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]

Well, my main (albeit sideways) criticism was that his analysis applies to the rest of the online world much better than the fanfic world--a fact to which, as a het male who writes exactly the type of fic Will is talking about in the passage I quote, I can personally attest. There are quite a few het males writing femslash in fandom, and no one seems to be surprised or ever particularly upset by our presence. There's probably some justafiable suspicion, but in general we are judged by our works--teh_no deliberately causes wank and is disliked (by some; he still has a large readership, including queer females), I write radical feminist meta (as well as femslash of all types) and have never been anything but welcomed.

When you bring in the actual embodied fan members, rather than fictional characters or celebrities, it certainly does get more complicated, but Will didn't seem to be talking about that--just Clare and/or the actress who plays her.

(And I think I could probably get away with a lot more than you could, due to age.)

[alchemia.livejournal.com]

how does femslash and slash parts of fandom compare on this issue? I know theres a few people who will argue that m/m slash is by definition by women. Maybe they are no longer surprised by others showing up from time to time but some do have an issue with it. Is this more common in slash fandom than femslash? If so, why might that be?

i also wonder if to what degree the fandom might be more accepting of your presence because of your being known to hold radical feminist views, than another guy who writes similar fic but doesn't identify that way, or does but doesn't discuss it in their fannish journal?

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

how does femslash and slash parts of fandom compare on this issue? I know theres a few people who will argue that m/m slash is by definition by women. Maybe they are no longer surprised by others showing up from time to time but some do have an issue with it. Is this more common in slash fandom than femslash? If so, why might that be?

I can't speak for the m/m community but I've certainly never heard anyone argue that, say, a fic I wrote for femslash_minis wasn't femslash. Since I don't have your experiences in m/m (no one's argued that the fic I wrote for maleslashminis wasn't slash either, although I've only written a couple of m/m fics and a whole lot of femslash), I really can't compare or theorize.

i also wonder if to what degree the fandom might be more accepting of your presence because of your being known to hold radical feminist views, than another guy who writes similar fic but doesn't identify that way, or does but doesn't discuss it in their fannish journal?

Well, yeah. I mean, teh_no can have very anti-feminist views (and be a jerk besides) and people think less of him for it. Men in fandom do get judged, just as women in fandom will get judged, and the level of suspicion may even be that much higher (and I don't have a problem with that). But ultimately one gets judged on what one does and believes, not primarily on their gender (which can be hidden anyway).

The thing is, I'm assuming that all the males (and females) involved as formal interlocutors in the debates at fandebate are academic feminists (and so far, that seems to have been a safe assumption). So Will has the same tools as I do to establish cred, were he to want to do so.

And Will did mention his writing m/m slash in the debate, as having written slash.

[alchemia.livejournal.com]

Im not sure that its accurate to call gender "hidden" online- people almost always assume. And if they assume wrong, the individual may be the one blamed for "deliberately misleading" (or sock puppetry for attention). rather than being hidden (which would be very freeing), imho, it seems to be more comparable to being closeted or not, passing or not passing etc(which is more constraining to me).

But ultimately one gets judged on what one does and believes, not primarily on their gender

I'm not sure how to judge the degree to which such things happen in fandom- when I first found and got interested in meta discussions I encountered this alot- is it because this was a minority that was "loud" or is it that common? I've learned to avoid most of these people/places and stick to my own corner mostly- but how representative is that (likely not very). 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.

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

[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.

[ithiliana.livejournal.com]

I'm no longer sure that all males and females in this project dare acadedmic feminists (though I'm not sure what you mean by that). In my terminology, that means someone who not only identifies as a feminist (as Henry does) but who consciously and deeply integrates feminist/gender theory/ideas into hir scholarship. For example, I asked Henry about the lack of gender analysis in his current retrofuture comics analysis.

I can give you the names of several males who write feminist sf criticism who are feminists: Mike Levy, Robert von der Osten, Brian Attebery (all of whom I know, and whose work I know). Peter Fitting has written very good stuff on feminist utopias but I haven't met him.

I in no way see WB as a feminist by any definition of the term.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

My usage of "academuc feminist," here, to Alchemia, is deliberately broad, probably much broader than I'd use the term in other contexts, and deliberately keeps open the possibility that one can be a bad academic feminist (as may be the case with HJ more recently). How deeply feminist theory is integrated into Will's work is extremely suspect, but he does seem to be using the tools in some conscious fashion.

If nothing else, it's probably a good thing to give an interlocutor the benefit of the doubt.

[ithiliana.livejournal.com]

WB seems to assume that any behavior is interpreted exactly the same in every context--i.e. false universalism--so that he probably never realized a male could do what you do in the communities you do because of that assumption. Fond of his own generalizations!

I also note he posted a long response on Henry's blog explaining why he cannot be bothered to respond over here! Did you see it (apparently comments are going through a bit more quickly over there)?

I did go looking and found the following review of his Batman book with this interesting paragraph: Brooker attempts to frame this excessive exercise in academic nudging and winking in postmodern terms: all texts are subject to different but equal interpretations, so long as there is evidence within the texts themselves to support those readings. But by making the point that there are so many reasons to support a queer reading without actually endorsing one - he tells us emphatically that he is straight straight straight - Brooker in fact commits the crime he defends Wertham against, but without Wertham’s excuse of working in a homophobic age. Yes, a queer reading of Batman is as valid as any other, but without a solid commitment to the theory Batman Unmasked is basically a collection of clever observations run amok, little more than a batch of prurient snapshots. If the discussion had been limited to defending Wertham, it would have made a solid conference paper or scholarly article. Bloated to encompass the whole of the Batman intertext, the book hasn’t enough steak for a decent sizzle.

*oh, snap*

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

WB seems to assume that any behavior is interpreted exactly the same in every context--i.e. false universalism

He really seems to be falling into the same trap as the Writerly Responsability people. I'm starting to feel like a broken record saying this, but context is everything!

I also note he posted a long response on Henry's blog explaining why he cannot be bothered to respond over here! Did you see it (apparently comments are going through a bit more quickly over there)?

I went to look at it after I read this comment. Un-satisfying, naturally, especially after I realized then when referring to Brett Anderson/Kylie Minogue (written, unlike his slash story, because it was hot?), he was presumably talking about this Brett Anderson and not, as I first assumed, this one.

I did go looking and found the following review of his Batman book with this interesting paragraph:

I've ILL-ed the Alice book (since that's a particular interest of mine), but judging from the table of contents provided by the catalogue I wonder how it could possibly perform the immense task it seems to have taken on.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

The Alice book arrived today, apparently (I'll stop by the library tomorrow to pick it up, I guess), so we'll see what I think. (OTOH, I've been waiting for kbusse's book to arrive for weeks!)