kalpurna

So, there's lately been a quiet revolution in vidding fandom, one of which I heartily approve. I agree with every single thing that's been said here, and I personally have felt this way for a long, long time – I don't at all want to push my views on others, and I know a lot of vidders like to stay hidden for their own personal reasons, disclaimercakes – but I think there's a lot, a LOT to be gained from a collective stepping-out-of-the-closet on this one. And I think we can expand that to slash, too. I mean, frankly? I know that... wait, here, let's call this an unpopular fannish opinion, and then it will be like I'm memeing.

Unpopular Fannish Opinion

The automatic response of most people in fandom is to express outrage and disgust at the idea that some fangirl brought up slash to someone heavily involved in creating the source material. I've talked about this a couple times in other people's journals, and I do listen to the arguments against it, which as far as I can tell boil down to:

1. It's rude/weird to tell people about your porn, especially if it's about them. This is fantasy; keep it in your pants and out of the public sphere.

2. Actors/creators are legally fucked if they admit to knowing about fanac.

3. We, as in fandom, are legally fucked if actors/creators have to admit to knowing about us.

4a. Actors/creators aren't interested in knowing about fanac. They didn't ask, don't tell them.

4b. There's no point! Actors/creators/writers/the mainstream do not NEED to be part of our thing. There's no benefit to telling them. We're better off closeted.


Okay, and now for my counterargument. Bits of this are cut and pasted from here.

1. Well, yes. And here's where, maybe, being a normal, socialized human being comes into play. It would definitely strike me as sexual harrassment if someone went up to an actor and was like, "Oh, I just read fiction last night where you fisted your coworker! I enjoyed it very much!"

Awkward.

But, well, it also seems to me like there is a thick, meaty center of the slash genre that is no more explicit than romance novels are, or even modern literary fiction. And there is absolutely a way to talk about it that does not make it out to be PORN PORN PORN – and I truly don't think that that's all there is to slash, to begin with. I talk to people all the time about slash; friends, parents, teachers, people at parties sometimes. And it never comes off (to me, or to them, as far as I know) as oversharing. Slash is interesting in ways that have nothing to do with pornography.

2. ...Maybe. I'm not convinced. JKR has said publicly that she's read fanfic, and while I'm naming no names, I know of at least one pro author who actually runs a challenge which includes her work as one of its fandoms. (That doesn't, of course, mean she necessarily reads the fic posted in it, but it certainly wouldn't be hard to accuse her of doing so.) Also, and this is a REALLY unpopular fannish opinion, but... while I think it's extremely rude to pull a Marion-Zimmer-Bradley-fan and sue your source's author, I also think you could make a legitimate case for it being possible to plagiarize fanfiction about your own work. I'm sorry, but I think it's true. And if you did that without citing your source, I happen to think that you should get in legal trouble. It's lame as shit to stir up trouble of this kind without cause, but if authors are concerned, they don't have to read it; and there's some cause to believe they shouldn't be too worried, if they're doing the right thing. The truth will out, right?

Besides which, none of this applies to just TALKING about fanfic. Mentioning slash to an author, even having a long conversation about it, is not the same thing as tying them down and making them read the stuff.

3. This is the hardest one to argue against, because things HAVE happened and people HAVE gotten in trouble. But. But but but.

When it comes to vidding, people use clips of shows for non-profity things all the time, on youtube and stuff, such as Brokeback Mountain parodies, and they get linked everywhere and no one seems to think it's a big deal. I honestly, honestly don't think there's ever likely to be a legal threat to fanac, as long as things stay the way they are re: profit. The mainstream is becoming more accepting of derivative work, not less. The only real exception I can think of to this rule is the RIAA going after music in vids, because they crazy.

And as far as fanfic... yeah, I've heard about the sueing and the C&D letters and all that. And I have no wish to speak for other people. But for me, personally? I am totally and completely ready to fight for my right to slash. I don't think we're doing anything wrong. And I understand that people don't have the time and money to fight this. I do. But... but if no one fights it, nothing's going to change. From what I can see, 98% of fandom fears about this comes from cease and desist letters. Which, what? That's scary, sure, but what if you say "No"? Are they going to take it to court? What's going to happen? If we just go ahead and back down every time someone has a problem, how is copyright law ever going to be different?

See, to me, I can't even conceive of the idea that fandom is really at risk. I grew up in the era of Napster and the RIAA, and it has all convinced me of nothing more than that this kind of stuff is never going away, not while we have the Internet. Out of the millions of people who are using filesharing sites, how many have been prosecuted? Three? I mean, everyone can cite a scary story of The Boy Who Was Caught, but it honestly seems more likely to me that I'll get hit by a bus than caught by the RIAA. And cracking down on fandom? Please. I'd love to see THAT law enforced. It just seems to me like the more we do it, the more entrenched we are and the more active and obvious we are, the harder we are to suppress. And for God's sake, what are they going to sue us for? Damages? It sometimes seems to me like fandom really worries about the law a little too much, considering that, for example, for all our disclaimers and age limits and hoops to jump through? It's not actually illegal for minors in the US to access explicit fanfic online.

4. As far as motivations for mentioning slash to its source, I guess part of it is just kind of a "cat with a dead mouse" pride – "Look, you gave us something cool and shiny, and we liked it, and we liked it so much that we turned around and did something new with it." I mean, I have a tremendous amount of admiration and respect for a lot of the people involved in creating our source, and it's just... I guess the reaction I love to hear about is the Joss Whedon, Paul Gross kind of reaction. I really love it when people appreciate their fandoms, their fans, and slash is just as awesome as the rest of fannish activity, if not even more so. Here we are, being fabulously creative and subverting gender and making something exciting and new, and it's all inspired by this source. Even if they can't read it for legal reasons, they're indirectly part of what I feel is maybe the most vibrant emergent writing community in the world. I guess I want them to know because I feel that slash is objectively interesting and that they should be excited and interested by it. And if they're not, if they don't get it, that's obviously fine, whatever. But I still want them to have the chance to get it.

More and more, male-oriented fannish activity is being mainstreamed. And female-oriented activity is getting left by the wayside. And you know what? Female fanac is way more interesting that male fanac, in my humble and biased opinion. It's FASCINATING! We do this unbelievably interesting stuff, and then we talk about it. It's interesting sociologically, it's interesting artistically, and it's not being talked about outside of media studies programs.

Like, okay, let's take the purely literary perspective here with regard to slash. Fannish authors play with their writing in a way few pro authors seem to feel comfortable doing (except, of course, the ones who never do anything else). cesperanza's Due South fic plays marvelous tricks with structure and storytelling; eliade's Buffy fic has sheer virtuosity of language and description; helenish's Sports Night fic does unheard-of things with punctuation and dialogue. And that's not even mentioning the thousands of fascinating ways every good fan author plays with canon and source; the AUs, the reinterpretations, the remixes and responses. Fannish writing isn't just good practice for "real" writing: it's worthy in its own right, and for its own reasons.

Name me one genre of literature that has evolved so fast, over such a wide geographical area, with such a diverse range of participants. Or even any female-dominated, community-oriented literary phenomenon of comparable size. Name one other writing arena in which feedback is instantaneous, trends sweep across the scene like lightning, and authors publish prolifically without charging for access. Name anything as paradigm-shattering, as gender-bending, as grass-roots, as self-reflective, as unfuckingbelievably creative as slash fanfiction. We are INCREDIBLE. We are SO COOL. People should KNOW about this. People should RESPECT this.

In conclusion, though, I think it's very important to emphasize something laurashapiro said in the post that sparked this one:

In considering these pros and cons, I want to be very clear not to conflate the idea of a greater public visibility of vidding as a whole with the greater public visibility of any individual fan. If vidding itself is more widely understood and recognized, that doesn't mean that any individual vidder must expose herself.

Further reading:

astolat's post about Imeem
thefourthvine's poll on vid watching
amireal's post
fairestcat on the slash closet