[ SECRET POST #2493 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2493 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 019 secrets from Secret Submission Post #356.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I guess if you're serious about trying to fix the problem (however you define it), I'd try actively searching out shows/books/fan-fic where there ARE no white dudes.

Pick a random female character or POC and have a think about them - make up some head-canons, focus on things you like about them, look for things that you can relate to in the way they behave/think.

The biggest defence for fandom's fixation on slash always seems to be that white dudes are inherently more interesting. Women and POC are always underwritten. That may be the case but it doesn't HAVE to be that way in your head-canon or fics.

[(Anonymous)]

The biggest defence for fandom's fixation on slash always seems to be that white dudes are inherently more interesting. Women and POC are always underwritten. That may be the case

That is *not* the case. It's a bullshit copout argument. There are plenty of fascinating female characters and COC if one is only willing to take notice of them.

[(Anonymous)]

DA

Most shows have a majority male cast with male characters mostly in the spot light. If you look shows where there are prominent female characters fandom gives them a lot of attention. The problem is that there aren't a lot of shows like that.

[(Anonymous)]

This is true, although I think there are more shows with prominent female characters than you think. Slash fans are always going to flock to the male-dominated shows, but there's plenty of het dominated fandoms out there.

[(Anonymous)]

I've not found this to be the case the vast majority of the time. Sure, there are some people and smallish fandoms that develop around shows with strong female characters, but they pale in comparison to the fandoms for shows with strong male characters. And even in shows with three main characters, two male and one female, the m/m slash will 9 times out of 10 hugely eclipse either m/f pairing. There are strong, interesting female characters out there; however, fandom as a whole tends to either ignore those shows entirely or ignore the female characters in favor of the male ones.

[(Anonymous)]

DA

I'm not sure what you're saying here. There are a lot of huge het fandoms out there. I don't want to get into an argument about constitutes a "strong female character" exactly, but if you're saying het fandoms are always on the smallish side compared to slash fandoms, I would vehemently disagree.

[astridv]

There are more shows with prominent female characters out there than you think. Some slash fans only don't seem to realize that because they automatically seek out shows that look like this. And then complain there are never any good women and characters of color on tv.

Every single one of my shows has great women. Every one. And I don't look for representation in particular, I just stay away from shows that are advertised like the thing I linked above.

[(Anonymous)]

Nah.

Homestuck proves that uninteresting male characters will still get more shipping fanmaterials than interesting female ones.

[(Anonymous)]

No it's not --

not always, at least.

If someone slashes ALL characters, meaning: protags, recurring guest stars, one-offs, you are right; then the likelihood of bullshit rises by roughly 99%.

But writers like me* who write only for the mains, that is: characters that get actual depth and whose personal stories drive the plot? Then you're shit out of luck for women, characters of color, and queer folks.

Knowing myself that way, these days I seek out shows that actively involve the latter; it works pretty well.

But if watched random tv, well, shit.



* 50% het, 30% slash, 20% femslash, so no grounds for sneering there

[astridv]

The Americans. Continuum. Warehouse 13. Agents of Shield.
These are just the ones I happen to be currently watching and they all fullfil the main-female-character-with-actual-depth-wot-drive-the-plot. W13 is majority female and it looks like they're gonna introduce a gay guy in later seasons, too. Shield has a 50/50 cast.

The argument that male characters have inherently more depth? Yeah, it's bullshit. Does not at all reflect my own tv viewing experience and all I do is stay away from shows that get advertised as yet another white dude epic bromance. Problem soved.

[(Anonymous)]

Original anon:

For the record I think it's bullshit too and slash does nothing for me - but that's the reason/excuse that keeps popping up. And since media is still pretty dominated by white male characters, it sort of feels like a self-perpetuating cycle: the fandom thinks they're the most interesting, the creators get that feed-back and doesn't feel any need to change, the fandom grows up to write their own original fiction and writes more stories about white males, etc...

At the end of the day people are going to like what they like, but the only way it can be combatted (at least as far as I can see) is at least TRY to pour some time and attention on the women and POC characters.

[frith_in_thorns]

The example I always think of here is SGA fandom. People said that there wasn't much fic for either Ronon or Teyla (a POC dude and a POC lady) because they weren't on screen as much as the lead white dudes.

However, one of the most popular ships (apart from McShep) was a second pair of white dudes -- one of whom was a minor recurring character and the other of whom had a grand total of three minutes of screen time one episode and never appeared again. They had like a BAZILLION fics and random mentions of them popping up everywhere.

ETA: Not that there was anything wrong with people shipping Lorne/Parrish! Just that it illustrates that "oh they just aren't on screen enough" really has nothing to do with why some characters/pairings don't get written about.

[(Anonymous)]

Eh. I don't know. Lorne/Parrish was one of those random things like Clint/Coulson, that yes, does happen very very occasionally, but it's far from the norm. In fact I can't think of any other examples besides those two. Most of the major slash pairings that I'm aware of are major character pairings, and other than Lorne/Parrish, I think the shipping contingent for SGA broke down pretty fairly representative of how large of a role the characters had on the show.

[astridv]

In fact I can't think of any other examples besides those two.

Arthur/Eames comes to mind.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh yeah forgot about that one. I was never in that fandom (in fact I've never seen that movie) so it slipped my mind,

[(Anonymous)]

Pacific Rim has Tendo Choi/Yancy Beckett, but Choi isn't white. (Still have no idea where the pairing came from, though.)

[(Anonymous)]

IDK, I kind of agree about Lorne/Parrish but I think that caught on because these two essentially have no characterization in canon, you can write them however you want. Essentially original fic in the guise of fanfic. Where I disagree however, is that Sheyla or Sheppard and Teyla was a pretty large part of fandom back in the day. Of course everything paled next to McShep but that's just a given with a dynamic like they had.

[(Anonymous)]

And John/Ronon also developed quite a following didn't it? Or am I misremembering? It was never McShep size, but I didn't think it exactly qualified as a rare pair either.

[(Anonymous)]

Shex still has a following. Small now but dedicated. :)
The fact that the actors lived together during filming and Momoa was always grabbing and hugging Flanigan didn't hurt.

[(Anonymous)]

While I agree with you to some extent, I can speak from experience that this gets exhausting, quickly. Because you have to create things for a character out of thin air in order to make them "on par", they'll often not end up fitting in right with either the media itself as it progresses (headcanons getting Jossed) or other people's fanon interpretations, and it's a very lonely, isolating feeling. It's frustrating. So if you're looking for a happy fun inclusive fandom experience, you don't actually have that many choices.

[(Anonymous)]

+1