren Sinclair" making clear the relationship, so you could say I'd warn for incest. But I don't warn for death, and I don't warn for pregnancy, and if I've already said it, I don't care, I'll say it again: I will not warn for het or femslash or m/m slash. Absolutely out of the question.
I provide a Genre Index so people can find the sorts of fic they'll probably like, like putting all the science fiction books together in the bookstore--not so they can be protected from stuff they don't like. If you like homoerotic stories about women which are romantic and/or sexual, you'll probably like the stories I classify under "femslash." But that doesn't mean you won't find elements you don't like there. Tough. As I said, money-back satisfaction guarantee. (Stealing a
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Admittedly, it's not just gen fans who want warnings when it comes to pairings. 'Shippers can be just as bad, with a Buffy/Angel fan not wanting to hear a mention of Buffy/Spike or Spike/Angel even if the fic is post-"NFA," or some such. A plague on both their houses, I'll say--if a couple paragraphs referencing some (in your mind noncanon) pairing in a long plotty multichapter epic can ruin your entire reading experience, you really have to get over yourself.
But this is the first time I've heard anyone suggest that we subvert the entire genre classificatory system to turn it into a warning system. Because just, erm, no.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-27 01:10 pm (UTC)...Gotta work on that, but yeah. Genre != Warning, even for me and my abuse of labels in fic headers.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-27 01:57 pm (UTC)Which is not to say that the reader has to react the way the author wants--of course not!--but the tools ultimately belong to the author, not the reader.
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Date: 2007-03-27 02:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-27 03:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-27 04:08 pm (UTC)People warn for a broad enough range of kinks/squicks that warnings can sometimes hold the same function--especially since every element you can think of probably functions as a kink for somebody in fandom and a squick for somebody else--but that's up to the author (he says), as a lot don't want to spoil their story by giving stuff away. Some people do choose to warn for a wide range of elements, though, either to advertise their fic to people looking for those elements or to not give people who dislike those elements any excuse to bitch and complain and whine.
There are people who feel that the stuff they dislike should be always warned for--the big debate is always over whether character death needs a warning--but except for a small set of cases (rape, mostly) I tend to think they should be mocked mercilessly.
That help?
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-28 12:13 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-27 07:20 pm (UTC)I think that's a most apt comparison.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-27 10:31 pm (UTC)This seems to perfectly illustrate your point. Now I'm supposed to warn that a fic may contain incidences of Xander chopping onions and peppers and opening a jar of salsa while Dawn grates cheese and scrambles eggs?
*is speechless*
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-27 11:34 pm (UTC)But the "warning culture" I know seems to be around for a while--taking into account that my idea of "a while" might not be the same as an older fan's--not because I ever see it on my flist (who aren't stupid), but because people complaining that something like polka-dot bikinis aren't warned for and making a fuss gets linked sometimes and then everybody is pointing and laughing and mocking--which is the response such behavior should get, IMHO.
Since the debate we've been having through
I'm more than happy to help other fans find things they might like, but I'm not going to protect them from the things they don't. I'm a writer, not a babysitter.
Grrr.
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Date: 2007-03-28 12:11 am (UTC)These days I list the pairing and warn for graphic violence, explicit sex, and/or any reference to rape. I'd warn for MPREG if I wrote it, and probably a few other things. That's it. I cannot possibly imagine everything some hypothetical reader could object to, and they have a back button if they want it.
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Date: 2007-03-28 02:20 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2007-03-30 01:01 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-28 12:13 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-28 02:15 am (UTC)Maybe I consume fic differently from the majority of fandom, but the only time I demand to know whether or not every aspect of the fic is going to cater to my desires is with smut. Because, ahem, I generally read smut in service of a very specific need, and I'd rather not waste my time getting all anticipatory over a fic that will suddenly have a Hufflepuff bukkake party pop up. If I'm reading for plot, though, I want to be surprised.
Here from metafandom
Date: 2007-03-29 07:08 am (UTC)I often find having to list pairings irritating--sometimes they're such a small fraction of what the story's actually about it's pointless, sometimes they're canon or have heaps of canon support anyway, sometimes there's character development or love polygons that don't need spoiling.
Warnings are for things like non-con and violence and explicit sex and violence, and genres don't give so much information, and it seems to me that we have further classifications--het and slash and femslash because 'warning' isn't an appropriate term to use to alert someone to the presence of teh ghei, characters involved, pregnancyfic, dark 'n disturbing, all that.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-29 10:25 am (UTC)To me labels and warnings are two separate things.
I do label stories for 'Genre' (and for these purposes Genre means 'Slash' 'Gen' and 'Het') and also Sub-Genre (which can be Established Relationship, First Time, Angst, Humour, Action, etc. etc) and have it as a field for my Comms and Challenge Comms. However, I try hard to stamp down on people who 'warn' for slash and het. Two totally different things, IMO.
I hate actually having to put 'slash' or 'M/M' under 'Warning' but will do so if the Comm to which I am posting has it in its rules. But for my own Comms/stories, to warn for it is a no-no. But label, yes.
Okay, maybe it's just semantics, but . . .
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-29 10:38 am (UTC)I maintain the "X is Y if it includes a nonzero amount of Z" approach makes sense only in relation to warnings--where we need to be warned of even the slightest trace--and not in relation to genres. Whether one considers a 200,000 epic with 20 words worth of (what someone considers to be) noncanon pairing Z to be gen or 'ship would then depend on whether they want those labels to function as genres or warnings.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-29 10:37 am (UTC)I guess to me slash/het/gen just aren't genres.
Adventure is a genre. SciFi is a genre. Character Drama is a genre. Action is a genre. Romance is a genre.
Het, Gen, Slash are just... stuff. Additional information. They don't tell me anything about what the story is about. They are attributes, not genres themselves.
And in that say I actually think it is much more forward than real life genres, because I like to think that one can have "Slash adventure" and group it under "adventure, attribute slash" rather than throw it under "Gay Interest (has some plot)". [but the genre is still Adventure and not Gen because to me Gen is another attribute, just like slash, not a genre]
It's kinda funny because warnings in fandom, at least for me, have the odd function that most of the time I don't use them to avoid, I use them to find. I'm the kind of person who frequently searches an archive for non-con or darkfic because they interest me more than love stories. Just like I would like it if a SciFi book that has some gay substory in it would be marked. Not so I can avoid it, but so I can find it, even if I think that it does belong in the SciFi section.
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Date: 2007-03-29 10:56 am (UTC)Sure, "slash adventure" sort of makes sense in the same way that "Fantastic thriller" or "Science Fiction romance" makes sense. But which is the genre and which is the attribute?
And even if one does call something a "Science Fiction romance" it doesn't mean it doesn't have a boy with a dog in it.
I don't have a problem with authors providing readers with information about story content if they choose to do so. If they think announcing the existence of the two paragraphs about a boy and his dog in chapter 17 at the start of the fic will improve their readership, or help a reader to become mentally prepared for the appearance of rhe boy and the dog, then they should advertise away. (It's still not a "Boy and His Dog" story, though.) Headers and labels can be potent tools in a writer's toolbox.
If I write a femslash fic that's about femslash, as I often do, of course I'm going to advertise it as femslash so that femslash readers who would enjoy it can find it. It's when the author is compelled to warn for het/femslash/boyslash content, or for that matter for any other type of story content, that I have a problem.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-29 04:46 pm (UTC)First: what determines what's worth warning for? Is it just personal preference by the author? Is it tied to the community they are writing in? Is there some set of universal things that should be warned for (like the peanuts thing, it's pretty unethical not to warn for peanuts because someone could die).
Second: I see the value of genres as analytical tools, and as classificatory tools in large fixed-space archives. If you've got one copy of a book (or just a couple), then it makes sense to put them in one place where most people will look for them first. However, I'm not really convinced that fixed-space genre conventions make sense in the digital world.
I mean, you point out that you'd list the same fic in multiple "genres" in your index. That's a good thing, but it also seems, somehow, to suggest that maybe we should be getting beyond genres? I don't know precisely how this would happen, but I'm thinking about it more and more these days...
Curiously,
Ana
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-29 06:31 pm (UTC)Descriptively, what is considered to be worth warning for tends to be a combination of author's preference and community norms. People who think similarly on these subjects tend to clump together, or else adapt to the norms of the people to which they are clumped (if that makes any sense). Prescriptively, I'd prefer it to be author's preference, yes, or else all fashioned to my preferences (I'm joking). Rape is nearly universally considered necessary to warn for, although I wouldn't argue that derives from any categorical imperative but rather just a very pervasive community norm spanning many sub-communities.
And in fandom, genre preferences get caught up with our fannish identities so easily. I didn't start out a femslasher, but I joined
I think we are moving beyond genres in some way in that few people actually put the genre on their fic itself, but something like genre still seems to have a pretty huge pull on us. I'm not sure that's a bad thing as long as people are satisfied with what they're reading and writing, but I know that's not always the case, which is sad.
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Date: 2007-03-30 12:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-30 05:22 am (UTC)I've been reading but not commenting on a lot of this discussion. I'm one of those people, like you, who takes a much broader definition of "gen".
Labels and genres and warnings - it's enough to give someone a headache. But what I was thinking about, with regard to a discussion in comments above with regard to subgenres and the like, is that we are completely hardass about what we expect ficcers (or artists) to warn for, but yet, the creators of canon...
There was no warning before certain Battlestar Galactica episodes for Adultery! Lee/Kara. JKR didn't warn for Hagrid/Madame Maxime, Harry/Ginny, Ron/Lavender or most of her character deaths. Author Diana Gabaldon didn't warn for m/m rape, dubcon/sketchy consent, or poly!relationship in her 'Outlander' series novels, nor did George RR Martin warn for character death, incest, chan, or m/m in his ASOIAF series.
It amazes me that 'canon' has such a power where things that would/might bother someone (Spike/Buffy, Willow/Tara, Harry/Ginny, or the aforesaid het 'ships, incest, rape and dubcon, etc.) if they weren't canon, suddenly become acceptable simply because it's now canon. Particularly when it comes to acceptibility within a definition for "genfic".
Yes, I realize that the creators of canon are, well, the creators of canon. But we (general we) just seem to give them a lot more leeway than we give ourselves, which, to me, is a bit weird. People can have the same aversions to canon couples or issues as others do for non-canon couples or issues, but of course, it's canon so buck up there! Fandom is a funny place.
Fanfiction already has a main genre, really - whatever the genre of the source is. By default, HP fics are fantasy, BSG or Stargate fics are sci-fi, etc. Which leads me back to your original post, wherein I am very much in agreement and why I commented here - It's not really about genre at all. It's about content warnings.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-05 12:50 am (UTC)"Author Diana Gabaldon didn't warn for m/m rape, dubcon/sketchy consent, or poly!relationship in her 'Outlander' series novels"
And that's why I read more stories in the fan fiction world than in the pro world. :) Believe me, if I could go to the public library and find a list of, say, prisonerfic books, I'd be in heaven. I have actually spent hours trying to find lists like that, both online and offline. Fortunately, some sites like allreaders.com and scifan.com are starting to supply such information.
(By the way, I did end up reading Diana Gabaldon's novels, but it was no thanks to the uninformative blurbs.)
I think it's a shame that the word "warnings" got attached to what are essentially story codes, because the term results in such negative discussions. When I ran a poll among my readers to see whether they were using my warning labels, I found that about fifty percent of the ones who read the labels were using them to see whether the story had elements they liked.
On the gen/het/slash topic: I write a lot of combined gen-slash stories, and I found myself wondering as I read this thread why it is that I've never gotten an angry response from a reader, as evidently a lot of cross-genre writers here have. I think partly my good fortune may be due to the fact that (1) I don't try to pin a single label on my stories, and (2) I don't use the words "gen" or "slash." I say something like, "Male platonic feelings, with male homoerotic attraction in the subplot," and everyone knows exactly what to expect from my story. (Mind you, I write originalfic, so that's why I chose those labels.)
"nor did George RR Martin warn for character death"
If there were ever an author in the universe who ought to have warned for character death, it's that one. :)
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Date: 2007-03-31 12:08 am (UTC)But basically: there is a difference between labelling for gen and not warning for het/slash. If a story is unlabelled I will assume it'll have some slash/het in it because 99% of the unlabelled fanfic I encounter does, and if it looks good I'll read it. But if it's labelled gen and it has what I consider a reasonable amount of focus on romance/sex then I will be dissapointed if I was in a "gen" mood.
Also, I find that people who ship an OTP will classify a story as "gen" which to anyone who doesn't ship that OTP (gen reader or otherwise) will come across as quite shippy. In fact such stories can be more annoying than stories "about" that relationship since there's no effort made to explain how the relationship came about and it can feel rather tacked on.
That said, I do agree that people get a bit crazy about warnings. I mean I may be mildy annoyed by a story that I feel is labelled as gen when it shouldn't be, but if it's a good story I'll still read and enjoy it, and won't be all "OMG how dare you sully my canon with your icky non canon couple!!!!".
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-05 01:15 am (UTC)I don't think it makes sense to define a genre negatively, but that's not all that far from my definition, which also focuses on whether there's a focus on romance/sex rather than whether (what some consider to be noncanon) romance/sex exists at all within the universe of the fic.
if it's a good story I'll still read and enjoy it, and won't be all "OMG how dare you sully my canon with your icky non canon couple!!!!".
Yeah, it's that attitude that I can't really understand.
(no subject)
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