(no subject)

[reenka]

Since I just finished rereading Saika Kunieda's Memory of the Future (prequel to the arguably even better Kaze no Yukue), petronia's yaoi in general vs. the Administration series essay makes me sad. People who read mostly mainstream yaoi still tend to think of it as the land of weepy uber-subby ukes with self-lubricating bottoms and girlish mannerisms. I guess there are always going to be such generalizations-- like 'fantasy is all multivolume dungeons and dragons' (which isn't untrue these days), but... things like Kaze no Yukue are so different and beautiful and I wonder if they're really so rare and hard to find as to be irrelevant to current definitions of what 'yaoi' is like.

I don't think yaoi/BL as a genre still works as "99.5% of the time top/bottom also corresponds to dom/sub, at least on a surface level. (The .5% are clever-clever gender deconstructionists.)" There are too many exceptions now that are more about human stories & not about gender deconstruction at all. More and more mangakas who just want to explore characterization I writing it; Saika Kunieda, Kisaragi Hirotaka, Fujii Mitori, Kano Shiuko, Hinako Takanaga, Bohra Naono, Abe Miyuki, Aoi Kujio, Sakura Haiji, Shiho Sugiura, Shungiku Nakamura, Sumomo Yumeka, Yamada Yugi, Yaya Sakuragi, Touko Kawai, Honjou Rie, Mizukami Shin, Motoni Modoru, Mika Sadahiro, Minase Masara, Konno Keiko-- if you recognize any of these, you know they don't write 'typical' girly ukes and uber-macho semes. They just write good stories, and most of them are kickass artists, too.

When people say 'this is what X field is like', I always wonder just what and why and how they read what they do, 'cause I've yet to hear any soundbyte description of any genre that I know well that's spot-on about the field as -I've- experienced it. Maybe it's that I have the questionable luck of not watching fighting shows in anime; not reading Harlequin-brand books in romance; not reading Loveless, Gravitation, Fake, Bronze or Viewfinder in yaoi; just generally not liking the popular things in H/D fanfiction, etc :P

If you read only Yamane Amano and Youka Nitta, you wouldn't see how they deviate from the meta 'norm' and try to make their ukes interesting & feisty, especially in their better works. It's not all about ironclad roles, or Japanese readers would be bored to tears, wouldn't they? The secret to mass success isn't just a formula; it's a formula that's constantly in flux & development, isn't it?
    Somehow, the constant media article referencing of yaoi 'classics' like Kizuna & Gravitation and such seems ridiculous in current circumstances. Just about 99% of all yaoi I read that's more than a PWP is nothing like Gravitation, even if I see a superficial resemblance in some cliches. If you think the yaoi being scanlated now is like that, you must not be reading the stuff, basically.

Comments

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I realized there's some truth to the description-of-formative-works thing as I read it, I'm just somewhat tired of always seeing the old stereotypes carry on way past their sell-by date in actual media articles and other descriptions of any fandom or genre from the outside. People still refer to H/D fandom by mentioning Cassie Claire and Aja and Ivy's (and slightly more recent but equally stereotypically well-known-- and OOC & unflattering) fics, and still talk about fantasy as the province of Tolkien, etc. I guess it's the 'unflattering' aspect that concerns me.

I realize you must know the norm exists to know about deviations-- like I was saying there myself re: reading Youka Nitta & needing background. However, if you just dig deeper and read -more-, you'd also see a lot more diversity, and if you're like me and just don't read the stupid stuff (even if that means you read nothing), you -will- find stuff to fit your taste just through that filtering, given time. I suppose I think of it as 'my fandom'-- because though I'm aware of the formative works then and now (like, Loveless is current) I just don't seek them out because I know enough about them to know they're full of melodramatic cliches, bottom line.