COCO CHANNEL Interview with Jungle Kitty
| Interviews by Fans | |
|---|---|
| Title: | COCO CHANNEL Interview with Jungle Kitty |
| Interviewer: | Karmen Ghia |
| Interviewee: | Jungle Kitty |
| Date(s): | September 1999 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom(s): | slash, Star Trek |
| External Links: | An Interview with Jungle Kitty; reference link |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
COCO CHANNEL Interview with Jungle Kitty is archived at The Society for Slash Diversity and The Committee of Chekov Obsessives Comparing Historical and New Narratives in Ensign Literature.
See List of Star Trek Fan Interviews.
Excerpts
Jungle Kitty: I've been a fan since TOS first started running in syndication, but I only became active in the fandom two years ago. AAMOF, this month (August 99) is my two-year anniversary. Just for fun, I counted up how many stories I've written. 83! And I've attended 5 cons. Sheesh! Get a life, JK.
JK: I guess my motivation was finding Treksmut on the web. I'd always been afraid to go looking for it, thinking it might be so awful that I'd be embarrassed that I even read it. And, yeah, I found some of that. No, I won't name names. But mostly it was a stunning surprise, especially Killa's "Surrender" and Tjonesy's "20 Questions." Those stories made me realize that you could take what seemed like a very silly obsession and turn it into something wonderful. I wanted to try my hand at it. And it didn't hurt that a good friend said very sternly, "Girl, write those stories down! You are insulting your muse!"
Karmen Ghia: What's your thinking on chicks with dicks and Tupper Trek? I don't find it interesting, but my tastes are more, um, graphic. (I actually have trouble figuring what's going on [sexually] in much of K/S, it's way too subtle or something for me.)
JK: Since almost all slash is written by women, I think the "chicks with dicks" syndrome is practically inevitable. To me, the emotional and sexual responses feel female to some extent in most stories (and I include my own in that statement). It's the nature of the beast. I don't particularly care for that aspect of it, but *damn* it's hard to get away from! We write what we know.
Now "tuppertrek" is different, IMO. Out and out girliness in male characters squicks me in a big way. The only way I can read Kaki's delicious parodies is by constantly reminding myself, "It's a parody."
KG: Do you have any thoughts on the future of Slash on the Web?
JK: I'm afraid that the web in general is becoming splintered. The newsgroups seem to be breaking up to smaller lists with topics and divisions that are much more sharply defined. In this way, we seem to be mimicking the history of print fandom. As I understand it, in the early days, K/S appeared in adult zines along with het and other pairings. Then it broke off, and a person who was exclusively K/S could easily avoid being exposed to anything else. I think that's part of why the print fandom seems ingrown to me. I really hope the newsgroups will stay healthy and the wide-open sharing across all boundaries of Trekfic will continue.