snowynight (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
snowynight) wrote2011-05-08 02:58 pm
snowynight) wrote2011-05-08 02:58 pm
Entry tags:
Where 're the femslash little black dress
Some anecdotes
I love Sherlock Holmes, so I can't resist the lure of the 2009 Sherlock Holmes film. It has Mary and Irene in a greater role than in the book, but the movie's never about them, never told in their POV. They pretty much respond to the action. I return from the cinema with a vague thought that I would like a gun-swinging Mary partnered with Irene in a steampunk Victorian London, but I don't really get the characters enough. Because the movie doesn't give me this.
When I watch the earlier season of Stargate: Atlantis, there are only two female favourite characters. They are shown as friends, and the fandom pretty much pair them as the spare. Later in the season there were more female characters introduced and filmed interaction between Teyla and them. While the amount of fic produced is not much as far as I know, Teyla launched several ships, Teyla/Kate, Teyla/Keller, Teyla/Sam. While the canon is not good enough, it at least gives a starting point to write and passes the Bechdel's test in some episodes.
My hypothesis about the lack of femslash little black dress is thus:
There're just not enough female characters. Even nowadays a show can be without one female major character. Supernatural, for example is a big offender.
When there are finally some, the writers often screw up on the female characters. The stories are often not about them, the story not told in their POV, they often go without agency or sacrificed for some dramatic effect. These combined don't encourage fans of female characters. When the show finally pass Bechdel's Test, there are usually no multiple female relationships, not to mention multiple female friendships.
And when there are such examples, people don't know about it.
In conclusion, with the current trend, we're less likely to see femslash little black dress.
I love Sherlock Holmes, so I can't resist the lure of the 2009 Sherlock Holmes film. It has Mary and Irene in a greater role than in the book, but the movie's never about them, never told in their POV. They pretty much respond to the action. I return from the cinema with a vague thought that I would like a gun-swinging Mary partnered with Irene in a steampunk Victorian London, but I don't really get the characters enough. Because the movie doesn't give me this.
When I watch the earlier season of Stargate: Atlantis, there are only two female favourite characters. They are shown as friends, and the fandom pretty much pair them as the spare. Later in the season there were more female characters introduced and filmed interaction between Teyla and them. While the amount of fic produced is not much as far as I know, Teyla launched several ships, Teyla/Kate, Teyla/Keller, Teyla/Sam. While the canon is not good enough, it at least gives a starting point to write and passes the Bechdel's test in some episodes.
My hypothesis about the lack of femslash little black dress is thus:
There're just not enough female characters. Even nowadays a show can be without one female major character. Supernatural, for example is a big offender.
When there are finally some, the writers often screw up on the female characters. The stories are often not about them, the story not told in their POV, they often go without agency or sacrificed for some dramatic effect. These combined don't encourage fans of female characters. When the show finally pass Bechdel's Test, there are usually no multiple female relationships, not to mention multiple female friendships.
And when there are such examples, people don't know about it.
In conclusion, with the current trend, we're less likely to see femslash little black dress.
no subject
... come to think of it, (tame, PG-13-rated) sex scenes are also easier to write when I'm not cowriting them with my significant other, which just adds a whole extra layer of "ack, no, this is too embarassing! I can't describe a sex act to her and then have her describe the character's reactions and the subsequent sex act to me and then type it up and post it on the internet! That's practically like having phone sex and then letting my flist read a transcript of it!"
That doesn't really affect writing all the parts of ship fic that aren't sex scenes, though. There, I just have a bad case of OTP-fixation.