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Subtext of the homoerotic variety comes in a variety of forms. From the so blatantly obvious that even straight men can see it from a single scene (most notably Clark and Lex of Smallville) to the more ambiguous (the beautiful friendship (?) of Frodo and Sam) to the infinitesimal (Severus Snape and Sirius Black).
Slashers do them all, including the fourth category of completely nonexistent (so what if Strife never had more then six lines of dialogue together, it's a great pairing). There's also textual homoerotisim, but that's for another rant (though for a great example of this see By Degrees by nortylak a Sweet November fic that's only a thousand times better then the movie).
What motivates the slasher? What gives them the impetuous to take two characters, sometimes seemingly at random, and create stories pairing them together? Short answer: I don't have a fucking clue. The only person I can say for certain is about myself and I was born this way.
That may sound like a cop out, but it's true. When I was in second grade, I told myself stories before I went to sleep. Obsessed with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, most of these stories were fairly innocuous Mary-Sue type things that are only to be expected of an eight year old. Once and a while though, Raphael would get sick and Donatello would take care of him. The pre-sexual version of hurt/comfort fics. I could go on with other examples, but I think that pretty much tells the story.
"You see gay people everywhere." One friend accused as I cracked comments about an episode of All Grown Up, the middle school age version of Rugrats.
Perhaps, I do. Maybe I have a severe psychological problem that skewers my vision and shows me men hot for each other. Sometimes, I am being blatantly ridiculous for the fun of it. But maybe, just maybe, there's more then is dreamed of in your straight philosophy.
Subtext is a tricky business. Anyone with enough time on their hands could read the whole of the bible into a few episodes of Buffy. Yet, I cannot help, but point at Clark and Lex and feel sad for their doomed love.
"Why do you have to ruin it? They have such an amazing friendship." My poor beleaguered friend complains again. (Being a straight male, he is most often the one suffering at the hands of my pink tinted glasses.) He speaks of Frodo and Sam. We are watching the Return of the King for the twenty-eighth time and Frodo is brushing a kiss on Samwise's forehead.
"Lower!" I yelled, prompting aforesaid comment.
Was I ruining it? Was a I dirtying what Tolkien had portrayed as a friendship strong enough to beat out a genocidal evil? And if I was, why?
I can't believe that imagining Sam's comfort stemmed from romantic, even physical love, rather then friendship is enough to ruin it. Rather, it attests to a strength in love that is awe-inspiring. It is one thing to stand by a friend and quite another to stand by a lover. Eowyn, who follows Aragorn into the very heat of battle, is a very different lover then Arwen, who waits passively waits for his victory. If Samwise loved Frodo as something more then just a friend, it only straightens what is between them. The later marriage to Rosie Cotton only speaks to the fact that Sam is a man capable of having more then one great love and that is a fine thing indeed.
But what if I'm wrong? What if I am taking something away from the original text? What is my motive behind this blatant disregard for the author's intentions? Why must everything be gay?
For one, it makes me happy. I like the idea of two men romantically entwined in any type of relationship. From the idealized fluff fics to the dark bdsm that leaves one or both completely devastated, I want my boys together. I choose to blame popular media.
There is a severe lack of interesting gay characters anywhere in popular media. This is only now beginning to change. I may love Queer Eye, but let's face it, it isn't a riveting plot based drama. Will and Grace is a show that contains very little actual gay moments, only some very flamboyant behaviors. Queer as Folk is relegated to a channel one has to pay for to receive. Books fair only slightly better with very few authors in mainstream genres writing anything worth reading that contains gay characters.
So we must make our own. In abundance.
This leads to that beautiful forth category of fic which contains no actual proof of any type of relationship at all between the characters, least of all sexual. My current favorite pairing is Ron/Snape of which I have written three pieces on and am in the middle of writing two more. Besides animosity of the harsh teacher/poorly behaved student variety, there is nothing to suggest that these two are more then peripherally aware of each other. They both have much bigger fish to fry. Yet, the careful complete construction of this type of pairing to make it believable can produce some of the finest work in fandom.
Along with het and gen ficcers, slashers use the whole crayola box to fill in the black and white sketches so unknowingly bequeathed to us by their creators.
Slashers do them all, including the fourth category of completely nonexistent (so what if Strife never had more then six lines of dialogue together, it's a great pairing). There's also textual homoerotisim, but that's for another rant (though for a great example of this see By Degrees by nortylak a Sweet November fic that's only a thousand times better then the movie).
What motivates the slasher? What gives them the impetuous to take two characters, sometimes seemingly at random, and create stories pairing them together? Short answer: I don't have a fucking clue. The only person I can say for certain is about myself and I was born this way.
That may sound like a cop out, but it's true. When I was in second grade, I told myself stories before I went to sleep. Obsessed with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, most of these stories were fairly innocuous Mary-Sue type things that are only to be expected of an eight year old. Once and a while though, Raphael would get sick and Donatello would take care of him. The pre-sexual version of hurt/comfort fics. I could go on with other examples, but I think that pretty much tells the story.
"You see gay people everywhere." One friend accused as I cracked comments about an episode of All Grown Up, the middle school age version of Rugrats.
Perhaps, I do. Maybe I have a severe psychological problem that skewers my vision and shows me men hot for each other. Sometimes, I am being blatantly ridiculous for the fun of it. But maybe, just maybe, there's more then is dreamed of in your straight philosophy.
Subtext is a tricky business. Anyone with enough time on their hands could read the whole of the bible into a few episodes of Buffy. Yet, I cannot help, but point at Clark and Lex and feel sad for their doomed love.
"Why do you have to ruin it? They have such an amazing friendship." My poor beleaguered friend complains again. (Being a straight male, he is most often the one suffering at the hands of my pink tinted glasses.) He speaks of Frodo and Sam. We are watching the Return of the King for the twenty-eighth time and Frodo is brushing a kiss on Samwise's forehead.
"Lower!" I yelled, prompting aforesaid comment.
Was I ruining it? Was a I dirtying what Tolkien had portrayed as a friendship strong enough to beat out a genocidal evil? And if I was, why?
I can't believe that imagining Sam's comfort stemmed from romantic, even physical love, rather then friendship is enough to ruin it. Rather, it attests to a strength in love that is awe-inspiring. It is one thing to stand by a friend and quite another to stand by a lover. Eowyn, who follows Aragorn into the very heat of battle, is a very different lover then Arwen, who waits passively waits for his victory. If Samwise loved Frodo as something more then just a friend, it only straightens what is between them. The later marriage to Rosie Cotton only speaks to the fact that Sam is a man capable of having more then one great love and that is a fine thing indeed.
But what if I'm wrong? What if I am taking something away from the original text? What is my motive behind this blatant disregard for the author's intentions? Why must everything be gay?
For one, it makes me happy. I like the idea of two men romantically entwined in any type of relationship. From the idealized fluff fics to the dark bdsm that leaves one or both completely devastated, I want my boys together. I choose to blame popular media.
There is a severe lack of interesting gay characters anywhere in popular media. This is only now beginning to change. I may love Queer Eye, but let's face it, it isn't a riveting plot based drama. Will and Grace is a show that contains very little actual gay moments, only some very flamboyant behaviors. Queer as Folk is relegated to a channel one has to pay for to receive. Books fair only slightly better with very few authors in mainstream genres writing anything worth reading that contains gay characters.
So we must make our own. In abundance.
This leads to that beautiful forth category of fic which contains no actual proof of any type of relationship at all between the characters, least of all sexual. My current favorite pairing is Ron/Snape of which I have written three pieces on and am in the middle of writing two more. Besides animosity of the harsh teacher/poorly behaved student variety, there is nothing to suggest that these two are more then peripherally aware of each other. They both have much bigger fish to fry. Yet, the careful complete construction of this type of pairing to make it believable can produce some of the finest work in fandom.
Along with het and gen ficcers, slashers use the whole crayola box to fill in the black and white sketches so unknowingly bequeathed to us by their creators.
