Current mood:

Snoopy-Dancing

"I already had the perfect couple. It was Spike and Angel."
Ah, Angel fandom. It was my first. This is the fandom in which the term for homosexual subtext, HoYay!, was coined. The Angel Season 5 DVDs came out (*cough*) recently with several bells and whistles, including commentaries from none other than the man himself, Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. In two separate commentaries, Joss made remarks about the relationship between male vampires Angel and Spike.

"Spike and Angel; they were hanging out for years and years and years. They were all kinds of deviant. Are people thinking they never...? Come on, people! They're opened-minded guys!"

"I already had the perfect couple. It was Spike and Angel."

There was a lot of SQUEE SQUEE OMG SQUEE OMG Joss totally said Spike and Angel did it/are doing it OMGBBQELEVENTY! However, these comments soon prompted discussions about how Joss "did not have the guts" to make Angel and Spike an openly gay couple, he's only doing it for "queer cred," and that nothing is more important than authorial intent.

Note: There are tons of comments to read through for this, so I only linked the main entries. Otherwise this would take up the entire front page. Happy wading!

Kindkit isn't squeeing over Joss's comments.

But the fact remains that Joss, and the writers, and the network, did not have the guts to put a m/m relationship unequivocally onscreen. Yes, there were coy hints and deliberately slashy moments. But nothing that might have risked angry letters from homophobes, nothing that might have alienated a precious sponsor. Acknowledgement of homoeroticism after the fact is . . . unearned. It lets Joss and his show claim street cred, claim to be cool and progressive, for doing absolutely nothing.

Swmbo thinks those who were offended by Joss' comments and/or lack of follow-through need "a reality check."

To sum up: People that are being pissy and bitchy and ANGRY because Joss did a voiceover comment that Spike and Angel have had sex within the past 100 years? Need a serious reality check. And possibly logic. Now, if you frankly don't care that Joss said it - that's understandable. If you're in the if it didn't happen on screen, I''m not considering it canon mindset, that's a fair way to look at the show. But to be upset because Joss didn't do enough? Or that that statement was some attempt to suck up? Just stupid. And if you're offended by that, I don't give a flying fig - defriend me. Because Joss isn't perfect but he gave us a lot more than most people would and I'm not just talking in terms of sexual orientation. And he doesn't need to suck up to us because we already know that he can tell a brilliant story and make us hurt and there are legions out there that would give anything for him to do another television show in any universe and we're already sad that he's probably never going to go there.

Swmbo thoughtfully provides more links at the end of the entry. Kita0610, who has "a couple of grad degrees, one in Psych, so I can wank with the best of them," poses the following:

How can someone NOT consider authorial intent as inherently more valid an interpretation of the text than anyone else's? I mean, it's the author's text, isn't it? Now, I'm not saying that every time an author tries to get something across, they succeed. To use an oft-cited example, Spike didn't act like he was off to get a soul in S6: he called Buffy a bitch and he looked pissed off, and I, along with James Marsters himself apparently, assumed he went off to get de-chipped. Then Joss came along and said "no, no, dears, it's called plot twist, we always intended him to be souled, and that was his own intent too." Ok. So I can say Joss failed in his attempt to *communicate* that to the audience. I can say that it was poor writing, poor direction to his actor. I can say I hated the scene. But how in the heck can I say the fact that Spike went to fetch a soul is not CANON since the guy who wrote the scene says it is?? Do you see the subtle difference there? Or am I missing something?

Several posters whip out their academic creds in an organ-measuring context. Sadly, that organ is not the penis. Kita0610's follow-up post says, "In painting, poetry, and film studies, creator intent is dissected, bissected and held up as gospel in order to interpret the finished product. Context is everything. If that's the case, I really do think that applying literary criticism as the standard for judging Jossian 'text' is - well, misplaced at best, and kind of silly at worst." More discussion follows.

And, for the finale, tedious Sarah T. weighs in as well.

Also, wow--and I know this is taking the quote out of context, so I'm not attributing this meaning to JW as much as looking at the attitudes it could symbolize elsewhere--but to say about an episode in which the two main male characters are chasing around after the vision of a girl they both canonically loved desperately enough to give up everything for, "I already had my perfect couple," meaning the two men--if that's not the mission statement of slashers' misogyny, then I don't know what is. Screw that stupid girl, screw the relationships with her, no matter how strong canonically...it's the boys that are really the perfect couple and meant to be. Ugh.

Also, she's still harping on the "elder stateswoman" thing, three years later. Yawn. Talk about land-speed record for stupid.

Thanks to

embitca who gave me the heads-up and sent me several of the links. Also, thanks to

doyle for providing a link to the commentary itself.

ETA to add two more links (thanks, Anonymous!). paratti muses about author intent as well as Joss choosing the word deviant.

Something that has struck me though about the whole debate over Joss's comments on Spike and Angel is the lack of response to the wording, specifically the use of the word 'deviant' to mean that at some point in their over a hundred years of knowing each other both souled and unsouled they 'knew' each other. Now this may be the straight English girl in the village not getting something - that's entirely possible. It may be an example of cultural differences reflected in language between my own and the American version as spoken by Joss - and reflecting his rather Anti-Sex viewpoint of the world. But I'm surprised that the kerfuffling has been over 'queer cred' or not as opposed to the words used. I dunno, maybe it's me, or living in a country with gay weddings on prime time soaps and openly gay government ministers, but the word deviant to describe to beings of the same genders shagging like weasels seems somewhat pejorative. I know the US cultural climate at the moment is very different and so Joss might be using a pejorative word to get it (and S/A conformation) past the censors, but it still strikes me as odd. Maybe it's reclaiming the word like the use of 'dyke', 'queer' etc, who knows? We need more text, dude. I know that I tend to regard gay or not gay in a person, a story or a character as a blue eyes/brown eyes thing so I'm maybe not the right person to raise the issue. But I do know that the political/cultural climate I'm part of would use language different to 'deviant'.

And wisdomeagle points out that Joss "talks about sexuality all the time. He talks about homosexuality all the time."

See, I think that Joss's interpretation (and now we're not talking about the facts so much anymore) is more valuable than other interpretations, but not necessarily more valid. Whatever I get out of the text is valid; whatever you get out of the text is equally valid. What Joss gets out of the text (which includes special information we don't have, i.e., what Joss put into the text) has the same validity. However, because of that special knowledge, we can privilege his interpretation. Joss has spent a lot of time thinking about the meaning of what he writes, and he has also put little things in there that we might not notice the first seven times we watch. But just because his interpretation is more valuable does not mean it is set in stone.
I find it ridiculous that one interpretation could be the One True Interpretation! *waves multishipper flag*. Because I think ship wars are silly. I'll cuddle my OTPs and you cuddle yours and we'll all be happy.

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	the_clansmen 2005-02-19 11:22 pm UTC (link)
	...You know, I happen to like my slash subtexty more than I like it open. I don't know why, I just do. Therefore, I write it subtexty as well. (Reply to this)(Thread)