Shipper tendencies
Aug. 22nd, 2005 12:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gategrrlCan someone explain to me why there's such a compelling need to sexualize and Romantic-ize characters? I've been there myself, but I seem to have gone past that as a "serious" endeavor. I'll *play* with characters and their sexuality -- but the *need* to pair them up romantically just isn't a priority, and it seems so unnecessary, and somewhat Mary Sueish, especially if it's certain types of het and slash writing.
It's not so much the sexualizing -- that I get, it's fun to imagine your favorite characters whupping it up with the whipped cream and cherries, and get down and dirty and sweaty. But at the same time, what I'm puzzled more about is the need to Harlequinnize decent characters who already have complex, nonsexual relationships with each other, that get totally boring when they DO get together.
Anyone?
It's not so much the sexualizing -- that I get, it's fun to imagine your favorite characters whupping it up with the whipped cream and cherries, and get down and dirty and sweaty. But at the same time, what I'm puzzled more about is the need to Harlequinnize decent characters who already have complex, nonsexual relationships with each other, that get totally boring when they DO get together.
Anyone?
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Date: 2005-08-22 10:08 pm (UTC)I don't "get" why, deep down in the psyche, there's a need to pair up characters who are otherwise fine on their own. I think at heart I'm a genner who will delve into romance reading (here and there).
For instance, there's a series called House on TV now. I don't watch it, but from what I gather, the lead male character is a sarcastic, snarly sonuvabith doctor...who people just pair up left and right. Some of it is personal fantacism and Mary Sueism, but that's not entirely what I'm trying to *understand*. There are people (who I know few and far between) who will ship anything together, even on a show which has no romantic focus.
Obviously, folks will write what turns them on, hence, fanfiction. But I'm not talking fanfiction, exclusively. I'm talking about a *state of mind* that requires that any two characters the least bit attractive, be paired up like a stallion with mare to be covered. It is the constant need for romance? Anywhere?
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Date: 2005-08-22 10:29 pm (UTC)I struggle with the people who'll only read slash (or ship) and who won't read gen. That to me says they have more invested in the sum of the 'relationship' they're reading about than they do in the individual parts. That the composite creature is more interesting than the characters who make it up and I find that quite sad, really. That or they're teenagers buying into the whole 'got to get me a man or I'm not a real woman' thing that some people never grow out of.
For myself, I tend to have a character I like more than the other characters and that's who I'm interested in reading about - gen or slash (assuming there's another character I like enough to pair them up with, which there isn't always), I'm easy where well-written fic about that character is concerned.
However, I don't read het. No matter who's involved. Never have, never will, doesn't interest me at all. It's not that I find it icky, it's more that I find it uninspiring. It does nothing for me. So, what does that say about me? ;)
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Date: 2005-08-22 10:41 pm (UTC)Hmm. I'm wondering if my reading background since I was kid has something to do with my "Wha?" noncomprehension right now. I grew up reading all those 1930-70's SF fiction in my pre and teen years, and we all know how constipated about Romance THOSE classic SF writers were. Geez. Talk about *nothing* -- and then in the seventies the glut of writers like Anne McCaffery and Marion Zimmer Bradley, who brought in a decidedly female "relationship" view, and female Mary Sues, into the predominately male stronghold of Science Fiction...and I can guess where I've gotten my general disdain for smarmy writing, or wish fulfillment, etc...not that I *don't* like these books here and there. But a story has to be damned good, if it's fanfiction, to carry off Romance.
Taking it back to my original question -- WTF is it with *needing* to pair perfectly fine characters up in a compulsive need for Romance?
I'm trying to think of the last time I seriously took a pairing (that wasn't canon on a show)....um...Jack/Paul Davis...no, that wasn't seriously, that was for self-entertainment completely tongue-in-cheek.
:::headdesk:::
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Date: 2005-08-22 10:52 pm (UTC)Sam Carter Syndrome? What use am I as an individual if I am not part of a couple? Does it matter if I can split the atom and negotiate peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians while also whipping up a nice cheese souffle when if I don't have a man I am worthless and useless?
There are loads of people out there whose self-worth is solely predicated by who they're with rather than who they are or what they accomplish. Societal pressures on women still push for them to be part of a couple rather than an individual and shipper tendencies are just that in spades.
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Date: 2005-08-22 10:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-22 11:01 pm (UTC)I do seem to be making that sort of distinction.
But at some level, my brain periodically snaffles and whirs at nonshippers who suddenly become reshippers because they Have Seen The Light! Hosanna! I mean, it's even a sort of joke with some posters now, who have to qualify that they *are not* shippers of a specific pairing, but they like the dynamic for everything *but* that.
(love your icon, btw)
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Date: 2005-08-22 11:11 pm (UTC):soaks head:
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Date: 2005-08-22 11:35 pm (UTC)What compells us to do this? Can we have something that doesn't ship (or slash) and still enjoy that same chemistry?
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Date: 2005-08-23 12:07 am (UTC)I used to enjoy shipping, too, and to an extent, I still do, though not nearly so much. I enjoy a silly romantic comedy (esp those old screwballs with the masterful timing and ridiculous stories you couldn't help but laugh with the premise, etc) and there are stories that include couples or couples-to-be in them that are just da bomb, too. Have you ever read Dianna Wynne Jones' book "Dogsbody"? It involves a love story of a sort, between a girl and her dog/celestial being, and I can totally squee over that ... and she's also written other books with cock-eyed romances, of a sort, going on in them, that are simply marvelous... so I'm not completely anti-ship. (Oh! Oh! Oh! "Deep Secret" is another of her books with a great romance in it that sneaks up on the reader, and then you go...OH!)
But yeah, back to your point: What compells us to do this? Can we have something that doesn't ship (or slash) and still enjoy that same chemistry?
Is it the added dangerousness of the liasons? It is that adventure and discovery aren't enough? Are the current dynamics lacking? Does love/sex add a mysterious *zing* that titillates and teases? Does it go back to wanting a fantasy stand-in? Do the added complications put the reader/viewer on the edge of their seat and pump the adreline to a new high?
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Date: 2005-08-23 01:09 am (UTC)It's the pairs that reek of "oh, I knew they would get together" that bother me. The type of pairing that is in a movie or a book or a tv show. We just know it's going to happen. Something tells me that if it's that predictible, then there are underlying problems.
That didn't answer any of your questions, but I felt like saying it.
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Date: 2005-08-23 07:28 am (UTC)It could also be argued that injecting a romantic element into a story gives you an obvious set-up for h/c - forget whumping someone to within an inch of their life when you can psychologically and emotionally torture them by making their most loved one forget their birthday! Oh, the humanity! :P
On a more serious note, I don't think the problem is often the concept of getting two characters involved so much as that the *execution* of that concept onscreen is lacking, or ham-fisted, or requires the characters to have a lobotomy first.
Take SamJack as your example here - Sam is in her 40's and she's acting like a pining adolescent; Jack is surly and dismissive and fails to deal with the implications of the piny one; Sam gets to stalk him even when she's supposedly involved with someone else and it affects her professional judgement and behaviour; it goes on *forever* with no consequences for either of them despite increasing nausea among the audience; it gets almost-dealt-with and then not. And so on and so forth.
That's why, in some cases, off-screen stuff in fanfic can work much better because it allows for more subtlety and a greater dose of reality to kick in. Or not, in which case you ignore the webpages with hearts and flowers all over them, where Sam is pining because Jack hasn't asked her to go with him to the prom... ;)
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Date: 2005-08-23 01:21 am (UTC)Turn that question around and ask this, "Why not?" The romance genre may be derided, but it outsells every other genre -- and those genres often include romantic elements too. Romance, and the inherent thoughts of sex even if it's not detailed on the page or screen, are mainstays of storytelling.
What compells us to do this? Can we have something that doesn't ship (or slash) and still enjoy that same chemistry?
I have a split mentality regarding ship/slash/gen. I prefer to watch gen onscreen, because if TPTB try to show unresolved sexual tension, they have to drag it out for ages and when they finally do resolve it, I don't care anymore. But I can also discuss shippy/slashy moments with ease, and enjoy fic with those elements. Though I tend to read mostly slash, and I think that has something to do with the fact that it's not something that will happen on the show. Gen and ship can, so I'm not as interesting in them.