(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.
no subject
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.