Fiona Moore wrote:
But that is actually what Neil said, just with a slight difference in terminology
OK, I agree with Neil about something. I may have to go lie down for a bit.
As I said, we do have reasonably concrete evidence in that some of the writers and actors *were* actually asked that question, and have responded in the negative.
I know; I included the qualifier out of pedantry, given that I can't claim to know what *everyone* involved was up to.
Interesting! I'd be interested in discussing it further, but that would be getting well off topic.
Well, there is always the spin list; that's the sort of thing it's there for.
Again, I can understand that but still do find it a little surprising (just out of curiosity, and I don't expect an answer if you don't want to give one, but do you live in a small town?).
No; large metropolitan areas, all my life.
The general pattern I've encountered has been that people don't tend to set out to find fandom, but happen across it due to their interest in a programme:
That may well be the most common pattern; it just hasn't been mine. I'm not very social, and I tend to enjoy things on my own.
But in the "is slash canon" discussion, what we were all interested in, on all sides, was that root,
I think the point (or *a* point) where I'm getting confused is that I'm not able to identify one of the two "sides" here. Who is claiming that the characters were *portrayed* as having homosexual inclinations -- as opposed to being *perceived* as having them, by specific viewers? I admit I've heard that argument made once or twice, but it's a rare extreme in my experience. (I except those instances where we *do* have documentary evidence that deliberate hints were being included -- they occur in several fandoms, even if not in this one.) When the average slash fan says that she can "see slash" in the canon, she's usually talking about perception, not deliberate portrayal. She's saying that her perceptions arise from what she saw and heard in the show, rather than being invented independently of it -- *not* that the folks making the show were trying to create that impression. So, I'm not sure where the argument, and the need to go tabulate gestures and expressions, is coming from.
(I know you like Eroica-- are you into anime too? Because if you've seen it, you'll notice that there are visual conventions in anime which look very strange and stylised to us, but which Japanese viewers don't remark on,
No, I'm not into manga/anime fandom; just Eroica. (Western Eroica fandom draws its members from general manga/anime fans, from slash media fans, and a few who find their way in via Led Zeppelin. I'm in the second group.) However, I am aware of numerous stylistic conventions used in manga which can be misleading or baffling to Western fans who aren't familiar with them. And there are also a lot of things which will probably be interpreted differently from the way the Japanese fans see them, simply because of the different cultural backgrounds. We've had quite a few long discussions on the subject over on the Eroica list.
But interestingly, it's one of the ones for which we actually have documentary evidence that the look was intentional and *intended* to convey homosexual interest, given that Scott Fredericks has spoken about it later on, and how it got put into the story.
I know. But I still don't see it myself (and I've tried.) So, it works both ways -- what the folks on the far side of the screen are trying to convey may not get through to the viewer. And the viewer's own mental processes may derive meanings the creators of the material never thought of.
I probably shouldn't belabour this, but it was that clause, not the sentence, that bothered me.
I could probably find dozens of phrases in my own or anybody else's writing which would bother me if they were used in a totally different context; that is the nature of language. Nevertheless, I respond to them in the context where they occur, since that is where I have the best chance of picking up the author's meaning and I am genuinely trying to understand, and to be understood. Twisting someone's words to try to make it appear she was saying, or advocating, something she wasn't is generally a baiting tactic intended to shut down any meaningful exchange, and I don't play that game. If that isn't what you had in mind, fine, but I would appreciate what I say being taken in the context where *I* put it and not in any of the thousands of other contexts where someone, somewhere, might happen to use the same words.
invoking Godwin (which actually bothers me, because it suggests that Nazism cannot be discussed and considered as a historical example,
On-topic references to Nazism as part of an historical discussion are not generally considered to be covered by Godwin; the law is concerned with invidious and off-topic comparisons to Hitler/Nazis used as a baiting tactic. (And before some Usenet pedant gets after me, yes, I *know* Godwin's Law itself doesn't say anything about the discussion ending -- it's one of the numerous corollaries, whose name I forget, which says that once such a comparison has been made, the signal-to-noise ratio of the thread will rapidly approach zero. And yet another corollary which says that such threads will usually divert into (1) an all-out flame war, (2) a discussion of Nazism, or (3) a discussion of Godwin's Law.)
- Lisa
-- Lisa Williams: lcw@dallas.net or lwilliams@raytheon.com Lisa's Video Frame Capture Library: http://framecaplib.com/ From Eroica With Love: http://eroicafans.org/