Nine Worlds Geek Fest

[jenoofer.livejournal.com]

Hi! Some of you may remember (or even have attended!) the Nine Worlds con a couple of years ago when Chris Barrie was one of the guests. I'm co-organising the LGBTQ+ track at this year's Nine Worlds, and am planning a session on LGBTQ+ representation in fandom. I'd like to include Red Dwarf as one of the fandoms to discuss because I know that the way queerness is represented in the show is very different to its representation in the fandom.

So I'm here to ask for a bit of help and some suggestions. How do you guys feel Red Dwarf fandom represents queer characters (by which I mean characters who are not heterosexual, not cis-gender or not sexual) compared to the show itself? Do you see fandom/fic as a way to deal with or 'fix' negative representations in the show? How do you deal with the show's sometimes negative representations of queerness?

At the moment I'm thinking the session is going to be a panel discussion with fic writers from different fandoms, but I'm open to suggestions if anyone has any other ideas - I have a 75 minute session to fill on the topic of LGBTQ+ representation in fanfiction/online fandom.

Any comments/suggestions would be much appreciated. Thanks!

Comments

[rosecathy1.livejournal.com]

The biggest difference between the show's and fandom's representations, I think, is that there is representation in the fandom, Lister/Rimmer being the most popular pairing by far though other queer pairings exist. If you look for it strictly in canon, there isn't much aside from throwaway references. Holly could be considered bigender and/or bisexual, but I honestly don't think the writers intended it that way; once the switch from male to female happened, it was (what would be perceived as) a complete switch between two cishet versions.

I suppose the nearest we get to 100% clear representation, if you can call it that, is the writers' slight fixation on Herman Goering being a transvestite. (Also the Noel Coward wax droid, who appeared for like five seconds?)

Fandom/fic can be a way to deal with the issue(s). Fix-it fics certainly exist: this one (http://archiveofourown.org/works/562230) concerning the transphobic content in Dear Dave, for example. There are also these (http://archiveofourown.org/works/1989528) two (http://archiveofourown.org/works/2013357) trans!Lister AU fics. However, I don't know that "fixing" is the primary concern of every slash author in the fandom -- for some it is, whereas for others it's more about having fun with subtext.

[janamelie.livejournal.com]

Holly is an interesting character, because although she / he can be viewed as asexual, the episode "Parallel Universe" would seem to contradict that when male Holly has a romance with a female version of him, Hilly, complete with actual lipstick marks seen on him. Later, female Holly is clearly attracted to a male character, Ace, to the extent that she actually faints when he addresses her.

As you say, I've read arguments that Holly is bigender, transexual etc and I can completely see how the character can be read that way. But like yourself I don't believe it was intentional on the writers' part. Their attitude is generally "Is it funny? In it goes then!".

As for fix-its, they are good to read and I appreciate them. But my personal motivation when writing is more to build on the hints which canon gives us and sometimes to simply strike out in a completely new direction for the sheer fun of it.