From: Lisa Williams lcw@dallas.net

Fiona Moore wrote:

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Exactly how *do* you regard canon, then?

I regard it as what we literally saw and heard on the show itself. Explanations of *why* so-and-so did such-and-such, what he was thinking or feeling, are interpretation, not canon.

But by that analysis, you're removing the explanations within the show itself. We see Avon in prison at the beginning of RoD, for instance. Later on we learn why he is in prison; we also get some idea of what he was feeling at the time. Would you then say that the only thing you'd accept as canon is the image of Avon in prison, with no explanation?

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If Blake reveals in the series that he is 34 at the time of "Breakdown", I may go away and write a story saying that he's 55 at the same time-- but it's not going to fit the canon, however good a story it is.

Well, if you came up with some reason for him to have *said* that he's 34, it would fit the canon because it would not contradict what happened on the show

No, to use Neil's terminology, it would be subcanonical. Canon is what happens on the show; subcanon is an intepretation not stated in the show but which would not contradict it, noncanon is something which goes against the canon. The argument here is not about "fitting" or "not fitting," or what sort of clever explanation one can come up with, but about what *is* on the screen.

-- Blake said that he's 34. If you wrote a story where he

actually *said*, at that point, that he was 55, then *that* would contradict canon and would hence be striking out into AU territory.

Agreed. Which is exactly my problem with slash. No visual evidence to support the characters' homo- or bisexuality occurs on the screen (see below for more, and why it is not inconceivable that, had the creators wished the characters to be seen as such, it could have been portrayed), therefore, to claim that it is present is to contradict canon.

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Just because you can cite canon for something doesn't mean the citation can withstand argument.

And coming up with an alternate explanation which you find more convincing doesn't mean that someone else's is invalid, either. Yours may not be more convincing to everyone, and it's still an *explanation* -- an interpretation.

I'm afraid I have to point out that there *is* actually a difference between "explanation" and "interpretation." To wit: "Avon allowed himself to be captured so as to locate Shrinker" is an explanation. "Avon felt terribly nervous throughout the whole interrogation process" is an interpretation.

And interpretations vary between individuals. Some

will be convincing to many more people than others, but there isn't a vote to determine one "correct" interpretation to which everyone is obligated to subscribe. No matter how much you support your own version, no matter how obviously "right" it seems to you, other people are *still* going to receive different impressions.

Shane's right, you know, you *are* sounding like Annie. I feel no particular feelings as to the rightness or wrongness of the principal characters being heterosexual; had they in fact shown homosexual interest onscreen, I would be overjoyed (while positive portrayals of gays do occur in 1970s media, one or two more wouldn't have hurt). But in terms of what is there on our screens, I am forced to admit that it isn't there.

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which can be both inferred from scenes in which the dialogue says that sexual interest is meant to be shown and extrapolated from there onto other scenes

"Inferred from." "Extrapolated." These are what I mean by personal interpretation.

Well, they may be what *you* mean by them, but they actually have a specific usage in literary/media studies. In a visual medium like television or theatre, there exist certain dramatic conventions for letting the audience know what the character is supposed to be thinking and feeling without actually resorting to a soliloquy. If you watch a lot of silent films, for instance, you may notice a kind of stereotyped arm-flung-over-face gesture which actors make. This gesture occurs only in scenes where one character is being menaced or threatened by another one. Hence, it has gone down in (been extrapolated into) the visual language of the silent film as a way of conveying fear of attack. This is an inference from the context of the gestures, which consequently is generally accepted as part of the "grammar" of the silent film; you are unlikely to find a book out there entitled "A Viewer's Guide To Silent Film Gestures," but an audience of the time would have understood what was meant by it, as film-studies audiences still do today.

Let's take my "cruisy look" example again. There are scenes-- I can cite them again if you like, but see especially "Breakdown"-- in which the dialogue demonstrates that there is sexual interest between a pair of characters. In those scenes these characters give each other a certain look, running their eyes quickly down the other one's body; this look frequently occurs in scenes in which sexual interest has already been established through dialogue and other physical cues. There are, additionally, two or three other scenes in which nothing is actually *said* to establish sexual interest, but in which the look is there. Now, given that previously that look has only occurred in scenes in which there is an already established sexual interest (it has not, for instance, also occurred in scenes in which there is an established hatred between the characters, which might cause one to question the earlier inference as to the meaning of the gesture), then that look is meant to indicate sexual interest in the three other examples too. No interpretation required; simply looking at what sort of conventionalised gestures exist onscreen to represent sexual interest and when these occur.

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"Possibility" and that other word you use, "potential," is a lot different from "canon."

Well, of course -- I was talking about what's being portrayed in fanfic, not about canon. I'm sorry that wasn't clear. Fanfic is an extrapolation from canon, and hence is concerned, by nature, with interpretations, possibilities and potentials *based* on canon.

Forgive me, then, because what I was referring to was my and Betty's discussion about whether or not there was any canonical basis for assuming the principal characters to be homo- or bisexual. And I'm sorry, but *you* referred to it first. As I said in that discussion, in fanfic anything can happen. Blake can be a 1930s mobster; Avon can become a Mormon. Which is why I prefer to keep the discussion off fanfic.

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Or, to get back to the slash front: as I said, yes, the slash interpretation can be made, has been made and will be made-- but retconning it back onto our screens is something else entirely.

I don't think I understand the phrase "retconning it back onto our screens". Clarify, please?

Claiming that the characters are gay or bisexual within the series itself, on the basis of the fact that some fanfic out there portrays them as such.

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There's a very interesting passage in Bacon-Smith where she describes an older fan introducing a new one to a TV series, with OF talking to NF, telling her how to interpret what's on the screen.

Irrelevant, in my case, both as concerns B7 and my slash perceptions generally. I saw B7 years before I had any contact with other fans, and more years before I knew there was such a thing as slash fanfic for it -- by which time my own perceptions, which were based on my watching the show, all by my lonesome, were long since established. And as far as seeing slash elsewhere, I've been doing that virtually all my life (I can trace it back to age 5, which is about as early as I have coherent memories to draw from),

I'm impressed that you knew what homosexuality was at age 5, I have to say. But the interpretations we make at 5 are not the same ones we make at 25.

and it wasn't until a few years ago that I had any idea other people did, too. That's around three decades of my forming very strong slash-type impressions, without any other fans telling me what to think.

It's remarkable that you've managed to avoid any contact with fandom for thirty-odd years... But now that you've found it, you *have* found support for the expression of your views from fellow fans, that is the point. Supposing you had formed these strong impressions on your own, and become convinced by them. And then when you went into fandom, and when you expressed these views, your newfound friends reacted with scorn and ridicule. This wouldn't change your views necessarily, but it would mean that you would keep them to yourself. But just because you're not the only one to make an interpretation doesn't necessarily mean it has a factual basis. Quite a number of cultures independently concluded that the sun went around the Earth, after all.

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Never said you were, but I'm also saying, 1) there is canon, and 2) that your interpretation is made within a particular social context.

I agree with both of those points -- though it sounded from the preceding paragraph like you might be making some mistaken assumptions about my own social context.

Um, no. You're a fan (an American one to judge by your e-mail address); you have been on this lyst for at least as long as I have; you have contact with other fandoms (judging by a quick look at your websites); you are posting your messages to Lysator as a whole. From which I was inferring that your expression of your views was affected by your presence in fandom, which I would find it difficult to believe was not the case, even if you were not introduced to B7 in the same way as Bacon-Smith's informant.

Your interpretation, too, is made within *your* social context.

Which appears to be the same one as yours, with one or two small differences (I live in the UK and am active in Doctor Who fandom rather than Manga fandom when I'm not on the lyst). B7 fandom, in short.

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If you'd like to play the game with me, you yourself can try and come up with a hard-evidence example of same-sex sexual interest by one of the principal characters on B7.

I don't understand at all what you're getting at here. There are lots of moments which strike me as slashy (forgive the shorthand), which probably *wouldn't* strike you that way, and which *canonically* consisted of, e.g., two characters looking at each other.

But how, that is the point? How? Is the look hostile? Cruisy? In what other contexts do looks like that one occur-- when two characters are about to fight, or to make love? I'm not talking here about what "strikes" someone one way or the other; I'm talking about how the look compares to other looks in the series, and what we know about its intent from the dialogue and activity that surrounds it.

Most, if not all, of them have undoubtedly been cited in the course of previous discussions.

Very probably, which makes me wonder why you want to rehash it all here.

I

don't know what you mean by a "hard-evidence example"; if you're asking for a mad, passionate clinch between two same-sex characters, we both know there wasn't such a thing in the series, so why ask?

I am looking for an example of a gesture of sexual interest between same-sex characters, analogous to the opposite-sex gestures of sexual interest cited above in the "Breakdown" case for Jenna and Dr Renor, or elsewhere, those between Vila and Kerril, or Avon and Anna. Now, such gestures of sexual interest *do* occur between same-sex characters within the series: for instance, Carnell and the staff officer, or Krantor and Toise. But they are not made by any of the principals, either to each other or to a one-off character.

What is the object of this "game"?

To find visual or dialogic evidence from canon of a homosexual interest on the part of the principal characters of B7.

I'm missing something here, and I have an uneasy feeling you're assuming that I'm making some kind of claim that I'm *not* making... (I'm afraid Harriet may be quite right about alien mindsets.)

And therefore, because you can't see my point of view, my argument isn't worth listening to?

My comment was stating, very clearly and

specifically, that fictional characters will be interpreted in different ways by different people, with no one interpretation being the single "correct" one.

But that isn't actually what you said. You said, and I quote, "there is no One True Way." Hence my reaction, which would have been different had you said the line above.

I believe taking it completely out of context to imply an "anything goes" attitude toward human actions, with gratuitous dragging in of a Nazi reference,

I mentioned Nazis, as I frequently do, not particularly because I want to imply Ultimate Evil (and I think it's quite possible to argue that Good and Evil are not absolute concepts) or make an unassailable argument, but because I am currently up to my eyes in historical works on the Nazi period. If I were writing a paper on the Sudan, I could have brought that in as an example and the comparison would still read. The reference was not gratuitous; in fact, as someone who has studied Germany for over four years now, and who has family members who escaped Nazi persecution by the skin of their teeth, I find it a bit offensive to suggest that I'd simply bring them in to score a cheap point.

Well, I guess that's that, then. Thread over, thanks for playing.

I've been trying to stay civil, but frankly I don't much like being patronised.

Fiona

The Posthumous Memoirs of Secretary Rontane Available for public perusal at http://nyder.r67.net

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