Heh.

[alixtii]

Part two of the Will Brooker and Ksenia Prasolova discussion on gender and fan studies has been posted to fandebate (as well as Henry Jenkin's blog). This discussion is particularly interesting to me because of the following statements from Will Brooker:

For a male fan or scholar to explain his fandom of a cult text in terms of “Claire Bennet is hot!” (even jokingly) would conjure up all kinds of negative connotations and sad stereotypes of a guy in a dark room with a screen full of cheerleader pics and a floor scattered with Kleenex. But it’s not unusual for a female fan or female fan-scholar to add, perhaps lightheartedly, “and it doesn’t hurt that the main characters are totally cute guys!” or admit that she writes slash because she’s turned on by the idea of those cute guys getting it on. I wonder how it would sound if I said I wrote stories about Claire and her hot cheerleader friends romping in the locker room. I don’t think it would be celebrated as an example of resistant fan creativity.

*whistles innocently*

Comments

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

But comments like "You not a woman, you won't understand [slash subject]", "I'd never read/listen-to a slash fic if I knew it was by a guy", "men can't write slash, they write gay fic" etc are placing gender first, before the individual can even act to be judged.

Hmm, it'd really depend on what one ended up in putting into the "comments like those" category. People make generalizations about gender all the time, of course, but I think very few of them are intended as universal prescriptive rules rather than just descriptive (possibly over-)generalizations. When claims that gendered experience provide certain insight go over the line could be a fuzzy boundary etc. I never heard anyone say " "I'd never read/listen-to a slash fic if I knew it was by a guy" although of course that would be their prerogatve.

"Formal interlocutors" means the people paired up for debates, or the people discussing in the threads?

The people paired up.for debates.

[alchemia.livejournal.com]

that people make such comments "all the time" I think is concerning - its so accepted and so 'natural' people are unaware of their doing it or how it reinforces their opinions about others. We wouldn't be so dismissing of comments like "you're a girl, you wouldn't understand [sports subject]" or "I'd never see a movie with a [person of certain ethnicity] in a lead role".

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

Well, when I talked about generalizations that get made all of the time, I wasn't just talking about statements like that (which in my experience are in the minority) but also ones like "Women make less cents on the dollar than men" and "Most low-paying jobs are worked by ethnic minorities and teenagers" and such. And sometimes the two types of generalizations blend into each other with a fuzzy boundary in between.

[alchemia.livejournal.com]

ok, the context confused me, sorry.