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

[lordvalerymimes.livejournal.com]

There are a few standard tropes in the show. There's a character who has sexual magnetism that is so irresistible that a happily married heterosexual character is willing to "go gay" for him. At another point a character is told that a version of him in a parallel universe is gay and he gets uncharacteristically uncomfortable about the idea. There is a character whose worst qualities are brought to life in a "low" version of himself, and that version, while not explicitly identified as being gay, wears women's lingerie and threatens another male with sexual violence.

So yes, there is some queer substance in the show, but none of it is anything that could be called representation. The fandom however, at least on this side of it, has loads. Because of the sci-fi nature of the show, the fact that parallel universes and bodyswapping are canon, just about anything you can imagine, can theoretically fit within the show's universe without even violating the "rules" of the show. It allows for a wonderfully vast amount of creativity from the various authors in the fandom. Rose has mentioned a couple of particularly good ones above.

Although there is nothing overtly gay within the show other than the tropes I already mentioned, the gay subtext is so thick, I find it mind-boggling that more people don't notice it. The writers of the show say that they never intended any homosexuality to be implied within the scripts, and I can believe them, but intentional or not, there is definitely a subtext there in a lot of moments.

I think a part of the lack of queer representation stems from the time-period. I would be curious if Red Dwarf would have been more open-minded about such things, had it come out today, rather than in 1988.

As for dealing with the show's negativity towards queerness, there aren't too many moments that hit my buttons, but when they do, I just shake my head, blame it on sloppy writing, and go back to my own writing. ;-)

There is such a lack of queer relationships on television that aren't a token queer relationship, or a flamboyant stereotype, or presented in any kind of normal or average way like heterosexual relationships are. There is something very nice about fanfiction where queer relationships, can just be relationships like any other, and explored for their own uniqueness, rather than for the fact that they're queer.

[janamelie.livejournal.com]

The only thing I would add to this excellent post (for Jenoofer's benefit) is that this is a show where two men who supposedly hate each other and have an entire spaceship the size of a city at their disposal nevertheless continue to share a bunkroom for over two decades (leaving aside Rimmer's temporary absence).

Yes, it can be interpreted as simply needing companionship and clearly that's part of it, but equally clearly they develop a strong bond which can be read in various ways. And it pleases me to interpret it as romantic. :p