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This is not my meme post for today (I'll do that later today), but posting more has got me in the habit again of thinking about stuff I want to post about. And having a future Dean/Cas post in the works had me thinking about shipping and slash shipping and a thing, so here I go.
See, one of the things that used to appeal to me a lot about old school slash shipping is that it, by its very nature, precluded the particular brand of shipping/fannish nuttiness that is, how does one refer to this....canon wars, I guess? The idea that a slash ship would or could become canon was so far off in the realms of fairy tale land that it just wasn't an issue. And while the slash world had its own brand of drive you batty implosions and wars and 'what the hell are you smoking?' moments, what it didn't have was the intense 'NO MY SHIP WILL BE CANON OR THE WORLD WILL BURN' nonsense that lead to things like full page newspaper ads about implicit promises and creator harassment and detailed manifestos on why a failure to canon was a betrayal against all humanity and puppies. I appreciated it because that shit is annoying and has a tendency to feed on itself into a frenzy that makes you want to bang your head against a wall in the hopes that the eventual concussion will block all memory of it.
But. But. The absence of that particular brand of nuttiness was based in something not that great. That a canon same sex pairing was impossible. And so I find myself, in a weird way, kind of chuffed at the current explosion of MY SHIP WILL BE CANON OR ELSE among the slash world. I mean, it still makes me want to bang my head against a wall until the concussion kicks in. But it's also sort of amazing at the same time.
Not for what it says about the individual ships or their chances at canon (because I don't think they have any chance in hell, sorry Sterek and Destiel shippers, not this time). But for what it says about the newer and incoming wave of fannish kids. That they find the expectation of a same sex pairing on a popular television show to be something that is reasonably within reach. A thing that not only should happen, but could happen. And why shouldn't it be their fave while we're at it. That's...actually quite remarkable.
So yes, they are often ridiculous and histrionic and bratty and entitled and have issues, and lord knows some of the tantruming manages to get kinda homophobic itself (particularly in the exclusion and ignoring of canonically queer characters where they exist). And maybe 'so slash shippers can also participate in my least favorite brand of shipping entitlement' was not exactly on my top ten list of goals for queer representation. But yeah, damned if I'm not kinda secretly grinning a little while my head hits the wall.
See, one of the things that used to appeal to me a lot about old school slash shipping is that it, by its very nature, precluded the particular brand of shipping/fannish nuttiness that is, how does one refer to this....canon wars, I guess? The idea that a slash ship would or could become canon was so far off in the realms of fairy tale land that it just wasn't an issue. And while the slash world had its own brand of drive you batty implosions and wars and 'what the hell are you smoking?' moments, what it didn't have was the intense 'NO MY SHIP WILL BE CANON OR THE WORLD WILL BURN' nonsense that lead to things like full page newspaper ads about implicit promises and creator harassment and detailed manifestos on why a failure to canon was a betrayal against all humanity and puppies. I appreciated it because that shit is annoying and has a tendency to feed on itself into a frenzy that makes you want to bang your head against a wall in the hopes that the eventual concussion will block all memory of it.
But. But. The absence of that particular brand of nuttiness was based in something not that great. That a canon same sex pairing was impossible. And so I find myself, in a weird way, kind of chuffed at the current explosion of MY SHIP WILL BE CANON OR ELSE among the slash world. I mean, it still makes me want to bang my head against a wall until the concussion kicks in. But it's also sort of amazing at the same time.
Not for what it says about the individual ships or their chances at canon (because I don't think they have any chance in hell, sorry Sterek and Destiel shippers, not this time). But for what it says about the newer and incoming wave of fannish kids. That they find the expectation of a same sex pairing on a popular television show to be something that is reasonably within reach. A thing that not only should happen, but could happen. And why shouldn't it be their fave while we're at it. That's...actually quite remarkable.
So yes, they are often ridiculous and histrionic and bratty and entitled and have issues, and lord knows some of the tantruming manages to get kinda homophobic itself (particularly in the exclusion and ignoring of canonically queer characters where they exist). And maybe 'so slash shippers can also participate in my least favorite brand of shipping entitlement' was not exactly on my top ten list of goals for queer representation. But yeah, damned if I'm not kinda secretly grinning a little while my head hits the wall.
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It gives me a headache, but there is a value in the kind of visibility that level of obnoxiousness brings.
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Which sucks because in other contexts I actually find that joke funny as hell (and as a springboard for shippiness, since 'accidentally a couple' is one of my favorite tropes). But when used with two characters of the same sex it 99 percent boils down to not 'this is funny because they are antagonistic/oblivious/other character specific thing about the relationship' but 'this is funny because they are both boys/girls'.
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But then I keep going back to the real obstacle: showrunners and networks might actually have the balls to take a slashy friendship/partnership to the next level if more 20somethings were avid TV viewers, because younger people are more comfortable with homosexuality than older people. But even though everything about the TV industry is aimed at that coveted 18-35 male demographic, and ratings are based on that age group (something I find ridiculous, because shows with 10 million more viewers have lower ratings than those with young-skewing audiences), they're not watching. So, I kind of feel like we're SOL for the foreseeable future, you know? Which sucks.
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I do think we are getting there. But some of the kids are being a wee bit...optimistic about when and with which characters they are going to get it yet. I share their impatience, but not their optimism. And did it have to be shipwars that they chose as the hill to die on? Sometimes I really don't know whether to clap or cry. :D
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Ah, Torchwood fandom. That was a priceless moment.
But anyway, yes, it's a pretty great thing that people are now at the point where hoping for a same-sex relationship is no longer a pie-in-the-sky kind of thing. It'll be even better when more shows actually follow through.
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I particularly like the "mistaken for a couple" trope when they play right along (with het or slash pairings).
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Like, fandom's gone through a lot of pretty fundamental mentality shifts over the years, and this is definitely one of them. In the fandom I grew up in *rockingchair creak*, you 'shipped whatever the hell you wanted regardless of how far-fetched it was canonically because whether it became canon WASN'T THE POINT; fannish shenanigans were understood to be a separate entity from canon. In fandom these days *canethump*, it seems that a lot of people's 'shipping proclivities are kind of dependent upon their expectation that it WILL/MUST HAPPEN, as if the point of having a fannish opinion at all is to have it validated by canon. While I can understand how that evolution happened (hello, social media breaking down the fourth wall!), I find it odd.
Anyway. *nodding at everything you wrote*
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I will never, ever understand this. Even when I have ships that have a shot at canon my first reaction to it happening is a brief cringe and 'oh god, now I can't control how it happens at ALL, what if it goes horribly wrong?'
I'm not entirely sure it's a new thing, though. More widespread, for sure, but a faction of Buffy/Angel fans really did take out a full page ad lambasting Joss for not endgaming their ship back in the day. But, yeah, I think you were more likely to have 'shipping as the thing you did extra canonically, and canon was bonus but not necessary. I am more likely to blame Harry Potter than social media, just because the Harry/Ginny vs. Harry/Hermione wars were the first I saw reach such epic proportions of CANON VALIDATION OR DIE.
regardless of how valid the point about queer representation being a good and needed thing may be, because it's inevitably buried underneath a metric fucktonne of histrionics.
Ahahaha, yes. I can't tell you how many times I have started reading some Destiel meta or other and started out thinking 'You're not wrong' re: queerbaiting etc. or 'Yes, I really would like to discuss a bi!Dean interpretation because I think this show accidentally ended up there and is kinda refusing to look at or deal with it' and then within five minutes I'm going 'OMG SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP, Just. Stop it. Now. Please stop it, because you're just embarassing me and burying every decent point under a sparkly shower of shipper bullshit that is entirely undermining your point and just. Stop.'
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Sterek is REAL.
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*is determined to some day get that duel at dawn with pistols*
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Why would you do that? Danny isn't broken at ALL, in ANY WAY! What is even the point? Danny having a relationship with anybody in this town would only damage him!
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I have an AIM if that counts? Or I could get a skype. I just haven't ever used it!
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i don't know if we're really nearly as close as it sometimes seems to an actual--like, a slash pairing becoming canon, the way the embarrassing and annoying fans carry on about now. i think that's a LONG way off, because that means taking a character not initially established as queer and then changing them. that's a huuuuuge threat to our foundational cultural myths about sexuality and gender, a total phase change. it's still very rare with female characters, especially in the genre shows fandom loves; i honestly can't even remember seeing it happen with a male character on a non-premium-cable show (since Homicide, anyway, so bizarrely ahead of its time even when failing shit up) (also i would welcome corrections and/or recs on this point).
but like, the days when at least a couple shows every season have a queer main/ensemble character who gets to have relationships sometimes? i think those days are just about upon us. and it blows twelve-year-old me's mind.
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TIMMY!!! Yeah, y'know, I remember at the time thinking Timmy coming out could be a sign that maybe a bi dude on the tv could become more acceptable or something. Over ten years later...and still waiting for another one.
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It's the same kind of area as premium cable since it's on Netflix now, but GOB Bluth on Arrested Development fell in love with a man in the new season - and since that's season 4 and he wasn't previously canonically queer (though in hindsight there are obvious hints) it's been astonishing seeing the sheer number of reviews that insist on interpreting the plotline in some way that still makes him straight.
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By the way, I don't know if you saw everything about how Luke on The Sarah Jane Adventures was meant to be gay but the unfortunate end of the series meant we never got to that storyline; well, the scripts got reused for Wizards Versus Aliens, with the super-smart character coming out to his cool popular BFF (who immediately pulls himself together to save the world because his best friend dying without ever having been on a date with a nice boy is unacceptable.) It made me so happy to see that on a children's programme.