snorkackcatcher | In which I draw a strained analogy between Fandom and Art

A newspaper story that happened to chime with musings on a fandom subject I never got round to making a specific post on before ...

The Guardian's G2 section today had an article entitled Beyond Lust by one Jonathan Jones, concerning an Art and Sex Exhibition at the Barbican (a link from that page goes to a display of a few exhibits that the paper warned May Offend, although frankly none of it seemed worth raising an eyebrow over, let alone anything else). Much of the article seems to be not unexpected, um, wank (with approving nods to Foucault and disapproving ones to the Church), but the introductory paragraph outlining its thesis struck me:

You could not exclude Schiele from an exhibition entitled Seduced: Art and Sex from Antiquity to the Present. Nor could you exclude his Viennese contemporary, Gustav Klimt, whose Reclining Masturbating Girl hangs nearby, nor Picasso, whose painting of himself at the age of about 20 being fellated is in the same room. And yet there's something about that title, "art and sex", that doesn't quite do justice to these artists. It implies that art can sometimes be about things other than sex - and I'm not sure if Schiele or Picasso ever believed it could. I'm not sure if I believe it myself.

Emphasis mine, because it had my jaw dropping at the sheer nuttiness of the contention -- however overstated for effect. I'm sure Mr Jones doesn't really mean to imply that landscapes, or portraiture, or devotional art, or abstract explorations of shape and colour, or any of the numerous other things that art can be 'about', are actually, in fact, about sex -- because that would be silly. But in the article he does seem to come close to suggesting that sexual themes are so daring and transgressive that they make a piece of art Art, not like that booorING conventional stuff which is about something else, and that this is the true measure of an artist -- which may say more about the chap himself than about the art. As he concludes:

It's a risky business, admitting to how much you enjoy looking at sex. I loved this show, but left feeling sad and ashamed; then I had to come back the next day and look again. It is the bravest and most intelligent exhibition of the year.

Bravest and most intelligent? Bullshit, I suspect (although I'm not going to bother travelling to London to find out). It would have required considerable bravery to put on an exhibition on this subject half a century ago, but not so much these days. But his attitude -- that sex is by far the most Significant and Authentic subject of artistic expression, and that other subjects are just milquetoast stuff that lacks the guts to explore sexuality -- seems not uncommon.

You can already see exactly where I'm going with this, can't you?

Having camped in fandom for a few years -- or at least the modest subset of it that writes and reads fic -- I've often found myself exasperated with its emphasis on shipping, and especially with the amount of attention directed towards 'offbeat' R/NC-17 material such as incest, kink, and contrived pairings. Now if people like all that simply because they find it entertaining or totally hot, and don't mind saying so -- hey, fair enough. That's a perfectly sensible, no-bullshit reason. But when things get highfalutin' and considerations of Artistic Expression are brought in, it's often irritating. I've gazed with incomprehension at opinions such as (roughly): "I wouldn't write genfic -- I can't include sex? I'd find that so restrictive!"

I've come to the conclusion -- observation, really -- that there are people with a take analogous to that of our Mr Jones. It's the most important subject, it's what fanfic is Really For, and writers who choose other subjects for their fic or write ratings below R are pursuing an inherently lesser and artistically weaker field of little interest to us grownups.

Um, it's all wrong ... that is, I think I disagree. :) My personal general approach (oft-expressed to the point of tedium -- stop me if you've heard this one before! :D), is that there are a huge number of different stories that can be told, in a very large number of which the characters' sexual behaviour plays either no role or only a secondary role. (This applies to both fanfic and 'original fic', btw -- and to artistic expression in general, plz to be noting Mr Jones.) The sensible course of action would seem to be to just write the damn story, include romance and sex if and when they have some role to play, don't bother if they don't, and don't worry about what rating is appropriate until you've finished. Adding superfluous scenes to a story tends to weaken it artistically, and superfluous shippy scenes are a very common example of that. Even if you're writing under strict genfic rules, having to exclude one particular subject seems far less restrictive to me than feeling you have to include it ...

So I'm afraid I can't agree with Mr Jones, or with that particular hardline section of fandom. Narrow focus on sex in fic or art is just as ridiculous as going to great pains to avoid it entirely -- as an attitude, it seems more adolescent than adult. And if we are going to get highfalutin', it probably doesn't achieve nearly as much as claimed in terms of Artistic Expression, or artistic growth for that matter. I'd encourage writers who take this line to try how the gen half (or 5%) lives for a change. You never know, you might surprise yourself by liking it. :)

(This has been your irregularly scheduled grumpy rant.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

lls-mutant.livejournal.com

I'm right there with you. Sure, I'll write the odd piece of PWP, and I've certainly read some, but the fics that have stuck with me the longest are gen, or if sex is included it's included for a reason. Not that stories shouldn't have sex ever, but when sex changes the dynamic between two characters, it certainly makes sense to include it.

It's funny. I think one of the pieces of art I've found most moving and profound is most certainly non-sexual. (I also always see it in frame shops.) It's a picture of a middle-aged man in a business suit standing in front of the Vietnam Memorial, and the ghosts of his comrades in the reflections. It's an incredibly moving piece, and even though I've seen it several times it always makes me want to cry. (Since you're a Brit, you may not have seen it. It's by Lee Teter and you can see it here)
And I know the best piece of fic I've ever written was totally gen. (Men and Angels.)

I agree, though, that I just do not understand the fascination with a lot of the kinks. If it is sexual- like you said, hey, that's fine. But the big one I really don't get is why incest is supposed to be so hot. I mean, heck. I have a younger brother. And objectively, I can admit he's very attractive. And before he decided to become a total jerk, we were close. But the idea of him having sex- much less with me EW!!!- just makes me want to puke. I know there's supposed to be a difference between art and fiction, but I still don't get the attraction at all. And it is very frustrating to read so many newsletters and see most of the recs be NC-17/Adult, whatever.

I'm all for sex in stories, or even stories about sex. It is a part of life. But yeah- it's a part of life, and certainly not the only one!

Thanks. I've been wanting to say that for a while, too :)

From:

snorkackcatcher

Absolutely -- when sex in fic is done well, that's terrific, and I appreciate it. But it isn't all that easy to write effectively, though! Perhaps it's like writing comedy, it needs to look effortless in order to really work well and you can't really do it by formula.

I hadn't seen that poster, but I agree it's very poignant and effective. It's got a universality about it -- you could imagine something similar in which (say) a centurion is looking at one of Caesar's triumphal arches, and seeing the ghosts of his fallen fellow legionnaires in the engraving.

And I agree about Men & Angels -- that blew me away, it's easily in my personal list of Top Ten fanfics ever!

From:

quivo.livejournal.com

Word to the max, man. Especially this:
The sensible course of action would seem to be to just write the damn story, include romance and sex if and when they have some role to play, don't bother if they don't, and don't worry about what rating is appropriate until you've finished.

It doesn't help, of course, that one of the most-used descriptive tools for stories in fandom is the pairing label. If you're just writing a story, sticking in a pairing label may range from being an entirely honest statement about the majority of the material you've written, or, at the other extreme, a tangential statement about two people who happen to briefly get together while the main plot of the story is going on in the foreground. There's more than enough room for all the stories on that continuum, but it seems like most people think of shippy stories as very close to the 'all about the pairing' model, and think of gen stories as very close to the 'all about the events' model, despite the fact that the best stories usually combine the two things seamlessly.

From:

jdbracknell.livejournal.com

It doesn't help, of course, that one of the most-used descriptive tools for stories in fandom is the pairing label. If you're just writing a story, sticking in a pairing label may range from being an entirely honest statement about the majority of the material you've written, or, at the other extreme, a tangential statement about two people who happen to briefly get together

Oh, I totally agree. The number of times I've written something that's mostly gen only to get reviews going 'oh, I like this, but what's the pairing going to be?', when to me, it's not about that - it's about the story. Everyone tends to write the characters who appeal to them, of course, and if they have a particular relationship with someone else you need to reflect that in your writing - but the focus on shipping does drive me a bit mad sometimes. It's really very possible to write a trio story in which Ron and Hermione happen to play roles without it being a shippy story about them, in my opinion.

In which I draw a strained analogy between Fandom and Art

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags