When Politics and Fandom Collide

Archive of Big Gay Picture post

I thought it was fitting that just before I got here, there was a spurt of posts and comments about homophobia in Star Trek fandom. While I was not a Trekker - I've never been to a Trek convention despite having been able, in the eighth grade, to recite "The Trouble With Tribbles" by heart - I did experience fandom insanity once, in 1995 when I first watched (be still my heart) Xena: Warrior Princess. (Did anyone seriously think I was going to NOT find a way to use a photo of Xena and Gabrielle in my first post?)

Fandom is a strange little universe that those who aren't part of it can find hard to understand. In fact, back when I was a Xenite, many of the conventions of today's fandom didn't exist - for instance, the special dialect, littered with gratuitous exclamation!points, alternate spellings of words (teh hawtness!), onomatopoeic vocabulary (guh), and acronyms that even I, a professional editor, couldn't reason out and had to look up on Wikipedia (OTP, BFF). But one thing came into existence first in Trek fandom, blew up into a huge political battle in Xena fandom, and continues to rage today in fandoms all over the fandom!universe: the idea that Our Heroes might be queer.

Of course, some of our heroes ARE queer, indisputably so (what the fandom calls "canon"): Willow and Tara, excuse me, Willow/Tara, from Buffy: the Vampire Slayer, Brian/Justin from Queer as Folk. (In fandom, all sexual pairings are indicated by a slash - although if Xena/Gabrielle or Willow/Tara or Brian/Justin are teh hawtness, the original "slash" was Kirk/Spock and that one to me is just teh horror.) Along with anger that gay fans actually wanted to see gay people on Star Trek, was violent outrage at the existence of Kirk/Spock "slash" fiction. But if that was the first round of this fight, it reached its zenith with the war between texters and sub-texters in Xena fandom.

"Text" is the literal interpretation of what you see, fandom fundamentalism if you will. Xena and Gabrielle might be nekkid in the hot tub talking about whether or not that slippery thing under the water is the soap, but Nothing. Is. Going. On. "Sub-text" is the outrageous idea that when two women sleep in each other's arms next to the campfire every freaking night and repeatedly die for each other across even alternate times and universes, they might possibly also do the wild thing now and then.

I once interviewed Liz Friedman, the openly lesbian producer of Xena, and read other interviews with her and the writers, creators, and cast members of the show, including Lucy Lawless (Xena) and Renee O'Connor (Gabrielle), and there is no question at all that the sub-textual lesbian relationship between Xena and Gabrielle was deliberate. They have all acknowledged it, over and over again. But this didn't keep the anti-subtext crowd from getting ever more agitated over the suggestion that the gals are more than friends. Back in the day, the battles over this issue tore newsgroups, forums, and email lists apart. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that whole towns and villages were destroyed over it. It was ugly.

Just as it's hard to understand how a liberal Utopian world like the Star Trek universe could attract so many uptight, even conservative, fans, you have to wonder how an ass-kickingly feminist show like Xena could attract so many anti-gay fans, but it did. Statements along the lines that the thought of Xena and Gabrielle having sex made people sick do more than make me shake my head in bewilderment, they underscore the visceral nature of homophobia in our culture. These women felt we were taking their show away, something they treasured, by even suggesting that behind all that sub-textual smoke there was some real fire.

Were all the sub-texters lesbians? I don't think so, but most of them certainly were, as are most Willow/Tara fans (with a good sprinkling of gay men for both). Which brings us to what may be the single most unusual fandom on earth, that of Queer as Folk's Brian/Justin. Like Kirk/Spock slashers, Brian/Justin fans are almost exclusively straight women. Unlike Kirk/Spock slashers, Brian/Justin fans have actual footage of their heroes doing it. Over and over and over, in fact. And unlike with Xena, QAF's writers never heard of "subtext"; Brian/Justin fans have five years worth of fucking, right there in the canon. But when I first discovered straight woman Brian/Justin fandom in February, while trying to google out what happened in the not-yet-out-on-DVD fifth season of Queer as Folk, I was, to be honest, really grossed out. Let's face it: the bazillions of red state, red-necked, NASCAR-watching, beer guzzling straight men who get off on the thought of two women together doesn't exactly predispose me to warmth at the eroticization/romanticization of same-sex couplings by straight people. I mean, why weren't these fans off writing Donna/Josh fanfiction on the West Wing sites like all the other straight women?

While I can't answer that question, I did discover something about Brian/Justin straight women fans, and that is that politically, they are the most pro-gay straight people you'll ever meet other than maybe Gavin Newsom and P!nk. (Did anyone think I'd not find a way to get a mention of P!nk into my first post?) Perhaps they would phrase it more that "Any law or public policy that might interfere with teh hawtness is wrong," but either way, after I poked a stick at the fandom on my blog one day and got descended on by a swarm of angry Brian/Justin fans in my comments section, I learned how wrong a girl can be. Mea culpa. I still think fanfiction is teh horror - ALL fanfiction, including and perhaps most especially Xena/Gabrielle - but you Brian/Justin ladies are ok by me politically. (Why I thought conservative right wing Republicans would even be watching QAF in the first place is a good question, but then again, I still don't get why conservatives and homophobes are watching Trek or Xena, either.)

My personal revulsion at the thought of Kirk and Spock having sex at all, with each other or anyone else, precludes my making any kind of analysis of the political leanings of slash fic authors; I'll have to leave that to someone else.

Here, have some gratuitous Friday eye candy. Oh, teh hawtness.