The Femslash Debate
| Meta | |
|---|---|
| Title: | The Femslash Debate |
| Creator: | runetraverse |
| Date(s): | March 14th, 2004 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | |
| Topic: | Fanfiction, Femslash |
| External Links: | The Femslash Debate |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
The Femslash Debate is a meta post by runetraverse.
Excerpts
But, really, that doesn't explain femslash with respect to the rest of fandom. Because I look around I see many, many, many emotion-driven fics around fandom. I see many vulnerable, complex & messy characters. And, yes, it must be said, I see loads of fics with feminised men- so why not femslash? There is the old fallback of- 'guy-on-guy equals HOT' whereas girl-on-girl doesn't turn on the majority of fandom, ie, the straight young female, but I think that's oversimplifying the matter hugely. In the HP world, I think it's a combination of a few factors
1) The characters themselves. In the first few books we didn't really see many interesting women around that could be paired off. I mean, there were barely even relationships-- friendly or antagonistic- between women in the first novels, which makes it difficult to even extrapolate fanfic. Now, I know that most pairings out there are completely OOC and have no canonical basis, but the most popular do spring from certain vibes- Harry/Draco, Harry/Ron, Draco/Hermione, Harry/Snape. But OotP brought about a bit of a change, at least in terms of character development if not interesting relationships. I mean, we now have a more developed Minerva, Sibyl & Hermione, an interesting Ginny, Umbridge, Tonks (a veritable femslash revolution in herself!), Bellatrix, Narcissa, Andromeda...and the list goes on. And, I do believe that we have seen a corresponding increase in the numbers (and quality) of femslash fics since its release. A couple of years ago, femslash was a rarity-- now it constitutes a part of fandom. Not a huge part, but it has a presence, nonetheless.
2) Fandom evolution. In the HP fandom, slash was the Biggest Thing for the longest time. The development of that 'subversive movement' really overshadowed everything else, and I think that the hugeness of slash did, to an extent, hinder the development of femslash (not that I'm bashing slash here, or anything). It's a kind of vicious cycle-- because the slash community was big and interesting, more and more newbies joined up and made it bigger, which made it more visible and so on. The huge m/m slash community ensured that there was readership, and thus encouragement, for slash fics, but femslash always had a much smaller fanbase. Fandom is, after all, all about interaction, and the fans go where there's most feedback, most discussion, most interaction to be found-- and femslash just wasn't it. Femslash became a sort of secondary category to slash, rather than, shall we say, an equal partner.
Comments
[givemehistory]: First of all, I find I agree with many of your points - the emotional aspect of femslash being its most difficult aspect; the idealization of men by the fandom - and I think you're incredibly in tune with your own writing, which is impressive. That being said, I'm not a part of the HP fandom (I do read occasionally, but I've never written), so I can't be fandom-specific with my observations.1. Even with fandoms with really strong female characters (some TV series, for example) there aren't many quality femslash fics, so I think the tendency toward male-male slash is a pan-fandom curiosity. HP is perhaps more established (?) than a lot of TV fandoms, so I guess we'll have to see how strong female characters are written in the future. The only exception I can think of is Jossverse (BtVS, Angel, etc.), which honestly I haven't read a lot of, but what I have read has produced more quality femslash than regular slash. Though this is a pretty grounded fandom as well, so again, we'll just have to see how newer fandoms progress.
2. I wonder if there is more gay literature than lesbian literature. Though the two have certainly been equally represented in society, throughout history (the Greeks had their Sappho, after all), gay culture might have been more celebrated/publicized/whatever (?) than lesbian culture. That's just my take, and I don't deny there is quite a nice collection of lesbian literature out there today (Sarah Waters, Jeanette Winterson, etc.), but maybe this isn't even limited to fandom.
3. My first two points were absolutely moronic, so I'll just leave you alone now. :
[switchknife]: I do agree with various things you say, but I disagree with the idea that women are 'messier' than men--Snape, for example, is one of the most emotionally messy characters in canon. Minerva McGonagall, on the other hand, has many more clean lines to her personality.In RL as well, I know quite a few emotionally messy guys. :) So. Um. I disagree on that point.
I guess my favorite femslash tends to be femslash that doesn't feminize the characters artificially, and isn't afraid of making them strong. Maybe that's because I just prefer my women tough and bleak, just as I like my men--oh, I guess you and I both like strong characters. Hence the issue of femininity or masculinity doesn't really come into it, apart from the very obvious issues of physical differences. If my character conforms to certain societal gender-roles, that's OK, but that's the only reason I'd ever have for 'feminizing' a female character, or 'masculinizing' a male one.