Oh, first, a baseline: I generally need a LOT of canon interactions between the two--or at the very least, their relationship needs to be very central to the story. I have a hard time shipping anyone who doesn't have a nice rich canon together, I'm not someone who can enjoy making up my own head canon for relationships, sometimes to my chagrin.
I have long maintained that a big part of the reason for the popularity of slash in modern female fan culture is specifically due to the dearth of interesting relationships/interactions for women. Of course, women rarely interact with other women, as the Bechdel test shows in spades, but even their interactions with men tend to revolve around men as the viewpoint character. Case in point: Uhura and Spock (and Uhura and Kirk) in the first of the new ST movies (I haven't seen the 2nd). Uhura may be a badass character, but we know almost nothing about her. Kirk and Spock are both viewpoint characters. We've gotten pieces of their pasts. We've met their mothers. (I wonder what Uhura's mother was like?) They are, as presented by the story, equals. They are both point of view characters and their relationship is fraught with energy, passion, and misunderstandings. How can Uhura, a side, non-viewpoint character who we almost never see except when she is interacting in some way with the two male characters, possibly compete?
This dynamic seems to play out over and over again across popular media: two male characters with strong personalities that clash/interact/fight/work together and have independent existences in their own right. One or both of the males is assigned a female character to be a companion/love interest - as Dini said of Cartoon Network's requirements, the women are 'not as smart as them men, one step behind the men', and more than that, they are not viewpoint characters and have little background and history to draw upon. There's no way that their relationships can compete with the powerful dynamics between the viewpoint male characters, and they end up seeming to be little more than tokens that the creators can point to and say, "See? He's not gay. He has a girlfriend!"
Sorry to sidetrack your post; this is something I've been thinking about for awhile and want to write more about. Thanks for letting me get some of my thoughts in order in your space. :)
BTW, on a separate note, I was thinking about Heroes of the Squared Circle this morning. I'm really looking forward to seeing "The Kryptonian", especially if he ends up fighting Batman. I'm curious to see in the persona of Superman will ultimately tie together the characters of Country Clark and The Kryptonian. That would be really neat. :)
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Date: 2014-01-18 06:28 pm (UTC)I have long maintained that a big part of the reason for the popularity of slash in modern female fan culture is specifically due to the dearth of interesting relationships/interactions for women. Of course, women rarely interact with other women, as the Bechdel test shows in spades, but even their interactions with men tend to revolve around men as the viewpoint character. Case in point: Uhura and Spock (and Uhura and Kirk) in the first of the new ST movies (I haven't seen the 2nd). Uhura may be a badass character, but we know almost nothing about her. Kirk and Spock are both viewpoint characters. We've gotten pieces of their pasts. We've met their mothers. (I wonder what Uhura's mother was like?) They are, as presented by the story, equals. They are both point of view characters and their relationship is fraught with energy, passion, and misunderstandings. How can Uhura, a side, non-viewpoint character who we almost never see except when she is interacting in some way with the two male characters, possibly compete?
This dynamic seems to play out over and over again across popular media: two male characters with strong personalities that clash/interact/fight/work together and have independent existences in their own right. One or both of the males is assigned a female character to be a companion/love interest - as Dini said of Cartoon Network's requirements, the women are 'not as smart as them men, one step behind the men', and more than that, they are not viewpoint characters and have little background and history to draw upon. There's no way that their relationships can compete with the powerful dynamics between the viewpoint male characters, and they end up seeming to be little more than tokens that the creators can point to and say, "See? He's not gay. He has a girlfriend!"
Sorry to sidetrack your post; this is something I've been thinking about for awhile and want to write more about. Thanks for letting me get some of my thoughts in order in your space. :)
BTW, on a separate note, I was thinking about Heroes of the Squared Circle this morning. I'm really looking forward to seeing "The Kryptonian", especially if he ends up fighting Batman. I'm curious to see in the persona of Superman will ultimately tie together the characters of Country Clark and The Kryptonian. That would be really neat. :)