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I'm not all that comfortable posting this, because while I generally follow the big fandom ---!fail debates, most of the time I'm too scared to offend someone or make a fool of myself to speak up, but between

aviv_b's (now locked) RTD-finds-out-about-homophobia story, and the recent debate about (straight) women writing m/m fiction I have this sort of theory why TW fandom blew up so spectacularly after CoE, and it has a lot to do with this slightly uneasy alliance between gay people and the straight part of slash fandom, since both want the same thing, more gay storylines, and there's strength in numbers, and numbers count when it comes to TV. On the other hand that common interest doesn't mean that gay people (fans as well as those involved in the creation, especially in the age of the internet and fandom becoming increasingly mainstream and public) aren't aware of the more problematic aspects of slash fandom (fetishisation/appropriation), or that straight fandom doesn't tend to forget that for gay people it's also very much a matter of identification and representation, and not just, and that's putting it as politely and generally as possible, of fanish squee. (Cf. the 'But It's not about gay men, it's about female sexuality' argument.)

And for the straight side it all worked rather well ('Yay! Canon slash!'), and I'd hazard a guess that even after Ianto's death the greater part of TW fandom would probably have got over it after a while, if RTD hadn't spoken up about what he thought was problematic about—straight, beecause 'people picking up gay rights as an issue' clearly doesn't refer to gay fans—fandom, and suddenly it wasn't one happy family any longer.

So, yes, the 'hysterical women' comment was sexist and misogynist, everyone can agree on that, but after six months fandom can maybe start to look beyond that, and realise this was also coming from somewhere, namely a gay writer thinking he wasn't just dealing with straight women fetishising homosexuality and making judgements about what gay relationships were supposed to be like, but straight women now explaining homophobia to him. Now clearly the situation was more complex than that, clearly there were gay people as well as straight people who disliked CoE for a wide variety of reasons, but I think this was the main impression that came across, and I doubt anyone involved in TW fandom can honestly say that it was wholly unfounded in reality.

And considering that he stated this very explicitly more than once (here and here and probably elsewhere, too, but I wasn't following media that religiously and only picked up what was generally linked in fandom) I find it a bit worrying how this got swept aside almost unanimously by the straight part of fandom. Admittedly emotions were running high all round, and no one was thinking very clearly at the time, but after half a year maybe it's time to acknowledge that among other things there was also a lot of hurt privilege and entitlement in the post-CoE fallout. Because when straight people are gleefully writing RPF subjecting RTD to homophobia they honestly believe he doesn't know about, and are convinced they're doing it in the name of gay rights and karma I think this is a problem that isn't just limited to one writer, but symptomatic of the wider state of TW fandom.

*breathes* Okay. Now everyone tell me how hard I've failed.

[Obligatory disclaimer: I don't consider myself straight, but I'm also too not-much-of-anything-sexual to feel justified claiming any kind of queer label.

Obligatory disclaimer the second, for those who aren't on my friendslist and don't know me. Yes, I cried. Yes, I cared. Click the tag.]

~~ETA: I'll be at my sister's for the afternoon, so if I'm not replying to comments it's not that I'm ignoring anyone.~~

ETA2: Addendum, sort of.

More ETA, since my brain is slow and some things only untangled themselves in my head replying to the comments. If I wrote that post now, I'd phrase it a bit differently, because even while I thought I was being clear, different issues did in fact get jumbled together. The 'hysterical women' comment— and while we're at it, I was getting curious and looked for the exact source, and now I'm left wondering, was this ever said more publicly than (possibly off the record?) to the AfterElton writer who put it into his editor's note without giving the context or even a full quote? In any case, that comment is one thing, and I'm not going to tell anyone they can't be offended by its sexism, even if personally I can't bring myself to be very outraged, given the context, situation and the fact that we're all human and fuck up occasionally.

OTOH, the two interviews I've linked where he is clearly pissed off about straight people lecturing a gay man about gay rights and homophobia—that's a separate issue and a legitimate concern about what was happening in TW fandom, and something I don't think straight fans should immediately react to with outrage and discard as nothing but hurt vanity. It's an issue that deserves consideration, whether or not someone is willing to forgive killing Ianto or the 'nine hysterical women'.

The one is about male privilege and prejudice, the other very much about straight privilege, as is using the sexism as an excuse to ignore the anger, lumping it all together; and they don't cancel each other out. This is essentially what I should have made clearer from the start. And I'll really shut up now; but on some level I keep naively hoping that attempting to untangle this whole mess might also eventually help a little bit towards making TW fandom a less toxic place again. I know, I know. *sigh*

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I won't belabor it either. Other than to say Gwen never had a problem speaking to or correcting Clem in other situations. It just sticks in my craw :)

They had more than Lois' lenses by Day 4, they had Lois. They had plans she'd delivered and descriptions of the place and a very good read on how these aliens operated from Ianto's transcriptions. Jack's whole approach was naive, and for someone with his experience, I would've expected more.

I loved that TW was a bit of a mess, I agree completely. But being a bit of a mess and managing to pull it off is like underdog heroes, scrappy and fun. Getting people killed so frequently, not so much.

I guess I take particular offense because a major part of my (now previous) job was to ensure all systems had a disaster recovery plan in place, and our business had little to do with daily risk and disaster. It is all moot, though, innit? It's over and done with. The writers did what the writers did, and I disagreed with so much of it despite great editing, a rollercoaster pace, beautiful camera angles (at times), and some fabulous things done with truly lovely secondary characters. It just wasn't the show I'd fallen in love with, and I still get angry about it.

Whoops, I belabored it after all, didn't I? Sorry. You ARE right, just doesn't mean I like it :)

The part that makes me saddest is that a whole lot of us are upset not just because it makes us moist, but because we really felt they sundered the things we loved most about the show. Ianto's death was the straw that broke the camel's back.

And, yeah, I still share your embarrassment at having my name (AND PICTURE, GAH!) in that document without my permission.

There really are about 9 truly hysterical fans out there. The rest of us are just rather upset for various reasons but getting on with it. I miss when it was only a nice little charity drive, doing some good out of something we saw as bad. Now it's just...well...*hanging head*

I think RTD has a history of being flip and/or ungrateful to his fans or viewers. Maybe it's just his personality or how he comes off when he's off the cuff. But having seen him speak and having seen, say, John, speaking at the exact same event answering the exact same questions, there's a world of difference. Both disagreed with the questioner's contention, but John didn't take them down or simply blow off their concerns.

Russell just doesn't ever seem to see himself as potentially in error or in need of improvement. Some of the comments he makes about how quickly he dashes things off, etc... just make me want to yell "I can tell, and not in a good way!"

Still, no one is perfect. I just wish he'd get a little better at playing nice. JB's got it down.

I hadn't viewed it quite from this level, but you are absolutely right in that case. And I SHOULD pay more attention, because I am technically bisexual (though I decided to commit to a straight marriage).

And it's so well put, Ianto had so much potential as a character, and he got used as a plot device in so many ways. They seemed to tease us with complexity and background (the shoplifting, etc...) and then, in the end, plot deviced him.

I suppose I wasn't ready to lose another major character so quickly, either, which really startled me, when you added his loss to the loss of the Hub, the SUV and the vast majority of the artistic elements that had attracted me to the show in the beginning.

Very much agree with you!

(Sorry this took so long, but I came home late & not very sober yesterday.)

I think there is, in fact, a VERY vocal group who are doing just what you state, but I think it's unfair to say the same is "symptomatic of the wider state of TW fandom."

But in that case, shouldn't the rest of TW fandom speak up at least occasionally and readjust the perception? Although OTOH ironically enough RTD has pretty much always said these fans were a minority and that a couple of hundred comments on the internet didn't count in the greater scheme of things. Upon which a lot of people took very personal offence and set out to prove that no, they really weren't a minority. So are they now? Aren't they?

"But a lot of fans felt like they never got to see Jack and Ianto as the full-fledged couple that they wanted to see them as. We only began to see that in this miniseries."

I know this isn't the only issue, but since you brought it up—as the interviewer says, the problem of never seeing them as a couple was an issue more of S1 and S2 than CoE, so it's hardly a complaint or concern about CoE as such. As I've said in a comment above, IMO the complete lack of a real Jack/Ianto arc in the second half of S2 as opposed to the first half is due to switching the death/resurrection storyline from Ianto to Owen at the very last minute. Considering all the issues that needed addressing with Jack's immortality maybe they were hoping to develop their relationship in a third season? In the end none of us knows what went into these decisions, what compromises had to be made, and maybe creating a SF show with a bisexual male protagonist in a gay relationship wasn't all that unproblematic. There's this anecdote involving pizza feeding and groping that GDL told at some convention, about how JB wanted to turn it into more of a visible relationship in S2, and GDL got shit from the director for going along with it, so I'm actually somewhat curious about what went on behind the scenes there. Maybe we'll hear more about it in a couple of decades when it's all ancient history...

The thing is... In some ways I'm still very unused to this interaction between fans and TPTB, and maybe that's the reason I just can't take all this very personally. I occasionally do find it interesting to hear about the process of writing and creation, but anything beyond that doesn't really touch me personally. I think this illusion of closeness is a bit problematic, because it's just that, an illusion. They don't know me, my thoughts and feelings, at all, and I only see a slice of public persona.

(Sorry this took so long, but I came home late & not very sober yesterday.)

There's an ongoing discussion about women writing slash and published m/m romance (links on linkspam.dreamwidth.org (http://linkspam.dreamwidth.org/), if this isn't how you came here in the first place). I didn't address that in the post, because it would have made it too complicated and convoluted, and in the end wasn't strictly pertinent, but reading some of these posts has left me feeling increasingly uncomfortable about the whole slash phenomenon. Not that I've read a lot of fanfiction lately, but still.

I was disappointed with the show because i liked the characters and i wanted to see more of them.

So would I, but what I think didn't get acknowledged enough in the discussion about CoE is that no one knew at the time whether there even would be a fourth season, and from what I gather it didn't seem very likely until after the success of CoE. I can't link you the source, but I read an interview with RTD where he said that the ending of CoE was written in a way that would tie the story up neatly, in case that really was the end of TW.

Why are you becoming increasingly uncomfortable with whole slash phenomena?
I'm curious, because as far as I'm aware and concerned the problem isn't with the writing of m/m by women, but of the appropriating of culture and identity which are fluid and grey areas in any event.

(I'm keeping myself updated on the discussion)

Can I get back to you later with that? Right now it's more of a gut reaction and nothing thought through...

E.g., there's this discussion about how historically accurate m/m romance should be. OTOH the argument that you should be respectful and write it realistically and not gloss over the struggles that gay men had to go through makes a lot of sense. OTOH, if you look at it from the perspective that straight women are writing this and straight women are (putting it directly) getting off on it, sexually, emotionally or both, it makes the insistence on all that struggle and the fact that what was very real suffering is essentially used to make a romance novel a bit spicier and edgier rather problematic.

I really don't know. I've slashed book characters and TV characters in my head long before I found out that there was a word for it. A lot of my favourite authors are gay, and have been since I was a teenager. Is this even connected? Am I being creepy and appropriating? I hope not, but there's this lingering, vague guilt...

"...in that case, shouldn't the rest of TW fandom speak up..."
Others in fandom have been speaking out against that corner - at least since that bizarre (and often offensive) 400 page internet document surfaced, and, less vocally, before. (I'm afraid I'm not terribly active in fandom these days, I'm sure I've missed plenty.) And I'm not saying you should stop, but your generalization is unfair.

~
Yes, I'm sure the real reasons for a lot of it (meaning: the more often than not hidden nature of the Jack/Ianto relationship) would be an unpleasant surprise, based on that tidbit
~

It's not so much the interaction between fans and TPTB that made me comment, it's more the way fans sometimes treat other fans - and a lot of that is just passed down from TPTB (which is why I pointed out that interview). For every fan that has a problem with CoE, there is likely to be a unique bent to what s/he didn't like about it and a unique reason for that dislike. Painting 'everyone on the left' with the same brush just obscures real problems (whatever they happen to be). It's a tool to silence people.

That said... I think it's weird how some people in fandom DO attempt to 'become friends' with TPTB and/or The Talent, or, at the other extreme, think that a problem with The Art must equate a problem with The Artist (and take it as if a once-friend had betrayed them).

But, I love the meta that goes on in fandom. And I would usually lurk, but little things like that (tiny bit at the end of your meta) will bring me out.

Looking forward to your more thought out response.

Your gut reaction makes sense, though perhaps I'm an insensitive ass to think that feeling guilty about enjoying something that has a problematic history is a bit counter productive.

I read Dancer From the Dance and Giovanni's Room, the former is a great description of gay culture in NYC post-Stonewall Pre-AIDS and the latter is a tragedy about a man who can't find happiness no matter who he's with and is of a very melancholy nature.

Both books are about gay men, written by gay men and there were scenes which (I'll be blunt) turned me on. Pretty sure, I'm not the intended audience. And that's where I think lies the problematic issues - who is the intended audience and why the grabbiness?!

The appropriation of identity, m/m isn't actually something "for" women "by" women. Again, it's the grabbiness that makes a difference, note of course, that femslash is not spoken about as much - I wonder if it's because Lesbianism has been appropriated for the male gaze in entertainment for many a decade (centuries) that it no longer appears to be an "issue", while male privilege is once again going head on with female creativity.

Yex, it's a finicky debate, but I'm unclear as to why you'd feel guilty about enjoying the subject matter.

I keep hearing about this document? What is it? Where can I find it?
Do I want to?

(Sorry this took so long, but I came home late & not very sober yesterday.)

Especially when it comes to fandom's sexual orientation and the reasons they connected with Ianto Jones and/or Jack and Ianto as a couple.

I did distinguish between fandom and the straight part of fandom, and never made the assumption that slash fandom consists only of straight women. But while obviously I don't know what the exact percentages are, I don't think that TW fandom is all that different from other fandoms, and generally speaking there certainly are plenty of straight women who write slash and m/m romance. What's perhaps equally important in this case, this is the impression that mainstream media gives of slash fandom, and judging from the current discussion about m/m fiction, the impression many gay man have.

I can understand having a strong reaction to Ianto's death. My own reaction was maybe more to Day Five and the ending than Ianto's death specifically, but I was in a bit of a haze for a couple of days, and I've never had that strong a reaction to a TV show before. Watching the episodes one after the other didn't help, I guess. What I found and find disturbing was the utterly vicious tenor of the backlash, and the fact that even after all this time it keeps going. I love fiction, I love TV shows, but this level of hatred directed at a real person over a fictional character isn't something I can understand on any level. And straight people making assumptions and judgements about a gay writer's alleged internalised homophobia just isn't okay as far as I'm concerned. Maybe I got a skewed impression, being stuck in the 'wrong' (i.e., in this case, Jack/Ianto) corner of fandom, and the reaction was more balanced elsewhere; I can't with any certainty say what's the majority or minority, but where I was standing I suddenly felt very, very alone not hating CoE.

I think the gay issue comes up because well, they made it an issue in COE. Every episode there was a mention of it. It's like they didn't have the time to show us that Jack and Ianto were in a relationship and Ianto was having some identity and committment issues so they just told us... a lot. So of course if the show (who in the previous series set a standard of having a rather sexually fluid cast and world views) makes an issue of Ianto being gay it's undoubtedly going to come up that the gay character died.

It's bound to be more of an issue in CoE, because Jack and Ianto are more of a couple, and Ianto actually interacts with people outside of Torchwood. I don't see why this would be in any way problematic or negative.

What I always found a bit naive is the assumption that RTD somehow managed to be unaware of the dead gay character trope. He's gay, he writes for TV, he didn't kill Mickey in DW because he wanted to avoid the black-character-always-dies trope. There's certainly always the possibility of all kinds of things finding their way into a story either out of the writer's subconscious mind or the collective subconsciousness, but killing Ianto wasn't one of those instances.

A 430+ pages .pdf file compiled by someone from the SaveCoffeeBoy group (but, to be fair, apparently not representative of the whole group, or so I've heard) that is supposed to convince people to bring Ianto back, but will more likely result in making them collapse in hysteric laughter.

Download link is here (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=KG2N35V4) if you're interested.

It's a mess. There were two versions of it, last I heard, but I think they're basically equal, give or take a few pages. I don't know of anyone who's read the whole thing(s).

You'll regret it. Or ROTFL. Or both.

You're right, the pdf seems to have been a bit of a turning point.

You can't know that, but I generally do have the tendency to see every possible side of every problem, which 99.5 percent of the time results in me never posting about anything that isn't either personal or fanish, because there's OTOH and OTOH and on the third, fourth and fifth hand, until I've argued myself out of my own opinions, so I do realise you have a point about generalising. I never meant to summarily condemn the whole of TW fandom.

OTOH (he!), judging from what I personally saw after CoE, I still believe that at least on some level this was happening and is a problem worth addressing. The interviews I linked... I vaguely (since she wasn't on my frinedslist at the time and I only read it via friendsfriends) remember a post by

rm talking about appropriation and that RTD had a point, but otherwise almost every reaction focused entirely on how outrageously offensive and hurtful these comments were, and dismissed them as hurt vanity, without even remotely acknowledging that there might be an issue worth talking about.

It's not so much the interaction between fans and TPTB that made me comment, it's more the way fans sometimes treat other fans - and a lot of that is just passed down from TPTB (which is why I pointed out that interview).

Be fair, though. Again, this is only talking about my corner of fandom and my experience, but with CoE it hardly were those who disliked it who were silenced. There was so much hurt and anger everywhere, even talking about CoE in one's own journal was like navigating a minefield. I felt guilty even saying I liked it. I liked how Jack/Ianto was written in CoE, and all I was reading was how wrong, cheap, OOC and all kinds of dirty their relationship and Ianto's death was. It took me six months to feel certain enough about myself to post this, and even so I was very aware that most likely at least in a couple of cases it would mean severing ties with people I liked and who'd been on my friendslist for years. I do regret this, but writing this I also realised that it's a huge relief being at least able to talk about this now.

(Sorry it took me so long to reply, but I came home late & not very sober yesterday...)

it definitely gave off the wrong message as then I had people sniffing me and saying "ew, smells queer" for days afterwards. :-/

Yikes. Sorry that happened to you. I agree that this maybe wasn't the best idea ever to show Ianto dealing with his new(ishly)found gay identity...

As for the rest... It's difficult. If someone's already homophobic, they'll probably see pretty much everything from that angle, whatever the intended message, unless it's written in such large letters that it eclipses the narrative and makes any complex drama impossible. And maybe not even then.

Personally speaking, I thought the two of them confronting the 456 was such an incredibly powerful moment, and even when it ends tragically, even with Ianto's death... the way you then see the Prime Minister and the others watching this on the screen, all that love and grief, for me the message very much was, don't you even dare judge. LIke Gwen later says to Rhiannon, that was what Ianto died for, trying to save their children and the ones they were planning to hand over.

And Jack killing Stephen is incredibly complex and hard to watch, but it's never less than clear what it costs him, and why he does it, and in the end he is saving all those children.

The thing is, I think RTD was perfectly aware what a fine line he was walking there. He's gay, he writes for TV, how could he not know these tropes? Any discussion should at least be based on the fact that he chose to ignore/write around them because he wanted to tell this story, rather than assume he somehow managed to be completely unaware of them, which is what I've seen people do quite often.

Well, the simplest, safest response to that is that I know I am not interested in condemning RTD as a homophobe and I was never expecting to see an uber-sexualization of or hoping to see a picket fences domestication of Jack and Ianto in S3. So, it bothers me when I feel I'm getting lumped in with the wrong crowd. :P

It doesn't bother me to hear that others liked CoE, so long as they're not telling me that I have to, to stay in fandom. And it's great that your take on their relationship makes it work for you, but I had much higher hopes for the Ianto character. So, for me, it was all kinds of wrong and cheap and somewhat out-of-step characterization. I blame some of that on the reasons you've mentioned elsewhere (last minute changes in the plot, on set changes by directors/actors, the lack of a set plan for the series from the start), but mostly on the choice to reduce Ianto to 'the love interest plot device to break Jack,' when I wanted so much more for him. (And that last bit, separate from anything that I didn't like about CoE, is what keeps me hanging on to fandom - where characters can live beyond their non-existent lives.)

So, it was a surprise to me when the Jack/Alonso scene in EoT2 made me feel a little better.

Keep talking. :)

Edited 2010-01-16 01:09 (UTC)

I'm still somewhat amused by the misspelling 'Schandenfreude' both in the original fic and her 'gentler' version. (Schaden = damage, Schande = shame).

Well, I do have the tendency to feel guilty about a whole lot of things. And apologise all over the place. I've been told it's a bit annoying. *embarrassed smile*

.....lol that actually almost still makes sense.

Admittedly I'm not in the fandom and would only know Children of Earth from Children of the Corn because of whispers I hear around, but there's a point in your post that I think needs addressing, and that's the implication that straight fans wouldn't be concerned for gay issues because of simple civil rights issues. The post seems to say that straight fans could only want gay storylines/characters for fic or fetishization purposes, and that's not true at all.

For a popular example, there's reasons Rowling's audience cheered when she revealed that Dumbledore was gay, and it had nothing to do with fanservice.

I'm going OT and I'm sorry to be a party-pooper but I have issues with the Dumbledore example.

When JKR revealed the fact that he was gay, it was very much after the fact, not only had he died years before, it had been said once the canonic story was over.

It's very nice piquancy to talk about the old man being gay, but it had no relevance to the story as she told it and once again, it showed that gay love is doomed - it would appear that Dumbledore loved Grindelwald and then loved no one else. Ever. Because that's what JKR answered when someone asked if Dumbledore was ever in love, her answer was "he was gay".
To me that says, he was gay and therefore his love was doomed.

People may have cheered the declaration, but where was he in the actual storyline and why out him after a book in which the ugliest stereotypes about Gay men were told about him (being a child molester, comes to mind from Rita Skeeter's biography)?

Hey I feel irrationally guilty about stuff and am chronic apologizer too (I'm only a hard-ass online :P)

Man, I feel like I need to write my own post regarding slash and m/m regardless of Torchwood.

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