(no subject)

[labellementeuse]

I am avoiding wanking in heroes_tv by posting here before I start getting bitchy and overly-formal over there. (Getting over-formal is particularly bad because I always manage to screw up grammar or spelling, and that really fucks with my snobby tone.) X livejournal user posted there announcing the creation of a community for gay Heroes fans. I saw it, kind of shrugged, and skipped past because I'm not actively participating in the Heroes fandom, I just don't have the energy right now. This morning I saw a post in the same comm by the same user wondering why people think it's weird for them to create a space for gay Heroes fans when there are about eight zillion Heroes fancomms out there and plenty of them are very narrowly focused (pairing comms, etc.) In the comments to both these posts I see a whole bunch of people basically saying the same thing:

         I'm not going to stop you or flame your for creating this community,
         but I don't get why you think it's necessary. Can't we all
         perve on hot folks and post slashfic in the same comms?

OK, now, while Heroes fandom is presumably (considering the predominance of slashfic) highly queer friendly - I certainly feel as safe there as I do anywhere else in fandom - I don't feel like I particularly need a safe space to talk about perving on Ali Larter, that's for sure, and would feel no concerns about posting pictures of any Heroes gal to daily_heroes. But okay, seriously, folks, SERIOUSLY, maybe part of the problem is that YOU THINK WHAT GAY FANS REALLY WANT TO DO IS TALK ABOUT HOT PEOPLE AND POST SLASHFIC. holy fucking shit. There are OTHER reasons, GOOD ones, for having a community for LGBTQ fans in any fandom. These are, among MANY, meeting other gay heroes fans (yes, I know, weird, some gay people wanna meet other gay people with interests in common! Just like some women want to meet other women who like writing and reading about Mohinder and Sylar doing it!) ; talking about the show from a gay perspective, which, shit, guys, is not just OMG I AM A BOY AND I THINK NATHAN IS SOOOO HOT. It might be talking about Zach, though. Or it might not be.

But seriously. Do these people even hear what they sound like? Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh.

ETA: OK, I caved and started commenting, but nobody's biting. I think I'm being too tactful. HEY. FLAME ME. I am bored and want entertainment!

probably I could get people to flame me if I commented framing the discussion like this:

Gay Fanperson: HAY GUYS, I made a community for gay heroes fans! Because sometimes gay people want to talk about things!
Straight (and some gay) Fanpeople: WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, that is SO UNNECESSARY, we LOVE gay people here and YOU CAN JUST TALK ABOUT YOUR GAY STUFF HERE. By the way, by "gay stuff" we mean "hot people and slash."
Gay Fanperson: Um, OK! It's nice that gay people are welcome here but isn't it OK for a gay person to create a comm for gay fans?
Straight Fanpeople: ARE YOU CALLING US HOMOPHOBES????
Gay Fanperson: I am now!

ETA: Okay, dammit, they deleted the post. *sigh* I guess I'll have to go to class today after all.

Comments

[sennical.livejournal.com]

Heh. See, I'm simply bemoaning the lack of good genfic because I don't strongly ship any Heroes characters together, het or slash.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm totally not invested in shipping in this fandom. Actually, I'm not even all that interested in fic in this fandom, I'm way more interested in discussion. *shrug*

[sennical.livejournal.com]

Pretty much all I do is read the fandom newsletter, because when you're making as patent an effort to remain unspoiled as I am, it's a lot easier just to avoid the communities. I mean, I don't even watch the previews at the end of the episodes (this also has a lot to do with the fact they they are really fucking stupid and cheesy, but anyway).

Tangentially, I've been telling my brother all season that he should watch the show, and he's sort of been like "yeah, I might catch up over the summer" and then he texted me last Friday all "THEY'RE SHOWING A MARATHON ON SCIFI AND I'M TOTALLY ADDICTED" and I was so very proud and amused. XD

[miriamus.livejournal.com]

Kind of annoying, I think, when people's only concept of fandom is shipping. Especially irritating in band fandom... very little talk about the music, or among some people even about individual members. Just lots and lots of pairing-fic.
I'm finding it in the dr who communities I'm in too. Everyone's a Doctor/Rose shipper. Which is nice because they were cute together, but why get so worked up about Martha? She's just a new companion, not the end of the world. Can't we enjoy the show's characters for who they are instead of who they're with?


(That said the first time I saw the Madame de Pompadour episode in series 2 it made me kind of angry... lol)

[usagiko.livejournal.com]

Christ, what a douche. BANHAMMER!

[gianp.livejournal.com]

Yuck. Homosexuality is disgusting and wrong. I'm glad they are keeping it out of public LJ communities!!!!!!!!111111oneoneoneoneoneoneeleven.

[disturbed-kiwi.livejournal.com]

All I have to say is:
Ali LaArter hell yeah. *drools*

[amarynth.livejournal.com]

Here's a question: Would a straight fan community be OK too?

[gianp.livejournal.com]

Hetero-normalisation means that any community which isn't explicitly gay is straight by default. If someone were to choose to expressly limit their community to straight people, then it would be odd, but not unprecendented. After all, we have an institution like that... it's called the Catholic Church!

[amarynth.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and lots of people don't like the Catholic church for precisely that reason. They'd presumably object to a straight only community too.

[gianp.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what your point you are trying to make.

People always hate being excluded from anything. Those who are discriminated against tend to hate discrimination in any form. I very much doubt that a "gay" community would stop a straight person from joining and participating, provided that the participation was still within the intent and spirit of the community. An explicitly exclusionary organisation, on the other hand, would not be very likely to allow a straight person to join and/or participate.

The reason why a gay community might exist is that there is a sub-cultural assumption which is not shared by the general populace. I can't see that a "straight" community would have purpose except being exclusionary. It's not like it exists to offer a different sub-cultural perspective (one shared by its members), because the "straight" perspective is the default and dominant perspective. If someone were to raise an objection to some hypothetical "straight" community, I can only imagine that it would be on those grounds. Such a group could only exist for the express purpose of excluding gay members from a sexual-orientation-neutral group, whereas a gay group could exist with a primary purpose of offering a different perspective which is member-centric, where those members happen to be predominantly gay. The lack of a straight membership would point to a lack of interest or shared experience, rather than a deliberate exclusion tactic.

It's the same reason why most universities have a Women's rights officer, and not a Men's rights officer. Offering the dominant perspective (that of straight white middle class males) is redundant and unhelpful. If you disagree that western society operates in a means that is primarily beneficial to straight white middle class males, then I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

[amarynth.livejournal.com]

The point I'm trying to make is that saying that one group - in this instance, the Catholic church - practices an exclusionary policy doesn't mean that the exclusionary policy is acceptable to any particular individual, particularly when it's a group as controversial as the Catholic church.

It's true that a straight community doesn't offer a different sub-cultural perspective, because as you rightly point out, the majority of people in every society I can think of are straight. But it can offer a different cultural perspective, because there are some aspects of straight life that gay people don't share, most notably having sex with members of the opposite gender.

And for the record, no I don't think that western society isn't dominated by the wealthy. Can I have a 'Socialism Rules OK?' badge?