You know how you write your great romantic epic where Lex or Clark is seriously involved with, engaged to, or even married to, a woman? Then he realizes that actually Clark or Lex is the one for him, instantly forgets about his romantic partner (and administers her a stern rebuke if she protests about his abandonment of her), and walks off into the sunset with the other man? You know how you think it's sweet and romantic and oh-so-wondrous, because theirloveissopureittriumphsoverall?
It's not. Because you've just made one, and quite possibly both, of your dashing romantic heroes INTO A GIGANTIC ASSHOLE. And while it's certainly acceptable--and quite possibly in character, especially for Lex--to write one of your protagonists as a walking horse's ass, that's not a shiny happy feelgood romantic ending.
If you've got such contempt for your own gender that you can't write a story without celebrating their being trounced, humiliated, and defeated by men--if you're so hopelessly indoctrinated that you believe that men's desire is the most important thing, automatically trumping any other emotional attachments or any commitments that may conflict with it--get into the 21st century, please. What you are writing is misogynistic, and there's no excuse for it. If you don't get why anyone would object to the idea that a man who dumps his wife or excoriates his girlfriend for getting in the way of his love for another man is somehow a sweet and likeable guy, I've got some basic literature for you. It starts with the Seneca Falls Declaration.
Thank you. You hit the nail on the head why I hate romantic comedies in film, and I thoroughly dislike so many epic romances in fan fiction. Leaving somebody at the altar for that One True Love may be ingrained in the media as romantic, but as far as I'm concerned, it's the furthest thing from it.
Posted by: Hope at June 30, 2003 12:10 AMYou could extend this point to any situation where one person leaves another at the altar (or just abruptly ends the relationship) because "it's for the best." There are still threads popping up on alt.tv.b-v-s with titles like "Xander is the world's biggest asshole!" because he left Anya at the altar, even though his motives for doing so were rather understandable, because it was a rather inconsiderate (at least) action to leave her behind to deal with the mess. The person left behind has feelings, and if the one leaving doesn't take that into account--no matter how justified the departure was--a lot of readers are going to conclude that he or she is scum. If that's not the emotion the author is looking for, he or she has a problem.
Posted by: M. Scott Eiland at June 30, 2003 05:27 AMScott: Yes. However, the abandonment, sometimes quite nastily executed, of a woman partner in favor of Clark as a means of showing How True the Nub of Clark and Lex Is has become a recurring trope in the fanfic (as well as the woman partner who exists solely to bring the two of them together and the woman partner turned into raving bitch in order to justify the two of them getting together). I know inexplicable yentaing is a disease that afflicts many a fandom, but SV seems to suffer from a particularly virulent case of slasher's misogyny...perhaps because it's an entry-level fandom for so many and thus has a higher proportion of people with mainstream views of gender? I don't know. Anyway, it's really getting tedious and even painful.
Posted by: Sarah T. at June 30, 2003 10:15 AMSmallville is basically a show centered around two male characters, with a number of secondary (though still interesting, IMO) characters of both genders--perhaps that contributes to the willingness of authors to dismiss the feelings of a secondary character who ends up being the emotional casualty in facilitating the One True Love. I'd be interested to see whether the pattern you mention pops up in other fandoms to the same degree when one or more of the central characters is female and would end up being the emotional casualty in facilitating the OTL--say, Cordelia being thoughtlessly tossed aside by Angel for Wesley or Gunn, or Willow being dumped by Oz for Xander. For that matter, does the opposite pattern occur in femslash? I seem to recall some stories where Riley got rather short shrift as Buffy moved on to Faith (or Willow), but Riley rarely gets an even break in Buffyfic, so that's not really a fair example.
Posted by: M. Scott Eiland at June 30, 2003 03:26 PMI'd be interested to see whether the pattern you mention pops up in other fandoms to the same degree when one or more of the central characters is female...
It happened all the time in The X-Files fan fiction with Scully- she tended to be in the way of Mulder and Krycek's or Mulder and Skinner's Pure, Pure Love. She was often written as a harridan who deliberately tried to sabotage Mulder's great boylove, other times as infantile, weak and ineffectual so that naturally Krycek or Skinner looked all the more appealing just by being competent. From what I understand, Cho Chang and Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter fandom are being written in the same way wrt Harry/Draco and Harry/Ron slash. It happens with a frightening regularity in Smallville, but it's by no means a Smallville Only Production.
Posted by: Hope at June 30, 2003 04:46 PMThat pattern reminds me of the recent Uncanny X-Men storyline (Uncanny X-Men #425/#426) when Havok leaves Polaris at the altar, and Polaris is casted as the mentally unbalanced vengeful screw, and the comic ends with Havok and his new one true love kissing on the Eiffel Tower, as a "romantic happy ending." It's not just fanfic...
Posted by: RatC at July 1, 2003 06:13 PMHeck, you can cast back even farther in X-men continuity to the whole Scott Summers/Maddie Pryor incident. I still can't see him as anything but a schmuck for basically dumping his wife and newborn child to run after the newly "resurrected" Jean Grey. Talk about a giant asshole...
Posted by: Rivka at July 1, 2003 08:15 PMMADDIE WAS PUSHED. ;)
Posted by: Sarah T. at July 1, 2003 08:31 PMTwo words: Fatal Attraction.
Posted by: Ide Cyan at July 2, 2003 12:55 PM