Subtext

Synonyms:	undertones
See also:	Slashy, Shippy, Slash Goggles, Hoyay!, Slashnip, Headcanon, fanon, Subtext Reviews
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Subtext is the underlying motivation, feelings and emotions behind a character's actions and speech in any creative work.

A common visual used to describe subtext is that of an iceberg. The part seen above the water is the text, bu the much larger part that is underwater is the subtext.

Subtext, this "reading between the lines," is content in canon and fanworks that can be inferred by the original creators of a source text as a way to add interest.

Subtext can also be created due to the practical limitations of telling a story, such as carelessness, lack of continuity, lack of budget, lack of time, or simply disinterest.

Fans looking for evidence of relationships or motivations can also use their translations of subtext to bolster their opinions and headcanon. When a subtext is recognized, understood, and utilized by many fans, it can become fanon.

It can be a way to send a message or evade censors. In a February 1992 interview, Bob Justman confirmed that the subtextual message in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The City on the Edge of Forever" (1966) concerning the 1960s' massive anti-war protest movement was intentional.

Decoding Subtext

Body language such as facial expressions, tone of voice, physical proximity, long gazes, quick gazes, and casual body contact are all ways to create subtext. These things also have cultural implications as well as assumptions about neurotypical audiences.

Dialogue is also a source of subtext. This includes perceived throw-away lines, off-hand comments, and things characters didn't say.

Setting and descriptions can also contains subtext. An example of subtext in canon are the twin beds in Spock and Kirk's room in the episode, "City on the Edge of Forever." One is covered with equipment, and the other looks slept in, causing some fans to speculate on their sleeping situation.

Subtext and Authorial Intent

In dramatics, subtext does not necessarily have to be deliberate on the part of the author. There have been many debates over whether certain subtext exists in canon whether or not the writer intended to put it there. K.M. Weiland argues that subtext must be intentional in order to be subtext in the first place. But in The Fanfic Symposium, fan author Shomeret argues that subtext is "a level of interpretation that is almost always unintended by the writer. When you write a story, you intend to communicate certain things. Being told about something you didn't intend may be alarming or infuriating." }}

Subtext, Shipping, and Relationships

In fan discussions, subtext most commonly refers to canon that is felt to imply a romantic relationship or unresolved sexual tension/attraction between two same-sex characters, or to hint at a character's sexual orientation.

Slash fans point out elements of art direction and photography as well as acting that they feel make the "obvious" point.

When the term subtext is used with regard to canon, an argument is often made that fans are seeing sexual relationships or attraction where they don't really exist.

In film and television, especially in dramatic or suspense genres, just as in real life, two men or women looking intensely at each other or even touching does not mean they are sexually attracted to each other. However, showrunners and producers who point this out, may be accused, rightly or wrongly, of Queer Baiting.

Subtext and Queerbaiting

Canon creators have used subtext as a way to gain consumers, and queerbaiting is just one of the hooks utilized. Inferring that a gay or queer relationship will never be be canon or shown, is a way to get spark viewer interest, which translates to dollars, and may give viewers a vague sense of "progress."

For the record, I just want to say right off I don’t like the term slashwink that AfterElton coined - it’s cutesy and feels a little bit demeaning. HOWEVER, it is NOT the equivalent of queerbaiting in my opinion....Slash wink, for want of a better term, is when a showrunner/writers intentionally insert subtext for fans as a favor to fans, but have no intent to go through with it. Queerbaiting is throwing in subtext to slash fans with no intent to do anything either, but it’s also about surrounding the subtext with “no homo" text to make sure that no one actually gets the “wrong" impression. It’s much more homophobic because TPTB obviously feel that if non-slash fans pick up on the subtext it would be bad and so work to ensure that doesn’t happen. Neither gives slash fans the canon ship they want, but queerbaiting is homophobic/malicious whereas slash winking is friendly teasing.

Subtext, BDSM, and Kinks

White Collar is a fandom that has a lot of subtext.

The canon relationship between Peter and Neal contains subtext some fans have interpreted as part of a D/s dynamic. Kink fic featuring a BDSM relationship between Peter and Neal, or among Elizabeth, Peter, and Neal, is common in the fandom. Unlike in many fandoms where kink dynamics often have to be written into the characters' relationships without much overt canon support, some White Collar fans interpret canon elements like Neal's ankle monitor, or scenes where Peter exercises control over Neal's behavior, and transform the subtext into overt depictions of a kinky relationship in much the same way slash is often based on existing subtext in the source text. Just like the show itself, many fanworks that are not labeled as kinky or containing D/s elements can be interpreted by readers in that way. It is possible that some fans are developing kink goggles in the way some fans have slash goggles.

Subtext and Pre-Slash

Some stories may be perceived as pre-slash by some fans and gen by others, and fans may debate whether slashy subtext in a story is intentional or not, or if intent matters to the reader.

The argument made by my counterparts was that the term 'pre-slash' means that slash is all about the sex; any story that doesn't have sex in it tends to get called 'pre-slash'. My own belief is this is a limited definition, and that we're not so in agreement on what slash is that that sort of broad generalization can be made. To me, that it's the term used by the slash community to identify stories where the subtext never makes it to the textual level, and that making the subtext into text is actually a main focus of what slash is about. If the tension is left as subtext, then it's 'smarm' or 'slashy gen' or -- the term preferred within when talking to other members of that community -- 'pre-slash.'

wickedwords

Subtext and Femslash

In slash the anxiety about what you are subconsciously communicating also exists. Although I am bisexual, I have been unable to complete any f/f slash because I worry so much about the potential subtexts. Since there is so little f/f in the majority of fandoms (aside from Xena), I tend to feel very self-conscious about the sort of lesbian relationships that I would be portraying, and fear that I will misrepresent lesbians. I always ask myself what my f/f story might be saying about lesbians in general. Am I feeding into stereotypes? Am I being too negative? Am I being too positive? I don't want to over-romanticize lesbian relationships either. I have written lesbian characters into slash stories that are primarily m/m, but the idea of putting a story out there for other fans to read that focuses on an f/f relationship sets off a panic reaction in my brain. I have several uncompleted f/f stories in various fandoms, and one completed story that is in a state of eternal revision because it never satisfies me. Subtext is extremely subjective, and not all fans will agree on their validity or application to a particular relationship in a show or film.

Xena Fandom

In Xena fandom, "subtext" refers to the implication that Xena and Gabrielle are meant to be understood as a lesbian couple.

A "subtexter" in Xena fandom is someone who is a fan of lesbian subtext. Here, references to subtext links, subtext reviews, subtext fanfiction, subtext virtual seasons, etc. are usually referring to a lesbian interpretation of the source, like for example in CN Winters Xena Subtext Reports.

Xena fandom is dominated by f/f fanfiction, due to the canon's focus on the close friendship between Xena and Gabrielle. At times, the show deliberately brought the queer subtext as close to text as it could get without crossing the line; at other times, the show seemed merely to be titillating the viewers with faux-sapphic scenes. Either way, the Xena/Gabrielle relationship was meaningful to a lot of people because it was the closest to showing a sapphic relationship as an epic romance that most X/G fans had ever seen on TV at the time of its original airing. (Arguably, this remains true today. While the representation of sapphics on television has improved, female action heroes with female friends, female sidekicks, and woman-centered plotlines remain rare.)

See more at Subtext or Text?.

Fan Comments

1995

"Subtext " is what a work of art may imply or indicate without stating outright. It can be deliberate or inadvertent, and can be interpreted subjectively by the art's reader/viewer/listener. When Al screws up his face into an expression of misery at learning that Sam doesn't remember him, possible subtexts are: "Oh shit, the experiment's gone wrong!" "Does this mean he doesn't remember fucking me under the Accelerator night before last?" or "My hangover is even worse than I said." When Bodie and Doyle have a different set of rooms every time they are shown at home, the subtext can be, "CI5 agents have to move often for security reasons," or "These characters are so unstable that they can't keep the same apartment for long."

1998

Thinking about the more recent slash fandoms vs. the older fandoms brought me to this question:

Is now a better time to be a slash fan than the mid-seventies? The shows are more obvious about their homosocial/homoerotic overtones, the actors are (for the most part) more open to it and less concerned, some jokes/scenarios even seemed aimed at the slash fan. BUT: was it a different feeling when the slash was ferreted out and created wholly by the fandom, without any real help from what was on the screen? I mean, tell me please if Kirk and Spock ever looked at one another the way Mulder and Krycek do -- or is that preferable?

... I'm curious as to how slash and slash fandom has changed as the social climate (and therefore the entertainment) became a) more aware of homosexuality, b) more tolerant of homosexuality, and c) more likely to fan the flames (no pun intended)

I can't answer that comparatively since I don't know how Mulder and Krycek look at one another, but TOS Kirk and Spock do in fact act in ways onscreen that would be considered suspect by today's more knowing audiences. Some of it involves looking at one another, but a large part of it involves body contact which is both (mostly) unnecessary and prolonged past the point of propriety. Examples episodes in which this is most blatant are: "The Changeling" - right after Spock's meld with Nomad, "Shore Leave" - while they're being strafed by an antique fighter plane, and "And the Children Shall Lead" - the infamous turbolift scene. Most of this was accidental, due to the smaller action field in the cameras of the 60's which forced principals in a scene to stand much closer than normal in order to remain in frame. However, the censors of the time were more concerned with catching the improprieties this caused between male-female only - it being a more naive time as far as homosexuality was concerned - so they weren't watching for it between male leads.

Personally, I wish WS and LN hadn't been made aware. They've been good sports and even try to accommodate us by 'playing to the gallery' on occasion, but now it's contrived and campy. Before, in TOS, we would get scenes like the ones above in which you see genuine affection between them and sometimes bantering dialog which could be interpreted as flirting because of the accompanying body language and the fact that they were largely unaware of the effect they were creating. Now, we get "Please Captain, not in front of the Klingons" (who couldn't have cared less if they hugged each other like they did at the end of "Amok Time", IMO), which makes Spock sound like Felix Unger of the Odd Couple, for crying out loud! In short, I think it was more fun then than now because half the fun is the "are they or aren't they" speculation and the subsequent searches for clues in the episodes. Having it handed to you on a silver platter - well what fun is *that*?

I like more blatant homoerotic subtext in shows. Of course, I'm coming from the perspective of a vidder as well as a reader/writer, and the lingering glances make for better vids, IMO. <g> I suppose I sometimes feel I have to justify slash -- even to people who are sympathetic, like my husband -- and so the obvious looks, the M/K kiss, Jim distraught over Blair's "drowning", etc., keep me from feeling delusional. <g>

I don't know how much of it has to do with the timeframe, though, and how much has to do with the actual characters -- Bodie and Doyle regularly exchange meaningful glances and from what I hear, the same could be said for Starsky/Hutch, though I'm not particularly familiar with the fandom.

I guess I'm just more drawn to fandoms where the subtext is more visible: Due South, X-Files, Pros, Sentinel, Hercules/Xena. TOS has never particularly interested me, though I find both Kirk and Spock to be attractive.

Um, yeah, you could say that. Actually, I am inclined to say that Crockett/Castillo exchange meaningful glances; Starsky/Hutch exchanged meaningful gropes.

2008

For my part, I never have been able to "slash for slash's sake." I don't and can't "see slashy subtext" everywhere I look. Evidence of emotional and/or physical intimacy (same gender or opposite) demonstrates only that characters are emotionally and/or physically intimate. Emotional/physical intimacy exists between people who are friends and among family members and is, by itself, insufficient to suggest, much less prove, that there is or should be sexual relationship.

I remember one of the original "incest slash" fandoms, from the early-to-mid-80s--"Simon and Simon" fandom. My friends and I were *so* bewildered by that and, when it was explained to us by proponents that "of course they're having sex, look at how much they love each other," it was (in modern 'net vernacular) a real *headdesk* moment for us.

It's the Vulcan in me--I need to see a logical extrapolation from the media source product to the suggested extra-textual relationship (slash or het). Connect all the dots for me--explain what is in canon (the characterizations, backgrounds, history, specific relationships, physical setting, time period, larger culture and worldview, etc.) that makes it possible (or even likely) and also rationally explain away whatever there is in canon that mitigates against it.

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• The Subtext Anxiety by Shomeret (1999)
• Subtext and Slash: Having Your Cake and Eating it Too by Julia Houston (1999)
• Why Subtext is Better than Text by Janis C. (2004)