Slash Theory

Well, so I was thinking of putting off writing about this but trinityofone is doing a paper on slash (she needs help and she has interesting and different survey questions...) and she's doing it from a totally sympathetic viewpoint and that's just COOL yo.

So, my thoughts on why I slash (and it is a multi-part reason, this is just one of many) has recently dovetailed with fannish thoughts on gender in SGA and thoughts on Feminist representation of the female body in visual language and I wrote this paper where I'd addressed slash sideways, with some realizations that I'd come to over the course of a month of discussions here and there, online and off.

I'd wanted to post this as meta on LJ, but I'd written it out mostly for a class assignment and was wincing at translating into LJ-speak 'cause I haven't the time right now, but I ended up doing it anyways. ::shrugs::

But, long story short:

1) Male coding of Female bodies = pervasive, entrenched, and historic

2) Male codes Female body as The Other

a) The Other heavily features fears the Male has about himself, his role in life, what he is trying *not* to be, what he denys knowing about himself, and what he *doesn't* know about himself

b) Because the Male codes the Female body as The Other, the Male is constantly positioning the Female body relative to himself in *representational* media.

i) media = plural medium

ii) this includes various forms of visual arts such as painting and sculpture, some forms of literature and even some forms of dance.

c) Because the Male POV is so very pervasive in our culture, (ex. Fandom and Male Privilege by cereta), in mainstream media the Female body is constantly representing aspects of the Male

3) That last point is important so let me restate: The mainstream media normally codes Female bodies as fe-MALE.

a) This means that Female bodies are constantly, in mainstream media, posed in relation to the the Male body. As non-independant of Male.

b) Restated: The most media represents Female bodies as indivisible from and dependant on Male bodies. ("dependant" is here used in terms of math termionology rather than it's sociological meaning; ie. it's a variable "dependant" on the whims of another variable)

4) Because the Male POV is so pervasive, even feminist representations of the Female body becomes problematic.

a) Manichean dichotomy: where, no matter how good the qualities one might possess, if one is on the negative dichotomy the end balance will still be negative.

i) Example:
Men are logical, Women are illogical. But also! Men are intuitive, Women are mechanical and cold.
Logical = mechanical, except not. Illogical = intuitive, except not.
End result? Women get the short end of the stick no matter their representation.

ii) Example: The token female on a all male cast.

iii) Example: If Men Had Periods

b) Seeing the female body in a certain way has become so entrenched in our society that visual depictions of the female body, even if attempted to be displayed in a progressive manner, is STILL on display = is still objectified.

5) Simultaneous displacement of the female onto the male body and the male body onto the female (ie. a f/m reversal of m/f) is STILL PROBLEMATIC. (see 4a)

a) Their interactions will still be loaded with gendered power dynamics.

b) On the surface level, there's no visual change from the usual m/f. ie. Situation Normal

6) ...But what if one displaced the Female onto the male body, and have them interact with other male bodies?

a) ...like with Slash!

b) ...and to a lesser extent (reason why with link forthcoming perhaps), yaoi.

c) ...and perhaps explaining the popularity of Will and Grace, Oz, and Queer As Folk, amoung women? (a statistically significant portion of the audience, via viewer surveys, to people's great surprise)

Comments? Discussion?

(note: I WILL answer every comment to this post, I just can't do it today for OMGPAPERDUE reasons. _{I hate finals week. hateithateithateit...})


In other news I'm giving in and making SGA my default icon. (Holy shit, I sorta feel like I changed my username...)


Also?

World AIDS Day: http://www.lighttounite.com/

Light a "candle" on the their map and they'll donate $1 to charity for you.