I do feel like femslash fandom as a larger entity exists, but I don't consider myself a part of it, not even close, so everything I say here is based on vague perceptions and not any kind of legitimate knowledge or experience.
Okay, while guyslash fandom, which I don't see as a larger entity the way I do femslash fandom, usually latches onto fandoms where there are strong male friendships/rivalries, I find femslash fandom seems to shift a lot towards fandoms where there are canonical f/f pairings. For instance, Grey's Anatomy had all these variations of Meredith/Cristina/Izzie/Addison possibilities from the start, but the femslashy side of the fandom didn't truly take off until Callie started dating Erica. Which I find funny because Erica is pretty widely disliked - except in femslash fandom, where people seem to love her, or at least write her a lot in many different pairings. She's not even on the show anymore, and now Callie's dating Arizona, who I absolutely love (though I'm half a season behind), but people are still all about the Erica/Callie and occasionally those two shipped with Addison. So even when it comes to canonical f/f couples, I don't understand how fandom picks and chooses.
Another example of ships/fandoms whose massive femslash presence I don't get: Devil Wears Prada. Huge fandom presence based on a one-shot movie from 200...5? which didn't even get that much hype in the first place (the way, say, Inception has). And the main ship is Andi/Miranda, i.e. Adorable Young Assistant/Fifty-Year-Old Boss. Which... is super random, because, okay, I like age differences (I have a ridiculous teacher/student kink), but it's so unusual for that kind of pairing to be the main one in a fandom, and even more so when you could also be shipping Andi/Emily, i.e. Adorable Young Assistant/Cold, Distant, Jealous Previous Assistant. They interact a lot. They're both gorgeous. I'm pretty sure if this were a slash fandom, Andi/Emily would be the most popular ship. But I digress.
Surprisingly for me, though, last year Glee fandom took off firstly with a f/f rivalry pairing, Rachel/Quinn, and then this summer Rizzoli & Isles seems to have gotten a lot of femslash presence, and I understand that's a cop show and Rizzoli and Isles are work partners/friends, so maybe (hopefully) those tendencies are changing.
Femslash fans who are exclusively into femslash: from what I see on femslash_today? There seem to be a lot. It's like that early slash hivemind where, when people moved fandoms, they moved to the next one with the big slashable m/m friendship (or Queer as Folk, but QaF always seemed to be kind of insular to me, in its own way, with a lot of fans who were, coincidentally, exclusively into QaF). That's what seems to be happening to femslash fandom as a collective entity.
This is actually one of the reasons I can't get into femslash fandom as such: I get into fandoms, and within those fandoms, I happen to like femslash pairings, as well as het pairings and m/m slash pairings and the occasional threesome. The thing is, I have a fair amount of people on my LJ flist who write femslash almost exclusively, sometimes in fandoms with canonical f/f pairings, but it never feels like they're part of that femslash fandom entity we're talking about. Maybe because I know them better and don't see them as part of a group, or because they have other interests that they talk about where I can see it.
I guess my point here is that I don't like that femslash fandom entity, because it doesn't make sense to me as a fannish collective. I'm not going to like a pairing just because it's femslash and that's somewhat rare. I'm not going to be interested in a fandom just because it has a strong femslash presence, or a canonical f/f ship. It can be a selling point, but not the only selling point. I liked the general idea of Emily/Naomi in season 3 of Skins, but I was so burned out by the show by that point that I had zero willingness to watch it. I'm glad there's a lesbian in Pretty Little Liars, but it's not even close to my favorite part of the show. I actually ship femslash pairings in it that "femslash fandom" seems to ignore solely because they're not Emily/one of her canonical love interests.
As to my experience shipping femslash (I wouldn't call myself a femslasher) in larger Western media fandoms: I feel alone. Not in a woe is me way, but in a "I'm going to write this pairing and out of the ten people, tops, who read it, four will read it because they're my friends, four out of curiosity/multishippiness/open-mindedness, and two because they're actually interested in the pairing." I don't feel alone in those fandoms, but I always feel a little bit like I'm the only one who cares and even thinks about my pairings. I had a great experience with Glee (before I lost interest in the show), but every other fandom where I ship femslash is taken over by het or slash or combinations of both. I recently got into The Vampire Diaries and there are so many female characters who regularly interact with each other, but almost no femslash fic. Bones fandom is OTP-ish to a fault, which means out of three women, two are basically taken, including the canonically bisexual one. (That said, I'm bound to be alone in my Bones ships, because I don't ship one of those OTPs—Angela/Hodgins—, and the character femslash fandom focuses on for Bones—Brennan—is a character who hits my embarrassment squick too painfully to read fic about her.)
This is such a long, disjointed comment. Sorry about that. And, again, disclaimer: this is all based on perceptions. I've been a lurker in many fandoms for a long time, but I could easily be way off about everything.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2010-09-25 12:55 pm (UTC)Okay, while guyslash fandom, which I don't see as a larger entity the way I do femslash fandom, usually latches onto fandoms where there are strong male friendships/rivalries, I find femslash fandom seems to shift a lot towards fandoms where there are canonical f/f pairings. For instance, Grey's Anatomy had all these variations of Meredith/Cristina/Izzie/Addison possibilities from the start, but the femslashy side of the fandom didn't truly take off until Callie started dating Erica. Which I find funny because Erica is pretty widely disliked - except in femslash fandom, where people seem to love her, or at least write her a lot in many different pairings. She's not even on the show anymore, and now Callie's dating Arizona, who I absolutely love (though I'm half a season behind), but people are still all about the Erica/Callie and occasionally those two shipped with Addison. So even when it comes to canonical f/f couples, I don't understand how fandom picks and chooses.
Another example of ships/fandoms whose massive femslash presence I don't get: Devil Wears Prada. Huge fandom presence based on a one-shot movie from 200...5? which didn't even get that much hype in the first place (the way, say, Inception has). And the main ship is Andi/Miranda, i.e. Adorable Young Assistant/Fifty-Year-Old Boss. Which... is super random, because, okay, I like age differences (I have a ridiculous teacher/student kink), but it's so unusual for that kind of pairing to be the main one in a fandom, and even more so when you could also be shipping Andi/Emily, i.e. Adorable Young Assistant/Cold, Distant, Jealous Previous Assistant. They interact a lot. They're both gorgeous. I'm pretty sure if this were a slash fandom, Andi/Emily would be the most popular ship. But I digress.
Surprisingly for me, though, last year Glee fandom took off firstly with a f/f rivalry pairing, Rachel/Quinn, and then this summer Rizzoli & Isles seems to have gotten a lot of femslash presence, and I understand that's a cop show and Rizzoli and Isles are work partners/friends, so maybe (hopefully) those tendencies are changing.
Femslash fans who are exclusively into femslash: from what I see on femslash_today? There seem to be a lot. It's like that early slash hivemind where, when people moved fandoms, they moved to the next one with the big slashable m/m friendship (or Queer as Folk, but QaF always seemed to be kind of insular to me, in its own way, with a lot of fans who were, coincidentally, exclusively into QaF). That's what seems to be happening to femslash fandom as a collective entity.
This is actually one of the reasons I can't get into femslash fandom as such: I get into fandoms, and within those fandoms, I happen to like femslash pairings, as well as het pairings and m/m slash pairings and the occasional threesome. The thing is, I have a fair amount of people on my LJ flist who write femslash almost exclusively, sometimes in fandoms with canonical f/f pairings, but it never feels like they're part of that femslash fandom entity we're talking about. Maybe because I know them better and don't see them as part of a group, or because they have other interests that they talk about where I can see it.
I guess my point here is that I don't like that femslash fandom entity, because it doesn't make sense to me as a fannish collective. I'm not going to like a pairing just because it's femslash and that's somewhat rare. I'm not going to be interested in a fandom just because it has a strong femslash presence, or a canonical f/f ship. It can be a selling point, but not the only selling point. I liked the general idea of Emily/Naomi in season 3 of Skins, but I was so burned out by the show by that point that I had zero willingness to watch it. I'm glad there's a lesbian in Pretty Little Liars, but it's not even close to my favorite part of the show. I actually ship femslash pairings in it that "femslash fandom" seems to ignore solely because they're not Emily/one of her canonical love interests.
As to my experience shipping femslash (I wouldn't call myself a femslasher) in larger Western media fandoms: I feel alone. Not in a woe is me way, but in a "I'm going to write this pairing and out of the ten people, tops, who read it, four will read it because they're my friends, four out of curiosity/multishippiness/open-mindedness, and two because they're actually interested in the pairing." I don't feel alone in those fandoms, but I always feel a little bit like I'm the only one who cares and even thinks about my pairings. I had a great experience with Glee (before I lost interest in the show), but every other fandom where I ship femslash is taken over by het or slash or combinations of both. I recently got into The Vampire Diaries and there are so many female characters who regularly interact with each other, but almost no femslash fic. Bones fandom is OTP-ish to a fault, which means out of three women, two are basically taken, including the canonically bisexual one. (That said, I'm bound to be alone in my Bones ships, because I don't ship one of those OTPs—Angela/Hodgins—, and the character femslash fandom focuses on for Bones—Brennan—is a character who hits my embarrassment squick too painfully to read fic about her.)
This is such a long, disjointed comment. Sorry about that. And, again, disclaimer: this is all based on perceptions. I've been a lurker in many fandoms for a long time, but I could easily be way off about everything.