~~ Makino: feminist icon.
Jan. 29th, 2005 06:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkaI get the weirdest feeling of... relief, watching my favorite Hana Yori Dango vid (to `With You'), 'cause... this is exactly the breathless sense of... non-gendered power balance I get from the best of slash. You -can- have stories where the girl can totally stand up to the guy without making it be another guy, without making the girl submissive, without making the girl uber-pretty or superhuman.
And it's not that I like slash -because- it's some sort of superior het substitute... but it's weird to realize that really I like (and dislike!) the same things about both. Whether it's het or slash, I dig on the violence... the sense of uncontrolled anger/jealousy/fear/need. It's like... so important, right, that slash is about characters of the same gender... that it's almost forgettable that in the end, it's all about romance stories, and love works the same way with any gender, doesn't it? Emotionally, it adds up to the same emotional pay-off, though... uh, well, the boy-on-boy action thing tips the scale a bit for me, usually. It doesn't matter if I'm really involved with the characters, though-- it doesn't matter what their gender is to how real they are to me. Why should it?
I've heard before that if you had a boy and a girl fighting, you'd have issues of abuse come up, and basically the (female) readers would sympathize with the girl a lot more (or less), or something. But those are traditionalist stories that don't count on the presence of strong female characters which aren't any more conducive to pity than strong male characters. And the fact that a fic is about two boys doesn't mean their roles will be balanced, especially given the huge feminization phenomenon both in fanfiction and shounen-ai. The average writer's approach to power issues doesn't seem all that dependent on the characters' gender at all, actually. It seems more like relationship roles defining gender than the other way around.
I don't think it's a question of misogynism (heh) so much as a prevalent attitude to what romance should be like. There's a cultural norm of a passive, possessed party and an active, possessing party, and it follows beyond gender roles though it clearly originated there. And as much as I dig the boylurve, it actually makes me happier on some level to see a girl who's as strong as the boy, just because it's inspiring, isn't it? This is me, being a girl, and so instead of looking up to superheroes with amazing powers, I look up to girls who don't need a man's help or admiration to move forward. I don't care about misogynistic fic because once one starts looking, one could find it everywhere and anywhere-- what I really bloody want is feminist fiction, and it could be het or slash or femslash.
And it's not that I like slash -because- it's some sort of superior het substitute... but it's weird to realize that really I like (and dislike!) the same things about both. Whether it's het or slash, I dig on the violence... the sense of uncontrolled anger/jealousy/fear/need. It's like... so important, right, that slash is about characters of the same gender... that it's almost forgettable that in the end, it's all about romance stories, and love works the same way with any gender, doesn't it? Emotionally, it adds up to the same emotional pay-off, though... uh, well, the boy-on-boy action thing tips the scale a bit for me, usually. It doesn't matter if I'm really involved with the characters, though-- it doesn't matter what their gender is to how real they are to me. Why should it?
I've heard before that if you had a boy and a girl fighting, you'd have issues of abuse come up, and basically the (female) readers would sympathize with the girl a lot more (or less), or something. But those are traditionalist stories that don't count on the presence of strong female characters which aren't any more conducive to pity than strong male characters. And the fact that a fic is about two boys doesn't mean their roles will be balanced, especially given the huge feminization phenomenon both in fanfiction and shounen-ai. The average writer's approach to power issues doesn't seem all that dependent on the characters' gender at all, actually. It seems more like relationship roles defining gender than the other way around.
I don't think it's a question of misogynism (heh) so much as a prevalent attitude to what romance should be like. There's a cultural norm of a passive, possessed party and an active, possessing party, and it follows beyond gender roles though it clearly originated there. And as much as I dig the boylurve, it actually makes me happier on some level to see a girl who's as strong as the boy, just because it's inspiring, isn't it? This is me, being a girl, and so instead of looking up to superheroes with amazing powers, I look up to girls who don't need a man's help or admiration to move forward. I don't care about misogynistic fic because once one starts looking, one could find it everywhere and anywhere-- what I really bloody want is feminist fiction, and it could be het or slash or femslash.
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Date: 2005-01-30 10:38 pm (UTC)But yes, I remember seeing Orlando ages ago, when I was in High School, I think (...that makes me sound old, doesn't it). It kind of disturbed me, 'cause that seems to be more of a movie about the mutability of identity in general rather than a direct rebellion against gender roles. Like, Orlando was more neutral than either male or female, and there was a sense of... restlessness and melancholia that stays with me after all this time, more than anything. I mean, I'm more going for `Gone With the Wind' (strong women! angst! violence! sort of!) than Orlando, 'cause... eh, I'm not necessarily into the gender-ambiguous or reversed so much as gender-twisted. Does that even make sense? o_0
But yes, Strangers in Paradise! Is one of my favorite comics! :D I've gotten a bit behind, but it's one of the few series I've followed for years now... it's so addictive. And Katchoo is pretty much my idea of the sort of female I want to see oodles and oodles (...and oodles) of :D Though Francine... man. She's gotten better, but she's pretty much your typical girly-girl romance fodder at heart, y'know, though she's gotten jaded :> Poor Freddie, I sort of feel bad for him. ^^;;