In this week's issue: a defence of the buddy movie, or, keep your slash out of my fandom; then academic bull on why slash fiction happens. This is not necessarily a topic you want to know my opinions on: please read with an open mind.
The buddy movie, if it counts as a genre, can only be my favourite genre of film. Sub-genre, perhaps. After getting terribly excited about Sherlock Holmes yesterday, I decided to watch my favourite film of all time: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It virtually invented the buddy movie, and this got me thinking about the genre as a whole. In particular, my love of those films,
In general, I don't like slash fiction. I'll discuss that below, but I particularly object to it impinging on my favourite films. I do freely acknowledge the "OMG teh luv squee!!" inherent in the buddy genre (and look at the new Sherlock Holmes screenshot. If that isn't sweet nothings, I don't know what is...) but reject it as over-simplistic. Yes, maybe Frodo and Sam were at it like rabbits every time Tolkien got distracted by a subplot, but that takes away from the relationship its uniqueness and ultimately its meaning. On a case by case basis, I'll consider it - you might be aware that I do have a big gay theory as goes another favourite film, Guns of Navarone, but that is based on fairly solid textual evidence, does not destroy the meaning of the film or relationship and also the fact that Gregory Peck said so. I'll explain it one day.
I think this misses one of the chief points of the buddy movie - it's not the love that dare not speak it's name, it's the love that dare not say anything at all. The buddy movie is characterised by silence - emotion is expressed in what isn't being said, and disguised behind the wit of buddy banter. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid don't have a nice word to say for one another for the entire two hour duration, not a single one. Reading these relationships as gay, prioritising the sexual over the romantic, spoils what makes these special
This doesn't universally apply to slashfic, but it is an interesting observation, and I was reminded of it when rewatching the film last night. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is actually about a love triangle - the two boys, and the object of their mutual affections, Etta Place. The genius of the movie is in its lack of angst, with all three accepting the situation and getting on with it. There is no rivalry, nor any sense of three being a crowd. Etta Place is on one level merely a cover girlfriend - doubtless her role for Hollywood is to prove emphatically that Redford'n'Newman are VERY STRAIGHT. Yet I think she also inhabits a role similar to that of Vaughan's Dressing Table - they spend the film both expressing affection for her which they refuse to express, and indeed cannot express, for one another.
*naturally, I am way above all this, and would never dream anything of the sort...
1 Vaughan's dressing table
Like Butch and Sundance with Etta above, perhaps it is a way of expressing their own attraction to the characters involved. In general, unattractive characters do not get slashed. In other words, it's all for the hottness. I can't help but put most of the Lord of the Rings slash straight into this box, as it has not the slightest textual sense.
2 some sort of feminist thingy-ma-jig
I don't know much about this area, but maybe it's the concept of two guys being equally vulnerable that appeals more than explicit het-fic, where the female character would be in a subordinate position. Laura Mulvey would have things to say about this - maybe it's a reaction against male control, albeit a subconscious one? In writing gay pairings, perhaps it's a way for women to explore sexuality in a very safe area, in which they (as women) are not involved? Instead, they are in control, and give the male characters more classically feminine attributes - tenderness, emotion, etc. Or something along these lines - as I said, I'm no expert in the academia, and don't know the lingo. But I'm positive there is a great argument here, even if I am not expressing it very well.
3 Eroticism
Kissing isn't hot any more, and the media is working on sex too. Kissing happens in public, daytime TV, most movies. In the 1950s, screen kisses positively smouldered, and it was precicely because of their rarity, their implicit naughtiness. Our modern morals are doubtless better than all this repression in real life, and yet it's damaging to fiction. It's the adult equivalent of the child wanting the cookies from the tin he has been denied - we all know unattainability, forbidden love, hidden desire is automatically sexier than when it is easy. Rightly or wrongly, homosexuality is not universally accepted, nor is it as often encountered in daily life. This does have the unintended effect of gifting the concept with a level of attraction at the same time it condemns it as wrong. Again, I'm sure there's a study somewhere to back me up. This is a different approach to idea 1 - it's basically just hot. Katy Perry, curses be upon her and her irritating song, has proved that point adequately.
I realised this watching an all-male company performing Romeo and Juliet. Even ignoring the fact he was the best Juliet I have ever seen, when it came to the kisses you could feel the audience's anticiption ripple like static across the room. That would not have happened for a "normal" production or a "normal" kiss without some very intense effort from the actors.
4 the drama! the angst!
The platonic sister of point number 3. Romeo and Juliet has long established that romances are more romantic when there's a barrier to the characters getting together. Thus the forbidden love aspect above takes on a narrative function.
5 - for the fnersI've been discussing serious slash so far, but there's also the other side I haven't touched on - people who do it purely for the giggles. I'm not sure there's much academia to be had here, except that people find gay sex funny.
6 - lack of well developed female characters
Well, this is what wikipedia suggests - and in a sense, this ties back into the buddy movie theory above. Male characters are invariably better drawn than female ones, so it is easily more satisfying to explore their feelings and emotions, which are invariably deeper and more complex. In a romance context, it's better to have two (male) thinking human beings, than one man and one (female) cardboard cutout. Similarly, relationships between male characters will be based on something deeper than a studio head saying "why can't we have a romance subplot?", then manufacturing a weak character to fall in love with. They will inevitably have more substance to them, and thus be more interesting to explore.
An example of this would be The A-Team. Now I know the characterisation on that show is hardly very deep. But what there is exists between the four members of the team - their history, their rivalries and friendships. Not with audience identification figure, Amy Adams, who was added to the show because the studio wanted a female character. I wonder what for? So you'd think that it would focus on the interesting dynamics. But oh no, they keep dumping Amy and Face together hoping that y'know because they're both young (unlike Hannibal), and both hot, and neither is black (B.A.) or crazy (Murdoch) they'll just go ahead and fall in love. No other reasoning required. It's like tring to make pandas mate in captivity...
Apparerently the Lucas corp. has attempted to put its foot down on slashfic. This just makes me laugh. It's counterculture. What's the point of a cease and desist?! Who is going to pay any attention? I'm even more amused by Anne Rice objecting to slashfiction based on her books, considering that Interview with a Vampire is, well...on the other hand, Joss Wheadon is a hero for deliberately encouraging the slash fans and dropping hints in his scripts. The man's a genius. RTD was basically writing slash fiction by the time he reached the end of Season 3 finale, which was hilarious as he strictly is a jumped up fan who happens to be in charge of canon. He did confirm what had been obvious for years, although smartly trod a neat line where fans could read whatever they liked into his script. Ms Rice? Mr Lucus? Don't hate your fans! They are buying your merchandise! They are paying you money!
Anyway. Apologies to anyone disturbed or alarmed by that trip through the dark continent. Iam vale, quod Latina me vocat.
The buddy movie, if it counts as a genre, can only be my favourite genre of film. Sub-genre, perhaps. After getting terribly excited about Sherlock Holmes yesterday, I decided to watch my favourite film of all time: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It virtually invented the buddy movie, and this got me thinking about the genre as a whole. In particular, my love of those films,
my awareness of the slash scene and how to reconcile the two.
In general, I don't like slash fiction. I'll discuss that below, but I particularly object to it impinging on my favourite films. I do freely acknowledge the "OMG teh luv squee!!" inherent in the buddy genre (and look at the new Sherlock Holmes screenshot. If that isn't sweet nothings, I don't know what is...) but reject it as over-simplistic. Yes, maybe Frodo and Sam were at it like rabbits every time Tolkien got distracted by a subplot, but that takes away from the relationship its uniqueness and ultimately its meaning. On a case by case basis, I'll consider it - you might be aware that I do have a big gay theory as goes another favourite film, Guns of Navarone, but that is based on fairly solid textual evidence, does not destroy the meaning of the film or relationship and also the fact that Gregory Peck said so. I'll explain it one day.
I think this misses one of the chief points of the buddy movie - it's not the love that dare not speak it's name, it's the love that dare not say anything at all. The buddy movie is characterised by silence - emotion is expressed in what isn't being said, and disguised behind the wit of buddy banter. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid don't have a nice word to say for one another for the entire two hour duration, not a single one. Reading these relationships as gay, prioritising the sexual over the romantic, spoils what makes these special
There is certainly a counter argument that all buddy movies are about gay guys in denial, and this applies particularly to those set in i.e. the Victorian era, when people were far less informed not to mention open about these things. Alternately, its all happening off screen. Furthermore, is "the buddy movie" not just another example of the corporate media normalising and excluding homosexuality by trying to pretend it doesn't exist? "Oh, they are only very good friends!"
I was thinking in terms of Vaughan's Dressing Table. The term was used in an essay about Alias fandom, in particular shipping, in particular femmeslash. I can't remember it all, but this single concept stayed with me. Vaughan is the male lead in the show, and through a ruthlessly confusing series of events he ends up married - but not to the lead femalem leading to angst and tension. The wife and the girlfriend get slashed, naturally enough, but these stories are characterised by Vaughan's absence. It'll be in Vaughan's bedroom, surrounded by his posessions - they are expressing their love for him in love for one another. In other words, it is still all about him.
This doesn't universally apply to slashfic, but it is an interesting observation, and I was reminded of it when rewatching the film last night. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is actually about a love triangle - the two boys, and the object of their mutual affections, Etta Place. The genius of the movie is in its lack of angst, with all three accepting the situation and getting on with it. There is no rivalry, nor any sense of three being a crowd. Etta Place is on one level merely a cover girlfriend - doubtless her role for Hollywood is to prove emphatically that Redford'n'Newman are VERY STRAIGHT. Yet I think she also inhabits a role similar to that of Vaughan's Dressing Table - they spend the film both expressing affection for her which they refuse to express, and indeed cannot express, for one another.
Well, that's my excuse anyway. I'm not going to deny the other approach exists - buddy movie as closet love story - and I think there are cases where that works. I don't buy it for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid however. While it's easy to go gigglesnortgaycowboys, anyone actually viewing the film would find it very hard to construct an argument - they are clearly "in love" in several important senses, but not all of them. Though doubtless people have tried.
Furthermore, I see the fner fner reaction to the buddy movie as a different sort of Hollywood assault. I haven't done a study, but to my mind sheer platonic adoration is also overlooked as a subject of fiction except in the buddy genre. In the rom com, the gay best friend can be overlooked because he is not a sexual threat. The concept that he may be an emotional one is not taken into account. Name me a romance which doesn't involve the promise of fantastic sex? Name me an action movie love subplot which doesn't focus on the extreme masculinity of its hero, and the scantily-clad-ness of its heroine? There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this - I think art should represent everything - but its importance is overemphasised. There are other approaches, and this focus on physical attraction ultimately cheapens a lot of Hollywood romance movies. Our lead stars are both hot - therefore they find one another hot - therefore they can fall in love! No more character development required...
It results in bad films, and were that all maybe it could be forgiven. But it filters into real life, too. Movies are our teachers: they instruct us about life, love, people, manners, morals. Maybe not consciously, but the ideas do seep in. Yesterday I identified my dislike of romance movies rested in the lack of violence - this is undeniably correct - but I also hate them for the unrealism, an unrealism dangerous because it pretends to show "real life" in familiar settings. How can I ever hope to find my Rick Blaine, my Alec Harvey, my Mr Darcy? They are a balance of the best in men and women - both rugged and "manly", but also sensitive and refined. Rough, but also polite. And always very hot. Cinema teaches us that true love exists, that we should wait for "the one", that a man can be all these things and more. Actually, the poor creatures are only human. And it goes for women in movies too. Films are an oppertunity for escapism only in equal measure to the level they make us dissatisfied with our realistic lot. And by demanding of these perfect cut-out boys and girls that they also experiecence physical attraction first and foremost, they ask us also to look for conventionally attractive partners and dismiss the conventionally ugly.
The buddy movie has to establish love without sex. Which I'm sure is the worst nightmare of much of humantiy, but it nevertheless gives filmmakers a better chance to explore aspects of romance easily overlooked when there's the promise/threat of a good screw in the second act. My conception of love, which you can argue is on very thin basis, is that it is not a single idea or act, and for success it should work on as many levels as possible. Pure emotional attraction exists, as does the purely physical - neither is more valuable than the other. But both aspects together is stronger than either individually - then add into that intellectual attraction, and then the willingness to discuss tax returns and argue with your partner about stupid mundane things, and you are stronger. My point is, making homosexual what was intended as homoerotic you lose the buddy movie's raison d'etre: an undistracted exploration of the platonic elements of love.
I do think slash fiction deserves some serious academic study, however, and I've started to gather together a few ideas on why it exists. Why does a huge group of (generally) female fans* feel the need to write gay romances for canon characters? I don't really know enough about, i.e. fandom studies, porn studies, feminism, to do it properly, but here are a few ideas I've had:
*naturally, I am way above all this, and would never dream anything of the sort...
1 Vaughan's dressing table
Like Butch and Sundance with Etta above, perhaps it is a way of expressing their own attraction to the characters involved. In general, unattractive characters do not get slashed. In other words, it's all for the hottness. I can't help but put most of the Lord of the Rings slash straight into this box, as it has not the slightest textual sense.
2 some sort of feminist thingy-ma-jig
I don't know much about this area, but maybe it's the concept of two guys being equally vulnerable that appeals more than explicit het-fic, where the female character would be in a subordinate position. Laura Mulvey would have things to say about this - maybe it's a reaction against male control, albeit a subconscious one? In writing gay pairings, perhaps it's a way for women to explore sexuality in a very safe area, in which they (as women) are not involved? Instead, they are in control, and give the male characters more classically feminine attributes - tenderness, emotion, etc. Or something along these lines - as I said, I'm no expert in the academia, and don't know the lingo. But I'm positive there is a great argument here, even if I am not expressing it very well.
3 Eroticism
Kissing isn't hot any more, and the media is working on sex too. Kissing happens in public, daytime TV, most movies. In the 1950s, screen kisses positively smouldered, and it was precicely because of their rarity, their implicit naughtiness. Our modern morals are doubtless better than all this repression in real life, and yet it's damaging to fiction. It's the adult equivalent of the child wanting the cookies from the tin he has been denied - we all know unattainability, forbidden love, hidden desire is automatically sexier than when it is easy. Rightly or wrongly, homosexuality is not universally accepted, nor is it as often encountered in daily life. This does have the unintended effect of gifting the concept with a level of attraction at the same time it condemns it as wrong. Again, I'm sure there's a study somewhere to back me up. This is a different approach to idea 1 - it's basically just hot. Katy Perry, curses be upon her and her irritating song, has proved that point adequately.
I realised this watching an all-male company performing Romeo and Juliet. Even ignoring the fact he was the best Juliet I have ever seen, when it came to the kisses you could feel the audience's anticiption ripple like static across the room. That would not have happened for a "normal" production or a "normal" kiss without some very intense effort from the actors.
4 the drama! the angst!
The platonic sister of point number 3. Romeo and Juliet has long established that romances are more romantic when there's a barrier to the characters getting together. Thus the forbidden love aspect above takes on a narrative function.
5 - for the fnersI've been discussing serious slash so far, but there's also the other side I haven't touched on - people who do it purely for the giggles. I'm not sure there's much academia to be had here, except that people find gay sex funny.
6 - lack of well developed female characters
Well, this is what wikipedia suggests - and in a sense, this ties back into the buddy movie theory above. Male characters are invariably better drawn than female ones, so it is easily more satisfying to explore their feelings and emotions, which are invariably deeper and more complex. In a romance context, it's better to have two (male) thinking human beings, than one man and one (female) cardboard cutout. Similarly, relationships between male characters will be based on something deeper than a studio head saying "why can't we have a romance subplot?", then manufacturing a weak character to fall in love with. They will inevitably have more substance to them, and thus be more interesting to explore.
An example of this would be The A-Team. Now I know the characterisation on that show is hardly very deep. But what there is exists between the four members of the team - their history, their rivalries and friendships. Not with audience identification figure, Amy Adams, who was added to the show because the studio wanted a female character. I wonder what for? So you'd think that it would focus on the interesting dynamics. But oh no, they keep dumping Amy and Face together hoping that y'know because they're both young (unlike Hannibal), and both hot, and neither is black (B.A.) or crazy (Murdoch) they'll just go ahead and fall in love. No other reasoning required. It's like tring to make pandas mate in captivity...
Apparerently the Lucas corp. has attempted to put its foot down on slashfic. This just makes me laugh. It's counterculture. What's the point of a cease and desist?! Who is going to pay any attention? I'm even more amused by Anne Rice objecting to slashfiction based on her books, considering that Interview with a Vampire is, well...on the other hand, Joss Wheadon is a hero for deliberately encouraging the slash fans and dropping hints in his scripts. The man's a genius. RTD was basically writing slash fiction by the time he reached the end of Season 3 finale, which was hilarious as he strictly is a jumped up fan who happens to be in charge of canon. He did confirm what had been obvious for years, although smartly trod a neat line where fans could read whatever they liked into his script. Ms Rice? Mr Lucus? Don't hate your fans! They are buying your merchandise! They are paying you money!
Anyway. Apologies to anyone disturbed or alarmed by that trip through the dark continent. Iam vale, quod Latina me vocat.
Comments (3)
Excellent, excellent essay. Agree with a lot of what you have to say - and can definitely add more. Later. :)
(Rersolym, mingst.)
Male bonding is a difficult concept to get across without smirking. There is a shared interest (car collectors) or a shared cause (war, hunt, exploration etc)or shared situation (mines a pint). Most men are however in competition (my car collection is better), in a hierachy (army) or are jostling to establish a hierachy (men meeting at party trying to work out who earns most). There is much verbal fencing, and abuse, amongst the closest of straight male friends. This stops friendship becoming too gay, it is a sparring process which may establish a hierarchy or makes clear that all this competition is just for fun and we don't have to fight to the death.
Calypso - I am all a quiver with anticip.................ation.
Mingst - descriptive of a wannabie emo, desperately trying to be Byronically melancholy, but actually coming across as just a bit lame. Context: "he was mingsting in the corner"
Rersolym - half-elven tracker from the woods of Solace. His real name is Rerasonaxychvalym, but he abbreviates it to make it easier for humankind to pronounce.
No 2 - interesting addition. I've got the funniest mental image, now, of businessmen at a swish party, preparing to bash one another to death...