(no subject)

[emony]

"I don't think my ship is better than yours. I don't think my ship is worse than yours. I just have a preference for that particular porn ship flavour. If you agree, repost this in your journal."

I just spotted this on my flist and, while I understand and respect the sentiment, I don't agree.

I do think my ship is better than yours. Otherwise I wouldn't ship it. I respect your right to have a different opinion, and I respect your right to ship whomever you please. I respect your right to write whatever flavour of porn butters your muffin, and I respect your right to squee wildly when your ship of choice appears on screen.

As it happens, I ship different characters to you, and therefore I clearly disagree with your feeling that the characters you ship are MFEO. I think the characters I ship are MFEO - that's why they're my OTP. But that's cool, you know? My opinions are just that - my opinions - and you're just as entitled to disagree with me as I am to disagree with you.

In the end, the opinions that are going to shape the show are those of the show's creators, producers and writers. We fans have very little input into the creative life of the show, whatever we might like to think. To borrow from the fandom that spawned the above, my Tenth Doctor/Rose fanfic o' luv is not going to persuade Russell T Davies to abandon his plans for a Tenth Doctor/Martha snogfest in episode eight of season 3, and your Tenth Doctor/Martha porno fest is not going to convince Uncle Rusty not to bring Rose back for a tragedy-tinged reunion of epic proportions in season 4.

It's our own self-importance that causes these fanwars, and our own insecurity over how our pairings are portrayed. It's not that we think we're better, it's that we think we're worse and we're scared that someone might hear us and realise it.

No one's listening.

Get over yourselves.

Comments

[niennah.livejournal.com]

When you say "No one's listening", who do you mean exactly? The show's creators, producers and writers?

I see your mood is confrontational. I have to admit I disagree with pretty much everything you've said here. Which is odd, as that doesn't happen so often.

[emony.livejournal.com]

Yes, pretty much. I don't mean that they're unaware of what we're doing and saying, because clearly that's not the case. It's really more that what we're doing and saying doesn't have half so much effect as we sometimes think it is. I think people sometimes get very caught up in fandom, and start to believe that what they're saying and doing online really makes a difference - the old SG1 wars, for example, back during season 4. We really thought that it *mattered* whether people shipped Sam/Jack or Daniel/Jack, when in reality the PTB were going to go with whatever they wanted regardless. That one really kicked off, and there was a huge reaction on both sides when they introduced some Sam/Jack aspects into the show, but in reality it was never going to become a romance-based show, whether we wanted it to or not. Daniel/Jack was never, never going to happen, regardless of what we did, and Sam/Jack was never going to be the centre of the show, regardless of what we did, because that wasn't the point or the centre of the show.

So I suppose, to quantify a bit more clearly, we might be able to nibble at the edges and influence the tiniest of changes that TPTB weren't that bothered about anyway, but we don't have the kind of influence that we might think to change the charted route of a show. TPTB work on a very wide-scale approach to their audience - Dr Who is never going to have those wild, crazy sex scenes because it is, essentially, a family show. The online fandom might want the crazy sex, or at least more about romantic relationships, but the BBC are making a show for a Sunday evening family audience. The demographic is much wider than the fanbase, and TPTB are always going to be aware of that. So, in the grand scheme of things, our importance as fans is much smaller than we think it is.

I'm didn't mean I was being confrontational for the sake of starting a fight, just that I know these sort of views are likely to provoke a reaction. Obviously it's okay for you, or anyone else, to disagree on any aspect of what I said above. I'd like to hear your thoughts on it, and if you can change my mind, more power to you :)

[niennah.livejournal.com]

Oh, I see what you mean. I agree that it is unlikely that fans can really have an impact on the trajectory of individual shows (unless you count Spike a. not being killed off in S2, b. being made a regular and c. getting it on with Buffy, but then again Joss is in a class of his own). However, I do think that what we're doing and saying online makes a difference in cumulative terms. That's what I was trying to argue in my slash essay a few months back. To use slash as an example: as online slash develops as a recognised phenomenon, more shows are taking it into account. Okay, apart from maybe Doctor Who or Torchwood, there's still not a lot of kissing, but shows like House and Boston Legal take the slash vibe and run with it. The House creators say they take note of online fandom, and who knows how it will be developed? They don't seem to have ruled out The Gay, and judging by this week's episode, they're still packing in the subtext.

So indeed, we're never going to see Doctor Who Gay Nights and thank goodness! But over a longer time period, I think we are impacting on the content of shows in general. And I personally find that pretty brilliant.

PS: I have to say, I did think the fake Jack/Daniel "wedding" scene in 200 was such a cool shout out. *g*

[emony.livejournal.com]

I think it's more a social and cultural change than fandom itself actually changing anything much. People have been reading and writing slash for decades, but any sort of recognition of "that kind of relationship" in shows is only really starting to happen now. Some of it, perhaps, could be because the Internet is bringing slash fandom to the fore a lot more than it ever was when it was all underground zines, but I think it's more to do with changing societal norms and greater acceptance (or even just acknowledgement) of gay relationships rather than any fan pressure. I've never seen Boston Legal so I don't know how they go about things, but House is certainly just stringing us along with its pseudo-gay relationship between House and Wilson. They might be keeping an eye on the fandom, and they might be aware that there are people out there writing filthy porn (god bless them), but they're not putting House/Wilson notes in *because* of the fandom, they would've done it anyway, because they wanted to.

I suppose I can concede that online fandom may have some impact, but my point above was really that TPTB have to take a much wider perspective on how shows go, in terms of the "real" audience (online fans being, generally, a very small percentage of highly-involved uberfans, not your normal "I'll watch it if I'm in" sort of viewer), the demographic they're aiming for, the requirements of their producers and financiers and networks and so on. And in that overall mix, the online fans are - in reality - much lower down the order of importance than they sometimes think.

And the Jack/Daniel "wedding" was one line, played for a joke, out of 10 seasons. Followed by an actual (well, sort of) Sam/Jack wedding. I wasn't terribly flattered by it, as a (former) J/D fan.

[niennah.livejournal.com]

Got to disagree with you re the writers' attitude to House/Wilson.

I think you're right about societal norms changing - that has to have a huge impact. But Fandom seems to be a phenomenon more and more acknowledged, from magazine and newspaper articles to some level of awareness among showrunners that it's not a bad idea to keep a core fanbase at least partially satisfied. Again, I'm not trying to say that a core fanbase can have a major impact on the direction of a show, but that there are producers and writers out there who are very aware of fans and acknowledge them. For instance, there have been a couple of winks towards Wincest in SPN. Of course we're not supposed to believe the brothers are sleeping together or that it could ever possibly happen, but it is an acknowledgement, something of a collusion. This seems to me to be a product of the visibility of fandom on the internet, the easy access that showrunners have to fan production. Back in the zine days it was far less likely that anyone making a show had direct access to such copious amounts of fan-produced material. Perhaps, along with changes in societal norms that allow producers greater freedom with slashy subtext, the massive change in the mode of fan production and its new visibility can also be credited with the changing producer/consumer relationship and, as a corollory, the changing relationship of canon to fan production.

It seemed to me that the "wedding" was a culmination of rather a lot of visual and verbal jokes throughout the later seasons of SG-1. I was never into the fandom as much as you so I guess it means something different to me, though.

[emony.livejournal.com]

Sorry for the time-delay in replying. I was all overcome with womanly illness yesterday. Heh.

Perhaps, along with changes in societal norms that allow producers greater freedom with slashy subtext, the massive change in the mode of fan production and its new visibility can also be credited with the changing producer/consumer relationship and, as a corollory, the changing relationship of canon to fan production.

Maybe so, but my initial point was meant to be that regardless of who I, as an individual, ship and regardless of who you, as an individual, ship in a show, TPTB are going to do what they want with the show - my shipping a different couple to you is not going to cause the producers to decide not to go witih your ship as canon. I think perhaps we got a bit sidetracked by slash, but this wasn't meant to be about recognition of slash. The initial post I made was about Doctor Who fandom and the Martha/Tenth Doctor fans vs the Rose/Tenth Doctor fans, as I understand there was a mini ship war over there.

The point I wanted to make is that, even though the producers might be aware that there are still lots of Rose/10th Doctor (god that takes so long to type out) fans still out there, my individual position as part of the online Rose/10th Doctor shipper fan presence is not going to make them change their mind about putting in some Martha/10th Doctor things to the new season, because they have much wider considerations when planning their show than just answering the calls of the online fandom. They can put those nods and those shoutouts in, but at the end of the day our impact is not as great as we sometimes think.

When I said "no one's listening", I didn't mean overall in general - they are hearing and watching the movements of the fanbase in general, I'm sure. But they're not sitting here on my LJ watching my every comment on Doctor Who, or any other show, to see exactly what I think. If they do watch us, they have an overview of where, in general, the fandom feeling lies. They're not taking an individual view of us as people. So my individual comments are not going to change the world.

Does that make any more sense? I'm not sure. It's a bit early in the .. afternoon for this sort of thinking, especially for those of us who are out of practice at it ;)

With the wedding, I'll have to take your word for it, as I still haven't seen any of season 7, 8 or 9. I quite enjoyed 10 though, so I might pick up copies at some point and get caught up.

[niennah.livejournal.com]

Hey, no worries! I hope you're feeling better today.

And yes, sorry, I realise I went a bit OT. Blame it on the fact that my brain is stuck in that place. And now I have to make up some sort of PhD proposal! Sometimes life is so stressful. Cannot cope, of to Mordor. ;)

I see exactly what you mean and yes, of course I have to agree because you're right. I didn't realise there was a ship war. Ship wars don't make sense to me for the very reasons you have stated. Also because they just don't make sense to me. I always feel fandom should be a live and let live kind of space, but so often it's not.

[naughtyelf.livejournal.com]

I'm about to go to bed to get sleep before the night shift, so I'm too tired to form a real opinion right now, but I'd just like to say that your use of the term "MFEO" has made me start singing the Kavana song of that title. I feel dirty, and surprised that I can still remember that particular song...

[emony.livejournal.com]

There's a song? How frightening! ;)

[gobsmackit.livejournal.com]

Ah, I completely agree with the basis of your argument. (I think.)

It's like people who spew that crap about everyone's opinion being worthy and trying to let it lie at that. Par exemple, politically: if you think that respecting your right to vote means I automatically respect who you voted for and why, you've got another thing coming! ...not that I'm still bitter.

[emony.livejournal.com]

Exactly. I'm glad to hear I'm not totally alone in this :) Thanks.

[silent-chris.livejournal.com]

Good point about 'shipping.

Do people actually call him Uncle Rusty?