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Gen, Slash, and Het: Warnings or Genres?
After--what? a week? a week and a half?--of the gen vs. ship debates (cf. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
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![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
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.
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.
no subject
Exactly. And sometimes the author will want to evoke those expectations and sometimes she won't. And sometimes those expectations are just plain false, even if the story does technically contain content X, and even then it might serve the story to evoke the expectations anyway (and then not deliver--hee!) or to not evoke the expectations (because the story isn't about that).
Stories that contain a non-canon same-sex pairing aren't always slashy or for people who are into a slash worldview; sometimes they just have a non-canon same-sex pairing. People who have an "allergic reaction" to non-canon pairings might be ejected from the fantasy, but that doesn't make the story slashy unless one defines "slashy" as "that which ejects me from the fantasy" which is a) absurdly broad and subjective, b) not how anyone uses it (except apparently for some gen fans who, conveniently enough, happen to be allergic to non-canon pairings).
They don't put peanuts in plain M&Ms to spite people with peanut allergies or to appease people who like peanuts.
People who include non-canonical clowns in their stories aren't writing for a "clown worldview" or writing "clown-y" stories, after all. I can see how it might seem that way if one hates clowns, but that doesn't make it so. They're just stories with non-canonical clowns in them, for whatever reason.
If someone really, really likes clowns, then it might make sense to have a list of stories with clowns in them, so that person can find stories with clowns. Still doesn't make those stories clown-y.
no subject
Still, in this whole worldview scheme things like "slash", "gen", "femslash", "het" are advertisments (and I think in a lot of cases the advertising factor is actually much more important than the warning factor of such labels). You don't have to pin on "slash" or "slashy" or "shippy" if you don't want to, but to me you can't pin on "Gen" if it doesn't fulfill the requirements for Gen. (again choosing the "blank" label like Fiction rather than ScienceFiction or RealisticFiction)
If the fear really was to disappoint the poor slash readers who don't get *enough* slash, you can always go for something smaller like "Adventure (implied X/Y)". But just the implied X/Y is enough to make it not Gen to me. Because to me Gen is about not having any UC couples thrust upon me. It's often not even a question of liking or not liking, it's more like "I asked for pizza and you gave me ice cream; it's not that ice cream is bad, but it's not what I asked for and maybe not what I was in the mood for".
I guess that's why this whole thing is so weird to me. The people to whom Gen is an advertisement is probably really, really small (I think most people associate Gen with "boring stuff"). So it seems weird to me that anybody would actually *want* to pin Gen on it. And then go out and have it not even be Gen.
If I reach for "RealisticFiction" that probably means that I don't want any speculative elements in it. If I reach for Gen that means that at that moment I don't want any romantic speculative elements in it.
It seems unfair to me that the idea is to respect the slash fans (oh, they might be disappointed if they clicked on it and there isn't enough slash in it), but the same doesn't go for Gen fans.
Again, why not more blank labels like "fiction", "epos" or whatever. Or just not label it, if it doesn't fit precisely in any category?
no subject
Realistic fiction--as unwieldly and often incoherent genre as it may be (and as all genres are at their heart, really)--isn't "everything that's left over when you take out all Genre elements." It's a positively defined genre--as I define gen, and as you do not--as a genre of fiction that looks at the problems of people as they are assumed to exist for most people in the real world. Having a scientist or a detective or even a secret agent doesn't tip a novel out of science fiction all by itself; in can include genre elements as long as they don't overtake the story. A small amount of magic realistically depicted (for example, someone praying for something and then it coming true) won't shake the tale's genre foundations.
Realistic fiction, like all genres, has fuzzy boundaries. Your definition of gen doesn't because it's not a genre, but a warning.
no subject
I guess I'm just bugged because as a Gen fan it's disheartening when some people use Gen as "Any story as long as it's not too explicit" or "any story as long as it has plot" or even "any story that somehow doesn't fulfill slash/het". BTW, etrangere (http://etrangere.livejournal.com/132622.html?nc=34) ranted about it a while ago, maybe she says it better than I am?
Still, I like my Gen precisely as a vacation from ships and shipper arguments and wars. And that's why I tend to throw all UC constellations into it.
no subject
I'm not sure what you mean by this but there's certainly no need to apologize. Debate is the lifeblood of a healthy dialectic.
If someone really likes X, I'm willing to bend over backwards to help them find X. (Okay, maybe, I'm not, but I'd like to be.) But if they want to be protected from Y, I tend to have less sympathy.
no subject
To be honnest I do agree with you that it's mainly about being warned against pairings. I want to be warned against pairings I don't like. Actually it's the only thing I want to be warned against. I don't care how sexual, kinky, violent, angsty or fluffy or if there's a character death... but I really really want a warning against any and all pairings, especially if they're uncanonical. You think it doesn't matter, that people like me should get over it, and I don't know if there's anyway I could convince you it's a reasonnable request. But to me it's important (and apparently for other people, whatever's their reasons).
no subject
Well, we both want "plotty and non romantic relationship focused stories which don't have romance in it." You can have that and still include (what you consider to be) noncanon pairings, which is really the crux of the whole discussion, because pairing != romance.
Indeed, I want "plotty and non romantic relationship focused stories which don't have romance in it" with (what someone might consider to be) noncanon pairings very badly, because there isn't very much of it.