Creative-Slash-Fiction
Hi there. Are you happy with your life?
I'm not asking this out of reflexive courtesy; I'm asking a literal question. Are you happy with the life in which you currently find yourself? This is your actual life after all; you may or not get another one (opinions diverge on that point). Does it bring you pleasure? Are you satisfied with the kind of person you are? When you look at yourself in the mirror, is the person staring back at you a friend of yours, or is it someone you wish would just... go away? Are you doing something that brings you happiness? When you look ahead to the rest of your life stretching before you, do you like what you see, or do you wish things were different? Are there people in your immediate circle who enrich your life, or do they make you miserable? Can you be yourself when you're in the presence of others, or do you feel like you're wearing a disguise all the time?
Think about all that for a bit and get back to me.
Now, here's a related question. Is your life happy with you?
By that I mean are you the kind of person that society celebrates? Are you respected in your community? Do people admire you, or are you ridiculed? Do they even notice you at all? Do "normal" people cross the street when they see you coming? Do they occasionally smash your windows and paint pithy slogans on your front door a little bit? When you fall in love, can you be open and honest about that love, or would doing so get you in trouble (or worse)? Are people who look like you ever depicted in popular culture? Are those depictions respectful, or are "you" invariably portrayed as the predator; the terrorist; the drug dealer; the bimbo? What about your favourite books? Are they more likely to turn up on the bestseller list or on a bonfire?
Are you a target demographic? Or just a target?
Living one's life on the margins of a community can be exhausting; especially when that community has very specific ideas about identity and conformity. Even societies that are nominally tolerant and inclusive will have their outsiders, and trust me; societies can be a lot less fun when they have been carefully tailored for Other People.
But hey, what can we do? This is the Reality we've got; we're all stuck in it. It's not like we can just create our own Reality at will, right?
Signifier-Slash-Signified
In 1954 the German-American psychologist Fredric Wertham published his notorious book Seduction of the Innocent, warning American parents that their all-American children were being corrupted, corroded and thoroughly de-Normalised by comic books.
Wertham's contempt for comic books (and comic book super-heroes) was fierce and universal, but he took extra time to direct specific ire towards the character of Batman (or more specifically toward Batman & Robin).
Wertham was not just a crusading author, he was a practising child psychologist in mid-Century America with a particular focus on juvenile delinquency. Some of his young patients had been placed in his... care... to be "cured" of their homosexuality, and Wertham recounts the testimony of one such patient in his book:
One young homosexual during psychotherapy brought us a copy of Detective Comics, with a Batman story. He pointed out a picture of "The Home of Bruce and Dick" a house beautifully landscaped, warmly lighted and showing the devoted pair side by side, looking out a picture window. When he was eight this boy had realized from fantasies about comic book pictures that he was aroused by men. At the age of ten or eleven, "I found my liking, my sexual desires, in comic books. I think I put myself in the position of Robin. I did want to have relations with Batman. The only suggestion of homosexuality may be that they seem to be so close to each other. I remember the first time I came across the page mentioning the 'secret bat cave.' The thought of Batman and Robin living together and possibly having sex relations came to my mind. You can almost connect yourself with the people. I was put in the position of the rescued rather than the rescuer. I felt I'd like to be loved by someone like Batman or Superman."
Dr. Wertham cites this poor kid's account because he wants to shock his readers into snatching the Batman comics out of their children's hands before little Timmy starts learning the words to "Somewhere over the rainbow"... but really, he needn't have worried so.
Batman was not turning comic book fans gay. It was the other way round.
Fan-Slash-Fiction
Although the term had not yet been coined in 1954, Dr. Wertham's un-named patient-cum-Batman connoisseur was actually a pioneer in a practice that would eventually be called Slash Fiction.
Slash fiction is a sub-genre of Fan Fiction that involves taking characters from an existing (usually pop-culture) franchise and creating stories about them in same-sex relationships. The term itself was apparently coined in the 1970s when Star Trek fans began discreetly sharing "Kirk-slash-Spock" erotica at conventions, but the concept really exploded in the age of the internet.
No team-up, it seems, is too transgressive for fans of such things: Snape/Dumbledore; Holmes/Watson; Spike/Angel; Luke/Han... you name it. Think of a pair of same-sex characters in a pop-culture franchise and I guarantee someone somewhere has put them in bed together.
Author-Slash-Creator
Last week I quoted Philip K. Dick's assertion that good science fiction (which I extended to all fiction) is ultimately "a collaboration between author and reader, in which both create - and enjoy doing it."
Fan fiction is (copyright lawyers notwithstanding) a collaboration between the readers (viewers) of a narrative and the creators of that narrative. The author creates a compelling world, populated by characters who awaken something within the audience. The audience is then galvanised enough to take that world and those characters and create something new and distinct of their own.
But there is an added element at work here; especially when it comes to slash fiction.
I asked at the beginning of this ramble if you were happy with your life because, as I said, it's the only one we've got. But an author writing a story is able to create any Reality they choose. For the disenfranchised this can be a lifeline. Mainstream culture may not cater to them, but they have the agency to cater to themselves by literally writing themselves a different reality.
Last week's Paperhouse demonstrated Anna's ability to create Reality with her pencil. Writers who engage in slash fiction are similarly compelled to create a reality that gives them something they are lacking in their own lives. A lot of slash fiction is written by people who find it difficult (or dangerous) to explore their sexual preferences in their real lives; but when they put pen to paper they are in complete control of their Reality, and can express anything they can imagine.
The film Slash is an American independent film from 2016 about Neil; an introverted fifteen-year-old boy of uncertain sexuality and few social outlets who finds satisfaction in the slash fiction he (privately) writes about a (fictional) science fiction book series named Vanguard.
His own life may be troubled and unhappy, but his writing allows him to take complete control of Reality. Not his reality unfortunately, but what J.R.R. Tolkien called the sub-Creation: the Reality of the written word created by an author.
In his Vanguard slash fiction Neil is able to explore aspects of his own psyche in a completely safe environment (it's words after all) without putting himself or anyone else in harm's way.
It might be easy (and tempting) to ridicule slash fiction and its proponents (and the copyright holders are sometimes less than tolerant of such things) but the impulse behind slash fiction is rather more commonplace than one might think.
Author-Slash-ChatBot
Our current generation now has access to A.I. ChatBots who can adopt whatever persona one feeds into them, and more and more people appear to be using those ChatBots to "build" themselves a romantic companion out of words. In fact there is growing evidence that this practice is rather more than just the unhappy indulgence of a few introverted misfits. One company that offers an A.I. companion-Bot has recently announced that it now has in excess of 40 million users. That's the equivalent of the entire population of Canada, and it points to something more widespread than a few socially-awkward Trekkies sharing their mimeographed Kirk/Spock fantasies in the 1970s.
Like slash fiction, A.I. "relationships" allow users to explore aspects of themselves they may not be comfortable (or safe) revealing to the outside world. But unlike slash fiction, an A.I. companion gives off the illusion of agency: it can respond and react as if there's a real person at the other end of the line: a "real person" who will be exactly the kind of partner they have always fantasised about; who will dote on their every word, their every thought, and who will always be into exactly the sort of things they are into - no matter how weird, creepy or downright disturbing those things might be. The fact that so many people seem to be venturing down this route suggests that something critical may have shifted in this society of ours.
I asked earlier if you were happy in your Reality. More than 40 million people now appear to be dipping their toes into an alternative Reality; a Reality that can give a fair impression of dipping its toes right back at them.
It's a pity that Fredric Wertham's un-named Batman fan didn't have access to a ChatBot. It might have given him a much-needed outlet.
We will screen Slash at 7.30 on Thursday, the 13th of November at the Victoria Park Baptist Church.
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