I'm here via elvit. She sent the link to me because we are both involved in metafandom_ru community which discusses such topics as in your post. Thank you for a very-very interesting treatment of the fanfic within society. Can I translate this and post in the community?
My views on slash have been undergoing a very similar evolution - from 'yay, homosexual relationships depicted as norm!" to "wait, is this the same shitty patriarchal norm that I hate with a passion?" to "am I really reading m/m fics as a thinly masked f/m fics and if yes, what does it say about my perception of LGBTQ persons". And I think each fan may travel down this road at her or his own speed - given how interconnected the fandom is, I hope such discussions will be more and more common. Which is not saying that reading and writing tropey fics for the sake of entertainment will ever be a thing of the past, because well, we have not got rid of hurtful norms in real life yet, right? I just hope that we can continue studying fandom for what it can tell us about us and our society, and having even more fun doing it.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2014-06-16 12:43 am (UTC)My views on slash have been undergoing a very similar evolution - from 'yay, homosexual relationships depicted as norm!" to "wait, is this the same shitty patriarchal norm that I hate with a passion?" to "am I really reading m/m fics as a thinly masked f/m fics and if yes, what does it say about my perception of LGBTQ persons". And I think each fan may travel down this road at her or his own speed - given how interconnected the fandom is, I hope such discussions will be more and more common. Which is not saying that reading and writing tropey fics for the sake of entertainment will ever be a thing of the past, because well, we have not got rid of hurtful norms in real life yet, right? I just hope that we can continue studying fandom for what it can tell us about us and our society, and having even more fun doing it.