Blakes7 March 2001

blakes7@lists.lysator.liu.se

96 participants
1067 discussions

Re: [B7L] Gender and fanfic
by Tavia 26 Mar '01

26 Mar '01

Neil wrote: >Some people at least with a genuine relish for adventure >find that they neither need nor want relationships, since no >relationship could ever make the heart beat fast enough. >For those people, some things really are better than sex. >Those that try to juggle both ends often find that >excitement and adventure wins out. There again, many such find that an adventure shared is an adventure quadrupled (some of us met our Other Halves whilst cutting steps up snow-slopes on a 3500-metre peak in mid-winter...). And whilst I'd agree that, say, rock-climbing is more exciting than sex, I don't know of many people who climb all night: post-adventure, they might like to come back to warm bath, dinner and bed. >Whether or not Avon is one of them is nothing more >than a matter of personal preference. Or Season. Avon in S1 strikes me as risk averse... 'I think I shall contain my enthusiasm here in the warm.' (in 'Project Avalon'), while Avon in S2 seems to have acquired a taste for killing first evidenced in that 'Next, please' in 'Shadow'. Tavia

1 0

Idle cat speculations (was reasons)
by J MacQueen 26 Mar '01

26 Mar '01

>From: Lisa Williams <lcw(a)dallas.net> >(Being a well-balanced cat, she also eats gen, not to mention a wide >variety of other literature, plus occasional sewing patterns and cardboard >boxes.) <smile> It is, of course, not a real cat, but a bookworm disguised as one. Or it could be a cat with no need to eat it's own words, and so is forced to consume other people's! Regards Joanne (who had something in common with this cat when she was much younger) _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

1 0

Re: [B7L] Re: Use of image
by Shane Little 26 Mar '01

26 Mar '01

Dana said: > Shane said: > > >Why do you continually equate Blakes' 7 with soaps and > > boybands? > Because audience reception is important to the study of any > media production. Yes, but the audience of a boyband and of Blakes' 7 are different, and receive each in different ways. The sole aim of a boyband is to appeal to the lusts of teenage girls (boys too, but that seems to be a sideline :)) and get them to part with money for CDs, posters, concerts etc. While some people may watch Blakes' 7 for the tight leather trousers alone, I very much doubt that this was its producers' sole aim, and a lot of people do watch it for the ideas, the dialogue, the characterisation, the shoot-em-up bits. The demographic of Blakes' 7 fandom has also changed over the years, and this is also interesting. > > There are a number of strong female roles in Blakes 7. Servalan, Cally, > > Dayna, Jenna etc... > There are a lot of underwritten roles for women who look good in > tight jumpsuits. I hope you're not referring to Servalan, Cally, Dayna and Jenna by that statement-- they do a lot more than look good in jumpsuits. Especially Servalan (jumpsuits? Her? _Dah_ling, _please_!). > > This still doesn't answer the question of why the relationship is a gay > one. > > There are relationships between all the lead characters on B7. Why Avon > and > > Blake? Why not Blake and Jenna, Cally and Avon... or Avon and Anna (who, > in > > case you've forgotten, _were_ lovers)? > Read enough fanfic, and you'll find stories about any mathematically > factorable > combination of characters (I was going to say any imaginable combination, > but there are more than that). Yes, which still makes me wonder why the gay version is seen to be the dominant one (whether or not it in fact is). > > Again, why? Why do women, in your opinion, find it difficult to identify > > with Jenna or Cally? > Because the scripts give them so little background and so little to do I don't think that's true. As for the background, can't you always invent some? The less you're constrained by background, the more you can make up... > > I wasn't talking about gay sexuality; in fact, more people than just me > have > > pointed out that slash has very little to do with actual homosexuality at > > all (including yourself, I might add). I was talking about frustrated fans > > of > > whatever gender, fixated on an actor of whatever gender, which, even if it > > doesn't harm the actor, can hurt the fixated fan and his/her family > > emotionally. Obsession isn't pretty, as I'm sure you know. > This isn't very relevant to writing about fictional characters. This came in when Leah brought the conversation off on a tangent about sexual obsession with actors, so yes, it is a side point (or a red herring). But it can be relevant because if we're talking about fanfic as an outlet for unrequited lust, it can (I repeat, it _can_, not that it inevitably will) fuel that obsession. > > Oh, so most fans don't think sex addiction needs to be treated before it > > turns violent? Excuse me, I think I'm in the wrong hobby here. > Assuming that there really is something called sex addiction (as distinct > from general poor judgment leading to dysfunctional behavior) and that > it can be predicted who will turn violent and that there are effective modes > of treatment, sure. Now, what does this have to do with whether my next > story is about Avon pushing Travis over a cliff, Avon and Travis making love > in the jacuzzi of the Fanficcea Hilton, or Servalan opening a charity > bazaar? Nothing at all. Shane "One more death should do it" --Avon Who needs Cupid? Matchmaker.com is the place to meet somebody. FREE Two-week Trial Membership at http://www.matchmaker.com/home?rs=200015

5 8

RE: [B7L] reasons
by Tavia 26 Mar '01

26 Mar '01

Shane wrote: >But if they're presenting two characters in a gay relationship, >then they_are_ writing about my lifestyle. I'm a gay man in a >gay relationship. Hmm. This might sound pretty strange coming from a straight woman who's never had a gay relationship in all her [cough] years ... but I know a lot of gay men, both in and not in gay relationships, and there is no 'lifestyle' that they all follow. In fact, a more diverse bunch of people living in a more diverse bunch of ways could hardly be imagined. >I'm sure Neil Faulkner and the other gen writers out there are delighted to >hear that their writing is boring, as compared to a PWP. As one of those who has muttered about genzines appearing boring in the past, what I personally often find boring about gen writing is the lack of *potential* for sexual expression. Sometimes I feel as if there's a little censor cutting things out. However, I was talking recently with Una about an ideal B7 zine -- you know, the one containing all one's lifetime favourite stories -- and it struck me that most of mine would comprise gen stories. There's a lot of good ones out there, and one or two of them were written by a certain Mr Faulkner. It is certainly possible to like excellent fiction on an axis orthogonal to slash--het--gen demarcations (although I agree that if one feels slash perverts the characters then one is unlikely to like a slash story). Tavia

1 0

Clocks and calendars turning back... (was reasons)
by J MacQueen 26 Mar '01

26 Mar '01

>From: "Dana Shilling" <dshilling(a)worldnet.att.net> >Slash--part of this complete breakfast! Eating breakfast at the moment, actually, and not finding certain elements very nourishing. My desk calendar says March, but someone must be playing about with time in ways other than just Daylight Saving. It is almost April, isn't it? Meanwhile, I'll go back to picking the equivalent of dried fruit out of my breakfast e-mail portion. Regards Joanne _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

1 0

Re: [B7L] Homophobia
by Ashton7＠aol.com 26 Mar '01

26 Mar '01

In a message dated 3/26/01 6:40:09 AM Eastern Standard Time, kat(a)foobox.net writes: << I don't read it. But are you going to demand that I never participate in discussion, a discussion I was *asked* to participate in? Neil asked me a question. I answered it. Are you going to demand that Neil shut up too? >> I never demanded that you (or Neil or anyone) "shut up." I simply pointed out that your comments were taken as an insult against my personal lifestyle choices. I believe several others agreed that it was an insult. I don't think you (or many other Christians on this list) would like it if I aired my personal views on Christianity and how adding any hint of it to B7 characters would be "twisting" them or committing "character assassination" against them. As someone else pointed out, the B7 universe was canonically non-Christian in nature (in fact, we don't know that they practiced any religion whatsoever). Trying to apply Christian morality to the show IS twisting it. Why don't you try putting the shoe on the other foot and think about how YOU might feel. If you can. Annie

2 1

Re: [B7L] Homophobia
by Tavia 26 Mar '01

26 Mar '01

Shane wrote: >You might want to go back and read what Mistral (I think) >said about how if you're using Netscape, your browser >opens offensive posts before you've had a chance to delete them... Sounds to me like an argument for acquiring a better browser/mail program, or perhaps a greater ability to configure it. >and you might want to consider that newbies to fandom often get slash >presented to them as the 'thing to do' in fandom before they know the >other side... Certainly the first fanfic I ever saw (by doing a bland B7 web search) was some fairly explicit m/m slash, which *surprised* me quite a bit. Despite years and years of being a closet B7 fan, I'd never considered a slash reading of any of the characters. It just so happened that I liked it, but I can see that not necessarily being the case. One of the most cogent arguments I've ever seen against slash (which I came across on Kathryn's site) is that merely by seeing a slash interpretation of one's favourite characters, one's opinion is changed permanently. If slash disgusts one, then one's enjoyment might be spoiled. On the other hand, if one likes slash, then one's enjoyment might be enhanced. Either way, there's no going back. >or that again, people have been known to buy slash zines without knowing >what they are, or find a slash story in a mixed zine... in short, there's >a lot of ways for people who don't want to read slash to come across it. All the zine editors I know of have some pretty carefully worded warning text at the front of their zines and on all their promotional material which uses the word 'homosexual' rather than 'slash'. I guess it is incumbent upon the editors of mixed zines to be particularly careful -- not that there are that many of us around. (Are there any others? asks she, glancing round...) Tavia

2 1

Re: [B7L] Homophobia
by Tavia 26 Mar '01

26 Mar '01

I used to be a Christian; indeed for several years I was deeply mixed up in a fairly extreme fundamentalist charismatic church. They took the Bible completely literally. The things I personally found hard to come to terms with were their treatment of women (heads covered in church, obey husband in marriage, male-only church elders), science (as a biologist, I got asked more than once to lecture on the arguments against evolution), education (secular universities are the seat of the devil) and wealth (God will provide, therefore savings/pensions/insurance are evil). Compared with this, fidelity in marriage and chastity outside it were relatively trivial. For this reason, I now find it hard to understand why Christians tend to focus on sexual morality. Mistral wrote about the lack of idolatry in contemporary society.... well, that was not the view of this church. Education, money, television... you name it, they could sermonise on its idolatrous influences. Ob B7: well, I've often wondered why the Federation abolished religion when it would be so easy to institutionalise it to keep people in their place. Tavia

3 2

Re: [B7L] Homophobia
by Ellynne G. 26 Mar '01

26 Mar '01

On Sun, 25 Mar 2001 15:14:09 +0100 Jacqueline Thijsen <jacqueline.lyst(a)jthijsen.demon.nl> writes: > It's been rearing its ugly head again, and what makes it worse is > that it's > been brought up by people I used to like and respect. > > Please stop it. > For the record, I don't have any uncontrollable fears of homosexuality. It exists and it happens. I also, last time I checked, strongly believe in the civil rights of all human beings and I'm not suggesting anyone be treated as less than a person for any reason. I'm also willing to fight for a person's right to be treated with respect regardless. Yes, I also happen to disapprove of sex outside of marriage. I'm a conservatively religious person. The fact can be assumed in the absense of evidence to the contrary. I also would say that desires are one thing but we have choices how to act on them. I would also say that the choices we make are important in this life. They determine our happiness, if nothing else. I'm also 1) not really expecting anyone to agree with me and 2) agreeing with you that this is probably not the place to discuss it. Actually, it seems to be one of those issues that _can't_ be discussed these days. I mean besides the fact that taking certain positions on it openly is not approved. To be on one side or the other is to accept certain ethical ideas that seem to speak foriegn languages. I don't think any of us know how to discuss them anymore, if we ever did. Ellynne ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.

6 7

Re: Homophobia
by Bizarro7＠aol.com 26 Mar '01

26 Mar '01

In a message dated 3/26/01 3:21:12 AM Eastern Standard Time, avonsgirl(a)yahoo.com.au writes: << What sincerely rankles is the term homophobia being applied in this context: I, myself, am not the slightest bit homophobic but I object to slash in the B7 universe simply because this type of relationship was not a part of the B7 story(with possible notable exceptions to a couple of one off characters)I do believe that this is what Kathryn meant by character assassination - taking her outlook as a personal insult instead of airing your own views on the subject is what brings a possible discussion on this matter to a screaming halt. >> To draw a direct parallel in the hopes of understanding, let's say you are a devoutly religious Catholic, and you choose to write B7 stories with the viewpoint that your belief is shared by some of the fictional members of the LIBERATOR crew. They aren't bible thumpers, but you write fanfic where, in the privacy of their own quarters, they exercize their spirituality. You enjoy this, because it helps you to identify more closely with these favorite characters, or because you find it entertaining....despite the fact that no such belief was shown on the show. How would you feel if some vocal non-Catholics leaped in and declared your fanfic category 'invalid', or worse yet, distasteful and a twisting of the characters...even an assassination of them? Would you be just a wee bit insulted, if only because your *own* lifestyle had just been belittled? Even if it were only just your taste, those individuals are not showing you respect, as a fellow fan. And that's one thing everyone owes everyone on a fannish mailing list. Yes, they are entitled to their taste...to the same degree and limitations that you are. Empathy is the only way a society can function, no matter how small. Leah

2 1

Jump to page:

2025

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

Blakes7 March 2001