Blakes7 March 2001

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1067 discussions

Re: [B7L] reasons
by Fiona Moore 27 Mar '01

27 Mar '01

>From: Harriet Monkhouse <hflysator(a)jarriere.demon.co.uk> >Re what Lisa calls: > >the whole interminable business. > >(and I agree with most of what she said) > >I have been thinking on this interminable business as I stared out my >insomnia, and have come to the conclusion that it is not actually >impossible for Fiona and me to discuss it (which is why I have said very >little), because our mindsets are completely alien to one another. Because of this, I was in two minds over whether to answer this post. I'm trepidatiously going ahead though, with the proviso that I'm just trying to clarify my position here, not to beat you over the head with it. > It >is not merely a question of how we interpret the series, it is a >question of how we think it can be interpreted. Fiona, as far as I can >make out, believes that an objective viewing of Blake's 7 is not merely >possible, but easily defined, and can be separated from interpretations >built upon it. I'd challenge that "easily"-- neither Betty nor I found it at all easy to stick to the canon :). I also, I have to say, do actually believe that it is impossible to separate the show from the context of its creation, just as it is impossible to separate the viewer from the social context in which they view it. However, that having been said, I think it is possible for the sake of an intellectual argument to confine one's evidence to a particular body of work and, even though one may have had contact with other bodies of work, to leave those out of the discussion. When one starts writing an essay or scientific paper, one generally starts with an opinion or even a gut feeling. However, in order for the paper to be taken seriously, the writer has to provide evidence to support this feeling, from an agreed-upon body of material. If the writer can't, they might then modify their initial premise in the light of the evidence out there. >I can't even imagine such a possibility, and therefore >perceive every account as interpretation influenced by the individual >viewer. All the things which she sees as evidence mounting up to proof >(eg comments of writers and actors, individual gay people, fans in >general), Actually I used those more on side threads than in the main argument, and to support the evidence from canon. But even in a case where there can be no "absolute" proof, you can still provide the balance of evidence. IIRC we can't actually prove the existence of evolution in the way that one can prove that 2+2=4, but most biologists still seem to accept it as a theory. > I see as interesting pieces of information to sift through and >accept as enriching my interpretation - or reject as not. That doesn't >mean that anyone else should pick and choose the same pieces of >information, because I regard all interpretations as subjective. But sometimes the picking and choosing can be more justifiable than others. For instance, at the moment I'm reading through some historical material on Germany, and I'm doing exactly what you say-- I'm sifting through the material and accepting some of it and rejecting other bits. However, I'm not simply doing this from a personal, subjective basis. Albert Speer, for instance, swears blind in his books that he had no idea about the death camps. I find Speer an excellent, sympathetic and on the whole accurate writer, and so I'd like to accept what he says as true. However, I'm also aware of independent documentary and anecdotal evidence that Speer *did* know about the camps (not to mention of a number of reasons why he might lie in his books), and so, even though I desperately wish that I could make it so that Speer didn't know about the camps, I have to accept that the balance of evidence suggests that he did, and I also have to reconcile this with the fact that I find him an admirable human being in several other areas of his life. So yes, you're right. We do go through life accepting some bits of evidence and rejecting others. But as we do this, we have to justify this, and often our own personal views and wishes aren't enough justification. >Consequently, I am often baffled by attempts to "prove" an argument. I >read such debates in order to sift through other people's ideas and see >what I'd like to add to my account. But it begins to seem that in some >cases it's impossible to discuss this, because such discussion keeps >falling back on an appeal to common ground which doesn't appear to >exist. Which is why we stuck to the argument from canon. Initially the argument was anything-goes: actors and writers' interviews, my mate with the gaydar, other people's fanfic, whatever. But it quickly became apparent that this was where we would get bogged down in lack of common ground. However, Betty and I both knew our canon, agreed what it was (52 episodes, no Barry Letts, Tony Attwood or other outside material), and, at a particular point, agreed to keep our evidence only to that narrow band of material, even though we both knew of and could cite material outside this band (a bit like how someone in media studies might have, for the sake of an essay, to confine herself only to the cut version of Bladerunner, even though she is familiar with the extended version, the Philip K. Dick novella, and the other works of Ridley Scott). It was by defining the turf that we could find common ground for discussion. In a discussion like that one, where things could so easily spiral off into other directions, the first principle is to find out what the common ground is, and to define it, and to make sure each of us sticks to it. I'm actually thinking of writing the argument-from-canon up as an essay (again, not in the spirit of oppressing other people, but so that it's out there for anyone who wants to refer to it). Anyone think this is a good idea? >None of which will stop me defending a tribe-member in any Blues War - >we'll merely have to work out some sort of code for emergency >communication... A dark blue semaphore flag, perhaps :)? Fiona The Posthumous Memoirs of Secretary Rontane Available for public perusal at http://nyder.r67.net _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

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Re: [B7L] reasons
by Tavia 27 Mar '01

27 Mar '01

Shane wrote: >Anyway, what I'm saying is that if you go past the porn, >there's a lot of writing and film about how different sorts of >gay men live. There's an exceptionally candid account of one man's experiences to be found in Delany's autobiography 'The Motion of Light in Water'. Tavia

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Re: [B7L] reasons
by Jenny Kaye 27 Mar '01

27 Mar '01

Shane wrote: >Jenny wrote: > > >Shane wrote: > > > >> > Me and my militant army of slash-eating penguins, that's who. > > > >Can my Fox's Glacier Mint-sucking polar bears join your slash-eating > >penguins? > >Sure, the more the merrier but what can they bring to the fight? We could soak slash zines in essence of peppermint and hope they'll develop a taste for them... :)! Jenny _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

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Re: On mixed zines (Was: [B7L] Homophobia)
by Alison Page 27 Mar '01

27 Mar '01

Tavia said - >Well, I'll let you know in a few months, but advice from experienced gen >and slash zine producers, such as Judith Proctor, suggested that a mixed >zine would sell fewer copies than *either* an all-slash or an all-gen zine. I am still reading Tavia's zine, but I think it is of very high quality. I often find it hard to tell if a story or film is any good until some time afterwards, when it sort of sinks in. Several stories in that zine are currently 'sinking in' and the gut verdict is that they are real crackers. If people are wondering whether to put a toe in the water of fanfiction, or wondering whether to check out something a bit different without risking being put off by something too explicit, I think this would be a very good place to start. Unless Tavia I have missed something (in my incomplete reading) which means this advice is misleading, and the horses will indeed be frightened? Alison

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Re: [B7L] the politics of slash
by Alison Page 27 Mar '01

27 Mar '01

Tavia said >Surely what male-oriented porn chooses to depict has no relevance >whatsoever to real-world women (who presumably don't on the whole choose to >consume it)? It would have a relevance to women if it changed the way men related to them in real life. For example if a man thought that a woman saying she was a lesbian (for instance in a work context) meant she was up for a threesome. I do think this sometimes happens. If men came away from other kinds of pornography thinking that 'no means yes' and so on, it could also affect real women in an adverse way. I think all these worries mainly apply to the sort of men who only have male friends, and don't really talk (or converse via email) to women that much. You know some men don't even talk to their wives about sex. I don't think this kind of horrible effect ever happens with slash though, or with other explicit B7 material. I guess if slash did make a fan stalk an actor that would be an equivalent type of thing. And that would be really bad wouldn't it? I'm afraid I'm rather ignorant about whether this has ever happened, but I've never come across anything like that. Alison

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On mixed zines (Was: [B7L] Homophobia)
by Tavia 27 Mar '01

27 Mar '01

Annie wrote: >Of course, back then, it wasn't as easy to photocopy things >*and* we had to run off zines in 200-300 copies at a time >just to get a decent print price. So, anyone cutting in to your >potential sales could be potential cause for alarm. I'm well placed in that I can simply print on demand. (Future ttba print runs will max 5 or 6 copies, as this is the number that I can collate simultaneously on the dining table...) So, I don't have any problems with upfront printing costs nor with storage of hundreds of unsold copies. >Not that the slash zines didn't/don't sell well on their own. >The reality is, though, that there are some fans who read gen, >some who read slash and some who read both. Those who >prefer only slash and those who prefer only gen don't tend >to *want* the zines mixed. We shall see. I was kind of hoping that there might be people, like myself or Fiona, who just liked good fiction... Tavia ttba: http://www.viragene.com/

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On mixed zines (Was: [B7L] Homophobia)
by Tavia 27 Mar '01

27 Mar '01

Shane wrote (replying to Annie): >This decision of yours is interesting. From the sound of it, you're >basically ghettoising _all_ stories about gay relationships into slash >zines, and I would like to ask you why you do this. There were gay >characters in the programme, so it can't be out of respect for the canon; >since you yourself are involved in a same-sex relationship, it can't be out >of a belief that all fiction involving gays should be kept on the X-rated >shelf. An aversion to the ghettoisation of slash was indeed a part of my motivation for producing a mixed zine. >Apparently it's just down to sales, and again I'd like more evidence >that it _would_ harm sales-- the people who wouldn't buy the zine might be >compensated for by the Jane Carnalls of the world: the people who don't >object to fiction about gays, but do object to explicit sex. Well, I'll let you know in a few months, but advice from experienced gen and slash zine producers, such as Judith Proctor, suggested that a mixed zine would sell fewer copies than *either* an all-slash or an all-gen zine. >This "sales" thing, though, bears closer inspection. You mention the word >"sales" and "selling" quite a lot in there. Now I've asked you what your >interest in B7 fandom is-- ... Could it be the profit >motive dominates? Have you *any* idea how much work it takes to produce an anthology zine? In terms of writing, drawing, commissioning, editing (text and illos), chasing authors, scanning, design, layout/typesetting, proof-reading, printing, collating, binding, distributing, compiling promotional materials and cost-modelling I wouldn't like to put a figure on how many hours of my time ttba has consumed -- but it must run to many many hundreds. While I do hope to recoup my per-copy costs, give or take, I have no hopes whatsoever of recouping the capital costs of the software and hardware that proved necessary to make ttba a reality, nor of paying myself, or anyone else who laboured on the zine, anything for our time. No-one, but no-one, produces zines for profit..... Tavia ttba: http://www.viragene.com/

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Re: [B7L] the politics of slash
by Tavia 27 Mar '01

27 Mar '01

Fiona wrote: >No, I'm afraid I'm with Neil here. >IMO lesbianism, whatever its cause and manifestation, >is a threat to patriarchy in that it suggests that women >need not be dependent on men for the satisfaction of sexual >or social needs. M-O "lesbian" porn effectively reduces this >threat down to a wank, and also contains the additional message >that lesbianism is something women do as a preliminary act to >sleeping with a man, or because there's no man around. >Which brings the patriarchy back into the picture. Disagreeing with two such (metaphorical) heavy-weights, I fear I must be barking up the wrong tree, but... I simply don't understand where this *one-sided* dependence comes in. If two people of different genders have sex together then why is it the *woman* who's suddenly dependent on the man for satisfaction of sexual needs? Surely the threat to patriarchy (assuming patriarchy exists in Western society) is simply financially and sexually independent women, regardless of orientation? Surely what male-oriented porn chooses to depict has no relevance whatsoever to real-world women (who presumably don't on the whole choose to consume it)? Am I missing something? Tavia

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con attendance
by sue wadsworth-ladkin 27 Mar '01

27 Mar '01

Fiona wrote >I have to say I like workshoppy things more than guest panels myself, >just >because you tend to get a better signal-to-noise ratio. Whilst I agree that workshop type events are great fun and give those of the same interest area a chance to interact, even occasionally in a slightly negative way, there is a lot to be said for guest run panels too. At Redemption, Andy Lane ran a writer's panel. Wherein himself and another writer, whose name escapes me, went through a checklist of items for would be writers. It wasn't that much of a discussion per se, but I did discover one priceless pearl of wisdom which has helped me a lot. This is why, at Eclectic 21, we intend to have a good mix of both as well as a pretty full alternate panel for the three days of the convention. Having been attending cons for many years we found we tended to enjoy those those ones which had a good mix of both fan run and guest talks. As I heard it expressed by a friend at Redemption.....'I like coming to those cons where there is always something to do rather than just sit and listen to various people talk at me for hours on end' Sue W-L _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

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Re: [B7L] reasons
by Shane Little 27 Mar '01

27 Mar '01

Julia Wrote: >Shane wrote: > > > >>But if they're presenting two characters in a gay relationship, then they > >>_are_ writing about my lifestyle. I'm a gay man in a gay relationship. > >By the same token, then, is every piece of het fic written about the >lifestyle of every person who is in a het relationship? Should people in >het relationships get upset every time they read a book in which some het >couple does something that that reader would never do? "My husband and I >never have sex outdoors...how *dare* that writer imply het couples do! It's >just cheap masturbatory writing, it degrades me and all other hets." Now that's an exaggeration. It's not the sex acts per se that I object to (although some of the rape stuff is just.... nasty), so much as the way gay couples in slash are often just straight couples rejigged, or pretty much denied. Like, for instance, to take your het analogy, if someone wrote a story in which you and your husband basically acted like gay men, just that one of you is a woman (I actually find Armistead Maupin does this a lot, and I don't like it when he does it either), or where you and your husband perpetually asserted that you are both "really" gay, you just like to have sex with each other. Shane "Where's Jenna? We haven't got to wait for her, have we?" --Vila Who needs Cupid? Matchmaker.com is the place to meet somebody. FREE Two-week Trial Membership at http://www.matchmaker.com/home?rs=200015

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Blakes7 March 2001