Both Sides Now - Fanlore

"Both Sides Now" (1980) was a Star Trek slideshow--the earliest form of vidding--made by Kandy Fong. We have a video version of this slideshow thanks to Gene Roddenberry, who wanted a copy, so the slideshow was videotaped. While of an earlier era both stylistically and technologically, "Both Sides Now" is the grandmother of fannish vids. The vid emphasizes Spock's dual nature as a half-human, half-alien caught between two different cultural and expressive traditions. By using a song sung by Leonard Nimoy, the vid gives the unemotional Mr. Spock an unexpectedly poignant inner voice that's hard to dismiss, since it's actually Nimoy's own. By staging the contrast between Spock's external appearance and inner voice, the foregrounds many kinds of "bothness": human and alien, public and private, even--in its slashy subtext--male and female, gay and straight.