Gotta love it when I stick my foot in my mouth!
Last night I did an interview with 744 ABC Melbourne about erotic fan fiction.
During the interview with Alan Brough, he asked me about why erotic fan fiction so often pairs two characters of the same gender. What I meant to say was that in most countries, popular culture reveals a general discomfort with homosexuality, and that frank portrayals of homosexuality are not common.
What I said was that “most people in the world are uncomfortable with homosexuality.”
Clearly, these are not the same things.
Yes. Everyone in the world is uncomfortable with homosexuality. Except me, and a lot of other people, and wow, did I not say that correctly. While I was talking live to a whole lot of Australians. Nervousness, I am victim of it.
Seriously, can I communicate my own embarrassment as well as I communicate my alleged homophobia? I feel like I need to apologize to everyone on the planet for sticking my foot in my mouth.
Oh, well. As the lovely Maureen Johnson said at one point, “Own your mistakes. They are yours.” This mistake is all mine and it’s a nice steamy fresh one.
What I was trying to say was that fan fiction is much more open to gay themes between characters while mainstream media in just about every country and ESPECIALLY in the US, which is where a lot of television and movie entertainment* comes from, is not as open to honest portrayals of homosexual relationships or homosexual tension. Gay character storylines get attention merely for being homosexual because homosexuality is still some sort of major “otherdom,” which baffles me as much as the idea that anyone might have a problem with putting a mosque in Manhattan. Exploring gay sexuality frankly on television would gain much more of a parental warning than the one this segment received on ABC Melbourne, whereas heterosexuality is often very naked, and very visible.
*I was specifically asked not to mention Harry Potter if I could avoid it, hence my focus on television and movie fanfic.
But no, as @swegener kindly pointed out on Twitter, that’s a homophone, where what you said meant something completely different from what you meant and sounded homophobic.
Yup, that’s what that was. Clearly this was not my finest moment. I goofed up.
Apart from my ‘Did I really just say that?’ moment, we discussed fan fiction, author reactions to it, and why writers are motivated to create it. I know many writers dislike fanfic; I don’t read a lot of it (I have a lot to read on an average day) but I think it’s fascinating and cool that so many people are inspired by the tension and layers of a set of characters that they craft their own scenes in that world. But then, creativity in any form makes me exceptionally happy.
(Except when I creatively say that everyone is uncomfortable with the gheys.)
Thank you very, very much for you reply, I think I understand better what you were trying to say now 🙂
Wow… Sarah a homophobe… that’s a first!
If it makes you feel better, I read that sentence and didn’t think anything of it at first. I think if I had been listening I would have understood what you meant. You said most people are uncomfortable with homosexuality, because most people are. There are still a lot of very conservative people out there, and even open-minded people who aren’t open minded enough to want gay themes in their entertainment. I don’t think most people would listen to what you said and think you’re homophobic.
My full sympathies on your mouth opening and words falling out that weren’t quite what you wanted. Alas that real life can’t be revised!
Regarding fanfics (since the comments thread has been hijacked)
1) Quality of fanfic. Yes, some of it is bad. This is because fanfic does not require agents or publishers to put out there for readers, just internet access and a computer. While such things as spelling, grammar, punctuation, and a coherent story are wonderful things, not all people who produce fanfics are very skilled with them. there is no requirement to make it past the slush pile. The quality of fanfics is thus highly variable.
2) Some people use fanfics as a way to try to work through various emotional or personal issues under the thin disguise that rather than themself having the problem, it is actually (insert name of character from television/book/movie/comics) who suffers from health issues, relationship woes, emotional trauma, self-destructive behaviors. They write a character dealing with an eating disorder, depression, the death of a relative/friend as a way to try to deal with their own experiences, or to try to understand what someone else they know is suffering. Or to try to deal with their emotions in a safer, healthier manner than bottling them up and/or unloading on the people they know. Because fanfic is cheaper than therapy and lower calorie than chocolate.
3) Some fanfic authors want to become ‘real, published authors.’ But that desire does NOT always mean that your writing ability is quite up to the level needed at that time. The best way to write better is to write – and to get honest commentary about what you need to improve (the most). Fanfic allows rapid commentary, some of which might enable identification of an author’s weak points. It also allows you to go right to practicing your action sequences without having to figure out who these people are or why they’re in a fight – those have been provided by the source material. Or perhaps what you need to improve is dialog – you will have an easy reference to help answer ‘does he/she sound right?’ by comparing your writing to the source – does the character in your story sound like he/she did in the movie?
4) Sometimes, you really want to know how the characters would deal with other things. We know how they dealt with the zombie invasion, but how would they deal with a flat tire, or their girlfriend telling them that the test is positive? Or just what was going on that caused the character to be late/rumpled/out of breath when they arrived to that scene?
5) Or yes, sometimes there’s the reaction of ‘What do you mean she picked HIM?!? Why not the other one, the better one?’ because the romantic triangle is a staple of writing, and there will always be some who think that the other choice might have been a better choice (or a more realistic choice) for that character. Or what if the accident was more/less severe? Had happened at a different time? Or the classic reversal – instead of the bad boy vampire and the spoiled rich girl, we have the badgirl vamp and the spoiled rich guy – how would that change things – would they still have gotten together?
6) I’ve also seen fanfic writers who use fanfic as a way to try to improve their skill with a foreign language. This is sometimes the reason for odd grammar and spelling errors.
Does this mean that I think fanfic is a wonderful thing that everyone should like? Not exactly. I think it’s out there, and it’s not going away. It isn’t a new thing, just an old idea that now has the possibility of rapid and easy sharing – it isn’t whispered around the fire, scribbled in notebooks, or carefully run of on the copier and stapled together.
Not all of the writers for books/television/movies approve – and it’s their right to give the official ‘No’ for their characters.
Most of the fanfic authors do get better over time.
But the thing is, fanfic isn’t just one type of story. There’s romance, there’s horror, there’s mystery/suspense, there’s teen angst. Any kind of genre classification that you could name – there’s probably fanfic of it out there, somewhere. And they don’t have to worry about it being ‘too controversial to put those characters together’ or ‘but our special effects technology/budget won’t let you do that’ or ‘the actor/actress didn’t renew their contract.’
anti-spambot word is federal78 – no, the federal government has 78 things higher on their list to worry about than fanfic. Should be more than that, really…
Must read thanks for the comments and post. Very informative.
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