Femslash fandoms

Fandoms are communities of practice (Hills, 2015: 360, 372). The members of communities of practice share their own ways of thinking and discoursing, learn the rules of their community and form a group identity by active participation, create their own shared repertoire of resources, and come together to perform a certain activity (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998: 81; Wenger, 2010: 179-183; Eckert, 2006: 683-684). Fans’ fandom-related pastimes are the activities of a fandom’s community of practice (Hills, 2015: 361). Jenkins (1992: 278-279) states that there are different levels of fandom activity that include consumer activism, a particular mode of reception when viewing the media one is a fan of (ibid: 277-278), and adopting the reading practices, traditions and values of one’s fandom (ibid: 278-280). Fandoms’ existence has acted as a critique of the traditional forms in which entertainment content is expected to be consumed, and fandoms lay out a premise within which fans can discuss issues such as racism, colonialism, sexuality, gender, and conformity (ibid: 283).

As stated in the glossary (Appendix 1) a femslash fandom supports a romantic relationship between two (or more) women. The popularity of femslash has been explained by the lack of representation of women who love women in television (Berger, 2010: 182). Slash itself has been defined as “relationships between characters in largely mainstream television programs which weren’t portrayed or explored in the original text” (Berger, 2010: 174). More recent fandom

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research defines slash as something that transgresses the original heteronormative narrative (Bingham, 2016: 6).

For the purposes of this thesis and due to my emic knowledge on (femslash) fandom terminology, I will use the term “femslash” to describe any romantic pairing that comprises women. Using

“femslash” to refer to pairings that are “only subtextual” is outdated since there are now characters that are canonically LGBT in the original source text. Moreover, it is not always clear right from the beginning whether a character is straight because they might be revealed to be something else later. Hence, something that could have been perceived as a “subtextual” romantic relationship might become main text somewhere along the way. This is closely linked to Bingham’s (2016: 6) notion that there are more overtly represented, popular same-sex relationships and characters in various source texts, yet the kind of (fem)slash that is based on characters that are LGBT in the original text is underresearched for it has not been in the interest of fan scholars. I think it is worthwhile to research the fans of all kinds of femslash pairings.

What is more, I have noticed that many fans of femslash pairings have been fans of both the canon and non-canon, and the fans who fought for explicit representation can sometimes be the reason why a pairing became canon in the first place. This can be seen with for example Emison on Pretty Little Liars (Bingham, 2016), Brittana on Glee (Pande & Moitra, 2017), and the increasing amount of the pairing of Xena and Gabrielle towards the later seasons on Xena: Warrior Princess

(Hanmer, 2014: 609; Hanmer, 2003: 85). Additionally, I do not think it is good to differentiate between canon and non-canon femslash as it can easily contribute to the creation of a hostile fandom environment that pits pairings of women and thus also LGBT individuals against one another.

Fan culture is increasingly participatory (Berger, 2010: 175). Avid fans do not only watch their favorite show, but can also rewatch the episodes, use the show to define themselves, purchase fandom merchandise, spend their time for example reading or writing texts like fan fiction, join fan communities and attend fan conventions (Collier et al., 2009: 605). According to Staiger (2005:

114), “. . . scholars describe fan activities as a mode of reception, a creation of an interpretive community, an activism, a production of new materials, an extension into the rest of living, and an

21 alternative social grouping.” Bingham (2016: 126) points out that fandom participation – the kind of participation that takes place online – has become more varied: fan fiction has evolved into different digital formats such as GIFs and GIF sets.

In femslash fandoms’ case, fandom’s participatory culture becomes, in a way, even more meaningful when fandom activities and interactions are used to build and accept one’s sexual and/or gender identity. According to Hanmer (2010: 150), fans use their LGBT reading of the protagonists’ relationship to “reshape, rethink, and rewrite their own changing and challenging sexual and cultural identities.” Berger (2010: 175) states that fans who wrote fan fiction “dealt with their own sexuality through providing alternative storylines to established media texts from Star Trek in the 1960s to Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the 1990s”. Many fans do this even today (Aalto, 2016), which shows that femslash fandoms continue to be important communities for LGBT identity development.

Since slash fandoms that support pairings that consist of two men have been the ones to be studied more in the past, studying femslash is incredibly important. Slash fandoms – fandoms whose interest is centered around a romantic relationship between two (or more) men – have been said to consist mainly straight girls and women (Thrupkaew, 2003; Leppänen, 2008: 159). Later research has revealed that there are women of other sexualities in slash fandoms as well, but them fangirling over and writing fan fiction about cisgender white men falling in love brings about the question why men who are not e.g. white are too much of “other” to write about and why these women who are attracted to women choose not to write about women falling in love (Pande & Moitra, 2017, no page number given). I think these are questions slash fandom research should focus on more.

It is also my firm belief that studying femslash fandoms is worthwhile because femslash fandom research gets to the bottom of the experiences of LGBT people who are actually writing their own narratives and whose fandom participation facilitates personal identity formation. Femslash

fandoms, in a way, are thus environments that can at best empower their LGBT members and enhance their identities (Hanmer, 2014: 609). Television and popular culture in general can empower oppressed groups because they offer tools to resist the dominant practices of society (Fiske, 1989, as cited by Hanmer, 2010: 150; Hanmer, 2003: 101). According to Hanmer (2010:

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156-157; 2014: 620), online fandom can give its members agency, the incentive for identification, and offer change on personal and socio-political levels.

For example, the Xena fandom, studied by Hanmer (2010: 149-150; 2014: 613-614), created a community that supported the fans in their everyday lives and helped them with their struggles.

Lesbian fans of Xena were allowed to share their feelings of isolation that they had suffered from before and many coming out stories were written on the bulletin boards where the members of the community shared their thoughts (Hanmer, 2010: 149-150). Fans were able to talk to each other no matter what their position and background offline was, and to some fans, the fan community online was the only place they could be who they really were as they were forced to live their straight lives offline (Hanmer, 2010: 152).

The Xena fandom was able to create a community based on similar interests without geographical or physical boundaries (Hanmer, 2010: 150-151). Hanmer (2010: 147) found out that fans of Xena that had belonged to its online fandom had left their husbands to live with other women they had met in the fandom, so the effect a fandom – especially fandom that empowers a person like an LGBT fandom can – should not go unnoticed.

Collier et al. (2009: 575) came up with similar results when they studied Xena: Warrior Princess and Buffy the Vampire Slayer fandoms. Their study demonstrated that the fans normalized their sexuality with the help of the internet and television. Similarly to Hanmer’s (2003, 2011, 2014) studies, in Collier and her colleagues’ (2009: 575) work, the fans’ experiences in their online community had helped them decrease their negative feelings about their sexualities. They were not as socially isolated as they had been before joining their online community

Moreover, the study suggested that the participants’ identity and how they perceived themselves were created in an ongoing engagement with their online community and their favorite show (Collier et al., 2009: 597). Their positive group identity could be used as a buffer against

stereotypes, and, just like Hanmer (2014: 613-614; 2003: 102), Collier et al., (2009: 586) found out that the online community offered its members emotional and social support. Previous research has also been conducted on how important it is for LGBT individuals to have positive contacts with

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other LGBT people for their identity to develop positively (Cass, 1996, Sophie, 1982 and Troiden, 1989, as cited by Collier et al., 2009: 582) and how an LGBT individual’s social environment can have an impact on their LGBT identity development (Cox & Gallois, 1996, Padesky, 1988 and Sophie, 1987, as cited by Collier et al., 2009: 582).

Suddeth (2017) discusses how the fans of a popular (non-canon) femslash pairing (called Swan Queen) created counternarratives online as a community and rejected the heterosexist and heteronormative storylines that the television show Once Upon a Time (2011-2018) presented.

Even though the mission of the show was to show previously unseen content about fairytales and make modern versions of said fairytales (Suddeth, 2017: 22), the creators of Once Upon a Time had a rather outdated and conservative idea of what a modern fairytale means. Fans have, however, discussed their romantic readings of Emma and Regina’s (Swan Queen’s) relationship and

continued to produce fan content on different online platforms even after the cancellation of the show. The pairing is still the most popular femslash pairing on the fan fiction website

archiveofourown.org (Centrumlumina, 2019). The fans of Emma and Regina have counteracted the negative effects of queerbaiting and argued against the dangerous storylines that promote heterosexism and rape culture (Suddeth, 2017: 57, 58).

Fans who belong to several marginalized groups face more bullying and ostracization than those who belong to only one or two marginalized groups. Some forms of discrimination that can be seen in fandoms (and the LGBT community) are homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, racism, ageism and ableism, which we will discuss briefly in the next section. Some of these forms of discrimination were brought up by the participants of this study several times, so it is important to address them in the background literature as well. ⁹

9 This part of the study is limited since it does not take social class into account. The respondents were not asked questions about their wealth or upbringing and no one mentioned they had seen or experienced discrimination based on social class. The background literature thus does not have a section on social class even though it is an important demographic feature that also affects fans, especially fans who go to fan conventions and fans who would like to but cannot afford it.