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Wednesday, April 23, 2003
- -
Interesting discussion on one of the K/S lists: are gender-specific words like "husband" and "wife" appropriate for same-gender relationships? Or do they carry such connotations of their dominant/submissive origins that there is no way to expunge their gender-specific implications? One thing I noticed is that many more people felt uncomfortable with "wife" than with "husband," which I suppose says something about the sub-conscious value we assign to each one.
Well, it was an interesting discussion. One of the list mods said there had been too many complaints about the "non-K/S" nature of the posts and that we were all to return to talking about Kirk or Spock. Or, as she said, preferably Kirk and Spock. So now we're trying to determine how many episodes Kevin Riley appeared in, and drooling over the Kirk/Sarek meld in ST III. I can almost figure out why some of the folk on ASCEM got really tired of the so-called "old school K/S-ers," though most of these kiddies weren't even born yet when the series aired. The little side trips we took about language and culture were the most interesting part of it for me. If all this list is allowed to do is rhapsodize over someone's pictures of a young Spock, I won't be staying on it long.
I have to wonder whether we were getting too close to the truth for some peoples' sensitivities.
Well, it was an interesting discussion. One of the list mods said there had been too many complaints about the "non-K/S" nature of the posts and that we were all to return to talking about Kirk or Spock. Or, as she said, preferably Kirk and Spock. So now we're trying to determine how many episodes Kevin Riley appeared in, and drooling over the Kirk/Sarek meld in ST III. I can almost figure out why some of the folk on ASCEM got really tired of the so-called "old school K/S-ers," though most of these kiddies weren't even born yet when the series aired. The little side trips we took about language and culture were the most interesting part of it for me. If all this list is allowed to do is rhapsodize over someone's pictures of a young Spock, I won't be staying on it long.
I have to wonder whether we were getting too close to the truth for some peoples' sensitivities.
Wednesday, April 16, 2003
- The Future is Now -
I have a buddy in the Cook Islands with whom I've been chatting in near real time this evening. He's online playing chess with another friend in New York, and pops off a reply to my mail whenever it comes in. I remarked to him that we're living so close to the kind of environment portrayed in Star Trek:TOS that it's hard to tell the difference sometimes. With the exception of faster-than-light speed and transporters, there isn't much Star Trek technology that hasn't already been equalled or exceeded.
Which brings me to the observation that it's almost impossible for a science fiction program to portray anything like what the future might actually be. TOS basically focused on a few techie little show-off throwaways. There was no attempt to show shifts in language, even in the use of new slang terms--which could have been done without throwing viewers off altogether (the instant acceptance of "grok" shows that it's possible to create new terminology without losing your audience). There were some hints of a change in male/female relationships, and some heavy-handed plot devices intended to prove how much the human race had "progressed" in three hundred years, but still, not much to pull the viewer out of hir 20th century mundane life and shove hir into the future. What propelled TOS into a whole new realm was something the creators and producers probably couldn't have predicted (and might have toned down if they had imagined it)--the forbidden, exciting, half-repressed dynamic between two powerful and handsome men whose meaningful glances at each other across the bridge created a whole new mythos in the late 20th century. I wish I could be here 100 years from now to see how slash has evolved and how people think of its origins.
Of course, part of the reason slash is so compelling is that it is still in that gray area of explicit sexuality. Perhaps in another 100 years we'll have progressed beyond our current need for it, and though that would be good indeed for a large part of the world's population, I'll be sorry if the genre completely disappears.
Which brings me to the observation that it's almost impossible for a science fiction program to portray anything like what the future might actually be. TOS basically focused on a few techie little show-off throwaways. There was no attempt to show shifts in language, even in the use of new slang terms--which could have been done without throwing viewers off altogether (the instant acceptance of "grok" shows that it's possible to create new terminology without losing your audience). There were some hints of a change in male/female relationships, and some heavy-handed plot devices intended to prove how much the human race had "progressed" in three hundred years, but still, not much to pull the viewer out of hir 20th century mundane life and shove hir into the future. What propelled TOS into a whole new realm was something the creators and producers probably couldn't have predicted (and might have toned down if they had imagined it)--the forbidden, exciting, half-repressed dynamic between two powerful and handsome men whose meaningful glances at each other across the bridge created a whole new mythos in the late 20th century. I wish I could be here 100 years from now to see how slash has evolved and how people think of its origins.
Of course, part of the reason slash is so compelling is that it is still in that gray area of explicit sexuality. Perhaps in another 100 years we'll have progressed beyond our current need for it, and though that would be good indeed for a large part of the world's population, I'll be sorry if the genre completely disappears.
- More Family Wars -
Posting the "What's going on with fathers?" question to a Trek list brought forth some fascinating responses. There were the expected formula-tv-conflict suggestions, which I'd already thought of myself, of course, and Rae posted a link to an essay on myth which had some things to ponder.
But two responses in particular are worth deeper consideration. Anna Greener brought up some research suggesting that fathers and sons are in biological competition with each other, whether they realize it or not--competition for the same food, the same jobs, possibly the same mates. This would go a long way toward explaining why father-son conflicts seem so universal a theme.
Specifically in regard to Star Trek: TOS, T'Guess suggested that Sybok's 'failure' would have created a major crisis for Sarek, in terms of needing to analyze where he had gone wrong as a father and to avoid making the same mistake with Spock. He would surely have been far more critical of any hint of 'emotional contamination' in Spock than he might initially have been with Sybok.
This works as a full explanation only if you believe Sybok's existence was anticipated back in the days of the original TOS eps, which obviously is not the case. But it's an interesting look into Bill Shatner's state of mind, perhaps, if nothing else.
T'Guess also tossed out the intriguing prospect of how Amanda would have fit into this scenario. Sarek sires a full-Vulcan son, a compelling and powerful young man who appears, to begin with, to be a chip off the old block. Sarek relaxes a bit, marries a human, brings her into his house, and what happens? His pride, his son, his heir, suddenly acquires an obsession with emotion, and for whatever reason (it must have been something worse than just smiling in public), gets himself banned from Vulcan.
Poor Sarek, who must have endured great criticism from his peers and relatives for contaminating his promising son with a human wife. Poor Amanda, who must have gotten the brunt of the blame, but--most of all--poor Spock. Amanda would not have dared repeat whatever mistakes she thought she had made with Sybok. Sarek would have been the most severe and distant of Vulcan fathers, not just to avoid mistakes himself but to make up for any that he imagined Amanda might still be guilty of, and everyone from relatives to schoolmates to complete strangers would have been watching to see Sybok's alleged character faults turn up again in Spock. With that in his background, Spock is more easily seen as the poorly adjusted, emotionally stunted adult that so many fan writers have portrayed.
But two responses in particular are worth deeper consideration. Anna Greener brought up some research suggesting that fathers and sons are in biological competition with each other, whether they realize it or not--competition for the same food, the same jobs, possibly the same mates. This would go a long way toward explaining why father-son conflicts seem so universal a theme.
Specifically in regard to Star Trek: TOS, T'Guess suggested that Sybok's 'failure' would have created a major crisis for Sarek, in terms of needing to analyze where he had gone wrong as a father and to avoid making the same mistake with Spock. He would surely have been far more critical of any hint of 'emotional contamination' in Spock than he might initially have been with Sybok.
This works as a full explanation only if you believe Sybok's existence was anticipated back in the days of the original TOS eps, which obviously is not the case. But it's an interesting look into Bill Shatner's state of mind, perhaps, if nothing else.
T'Guess also tossed out the intriguing prospect of how Amanda would have fit into this scenario. Sarek sires a full-Vulcan son, a compelling and powerful young man who appears, to begin with, to be a chip off the old block. Sarek relaxes a bit, marries a human, brings her into his house, and what happens? His pride, his son, his heir, suddenly acquires an obsession with emotion, and for whatever reason (it must have been something worse than just smiling in public), gets himself banned from Vulcan.
Poor Sarek, who must have endured great criticism from his peers and relatives for contaminating his promising son with a human wife. Poor Amanda, who must have gotten the brunt of the blame, but--most of all--poor Spock. Amanda would not have dared repeat whatever mistakes she thought she had made with Sybok. Sarek would have been the most severe and distant of Vulcan fathers, not just to avoid mistakes himself but to make up for any that he imagined Amanda might still be guilty of, and everyone from relatives to schoolmates to complete strangers would have been watching to see Sybok's alleged character faults turn up again in Spock. With that in his background, Spock is more easily seen as the poorly adjusted, emotionally stunted adult that so many fan writers have portrayed.
Monday, April 14, 2003
- Family Issues -
It has occurred to me recently that nearly all the media characters who end up in slash stories have some kind of father issue. Spock has been estranged from his father for 18 years when the episode "Journey to Babel" occurs, and fans gleefully incorporate various degrees of awkwardness between them even after that. Kirk's father dies when he is still somewhere in childhood.
In the Sentinel series, Jim Ellison's father is portrayed as a bigot and an asshole. Blair has never known who his father was.
In the old Professionals series that generated a lot of fan fiction in the 80's, at least one of the characters is usually portrayed as having some kind of family problems.
Duncan's whole family, in the Highlanders, rejects him. Clark Kent has lost his family and is being brought up by adoptive parents. Luthor and his father are frequently at vicious odds with each other. Batman's family was killed before his eyes when he was a child. Robin loses his family in the first Batman movie.
I don't watch Buffy, so I've no idea how family relationships are portrayed, but I suspect the same situation exists there, taking into consideration the number of vampires who seem to inhabit the cast and whose family backgrounds don't get mentioned at all.
Okay, obvious reasons: nobody really wants to watch a program where everyone is perfectly happy. We all get off on watching other people's problems, and probably half the extant fan fiction was written to iron out the author's own feelings about some family-related problem. And since everyone has 'em, family problems are an easy way to introduce tension and conflict that everyone will relate to into a series. But this focus on fathers in particular has me wondering. Are fathers seen as such an integral part of a child's life that one is presumed to be permanently impaired if the father was lacking in support, or just lacking, period?
I know people whose relationships with their fathers were dreadful, or non-existent, yet they manage to be functioning happy adults. I know others with loving and intact families who never have successful relationships in their own adult lives. So I have some difficulty with the idea that fathers alone cast that long a shadow over their offspring's life.
Perhaps we're just seeing at second hand the dysfunctional families and childhoods of the creators and screenwriters, or their assumption that anyone with emotional issues must have had a father-deprived childhood--which translates into creating father-issues for their characters. It just seems so widespread that one wonders whether there is a meme at work here.
In the Sentinel series, Jim Ellison's father is portrayed as a bigot and an asshole. Blair has never known who his father was.
In the old Professionals series that generated a lot of fan fiction in the 80's, at least one of the characters is usually portrayed as having some kind of family problems.
Duncan's whole family, in the Highlanders, rejects him. Clark Kent has lost his family and is being brought up by adoptive parents. Luthor and his father are frequently at vicious odds with each other. Batman's family was killed before his eyes when he was a child. Robin loses his family in the first Batman movie.
I don't watch Buffy, so I've no idea how family relationships are portrayed, but I suspect the same situation exists there, taking into consideration the number of vampires who seem to inhabit the cast and whose family backgrounds don't get mentioned at all.
Okay, obvious reasons: nobody really wants to watch a program where everyone is perfectly happy. We all get off on watching other people's problems, and probably half the extant fan fiction was written to iron out the author's own feelings about some family-related problem. And since everyone has 'em, family problems are an easy way to introduce tension and conflict that everyone will relate to into a series. But this focus on fathers in particular has me wondering. Are fathers seen as such an integral part of a child's life that one is presumed to be permanently impaired if the father was lacking in support, or just lacking, period?
I know people whose relationships with their fathers were dreadful, or non-existent, yet they manage to be functioning happy adults. I know others with loving and intact families who never have successful relationships in their own adult lives. So I have some difficulty with the idea that fathers alone cast that long a shadow over their offspring's life.
Perhaps we're just seeing at second hand the dysfunctional families and childhoods of the creators and screenwriters, or their assumption that anyone with emotional issues must have had a father-deprived childhood--which translates into creating father-issues for their characters. It just seems so widespread that one wonders whether there is a meme at work here.
Saturday, April 12, 2003
- Why we like gayboys -
An excellent article on slash has turned up on the BitchMagazine site, at Fantastic Voyage, A Journey into the Wide Wild World of Slash Fiction! The author, Noy Thrupkaew, manages to examine the phenomenon of slash without being either patronizing or pseudo-enthralled with it all. In fact, considering how she might a write a slash story herself, she realizes why other women write slash:
She also writes: [The writers] also flesh out their heroes with qualities that are a combination of traditionally male behaviors (assertive, confident) and female characteristics (nurturing, communicative). In other words, the best pieces feature players who are more like real people than the characters you find on TV.
I'll add my own opinion that women write men the way they would like them to be. But writing that characterization into a story with another women, with het sex, isn't believable. We all just know, correctly or not, that men don't behave that way with women. Perhaps with another man, however? Is it possible that the caring, the tenderness, the empathy that straight women would like to see in their men is possible only in male/male relationships? I think not, but I also think that the script acted out by straight men in het relationships is so firmly established, both genetically and socially, that it's extremely difficult to see, and act, beyond its limitations. The only way to make loving and equal relationships believable is to set them in a context where straight women, at least, don't have preconceived and strongly reinforced ideas of what the relationships are like. Hence male/male slash.
That also explains why, although there are more than a few lesbians writing slash, they're far outnumbered by the straight women. Lesbians are likely to be much more closely acquainted with what male/male relationships are "really" like, and therefore less likely to romanticize them. It explains, as well, why few gay men write the kind of fiction that falls into the category of "slash." In fact, gay men, for the most part, seem to think slash is unrealistic and stupid, certainly not erotic. Their personal experience of male/male relationships clashes too strongly with the idealized world of slash for them to be able to write the kind of stories that straight women do.
And suddenly I had my own explanation for why slash-loving straight women might write male/male relationships: The relationships between male characters allow a writer to strike a harmonious balance between working within the framework of a show and spinning a tale of her own imagination. The best slash I’ve read captures the rhythm of the characters’ speech, probes their psychology, and shows a mastery of complicated plots, all while taking the characters in new directions. And although a similar sense of possibility could await a writer delving into unexpected male/female pairings (Scully and Skinner, for instance) or trysts between two female characters (say, Buffy and Willow on Buffy the Vampire Slayer), male/male pairings add an extra dimension—the opportunity to recraft masculinity itself. And for women—straight or queer—who write slash fiction, this certainly seems to add an extra-enticing challenge, a sense of going where no woman has gone before.
She also writes: [The writers] also flesh out their heroes with qualities that are a combination of traditionally male behaviors (assertive, confident) and female characteristics (nurturing, communicative). In other words, the best pieces feature players who are more like real people than the characters you find on TV.
I'll add my own opinion that women write men the way they would like them to be. But writing that characterization into a story with another women, with het sex, isn't believable. We all just know, correctly or not, that men don't behave that way with women. Perhaps with another man, however? Is it possible that the caring, the tenderness, the empathy that straight women would like to see in their men is possible only in male/male relationships? I think not, but I also think that the script acted out by straight men in het relationships is so firmly established, both genetically and socially, that it's extremely difficult to see, and act, beyond its limitations. The only way to make loving and equal relationships believable is to set them in a context where straight women, at least, don't have preconceived and strongly reinforced ideas of what the relationships are like. Hence male/male slash.
That also explains why, although there are more than a few lesbians writing slash, they're far outnumbered by the straight women. Lesbians are likely to be much more closely acquainted with what male/male relationships are "really" like, and therefore less likely to romanticize them. It explains, as well, why few gay men write the kind of fiction that falls into the category of "slash." In fact, gay men, for the most part, seem to think slash is unrealistic and stupid, certainly not erotic. Their personal experience of male/male relationships clashes too strongly with the idealized world of slash for them to be able to write the kind of stories that straight women do.
Wednesday, April 02, 2003
- Multiple personalities? -
A friend who managed to trace me back here from my other blog (which has a link to my slash page, which has a link to . . . ) wanted to know why I had two blogs. Good question. The simple answer is that my life is compartmentalized into the outer mundane me, visible to the world at large, and the 'real' me who lurks here, and I shuttle uneasily between the two.
The full answer is more complicated. Neither persona is the whole me, and the liklihood of integrating the two any time soon seems minimal. For the sake of my business, I have to retain the socially acceptable veneer.
But there's more to it than that. Nothing intrudes on this space. In my other blog I talk about my business, about my family, about war, about the gritty realities of daily life. Here I shut them all out, except for things which are directly related to my writing, such as the discussion of slashfic with my mother.
Still, keeping this space separate suggests a life that exists outside the real one. To be honest, sometimes it's hard to know which one is "real," the more or less concrete space (allowing for the vast distances between atoms) that we communally accept, or the often far richer and more complex space in my head. Relationships with people are more intense there, but mundane life is flattened out and intermittent. In "real" life, it's the other way around, of course. The complications of daily life preoccupy us, taking precedence over any emotional intimacy we might like to cultivate. It doesn't seem to be possible to balance and integrate the two. So I continue with two blogs.
The full answer is more complicated. Neither persona is the whole me, and the liklihood of integrating the two any time soon seems minimal. For the sake of my business, I have to retain the socially acceptable veneer.
But there's more to it than that. Nothing intrudes on this space. In my other blog I talk about my business, about my family, about war, about the gritty realities of daily life. Here I shut them all out, except for things which are directly related to my writing, such as the discussion of slashfic with my mother.
Still, keeping this space separate suggests a life that exists outside the real one. To be honest, sometimes it's hard to know which one is "real," the more or less concrete space (allowing for the vast distances between atoms) that we communally accept, or the often far richer and more complex space in my head. Relationships with people are more intense there, but mundane life is flattened out and intermittent. In "real" life, it's the other way around, of course. The complications of daily life preoccupy us, taking precedence over any emotional intimacy we might like to cultivate. It doesn't seem to be possible to balance and integrate the two. So I continue with two blogs.