Where 're the femslash little black dress
| Meta | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Where 're the femslash little black dress |
| Creator: | snowynight |
| Date(s): | May 8, 2011 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | |
| Topic: | Fanfiction, Femslash |
| External Links: | Where 're the femslash little black dress, Archived version |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Where 're the femslash little black dress is meta post by snowynight.
It has 43 responses.
Post
Some anecdotesI love Sherlock Holmes, so I can't resist the lure of the 2009 Sherlock Holmes film. It has Mary and Irene in a greater role than in the book, but the movie's never about them, never told in their POV. They pretty much respond to the action. I return from the cinema with a vague thought that I would like a gun-swinging Mary partnered with Irene in a steampunk Victorian London, but I don't really get the characters enough. Because the movie doesn't give me this.
When I watch the earlier season of Stargate: Atlantis, there are only two female favourite characters. They are shown as friends, and the fandom pretty much pair them as the spare. Later in the season there were more female characters introduced and filmed interaction between Teyla and them. While the amount of fic produced is not much as far as I know, Teyla launched several ships, Teyla/Kate, Teyla/Keller, Teyla/Sam. While the canon is not good enough, it at least gives a starting point to write and passes the Bechdel's test in some episodes.
My hypothesis about the lack of femslash little black dress is thus: There're just not enough female characters. Even nowadays a show can be without one female major character. Supernatural, for example is a big offender.
When there are finally some, the writers often screw up on the female characters. The stories are often not about them, the story not told in their POV, they often go without agency or sacrificed for some dramatic effect. These combined don't encourage fans of female characters. When the show finally pass Bechdel's Test, there are usually no multiple female relationships, not to mention multiple female friendships.
And when there are such examples, people don't know about it.
In conclusion, with the current trend, we're less likely to see femslash little black dress.
Comments
[elspethdixon]: another thing with the fewer numbers of main female characters is that one has less choice of pairing types that might hit one's buttons (e.g. villain/hero, or the best buddies).How much that affects people's shipping depends on the kind of shipper you are, I think. With het and slash pairings, there are often plenty of fans willing to project their favorite dynamic onto whatever pair of characters comes closest to it and/or is prettiest or possess some quality as individuals that hits them in the Id. If you fall on the "I need the pairing to jump out at me from canon and grab me by the Id" side of things, though, yeah, it can be harder to find the kind of pairing dynamic you like between two women who are also in a canon you like. (Marvel's better about it than a lot of other fandoms, because even though they treat their female characters horribly, they have a much wider variety of them simply because the Marvel-verse has so many characters).
[lilacsigil]: I think you're onto something with the idea of female characters not being written with agency. People often say "but the female characters are written badly!" and this may be true, but badly written male characters still get plenty of fic. The difference, though, is that a badly written male character still usually has agency - he will have a goal, a personality and a reason for existing in the plot. So many female characters, though, are there to be reacted to by men (viewers or characters). And yes, definitely the lower numbers of women in most canons are an issue. While male slash fandoms spring up around anything with two or more male characters who spend time together, some of the liveliest femslash fandoms seem to have either *just* two major female characters who have a strong onscreen relationship of some kind (e.g. Legend of the Seeker, The Devil Wears Prada) or an enormous cast gathered over many years (Harry Potter, DCU and Marvel comics, soap operas). An exception to this rule might be The Good Wife - while most of the fic fits the first category (Alicia/Kalinda have a strong onscreen relationship) there's a lot of other female characters around, mostly written with agency.Last night I was watching a crappy movie (I won't say what it is as not to spoil people) and this post made me think of the femslash options. For male slash, there's four attractive, fit men who spend a lot of time together. For femslash, there's one attractive, fit woman...and two female ghosts. One has no agency and the other is a child. While it does pass the Bechdel test (the living woman and the girl ghost talk about various things) there isn't a femslash opportunity; the opposite is true for the men.
[hanachan01]: I've seen a lot more of that "little black dress" thing in RPF femmeslash fandoms. In the fandom for Morning Musume (a Japanese girl group), there were a few LBDs (but not a lot of fanfiction. As in most Japanese fandoms, fanart and fanvideos are more popular, and there are tons of them). I've read some Girls Aloud (a British girl group) fan fiction, and that fandom was very happy to pair up the girls in any combination, but generally centered on Cheryl Cole.I wonder if the LBD's in RPF fandoms has to do with how with these pairings, one does not have to rely on males creating females, but with females taking charge of themselves. They are real people, so they are bound to have their own qoals and quirks come out. Granted, with most pop music acts there is a little bit of acting that might be thought out by a male manager or producers, but for the most part, these women are their own person. There is generally more material to work from too.