[Poll] The Science of Slashiness

[thefourthvine]

Recently, cimness posted a graph of genius, comparing level of canon gay and quality of canon writing across several fandoms.

I, of course, immediately looked at it and thought: this calls for science. Because clearly what we need are definitive numbers for each of these values for many, many fandoms, so that they can be plotted on graphs. This will make me HAPPY. Possibly it will also make you happy - or perhaps you are just interested in increasing overall happiness in the universe! - in which case I direct you behind the cut.

ETA: lolitakun has provided us with some preliminary scientific results here. Go and behold!



A quick note on the selection of the fandoms: I picked ones I thought a lot of people would have opinions on. If I left something critical out, feel free to tell me in the comments.

A quick note on voting: When I say "slashy," I include femslash. Buffy/Faith, Gabrielle/Xena - these are pairings worth considering! Also, if you haven't seen an episode of the show, please don't vote on canon writing quality. (Ideally, you would have seen three! Or even more!) But if you think you can make a fair estimate of slashiness based on vids or YouTube pieces or transcripts, by all means, vote on that.

ETA: For quality, 1 = worse than anything you could find on fanfiction.net, even if you were funded by a grant solely for the purpose of finding the worst writing the world has ever known. 10 = genius unparalleled. For slashiness, 1 = straighter than a ruler. 10 = they could suck cocks or finger each other right there on the screen and it would only reduce the overall slashiness. Thanks for pointing out the ambiguity, lolaraincoat!

And now it's time for...SCIENCE.

[Poll #1352713]

Comments

[cimness.livejournal.com]

I think Dr Who and Torchwood need to be separate. You're getting a huge skew in the results because of the canonical gay romantic relationship in TW. DW isn't that slashy with or without being sexualised!

You know, maybe you couldn't write a paper about it or whatever, but I think this... Science is looking pretty reliable. Already with your pretty small sample, most of the questions seem to be showing a clear trend, with several presenting a pretty obvious bell-curve!

We HAVE to make rainbow graphs for this!

But I do think you should make an addendum with more shows. Starsky & Hutch really needs a slot! There are several older fandoms I can think of like Man from UNCLE and The Professionals which, however, might be harder to poll for due to most modern slashfen not being familiar with them.

[dancinguniverse.livejournal.com]

I think Dr Who and Torchwood need to be separate. You're getting a huge skew in the results because of the canonical gay romantic relationship in TW. DW isn't that slashy with or without being sexualised!

I agree with this, and I also think the writing is far better on DW than TW, so my votes would have been different for both shows. That was a really hard one for me to vote on.

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Dr. Who is at *least* as slashy as SG1 or Jossverse! Probably moreso if you're talking about Two. Or Three. Or Five. Or Six. Or Seven ...well, old!Who is, anyway. New Who is only slashy in that it's had appearances by both Jack and the Master. (Yeah, they really should be separate. But the Jossverse shows probably should be, too, then.)

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

*eyes you*

Okay, I'm sold. Clearly, we cannot call it science if we are not willing to go the distance. So, the addendum should include:

TW
DW
Starsky & Hutch
Man from UNCLE

Anything else? *thinkity think*

[melannen.livejournal.com]

*helpfully points to fanlore:fandoms by source text (http://fanlore.org/wiki/Category:Fandoms_by_Source_Text)*

Not that all of these are large/relevant enough to be worth adding. But it's a good list to start from. Also, crack_vannot that I do this a lot; with the composite fandoms pulled, crack_van's current list is:

Battlestar Galactica Franchise
Buffy & Angel 'verse
DC Comics
Doctor Who
due South
Firefly
Harry Potter
Heroes
Highlander
House
Life on Mars
Man from U.N.C.L.E.
Marvel Comics
Merlin
NCIS
Smallville
Stargate Atlantis
Stargate SG1
Star Wars Universe
Starsky & Hutch
Supernatural
The Magnificent Seven
The Sentinel
The X-Files
Torchwood

(pls to ignore screwy-formatting version of this comment!)

[lydiabell.livejournal.com]

Sports Night
The West Wing
I want to add I-Man (I always do), but I don't know how many people would have opinions on that
maybe the X-Files

[noracharles]

To me, New Doctor Who is very slashy (I haven't seen any Classic DW). It has Doctor/Jack, Doctor/Master, Doctor/FoB, Doctor/The Next Doctor...
Torchwood isn't particularly slashy. I don't see any interesting UST in it at all, no emotional connection I want to explore. There's a gay relationship, but it doesn't really have the elements I look for and enjoy in slash.

It's funny to me how we can have such different understandings of what slash is, and still agree that, yes, Starsky & Hutch and Pros are very slashy indeed ^_^

[lydiabell.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on slash. :) I'm afraid, however, that we're losing the definitional battle and it's coming to mean homoeroticism in general, whether textual or subtextual, emotional or just physical.