Fan Culture @ Swarthmore

So, I have a few thoughts after tonight’s (most excellent) slash video screening that are largely related to the brief discussion we had a couple of weeks ago about the insularity of the slash community, i.e., should/do non-slashers have the right to view slash vids without a proper context/introduction and make what they will of them? (Apologies if I repeat some of the points I already made in my comment on Ariel’s post from awhile ago, but I feel like this topic was incompletely discussed.)

While I appreciate Lauren and Nicole’s close reading of the slash videos, I am not convinced that you need to have a specific, slash-oriented introduction to understand the videos. Eye contact to imply a relationship, the paralleling of violence and sexuality, the conjunction of specific song lyrics with characters and actions–all of these are things that a reasonable critical person could read out of a slash video knowing nothing about slash. Taking intro to film might help, but I don’t think even a “normal” (uncritical) viewer could mistake the meaning of a video like Closer, even if they knew nothing about slash.

To follow up on that, I think that “normal” people can produce slash, even if they are not working within the slash community, per se. I’m a big fan of the nonexclusivity of categories, so I (respectfully) disagree with Lauren’s categorization of “Brokeback to the Future” as being resolutely not a vid. Although I think the point about the different social/artistic traditions vids and parody-trailers come out of was a good one, “Brokeback to the Future” used many of the elements we discussed as being integral to slash-vids–they eye-contact between the characters establishing a relationship, their physical touching, the clever use of material outside of the source (in the other vids, the song lyrics; in this vid, the relationship to the “Brokeback Mountain” trailer)–all of these things scream “VID!” to me. There’s also nothing that indicates that the comedy troupe who produced this video did not have a slasher among them. If that were the case, would that make this a vid? Why can’t it be both a vid and a parody movie trailer, authorship aside (the same way Shakespeare, for example, is both a great classic and pop culture, depending on the tradition from which you read it)?

Finally, my impression about the controversy surrounding non-slashers viewing slash was that the problem wasn’t that non-slashers couldn’t understand the basic content of slash videos (who has a relationship with whom, is that relationship happy/sad/repressed/violent, etc.), but that they understood the videos perfectly well and didn’t like the way the characters were used and/or the way sexuality was expressed (violently, homosexually, for example). I’ve already elaborated my thoughts on this issue below, but to bring up a few that seem especially relevant now: At what point are you a slasher–when do you gain the authority to create a vid, view a vid, show other people how to view a vid? Is it even possible to define this category? Can we really categorically say that the Brokeback to the Future folks can’t interpret vids properly, when they used so many techniques of veteran vidders? Is every vid sacred? Why can’t we (“normal people”)  look at vids that show violence against women and say, That’s not okay? Can only vidders themselves do this (like “Women’s Work”)? What about vids that show pedophilic relationships? Are we assuming that once you’re a “vidder” or part of that community (if we can decide what that means), you interpret these vids in the same way? Or is your opinion okay no matter what it is, just as long as you’re a vidder, and that’s what counts?

hey…. so i’m certain (and hope) people will feel free to talk about whatever they please here – including questions raised at the end about the commercial aspect of porn, and the fine line between accepted forms of pornography and slash… etc. etc.

but i have  a few questions that were sparked by today’s conversation that i guess have been simmering under the surface for some time that i’d like to spew here – and i’d love to hear your thoghts.

first, to build on the point of anthropological representation that bizzy brought up… I know that more frequently today throughout the field of anthropology, scholars are struggling with the “right”/”best” process of representing the Other to minimalize objectification/exotification/etc. – to the point that few scholars have taken the extreme stance that they cannot/should not be allowed to produce works about anyone outside of the group that the anthropologist identifies with… (I can’t remember for the life of me which theorists argue which points but both Jay Ruby (ch 8!) and Terence Turner add compelling insight to the discourse surrounding representation.) ANYWAY – applying this crucial debate to fan productions and slash has raised a series of interesting questions for me:

- do slashers (specifically heterosexual women) even have the right to create this politically charged, self-serving portrayal of homosexuality/homoeroticism (even when readers understand that it is taking place in a fictional realm) when they themselves do not identify with the identities being objectified?

- if so, then do slashers need to be actively engaging in the  political discourse surrounding their practices instead of maybe shying away from them by keeping the mass media and public away?

- do slashers have a political/social responsibility to their queer subject matter? (this reminds me of some of the discussion we had when considering the subversive nature of subcultures… and if fan production isn’t actually a political statement but just pure enjoyment and so on…)

i also worry that by even asking these questions i’m perpetuating something similar to what ariel mentioned when comparing how lesbian porn and men’s consumption of it is not analyzed with critical vigor as slash… but is instead socially acceptable (to a degree) and financially lucrative to boot.

but alas, i am left with this unnerving sense of the denial/ignorance of the potential power of slash if we just leave this paradoxical debate with: “it’s just hott.”