Slash and the Phantasmatic Theater

Speaking of songtapes and VCRs, there’s a video-editing workshop in Holder 4B (a.k.a. SDA headquarters) this Saturday 1–5 p.m.… you know, if you really want to make things like the sample below. Just sayin’.

Come back to the Castle ag’in, He-Man honey.

It was Orr’s description of the phantasmatic theater in Panic Diaries that reminded me most of Penley’s “/TREK” slash segment. Slash “redistributes its [social] space” (Penley 106) in sort of the same way in which Orr describes how Wells’ phantasmatic theater generates new effects out of the existing shared social space. As Wells challenges the conventions of electronic broadcast media, slash challenges the larger heteronormative structure of production television and popular culture. But the parallels are not just with content, rather the majority of Orr’s section on War of the Worlds focus on its not-so-subtle relation to wartime propaganda and the development of market research: a “slashing” between radio and psychology institutions, if you will. “Was the Princeton Radio Research Project part of a choreographed, if not precisely conspiratorial, attempt to develop techniques for the mass manipulation of audience behavior?… [W]as early radio research itself contributing to the development of techniques of propaganda and mass persuasion that best fit a capitalist society on the brink of war and in the wake of fiscal panic and depression?” (Orr 60) In the same way, Penley suggests that NASA/TREK has already begun but lacks the maturer coherence of, e.g., radio/propaganda.

If there was nothing too conspiratorial about the social psychology research that followed Wells’ broadcast, perhaps there is in the slash fanfic-writing fanbase (not in a bad way, of course). Phantasmatic theater “redraws academic conceptions and cultural experiences of the social group… [mobilizing] social imaginations and… collective perceptions” (Orr 39). The conspiracy of slash is that in its sexual context it is phantasmatic theater for a small subgroup of the audience, among whom the interpretation of slash may vary considerably, as Brody argues about queer reading in general (101–102). The second feature of the phantasmatic theater is its suggestive power. This works on two levels: the suggestion of Kirk/Spock from television, and the suggestion that Kirk/Spock is real from the plethora of slash fanfic. To the degree by which television may be called phantasmatic theater, the appropriation of the theater of slash from TV’s normalized narratives (i.e. the queer reading) defines a new political subspace for influencing the originating narrative and its generating norms. Has it been successful in doing so?

It is important that Star Trek’s medium is television, for which subverting its social space requires a different creative act than that for radio. Orr notes that the effectiveness of Wells’ broadcast lay along class and education lines, for which twisting the truth of the narrative is an outwardly political act: military invasion, descriptions of mass panic, and governmental authority. The interpretation of television, where seeing is not believing, must then be more subtle and thus becomes inwardly political: slashing two futuristic heterosexual characters and weaving feminist ideas into a narrative without women (Penley p.?). Additionally, as far as the motivation for utilizing the future’s Kirk and Spock may lie in women’s self-alienation from their bodies, “legal, moral, and religious battlegrounds” (Penley 126), suggests the very politics of cognitive estrangement which defines SF. The thematic and visual prominence of the male heroic in television allows the written slash pairing extreme effectiveness. And although the audience proper of slash fanfic may not be large (although the Internet has certainly accelerated its reach), the subtle suggestion of Kirk/Spock from the source material is available to the entire shared social space, like Wells’ broadcast; unlike it, participation in Kirk/Spock enables a new genuine political act through having an almost exclusively female fanbase.

Orr’s well developed history of propaganda and social psychology research suggests an uncanny “becoming” of War of the Worlds in social reality. For Penley, the overt narrative of Star Trek has been slowly influencing staff and leadership at NASA, but it is the subtle subversion of slash which holds the greatest promise of transforming NASA’s male script. On the other hand, slash is still seen as exterior to accessible popular culture (for example, I learned about it through Snarry fanfics read by friends). One differentiating feature of slash as a creative body is its egality and rejection of rigid hierarchy in favor of seeming unprofessionalism (Penley 112–113). If NASA/TREK potentially has feminist political goals, has it failed to achieve them because of its sequestration from the rest of popular culture and even squarer Trek culture? While slash lacks a broad audience or venue, queer pairings have come out of the closet in popular entertainment (cue Jake Gyllenhaal from October Sky to Brokeback Mountain).

Yaoi/Slash

ETA: Just saw Arlyn's post, and she goes deeper into Brody's argument about queer readings rewriting the text.

Riffing off the last paragraph of Rhiannon's post, as well as an off-the-cuff promise I made during Sunday's field trip, I'm going to write about slash. :D Except I'll be expanding the topic a bit to incorporate yaoi fandom as well, despite the obvious differences in cultural context. This post will be a bit quote heavy, as I'm mostly interested in throwing out some thoughts rather than making a totalizing statement about slash/yaoi. (See what I did there?) My approach is almost diametrically opposed to Moylan's, as I found myself agreeing with Michael's assessment of the flaws in Absent Paradigms. Instead of looking at critical texts, I sought out the views of fans and writers--what they wanted to say in a text and what they wanted to read out of a text.

First of all, I dove into the depths of fanfiction.net, just for you guys. Well, not the depths, but I wanted to survey the available options for reading slash fic. I didn't check that every fic was explicitly slash, I just used the Char A/Char B search, but here are some numbers. These numbers refer to the 3027 fics available under the "Star Trek: Original Series" header. I also refer to the ratings of fics, where T refers to age 13+, and M to age 16+. Explicit, adult-rated fics are not allowed on fanfiction.net (so they say).

Out of 834 fics featuring Kirk/Spock, 271 are rated T, and 114 are rated M. Out of 389 Spock/McCoy fics, 121 are rated T, and 52 are rated M. Out of 130 Kirk/McCoy fics, 32 are rated T, and 9 are rated M. The other pairings I looked at had few enough fics that I separated out the explicitly slash and rated-M pairings from other pairings. Of these, there were 2 Scotty/McCoy, 1 Spock/Chekov, 1 Kirk/Scotty, and 3 Kirk/Chekov. I did not look at sites aimed at fandoms, which would likely have more stories. In terms of a cursory look at the general availability of slash pairings, I think this is fine, with the caveat about the whole character search thing not necessarily yielding explicit slash fics.

From here, I move into Yaoi fandom and writership. Yaoi, in contrast to Bara, tends to be aimed at and written by women. Rhiannon's post interrogates this kind of phenomenon happening in the world of fanfic, with the conclusion that perhaps a lack of accessible and well-written female characters leads readers to have more interest in the romances between the well-developed male characters.

In her piece on Cleopatra Jones, Brody makes an interesting point regarding queer readings that I think applies very well to the whole slash/yaoi concept. She asserts that "borrowing and recontextualizing images from the past is part of the pleasure of queer reading" (101), but that queer readings do not necessarily accompany a greater visibility of queerness in the works to be read or their readership. Slash offers a possibility of inserting queer readings into and pulling them out of texts with little explicit mention of queerness as identity. Said more simplistically, slash lets readers pull scenes from a work (text or film or even game--there are a few) that do not necessarily signify a certain kind of relationship, but allows the reader-writers to construct a narrative around these scenes in which these relationships are made blatant.

It's interesting how yaoi functions along similar lines, as the overwhelming majority of works involving yaoi are doujinshi, or fan-made works that are essentially fanfic but for manga and anime. Additionally, a fair amount of published yaoi mangaka started by writing their own fanfics or djs. During a panel on yaoi and yuri manga and an LGBTQ audience, Erika Friedman writes,

Fan-fiction is the breeding ground. I wrote what I wanted to read. If you're doing any kind of fan work, fanart, fan-fiction or cosplay — you're queering that you've done. You fantasized it and did something different with it. That's human nature. I don't think it has anything to do with yaoi or yuri.

This quote aligns with Brody's use of "queer" as a verb, as something done to a text and not something that is represented within the text. Also, it's interesting to see Friedman associate fan-made work with "queering", especially when such a significant portion of fan-made work is explicitly queered.

In an earlier moment from the same panel, Leyla Aker discusses yaoi's huge female fanbase, something that seems paradoxical about works depicting sexual relationships between gay or bisexual men. (Note: this paradox also applies to slash fic.) She resolves this paradox by once again raising the banner of queerness,

To go back to what Chris said about (yaoi) being fundamentally queer, I think one of the reasons why yaoi appeals to people is its dislocation. You're talking about stories women for women about the opposite gender relationships.

Here, the queering that goes on within the work enables the reader to enact and question their own queerness. But I think this explanation, while intriguing, fails to address the often exploitative relationship of yaoi manga and slash fic to actual queerness. Just as Brody points out, the consumption of yaoi manga and slash fic permits an erasure of LGBTQ identities that do not conform to the stylized images in the works.

One gay activist in Japan wrote against yaoi manga(ka) in 1992, quoted from a discussion on the debates surrounding yaoi here,

He felt that his human rights as a gay man were harmed by women drawing and enjoying yaoi manga. He compared them to the 'dirty old men' [hentai jijii] who watch pornography including women engaging in sexual activities with each other. In addition, he accused yaoi of creating and having a skewed image of gay men as beautiful and handsome and regarding gay men who do not fit that image and tend to 'hide in the dark' as 'garbage' [gomi]. In addition, he attacked them for creating the 'gay boom', a media wave of interest in gay issues sparked by women's magazine Crea, which, according to him, did nothing for gay men at large.

To what extent does the (often-)female readership of yaoi and slash-fic render GBTQ men abstracted but invisible? Doesn't casting the situation like this erase the experiences of GBTQ men who read yaoi manga and slash-fic? And isn't there something fundamentally anti-feminist about the fact that this huge industry that caters to female sexuality has no women in it, except as one-dimensional villains? (I remember a post I came across quite some time ago discussing the issue of female sexuality coming out in male-male(-male?) relationships, but I couldn't find it for today.)

And if anyone wants my recommendations for yaoi manga, check out Future Lovers, which also comes recommended from the panel that produced the first two blockquotes. It avoids the common pitfalls of "evil women", "rapey seme", and actually represents a loving relationship that navigates surrounding pressures from the family and the workplace. Though there is a bit of explicit sex...

Only Amateurs

In NASA/Trek, Constance Penley proposes that Star Trek is the theory and NASA is the practice of space travel, and that the combination of the two humanizes our relation to science and technology. Penley first discussed the ways that NASA has marginalized and discriminated against women, only accepting those who could either be the "token overachiever" or mediocre enough to appear a mere amateur, an individual whose appearance and role on a shuttle reconfirms, rather than rebels against, the dismissive role of women as nurturers, teachers, mothers and inferiors. Penley then connected this to the position that women have marked for themselves in the fan-verse of Star Trek, creating a close-knit community of Kirk/Spock slash fanfic writers. However, I think that this connection has implications for Star Trek as the "theory" of NASA that Penley did not fully explore.

Penley mentions that these fanfiction writers are stubborn amateurs: "they feel free to express themselves as writers only insofar as they can conceive of their writing as a hobby and nothing more." In this way, the women that Penley discusses seem to place themselves within the amateur role within the theorizing of space travel that the female astronauts were forced to take in its practice.

Furthermore, if Star Trek is the theory of space travel, even this supposedly "female-oriented domain" of K/S pushes women away into the background. Although women are the writers, the artists, the creators, and the consumers, the product with which they are working only involves male figures. Although Penley argues that this is actually a feminist move, as it allows the writers and consumers to explore a relationship that is entirely equal (and, because it is set in the 23rd century, somehow "gender neutral"), it still reinforces the idea that masculine is the neutral gender, and that women have no visual place in the theory or practice of space travel. To what extent could we argue that some of these women become so involved in the Kirk/Spock relationship because it is the most developed relationship on the show, and that they would be more inclined to write and read about male/female pairings (or female/female pairings) if more fully-developed female characters were available to them. A comparative study to other fandoms could be useful here: for example, when considering Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the majority-female fanfiction writers do produce slash, but the presence of engaging female characters means that many heterosexual pairings are also popular. Although slash is a popular form in many fandoms, it therefore seems to be more popular, more dominant, when compelling female characters are less accessible. As they are not given a compelling entry point into the world of space travel, the female viewers identify with (and even make gender-neutral) the existing male characters, building a separate space for themselves in which they are still only "amateurs," just "hobbyists," viewing adventure from a distance dictated by their gender.

The Absence of Absence

Tom Moylan’s essay “Absent Paradigms” like the Science Fiction it works to describe, define and analyze, is marked by a nearly complete absence of the popular voices which Moylan and Constance Penley suggest are vital to the America’s scientific imagination. Moylan, much to my confusion, elides public social protests of the early to mid-20^th century with academic wrangling about the definition of Science Fiction. In his broad summary of critical liberal thought over the last 70 years Moylan suggests that Sci-Fi writers “grew from and fed back into the countercultural and sometimes counterhegemonic space of this broad oppositional phenomenon” (Moylan 33) . Moylan’s statement seems something of a truism – writers were in some, vague and largely undefined way, influenced by the politics of their time. His vague pronouncement is more troubling, however, as he continues his analysis of academic thought and its relation to science fiction.

Moylan’s essay does much work in (re)constructing a narrative of the development of the science fiction genre by, like the scholars he critiques, excluding popular authors. Lamenting the exclusionary practices of elite liberal critics Moylan writes:

The dominant "high culture" camp continued the corrosive work familiar to the logic of mainstream academic liberalism by isolating and than appropriating a small portion of sf for inclusion in the established literary canon. In that hegemonic perspective, "popular" works of sf and "tendentious" works of utopian narration were relegated to shadowy margins and only exceptional examples (like a select few "scholarship boys") were cut out of the pack and rehabilitated by reducing them to their similarities with the already privileged canonical works of Western literature. [Moylan 38]

The “established literary canon” which Moylan broadly labels as conservative and traditional is also the canon from which Moylan produces his critique. Moylan quotes at length the work of Joanna Russ and Darko Suvin the potentialities of science fiction to radically reimagine human experience. Yet his analysis largely ignores what he terms “inside criticism.” Looking to “established” critics of sf, published in journals and located within the ivory towers of elite universities, Moylan assumes other forms of criticism are inaccessible:

One area that is often neglected (and that is important for a larger cultural studies approach) is the critical work that has occurred within the realm of sf publishing (by writers and editors) and fandom, as opposed to academic criticism, what some call "inside criticism.” Therefore, Gary Westfahl's essay on what the terms the "popular tradition" of sf criticism needs especially to be acknowledged.[Moylan 36-37]

But simply pointing to the lack of engagement with popular, and fan produced, criticism while proceeding in an analysis wedded to academic critique seems inappropriate. Moylan’s brief call for acknowledgment is akin to ethnographers who state the impact of scientific discourses to objectify and ossify the cultures they attempt to represent and then continue in their pseudo-scientific analysis. Simply calling attention to a problematic mode of interpretation doesn’t remedy an author’s obligation to think through, or around, the mode of interpretation.

NASA’s Shifting Identity: The NASA We Want vs. The One We Have

Constance Penley notes how NASA has morphed into a sort of “container” word—it has no single fixed meaning, but takes on all kinds of connotations in different contexts. In popular culture references, NASA can allude to “individual ingenuity and collective can-do” (11). The space agency also represents “creativity, cooperation, and perseverance” (12). Yet these very positive associations do not accurately reflect NASA’s actual performance, and felt to me somewhat dated. Mind you, this is coming from someone much more familiar with the NOAA (yeah Bay Scallop Bowl!—this was a big deal in my high school) than NASA. According to Penley, despite the fact that NASA’s past record is marred by disasters, broken promises, fraud, out-of-date technology, and an inefficient bureaucracy, NASA remains “a repository for utopian meanings” (14-15). But does NASA retain that capacity today? And if not, why? Has something else replaced NASA?

Given its less than stellar record, it made a great deal of sense for NASA to want to merge its identity with that of Star Trek (20), thereby enhancing its public appeal. According to Penley, NASA “has deliberately participated in making itself over as Star Trek” (18). This voluntary conflation of NASA and Star Trek has in turn contributed to the “individual and collective refashioning of NASA’s meanings.” Penley asserts that this refashioning “tends to be wish-fulfilling, to produce the NASA we want, not the one we have” (15). Such a re-casting of NASA seems to be a form of self-deception: we know NASA’s endeavors have not been brilliantly successful in the past, but we want NASA to succeed brilliant, so we imagine NASA as Star Trek and are content with that.

Penley’s book was published in 1997. I wondered if her charges of ineptitude and out-datedness were still an issue with NASA, or if the situation has changed in the past fourteen years. I did take AST 203: The Universe freshman year, but, alas, I did not come away with a deep understanding of the status of NASA and of space exploration today. I turned to nytimes.com for assistance, and did a quick article search for “NASA.” The results that came up were mixed: articles about a crashed satellite and space shuttles being retired seem to point to NASA’s gradual demise, while other articles concerning more terrestrial concerns like ice caps melting and climate change point toward a more earth-focused future for NASA. Even on NASA’s website, there is little futuristic “bombast” (14) to be found. The main news features include a Moonbuggy race in Alabama, a study of droughts in the Amazon, a new biofuel, and exercise for kids based on astronaut training—surprisingly down-to-earth topics for a space agency.

Where has all the space-oriented utopianism of NASA/TREK gone? Perhaps we are supposed to be unimpressed and critical of NASA—Penley’s conclusion seems to say so. By rewriting the NASA side of NASA/TREK, slash writing “offers a much more satisfying utopian solution than NASA has yet been able to conceive” (148). NASA’s failures and defects are what make it such a powerful catalyst for daring re-imaginings.

Elitism and Pseudoscience in NASA/TREK

Within “NASA/TREK”, Constance Penley heaps harsh criticism on members of the ‘elitist’ scientific establishment. She believes scientific elites to be sadly removed from the public desire for scientific and technological knowledge, too wrapped up in their preconceived notions of mass culture to engage with the masses on productive or amicable terms. Her examples of scientific elitism, however, end up undermining her arguments about the public thirst for science: “popular science”, as Penley deploys the term, becomes a means of excusing the rampant scientific illiteracy that IS present in our society.

Penley spends much of the introduction castigating Carl Sagan for starting from the assumption that “most citizens are shamefully ignorant of scientific issues.” (5) Sagan criticizes popular science fiction shows, such as Star Trek and the X-Files, believing that these productions fool viewers into accepting pseudoscience by “eschewing the most elementary scientific facts.”(5) Penley then states that “Entertainment, for Sagan, is the opposite of enlightenment”: however, Sagan made a name for himself by producing a TV miniseries (Cosmos) and novel (Contact) that enjoyed widespread appeal. Sagan’s works became successful by marrying easily accessible narrative to scientifically sound theoretical underpinning: he, if anything, completely undermined any existing entertainment/enlightenment dichotomy, proving that science fiction can be fun without engaging in the radical misrepresentation of science as fact.

Penley remarks that “Penley does not seem to recognize that ‘precious facet’ as what he earlier called the natural appetite for science.” (7) ‘Science’, as we commonly understand it, involves a respect for empirical proof and logical structure: popular culture, as described in NASA/TREK, does not seem to be interested in science, but rather in the fantastical aura that some aspects of science have maintained. Sagan doesn’t deny that science and science fiction possess a socially significant magnetism: he objects to situations where the fancies of science fiction help to deceive in matters where truth and clarity are essential.

We live in an age where scientific and technological literacy is a crucial part of becoming an informed and productive citizen. The mitigation of global climate change and implementation of alternative energy infrastructures, stem cell research and HIV prevention: these movements, among others, are essential to the continued well-being of our people and planet, but have been delayed and undermined by the irresponsible decisions of electorates and officials that are woefully scientifically ignorant. Heaping lavish praise on pseudoscience implicitly encourages society to retreat within politically and socially neutered fantasy, rather than critically engaging with the realities of science and its effect upon the world. Sagan is clearly deeply concerned with the potential danger of widespread scientific ignorance. This concern is not the result of latent elitism, but of the desire for widespread scientific literacy, or “popular science” in its original sense.

Technology and Utopia

I wanted to open this post by noting that I love Star Trek and am going to be using some of Darko Suvin's "On the Poetics of the Science Fiction Genre" and Tom Moylan's "Scraps of Untainted Sky" to discuss and analyze the futuristic setting of this classic TV series and its sequels (on both the big screen and television). Fundamentally, Star Trek is unique for series from the 1960s in that it appears to sidestep past its major contemporary issues. Much of the readings for the week concern the political commentary possible in Science Fiction works and while Star Trek does incorporate these issues into its narrative, it does so by disguising it as alien.

In the 23rd century, mankind has moved beyond its own petty disputes on Earth over race, gender, and ideology (aka the 1960s) and thus both unified the Earth and joined it and human colonies to the United Federation of Planets. Quite frankly, it is this point in particular that turns Star Trek into a utopian piece as it makes very optimistic (yet desired) assumptions of the outcome of human endeavors over the 250-odd years separating the show's 1960s inception and its setting. Thus the use of actual, relatable humans as the protagonists allows this show the link to our contemporary world while the optimism forces a suspension of disbelief (as in the manner described by Suvin).

While the use of humans as protagonists allowed the audience to more effectively relate to Star Trek as a Science Fiction work, the inclusion of aliens ironically added to this relationship. The existence of sapient life with complex cultures, alliances, and principles is a central reality to the series but this very inclusion also allowed for broader creative opportunities for Gene Roddenberry and his crew. As is now common knowledge, in the original series, the United Federation of Planets appears to symbolize the West while the encroaching Klingon Empire paralleled the Soviet Union. However, the point is not that there is a parallel (as there are debates on Roddenberry's true intentions), but rather that instead of simply setting human problems in orbit, Star Trek made them issues of humans against various aliens, monsters, and secret/terrorist-like organizations. The utopian world of humanity is now set against the less-ideal worlds populated by Klingons and their brethren, allowing not only for the inclusion of an impossible-to-believe foundation, but also for the parallels to the present necessary for good Science Fiction. Tom Moylan described how literature and SF adopted the issues of the present to the their various settings and Star Trek is no exception. If anything, because Gene Roddenberry didn't specifically intend for these parallels, their existence in the series emphasizes the use of Science Fiction to address contemporary issues.

As a side note, Star Trek is unique in that there is only one truly fantastical technology, the transporter. In essence, the Enterprise herself is simply a space-faring exploration/warship while phasers are fancy guns, etc... While one could argue that the TV show was limited by a small budget and thus had to stick to creating technologies which mirrored those in the 20th century, in reality, there is a subtle brilliance to this connection across time. Star Trek is unique in implementation, setting, and technology in that all three contribute both to the "suspension of disbelief" and the necessary parallel(s) to the present so advocated by Darko Suvin and Tom Moylan. So while the viewer must learn to accept these new alien cultures and the technology of space travel, he/she does not have to fully detach from the present, but rather can view and extrapolate on the parallels between the Enterprise's adventures and our contemporary human world.