[JUST SAY NO to pink wallpaper]
Mar. 30th, 2006 01:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkaThinking about the wank on 'Danny' (the, um, self-published 'cult favorite' gay incest book or whatever), and specifically this post about what the fans liked about it (because their comm is usually used to bitch, it seems)-- I actually started thinking about HP slash fandom. Heh. Especially this:
As I said on my own LJ, it's a bit more difficult to ennumerate what one likes about the book because the whole seems to be so much more than the sum of its parts (this probably explains why we all find it so much easier to discuss the things about the book that bother us)
Anyway, yeah. I was thinking that the thing that gets lost in the shuffle (somehow! I don't know how! BUT IT DOES) isn't 'the squee'... exactly. Actually, I wanted to define 'Teh Squee'. It's like 'Teh Gay' except... bigger. Better. Pornier!! I don't know, but it's just...
It's sitting around and laughing your arse off with your friends because of some really lame joke + ogling Teh Pretteh combo, and making really lame geeky references, and there's this beautiful mix of obvious self-mockery (because we're all such -geeks-) and euphoria because the things we come up with are so lame and funny and obviously absolutely brilliant beyond all imagination.
...But like, not in a 'seriously, no, this is fucked up' sort of way-- this is important. When you're in the 'squee zone', even Teh Mock is all... like... loving. Or giggling. Or just sort of delirious with silliness and boysex, boysex EVERYWHERE. Because if the bad vibes were serious, mockery wouldn't make you giggle-- groan, maybe, or smirk, or laugh in a huffy way, but not giggle. And giggling is VERY IMPORTANT, because it stops you from becoming fossilized in fandom-- like, when things aren't 'yaye', bits fall off. Important bits. The bits that give a damn, at least for me.
I think my happiest fannish experiences, and everything I dislike about negativity or lameness and character-bashing comes down to this: my biggest pleasure involves being hugely lame (with friends who're being equally lame) rather than-- I dunno, sitting around and focusing on the lameness that is not cute (that is, that is actually just kind of sad and badly-written). I mean, I think it's rather enjoyable to analyze, but when it's not gleeful poking but rather bitter fixating, I dunno-- somehow it's not funny anymore. It's like the difference between Gay Emo Angst and... depressing music in a dentist's office. With PINK WALLPAPER. EVERYWHERE.
And then I started thinking about the part where the person said a lot of the actual attraction in the book was the same as the reason people turn to slash: violent or hurt/comfortey sex "between men who are handsome, rugged and straight-acting". And I'm not even gonna touch that one with a ten-foot pole -.-;;
~~
PS. Did any of you know Diana L. Paxton = Marion Zimmer Bradley??! HOLY BATMAN.
(Well, this makes more sense if you knew I reallyreally loved the former & never saw anything all that great about the latter.)
As I said on my own LJ, it's a bit more difficult to ennumerate what one likes about the book because the whole seems to be so much more than the sum of its parts (this probably explains why we all find it so much easier to discuss the things about the book that bother us)
Anyway, yeah. I was thinking that the thing that gets lost in the shuffle (somehow! I don't know how! BUT IT DOES) isn't 'the squee'... exactly. Actually, I wanted to define 'Teh Squee'. It's like 'Teh Gay' except... bigger. Better. Pornier!! I don't know, but it's just...
It's sitting around and laughing your arse off with your friends because of some really lame joke + ogling Teh Pretteh combo, and making really lame geeky references, and there's this beautiful mix of obvious self-mockery (because we're all such -geeks-) and euphoria because the things we come up with are so lame and funny and obviously absolutely brilliant beyond all imagination.
...But like, not in a 'seriously, no, this is fucked up' sort of way-- this is important. When you're in the 'squee zone', even Teh Mock is all... like... loving. Or giggling. Or just sort of delirious with silliness and boysex, boysex EVERYWHERE. Because if the bad vibes were serious, mockery wouldn't make you giggle-- groan, maybe, or smirk, or laugh in a huffy way, but not giggle. And giggling is VERY IMPORTANT, because it stops you from becoming fossilized in fandom-- like, when things aren't 'yaye', bits fall off. Important bits. The bits that give a damn, at least for me.
I think my happiest fannish experiences, and everything I dislike about negativity or lameness and character-bashing comes down to this: my biggest pleasure involves being hugely lame (with friends who're being equally lame) rather than-- I dunno, sitting around and focusing on the lameness that is not cute (that is, that is actually just kind of sad and badly-written). I mean, I think it's rather enjoyable to analyze, but when it's not gleeful poking but rather bitter fixating, I dunno-- somehow it's not funny anymore. It's like the difference between Gay Emo Angst and... depressing music in a dentist's office. With PINK WALLPAPER. EVERYWHERE.
And then I started thinking about the part where the person said a lot of the actual attraction in the book was the same as the reason people turn to slash: violent or hurt/comfortey sex "between men who are handsome, rugged and straight-acting". And I'm not even gonna touch that one with a ten-foot pole -.-;;
~~
PS. Did any of you know Diana L. Paxton = Marion Zimmer Bradley??! HOLY BATMAN.
(Well, this makes more sense if you knew I reallyreally loved the former & never saw anything all that great about the latter.)
