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jetpack_monkeyThis is something of an embarrassing confession, being male and a Buffy fanfic writer. I've had a few recent additions to my fanfic awareness bubble and I've taken to perusing their profiles. It's come to my attention that I automatically assume that a Buffy fanfic writer is female unless I'm otherwise informed.
How ridiculous is that? There's nothing about "Buffy" that makes it more orientated to the female writer than the male. Indeed, there's nothing about men that makes them less likely than women to key into the "Buffy" fanfic world. Hell, I write fanfic (I just don't finish it), and I'm male.
Maybe it comes from experience. I've been involved in a couple of LJ RPs in my time, and I'm usually one only a few males. Once I was the only one. In the one major fanfiction group writing project I've done, I was the only guy (and also, incidentally, the youngest by a few years).
So, I guess the real question is - where are the good male Buffy fanfic writers? I know they exist. I've read their work. But why is it such a minority that I actually find myself shocked when I discover one?
So, here's a little survey for the guys out there:
1) Do you write "Buffy" and "Angel" fanfiction?
2) Do you feel that you're in a gender minority in the Jossian fanfic circles?
3) How would you describe your fanfiction? What genres, 'ships, etc. do you write in?
4) What genres, 'ships, etc. would you absolutely avoid?
And for everybody:
5) Why do you think there's a gender imbalance in "Buffy" and "Angel" fanfiction writing?
6) Does this trend extend to all fanfiction?
7) Do you find it's more difficult for a writer to win your readership, based on their gender? Why?
Please pimp this out, start a dialogue. I'm interested in the answers and the discussion resulting from those answers.
How ridiculous is that? There's nothing about "Buffy" that makes it more orientated to the female writer than the male. Indeed, there's nothing about men that makes them less likely than women to key into the "Buffy" fanfic world. Hell, I write fanfic (I just don't finish it), and I'm male.
Maybe it comes from experience. I've been involved in a couple of LJ RPs in my time, and I'm usually one only a few males. Once I was the only one. In the one major fanfiction group writing project I've done, I was the only guy (and also, incidentally, the youngest by a few years).
So, I guess the real question is - where are the good male Buffy fanfic writers? I know they exist. I've read their work. But why is it such a minority that I actually find myself shocked when I discover one?
So, here's a little survey for the guys out there:
1) Do you write "Buffy" and "Angel" fanfiction?
2) Do you feel that you're in a gender minority in the Jossian fanfic circles?
3) How would you describe your fanfiction? What genres, 'ships, etc. do you write in?
4) What genres, 'ships, etc. would you absolutely avoid?
And for everybody:
5) Why do you think there's a gender imbalance in "Buffy" and "Angel" fanfiction writing?
6) Does this trend extend to all fanfiction?
7) Do you find it's more difficult for a writer to win your readership, based on their gender? Why?
Please pimp this out, start a dialogue. I'm interested in the answers and the discussion resulting from those answers.
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Date: 2005-01-13 11:20 am (UTC)Well, I'm sorry, but I'm going to sound either sexist, old-fashioned, or Fredian here, but I think it's because fandoms that have female protagonists will always attract more female fans. Yes, I realize "Angel" has a male protagonist, but as a spin-off of "Buffy," that's where the carryover is from. There's an old adage about writing in general that says that females will read books about a hero of either sex, but that males will only read books centered around other males. While obviously this is a GROSS generalization, I think that sometimes for a male to get heavily invested in a female-centric program is maybe just one iota more difficult, at least to the extent that he will then go off and write fanfic. It isn't even perhaps a conscious thing, but just as most "masculine" action movie viewers are men and most soap opera viewers are women, there are certain things that tend to appeal to one gender or the other in a skewed fashion. The fact that "Buffy" is action oriented is almost incidental in terms of inculcating male appeal, because there's still the perception of it as a "girls' show." I have several friends who are huge "Firefly" fans who won't even touch "Buffy" or "Angel" for some odd reason, and I can only think that it's because they're coming from a male POV of genre shows (big "Star Wars" and "Farscape" fans, most of them).
6) Does this trend extend to all fanfiction?
Really, the majority of the fanfic I've read out there has been written by women, but there are a lot of guys writing "Red Dwarf" fic for some reason. I am not heavily involved in any fandoms where most of the fic is by men, so I can't really tell if this is across the board or not.
7) Do you find it's more difficult for a writer to win your readership, based on their gender? Why?
It depends on the genre of the fic, but if we're talking general plot-based stories, I couldn't care less what the gender of the writer is. I've been woefully disappointed in fics by men and women, I don't go out of my way only to read women, etc. In fact, there have been times I've spotted a male-sounding nom de plume on an archive site and deliberately read the story, thinking, "Wow, finally a different perspective!"