Some of the oversexualization in fanfiction is completely natural. Fanfiction exists because people want to portray the source material their way, and a lot of people see a close relationship of some sort and wonder 'What if they were in love? What if they had sex?' If there are any tensions in the source material, people are going to explore them in fanfiction.
There's also the problem that people in Western cultures, girls and women especially, are culturally conditioned to seek romance. I have known far too many otherwise intelligent and centered friends who felt that they needed to be in a romantic relationship of some sort. This transfers to the stories people write. It is, in my opinion, quite sad, but it's part of a general social pattern and there isn't much anyone can do to change it in the short run.
Romance is sometimes used as a shortcut to get around awkward characterization issues, or to smooth over difficult plot developments. A writer can say, 'Oh, X fell in love with Y, so of course he changed his mind about such-and-such,' or 'Because Y loves X, naturally she'll go off and do something she's normally far too intelligent to do.' This shows a fundamental misreading of the nature of love, but it's tied up in the cultural idealization and idolization of romance. Again, not much can be done to change it.
*sigh*
I do appreciate the sentiments in the way I suspect they were meant. I just get a little twitchy about the phrasing.
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Date: 2005-10-28 01:32 am (UTC)There's also the problem that people in Western cultures, girls and women especially, are culturally conditioned to seek romance. I have known far too many otherwise intelligent and centered friends who felt that they needed to be in a romantic relationship of some sort. This transfers to the stories people write. It is, in my opinion, quite sad, but it's part of a general social pattern and there isn't much anyone can do to change it in the short run.
Romance is sometimes used as a shortcut to get around awkward characterization issues, or to smooth over difficult plot developments. A writer can say, 'Oh, X fell in love with Y, so of course he changed his mind about such-and-such,' or 'Because Y loves X, naturally she'll go off and do something she's normally far too intelligent to do.' This shows a fundamental misreading of the nature of love, but it's tied up in the cultural idealization and idolization of romance. Again, not much can be done to change it.
*sigh*
I do appreciate the sentiments in the way I suspect they were meant. I just get a little twitchy about the phrasing.