Is TV show migration hurting queer fandom?
| Meta | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Is TV show migration hurting queer fandom? |
| Creator: | Bella Books |
| Date(s): | November 28, 2016 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | sapphic fandom |
| Topic: | Migratory Slash Fandom, Femslash |
| External Links: | Is TV show migration hurting queer fandom? |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Is TV show migration hurting queer fandom? is an article at Bella Books, cost-posted to their tumblr.
Excerpts
One of the greatest jokes I’ve seen recently within the queer lady media circles is a gifset pulled from Planet Earth, showing flamingos on parade. It’s describing the migration of queer women in fandom moving from one show to another. Orphan Black to Carmilla to The 100 to Person of Interest to Wynonna Earp to that one episode of Black Mirror to Supergirl; and it got me thinking about the migration, and the why behind the migration.The gist of that gifset is that so many queer fans are so starved for representation that they’ll flock from canon couple to canon couple. When I first saw it, I kept wondering why I’ve never done it. Then it hit me: I grew up in the subtext era, and this is a whole new generation of representation. The above shows have wonderful canon lesbian and bi/pan/otherwise identifying women to ship with their canon lesbian or bi/pan/otherwise identifying partner. It is not how I grew up interacting with fandom, it isn’t how I engage in fandom now, and I think a lot of older queer lady fan people can relate to that feeling due to the ways our access to and expectations about representation have changed.
In this day and age of ladies kissing on TV, the argument goes, why would anyone actively ship something that isn’t going to be realized? There’s a lot of negativity directed at people who are content with subtext, and want to watch it grow and see if maybe, in time, it will foster romantic maintext. I was reading comments on a Supergirl tag recently, when I found a post that talked at length about the self-delusion it takes to ship something that’s never going to be canon and how the poster considered it to be a form of self-loathing to never see their One True Pairing realized on screen. This is the generational divide in fandom, this idea that anything that isn’t fully realized on screen isn’t worth your investment of creative energy or fandom time.
For Person of Interest fans who were active in the fandom before the canonization of Root and Shaw, there wasn’t much of an expectation of anything. They were euphoric when it was realized on screen, they’d been paying attention to the meta conversations, to the comments made by actors and writers alike. It was kept ambiguous, subtextual, right up until the point where it wasn’t and they were euphoric. But the people who showed up afterwards? They wanted “kissing and sex and love confessions.” @TinyHammerLady explained. “They expected a lot more and got pissed when they didn’t get it.” She went on to describe how the nature of Person of Interest didn’t really lend itself to the sort of relationship that would fit the mold of instant gratification. @GrumpyYetAmusin concurred, adding, “[T]hey seemed to simply want pretty ladies having sex and snuggling, which is the antithesis of [Person of Interest]. And then they yelled at us because we said, ‘Have you actually been watching?’
Comments
[beaglesinbowties]: #this is excellent food for thought for people who migrate #i think the truth lies somewhere in the middle #i remember being desperate for representation and wanting to see two women being close #it's up to us to decide what's best for ourselves #younger gens might look at someone like me who prefers non-canon couples and think wtf #but this is what makes me happy (rather than seeing canon couples be butchered on screen) #and i wonder how the migrators can really get the richness of the characters when they skip so much just for the kisses #neither makes either of us not a true fan #if you're a fan you're a fan #i accept that not everyone is a fan in the same way i am #and i would hope that they would respect that about me as well #i don't like the migration but i can avoid it #i love this discourse though #and i think the problem with both sides is that people forget it's okay if we're not fans in the same way #and that there are elements to both that maybe aren't the healthiest #but aren't outright wrong no matter how either of us feel
[mfangeleeta]: ALL OF THIS!I’ve been saying this for years and why I don’t engage in very many fandoms. My shipping days started in the 80s where you could barely say the word gay or lesbians on TV. I lived through all those subtext days and early message boards and am so glad that today we have the opportunity to have ourselves represented on all kinds of TV.
However, I am so over those fair weather fans that hop on board just for the gay, missing important character and show development because they can’t be bothered. You’re not a real fan of that show. You’re just slightly more invested casual observer who runs to the next big thing.
And folks wonder why shows don’t last more than a few seasons.
[apveng]: I think it's a matter of trust rather than just sexualisation or oversexualisation, though I agree that it is a thing in gay fiction at least. I think it happens at times because people expect the default to be straight, and so they don't see why they should waste time on another set of straight characters; unless they like the story for itself. Which is not always the case; a POI or a Supergirl may not be everyone's cup of tea.
See Also
- The Great Gay Migration continues… by madnanc - a more recent variant on the flamingo gifset referenced