This writer’s blog by Matthew Graham is really fascinating.
I think I understand now why Matt’s not altogether comfortable with the masses of gay porn written about Gene. Don’t get me wrong, he has never expressed anything negative, he just... avoids the topic a fair amount, and after series two aired said Sam/Annie was the love affair of
Life on Mars. Where Ashley talks of homoerotic male bonding, central Sam/Gene love-stories and ‘jousting’, Matthew speaks of the metallic taste of chemistry between Gene and any. female. character. ever.
If Gene’s a character you’ve created out of thin air, naturally you’re going to feel a certain amount of ownership. He’s yours. You fed him and encouraged him to get bigger, polished his little loafers of a morning. But death of the author, he’s out in the world now, yada, yada. You can probably grow to accept that some members of your audience are going to view that character slightly differently to how you intended. So, privately, you think it’s a shame all members of that audience do are reduce him to sexual meat, but in public, you play up to it a little, because
they’re your audience, you want them to like you.
But if Gene’s a character you’ve created based on a man you called your uncle? A man you obviously adored with childish enthusiasm and no small amount of misplaced God-worship, and you’re a nice but slightly ignorant white middle class boy, who’s left of centre, but not
left of centre... I can see that your reaction would be a more vehement ‘No! You’re doing it wrong!
Uncle Gene was straight, damn you, so straight. See all those women he leers after? See that chemistry? STRAIGHT! I cannot show you how straight he was. Why won’t you
belieeeeeeve me?'
Hoist with one’s own petard, so to (incorrectly) speak. You created a “friendship” for
your Uncle Gene 80% of your fans like to view as “extreme-friendship”. And this is unsettling.
Huh.
This is why I love TPTB trying to insist that the "real" love story is Sam/Annie, because it makes Sam/Gene that much more compelling, and throws more angsty obstacles in their way.
Much as I loved the slashy overtones (and undertones) in the Sherlock Holmes movie, but during the promotional period, I wanted to tell RDJr and Jude Law and Guy Ritchie to STFU about it already. As good as it was, it would have been 100% better if it hadn't already been promoed all over the place.
I loved House/Wilson best when it was an underground thing. The more the writers start throwing in fanservice the more it annoys me and don't even get me started on RSL and Hugh Laurie giving that "Bromance" interview. (Those especially annoy me because the actors are usually trying to have cake and eat it too---OH WE'RE PLAYING GAY, but we (or the characters) aren't really gay.
Absolutely. I despise fanservice in any form anyway and I think we always knew Hugh Laurie was fairly relaxed about that sort of thing (crikey, being around Stephen Fry all his working life could hardly have made him homophobic!) but it was just all too 'nudge-nudge, wink-wink, aren't we clever boys?' and after a while that just gets patronising!
And 'happy endings' of course are relative; in Shakespearean terms, 'everybody's still alive' is all you need for a happy ending!
I don't want to work hard to find my story. I want to have a source text that brings up enough varied scenarios that I can imagine any number of tacks and access points to tell interesting stories (or, in my case, write interesting scenes.) I want characters I care about, who care about each other, and it can be up to me to decide how, but I won't say no if the creator's open to multiple interpretations.
I love buddy couples. I tend to ship friends anyway and I don't think there are any true foe-yay couples I go for, although I may make jokes about some nemeses. (This is partly the reason Doctor/Master doesn't work for me, although I would argue in many other ways it ticks all the boxes.) I feel that friendship is greatly undervalued in fiction.
Sam and Gene are sort of the exception that prove the rule, for me. I love their friendship. That is why I ship them. I love the conflict because it keeps it exciting, because it provides those multiple access points into their story, but at the end of the long and arduous day, it's knowing that they trust and rely upon each other, enjoy one another's company, that keeps me going.
Edited at 2010-04-04 06:45 am (UTC)
Yes. Creating a character DOES give the creator rights. That's the whole point of "copyright." It's not worth pursuing fanfic because there's no money in it, but for heaven's sake, if someone doesn't care for his character being slashed, he's got at least as much right to his own opinion--and to EXPRESS it--as fanficcers have.
Personally, I quite like it when people have alternative takes on what I've written. Whilst I tend to take to heart what authors say about their fiction, I am not angry when someone reinterprets my fiction differently from how I intended.
If I were to create a gay character and someone straightened them out, I'd question their motivations for doing so, but I don't think I would be furious. It hasn't happened yet, so I can't say for sure, but based on how I react to other things... no.
As am I, on occasion, so, can't fault him there.
On the other hand, he's clearly way, way, way too in love with Gene, oh my.
I don't. Matthew created the friendship in the first place, and Ashley was definitely aiming for homoerotic subtext, so I get why he's a little "look, Gene's straight!" but won't lose sleep at night if I write stories where he's not.
Matthew does the blogging thing because he wants to connect with the fans, right? I kinda feel right now he's connected to us more than is comfortable.
Hence why Twitter really, really scares me. :P
I don't get twitter. Much like I don't get facebook. I haven't yet figured out how to operate them and don't much care to.