Annie says:
> >Tavia writes:
> >
> ><< For anyone still unconvinced about the volume of work
> >involved in zine editing, I noticed just now that my 'zine'
> >e-mail folder now contains precisely 666 messages...>>>
>
>
> >LOL. Give Buffy a call, Tavia. Maybe she and the Scooby Gang can help you
> >out. Or the Ghostbusters! (Ah, another fandom I have loved... I suppose
> >there's something strange about liking Venkman as …
[View More]played by Bill Murray,
> >but there you are. I have eclectic tastes.)
Ah, more material for Ashton Press... somewhere out there there's zines full
of Scooby Gang orgies and pictures of Bill Murray being shagged by the
Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. Just what their respective fandoms need, I don't
think. That use of the past tense is also interesting.
Shane
"I don't like an unsolved mystery." --Avon
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Annie writes:
> >Mistral writes:
> >
> ><< Well, not meaning to offend, but I am genuinely puzzled - do you not
> >find there to be a difference between saying an _action_ is wrong, and
> >saying a _person_ or group of people is sick? Because every time this
> >sort of issue comes up, it just floors me.>>>>
>
> >No, I do not see any difference because homosexuals *are* a group of
> >people. A group that I happen to belong to.
…
[View More]
This is what they call playing the gay card. But you're avoiding the issue
here. You _did_ call a group of people sick, you know, so whatever anybody
else said, you're no better, or more able to take the moral high ground,
than they are.
> >In fact, when you insult
> >homosexuals you are insulting someone's very being. The way they live.
Why then, Annie, are you producing all this unrepresentative m/m porn?
It is only lesbians who have feelings? Also, why don't you have any regard
for the feelings of the actors whose images you exploit? Is it because
they're straight?
> >The person they chose to live with and love. The way they think. It's a
whole
> >heck of a lot more than just a religion you've just insulted (because, of
> >course, homosexuals come in all kinds of religions, too).
Religion and sexuality can both be as big or as small a part of your life as
you make them. Being gay can be your whole life, as for Peter Tatchell-- or
it can be a relatively small part of it, as for Stephen Fry. The same, I'm
sure, for religious believers; their beliefs can be their job, hobby and
circle of friends, or it can be something they do on Sunday mornings. If
it's important enough to you, religion also affects who you live with and
who you love, and the way you think. So really, whether your sexuality is
more important than your religion depends on who you are.
> >And do you not see that calling someone's "morals" into question because
of
> >who they choose to love and spend their life with is the *same thing* as
> >calling them sick or depraved or perverse (all words that have been used
> >hereabouts, I believe)?
Yes, these words have been used - by you, if I recall correctly, and to
describe people who have done you no worse harm than discuss a topic you
don't like. Who was it who keeps telling certain of us "if you don't like
it, don't read it?" She should take some of her own medicine.
> >I've tried to make my point with a bit of a sledgehammer
And this is somehow a new tactic?
> >and for that I
> >apologise.
Good God! A first!
To be fair, I did not pinpoint Christians. I pointed at *any*
> >religion that equates massacres as being on the same par sin-wise with
> >sexual behaviour as "sick."
Leah did, though. Are you disowning her comments then? Is this a rift
between
you two?
> >I'm sorry if folks here disagree with that but I
> >do believe it to be true just as deeply as some of you guys believe in
> >whatever religion you happen to practice.
Do you know, I'm beginning to think that you're either very deluded, or mad.
Shane
"I never take anything on trust" -- Avon
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Louise wrote:
> >Shane wrote:
> >
> > >What "love" can there be in
> > >drawing someone you dislike? But then, if you are drawing someone you
> > >dislike in a situation you know "that certain someone" would find
grossly
> > >distasteful, well, "love" is one thing we are certainly not talking
> >about..
> >
> > >What if you then go on to distribute these images? What do we have
then?
> >If
> > >it's not for …
[View More]money, and it's not for love, what does that leave?
> >Malicious
> > >glee perhaps, hatred even, revenge, possibly.
>
> >I think you're being a little harsh here. People are perfectly capable of
> >separating an actor from the characters played by that actor. I can watch
> >The Great Escape and like the Steve McQueen character despite the fact
that
> >I probably wouldn't have liked Steve McQueen at all, had I met him,
because
> >of his tendency towards domestic violence. I have no problem
understanding
> >how someone could love a character and dislike the actor who created that
> >character.
But if you wrote a slash story featuring Steve McQueen's character from The
Great Escape being raped and tortured by Nazi guards, and then drew some
lurid
artwork to accompany it, you would have to be using Steve McQueen's
likeness, because he, after all, played the character (whatever his name
was -- Hilt, Hicks, something). If Steve McQueen then found out about the
artwork, and he then expressed to you that he found the pictures of what is
in effect identifiably him in such a situation grossly offensive, then it
would be rather
unkind of you to ignore his pleas and instead continue to produce and
distribute said offensive artwork.
This is made even more acute in a small fandom like B7's where the actors
are
so largely involved with fans. Actors still do interviews, convention
appearances,
even fan audiotapes; this is certainly something Star Trek actors can't
involve themselves in. The actors have been very supportive and very kind.
Is it too much to ask that we show a little bit of kindness back?
I don't think you can really separate actor and the characters they play
(Usually for many actors, just a variation on the same theme) anyway,
because, having never met Steve McQueen, we have no idea what he was really
like; therefore all we have to go by is what we see of his screen work. It's
interesting that neither you or I could recall the name of the character he
played in "The Great Escape," and that we refer to him as "Steve McQueen's
character" rather than by name or as "the blond American one with the nice
muscles." Many
people have stated in the past that on meeting a particular actor they were
surprised by the fact that they were nothing at all like the character they
played on screen. The fact is people will see the two as the same
until more direct information (meeting the actor, say) comes about, and even
after that, the two images will coexist in the minds of many people.
Some actors in B7 are very strongly associated with the parts they played.
If you do a drawing of Actor X shagging Actor Y, then inevitably the
connection is going to be made. If you do enough drawings, over a long
enough period, and distribute widely enough, then eventually you are going
to
change people's perceptions of how the character, and eventually the actor,
is
seen. Hence the person I was telling you about who now believes that the
Professionals was about a homosexual couple played by two real-life gays.
If the admirable Julia Jones can see this, and has a no-explicit-artwork
policy
for her slashzines, why doesn't Ashton Press do the same? Answer: They
don't give a toss what the actor feels. They have no respect at all for
these people. Unless I see evidence to the contrary, I am going to take this
as read.
If anyone would like to post to me, offlist, details of this mysterious
"schism" that took place all those years ago, I would be very grateful, and
then perhaps we can get to the root of what's is going on here.
Shane
"Neat Job" -- Avon
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On Wed, 28 Mar 2001 08:03:33 EST Bizarro7(a)aol.com writes:
> In a message dated 3/27/01 10:58:39 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> rilliara(a)juno.com writes:
and Crusade gets
> cancelled
> after . . . . Oops, I mean B7.>>
>
> Don't break my heart! I adored Crusade. The characters really grew
> on me and
> I thought the X-FILES take-off episode was the funniest thing since
> Fawlty
> Towers.
I was thinking of the reasons Crusade got cancelled, JMS _not_ …
[View More]wanting to
turn it into another fight a week, special effects instead of plot type
show.
Ellynne
________________________________________________________________
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Neil said: "Making a profit I consider grossly unethical. If a small profit
goes into subsidising production of further zines, then fair enough."
Does that include spending the money down the pub so you can get ideas for more
stories?
--
cheers
Steve Rogerson
http://homepages.poptel.org.uk/steve.rogerson
Redemption 03, 21-23 February 2003, Ashford, Kent
The 25th Anniversary Blake's 7 Convention
The 10th Anniversary Babylon 5 Convention
http://www.smof.com/redemption
In a message dated Wed, 28 Mar 2001 6:12:16 PM Eastern Standard Time, Tavia <tavia(a)btinternet.com> writes:
<< For anyone still unconvinced about the volume of work
involved in zine editing, I noticed just now that my 'zine'
e-mail folder now contains precisely 666 messages...>>>
LOL. Give Buffy a call, Tavia. Maybe she and the Scooby Gang can help you out. Or the Ghostbusters! (Ah, another fandom I have loved... I suppose there's something strange about liking …
[View More]Venkman as played by Bill Murray, but there you are. I have eclectic tastes.)
Annie
[View Less]
For anyone still unconvinced about the volume of work
involved in zine editing, I noticed just now that my 'zine'
e-mail folder now contains precisely 666 messages...
Tavia
I agree almost totally with Fiona's comments on the radio shows, however, being
badly written and acted does not influence whether they are canon or not,
otherwise you could select which of the TV episodes you didn't want in canon.
The discussion at Redemption asked the question if the radio plays were canon or
bull. A clear majority regarded them as both, in other words they were canon
despite not being very good and having a number of flaws and discontinuities.
--
cheers
Steve Rogerson
http:…
[View More]//homepages.poptel.org.uk/steve.rogerson
Redemption 03, 21-23 February 2003, Ashford, Kent
The 25th Anniversary Blake's 7 Convention
The 10th Anniversary Babylon 5 Convention
http://www.smof.com/redemption
[View Less]
I had a lot of work to catch up on this week, so I confess I simply dumped
the entire contents of my email box into 'delete' for the past week. While
chopping away at the end-of-month work backlog, however, a notion kept
returning that I thought would make grist for discussion here.
I'm genuinely curious to know if BLAKES 7 would have been done very
differently, if it appeared on the BBC now, rather than in the 70's. I
suppose the answers to this question would be relevant if the show is …
[View More]ever
revived, however many years later in the B7 timeline, but still--would it
have been cast similarly? Would the demographic of the crew be the same?
Anyone have any notions on the idea?
Leah
[View Less]
Julia wrote:
> >
> >Shane Little writes:
> > >This decision of yours is interesting. From the sound of it, you're
> > >basically ghettoising _all_ stories about gay relationships into slash
> > >zines, and I would like to ask you why you do this. There were gay
> > >characters in the programme, so it can't be out of respect for the
canon;
> > >since you yourself are involved in a same-sex relationship, it can't be
> >out
> > …
[View More]>of a belief that all fiction involving gays should be kept on the
X-rated
> > >shelf. Apparently it's just down to sales, and again I'd like more
> >evidence
> > >that it _would_ harm sales-- the people who wouldn't buy the zine might
> >be
> > >compensated for by the Jane Carnalls of the world: the people who don't
> > >object to fiction about gays, but do object to explicit sex.
> > >
Julia Jones writes:
> >Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
> >
> >You've been complaining that straight women are writing about gay men
> >without the least idea of what it's like to be a gay man. Now you're
> >writing about zine editors without displaying any evidence that you have
> >the least idea what it's like to be a zine editor.
I was involved in the production of a number of Doctor Who zines in the mid
80's and early to mid nineties, so I have quite a bit of experience. I don't
make comments about things I know nothing about, and if you've been reading
my posts, then you should know that, Julia :-).
> >Anthology zine editing is a hobby. It's an expensive hobby. Sales *are*
> >important, because the more copies you can sell, the more chance you
> >have of covering a reasonable proportion of the costs involved in
> >putting a zine together. There are fixed costs involved in doing a zine,
> >as well as the per-copy costs, and they can be pretty high for an
> >anthology zine. Profits? Forget them.
That wasn't the case with the zines I was involved with; in fact it was
impossible *not* to make a profit, which was a bit of a problem because
fanzines by their nature have to be non-profit making, or else you are
infringing copyright.
> >at least in this fandom.
I'm sure that is your experience, but Ashton Press have their fingers in
many fandoms, not just B7. Ever wondered why? Especially when you consider
that Annie or Leah have repeatedly failed to demonstrate any real interest
whatsoever in what B7 was about, and in fact have demonstrated a clear
dislike for some of the main actors involved. Needs investigation, I feel.
> >In the
> >unlikely event that someone actually covers *all* the costs, and then
> >some, the pay per hour rate is going to make third world wages look
> >munificent. There are easier ways of making money.
That's your experience, but again if Annie and Leah have shown little interest in
B7, then what is motivating them?
> >The experience of editors down the years is that there *are* objections,
> >and resulting loss of sales, to mixed zines. From both camps. It's not
> >just the loss of sales, either, it's having to deal with the bitching
> >from people who think that the merest hint that two men (or two women)
> >could have a sexual interest in each other turns it into a filthy
> >pornographic rag; and at the other extreme, the people bitching about
> >having to pay for this boring gen stuff when all they want is the
> >action. Or the ones who want only slash and gen, none of that horrid het
> >(no, I am not exaggerating, I've had the dealer's table experience of
> >people wanting me to tell them how much space was wasted on het before
> >they decided to buy a zine).
But then that's the price you pay when dealing with a controversial subject.
I know that compromises have to be made, but the end result is still
ghettoisation.
> >Personally, I'm somewhat bemused by the belief that amateur gynaecology
> >and explicit violence are just fine in a genzine but a passing mention
> >of homosexuality is slash and only to be sold to the over-eighteens, but
> >sticking to that market division is one way for an editor to reduce her
> >stress level.
Unfortunately, you also compromise yourself. Another problem which
I've experienced in my involvement with zine producing, and I'm sure you have also, is that most fanfic is very
badly written :-). Not good when dealing with a controversial subject like
sexual politics.
Shane
"I'm going to bed, father" -- Dayna
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