Shane wrote:

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.

Personally I agree. Explicit artwork crosses my particular boundary for what is acceptable, but that varies for individuals. The way you phrased your original statement sounded as if you were saying some people might draw explicit art precisely _because_ it annoys the actors they dislike, and that's where we disagree.

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."

Annoying, isn't it? :-)

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.

But why on earth should an actor be anything like the characters they play? I'm sure Gary Oldman is a good deal nicer in reality than most of his roles would imply :-) Maybe other people do expect this, maybe I'm the odd one out for completely disassociating actor from character. Anyone?

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.

Again, this is where my personal experience is so different that I can't get my head around it. I have a slash mentality - I read and write the stuff in other fandoms. Yet despite 10 years in B7 fandom, including an early exposure to the concept of slash (indeed my original exposure to the concept of slash), I just do not see slash relationships in B7, even with people giving me all those examples of why they think it is there. Exposure to slash hasn't altered my view of the characters in the slightest, let alone the actors.

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.

People's beliefs as to where the right to privacy starts and finishes vary wildly. If you can accept the religious objections to homosexuality, why can't you accept the different standards that Ashton Press has from your own? Is it purely because of the less tactful way that Annie puts her case?

Louise