Frienz/Issues 39-40
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Frienz is a gen and non-explicit slash Starsky & Hutch letterzine.
They contain letters, want ads, con reports, clippings, flyers, and occasional fiction.
Issue 39 (December 1996)
Frienz 39 was published in December 1996 and contains 19 pages.
- TOTM: Would you like to be S or H's partner for a week? The opportunity arises because S or H is on vacation. How do you imagine you would feel about S or H a week later?
- "an Australian gift from JJ," art by JJ, portrait of Starsky
- Tabby Davis wrote that her first exposure to fanfiction was in the form of a 24-hour loan to her of Zebra Three #4
Issue 39: Sample Fan Comments
Should the slash and gen fans part ways in letterzines?
'Should the slash and gen people part company?? Well, I hope very much that such a secession would never happen. I don't want to part from a lot of friends. It would feel so negative, so alien to SH as I've always known it. A different POV need not spell instant anxiety or suspicion or discomfort. Disagreement and diversity go with membership of the human race and need never find expression in abrasive rebuttal.'Should the discussion of slash vs. gen continue?'? My guess is that it probably will, irrespective of any 'should' or 'ought'.
Discussion is a blanket-term for whatever themes fans want to write/talk about? That's both gen and slash and numerous other topics too. I'd prefer to consider a
one-word change in wording, substituting 'and' for versus’. 'Vs.' could suggest the confrontation of enemies, facing one another across some rigid barrier of antagonistic certainties. Out rational, interesting discussion isn't like that?
No to factions, yes to tolerance:
I have to say that I don't think it would be particularly helpful for SH fandom to be split into two factions. Slash and gen have been co-existingall these years, and as far as I am aware this is the first time the question of a breakaway group has been mooted. I am dismayed at the idea. This is not a large fandom, something which, for me, has always been a plus. I readily concede that endless discussions (arguments?) about slash v. gen are boring. So many other things to talk about in connection with the show, why do we keep wasting time on this subject, without ever getting anywhere? The difference between slash and gen fans relates to only one aspect of the partnership.
There is wide universal agreement that saw a unique and unassailable friendship, accept that each of us will put our own in S&H. Can we not focus on that friendship, as we do on many other fascinating areas of the show and its characters.
Following on from that, my own position is exactly the same as Barbara's. She says she is a genfan, but not anti-slash, and asks if she is the only one. I suspect there are quite a lot of us, but maybe we do not have much impact on the pro-anti subject because we don't think it interesting enough to be talked about interminably. As far as fanfic goes, I've always been happy to read anything and everything. As Tabby suggested, I'm sure I would have missed out on a lot
of very good writing if I'd limited my reading to only one or the other premise.
Regarding factions:
No, indeed, you are not the only gen fan who is not anti-slash! As I hope was clear in my comments last issue, I subscribe to the "to each his/her own" approach to slash in this or any other fandom. I read a story with Hutch as a vampire, which is definitely a different view of the character than I hold, but it was interesting.
Regarding factions:
I, too, am for peaceful co-existence. I'd hate to see fandom break down into an "us versus them” mentality of gen and slash. There’s just so much cross-over!Most of the people I know who might "prefer" slash also love a well-written gen story. Conversely, many who “prefer" gen will read slash as well. I’ve been involved in
fandom for over twelve years, and we’ve all pretty much gotten along together. Even those who read strictly in one genre or the other generally have a “live and let live" attitude. If an individual just can't tolerate a differing viewpoint, then their establishing a separate all-whatever forum would be preferable to bickering and ill will, but generally I don’t see this as necessary.
Regarding epithets:
As a new writer, I’m plagued by the same dilemma that you commented upon: what to do about the signifiers in our fanfic? I think a factor to keep in mind is that we are all reading and writing about the same characters time and time again, so certain obvious descriptors will tend to pop up over and over again, and the longer the story, the more signifiers will need to get used, and the more readers will tire of them. Here's the problem as I see it; maybe you, and others, can help out: even with a narrow POV, it is awkward to keep repeating names, and “he”, for obvious reasons, doesn't serve to differentiate between the two characters. Since our fanfic is so chock full of extended scenes involving just the two of them, there have to be words and phrases that allow the reader to readily establish who is talking to whom.
An EclectiCon observation:
We decided over dinner that there is very little in this world more entertaining than watching mundanes in a restaurant filled with Con-goers trying desperately to (1) figure out what’s going on, and (2) trying desperately to hide the fact that whatever it is scares them to death!
Speculating on Jean Lorrah's openness about her fanac, and why are Sherlock Holmes pastiches more acceptable than other fanfic?
Maybe Jean Lorrah got university tenure before her fannish activities became publicly known? And in any case, most universities are, I suspect, considerably more tolerant than the average, say, brokerage or law firm... As to Sherlock Holmes fan writing, outside of the current fandom, maybe it's because Doyle was considered a literary figure, whereas the creators of television series are not? In short, maybe writing Holmes is considered intellectually respectable.
About visibility on the internet:
I also definitely agree with your remarks on the exciting potential and accompanying problems of the Internet - and the desirability of people having the courtesy "not to make personal choices for" or “impose publicity on others which they haven’t chosen to have." Having recently experienced a very unwished-for incident of this type, I have pretty strong feelings on this issue. That's what disturbs me: the "I know how you feel but I don’t agree with you so I'm going to ignore your wishes" attitude that we see from a very few fans. Hey. you don't have to agree with or even understand someone else's personal choices to respect their right to make them, do you?
Issue 40 (January 1997)
Frienz 40 was published in January 1997 and contains 19 pages.
- TOTM: How do you see S&H passing the upcoming holiday season? Have episodes actually shown them on holidays?
- a description by a fan attending The Starsky and Hutch Experience in London
Issue 40: Sample Fan Comments
The letters are getting fewer:
Hello? Hello? Is there anyone out there? Where are you guvs? And why aren't you supporting your local letterzine by writing in? Only seven letters last issue! While they were, of course, fascinating and extremely erudite letters, it would be nice to have more people’s ideas to respond to. Come on, y'all. Write in! It doesn't have to be a treatise...
[...]
Remember when we'd have fifteen-twenty letters an issue? I hope more of you Frienz will write in this time, so there will be more to discuss next issue.
About slash and gen fans:
I hope that "/" and gen fans would never part company. As a "/" fan, I should state that I feel that I've been made very welcome here on these pages. I confess, I really can't remember which of the frienz subscribe to the "/" interpretation and which do not. I'd have to go back over the last two years' issues, and scribble down some notes, but then why bother? The friendship between our heroes, in whatever form we imagine, is the fundamental element that keeps us all coming back. We have that in common.
About slash and gen fic:
Speaking as one who has been an active participant in S&H fandom for seventeen years now -- which is longer than than I have been actively interested in a lot of things -- I cannot say I am surprised by the re-emergence of the slash vs. gen question. This one is going to keep surfacing for as long as the fandom exists, I suspect. Yes, there are people who only want to read one or the other. Being willing to read anything, I can state that those who stick rigidly to either choice miss out on a hell of a lot. If you only read slash, you would have missed some of the best fanfic ever -- ONE SMALL CORNER, for example, or THE GOLIATH, to name but two. If you only read gen, then you won't have read some of the really powerful pieces like the stories from Chameleon, or Penny Warren, or novellas like THE WATER IS WIDE. Each of us sees the characters in a slightly different way in any case -- their sexuality is just another case in point.
Now I grant you that it can become boring to read yet, another story dealing with one or both of them 'coming out' to each other, with all the attendant angst. These are marginally better than the stories (of the plot-what-plot genre) which appear to be nothing more than a list of acrobatic activities straight out of the JOY OF GAY SEX. (I once disgraced myself when reading one of these by howling with laughter at the dimensions stated. I mean, a boy could get bruised... Not to mention the fact that no one outside a circus could get into those positions. Not and enjoy it, anyway. As I have so frequently and repeatedly stated, I want a story that has a plot outside the bedroom. Doesn't mean I would censor anyone else's right to write or read the other sort. As ever, I am stating a personal preference. So I guess if there are sides to be taken, I am marginally in the gen camp. Well, on the outskirts. Gen stories generally have a plot. I say generally because I know we can all think of stories which take the good old hurt/comfort scenario to improbable levels. You know, the ones where Starsky/Hutch gets injured in the first few pages and Hutch/Starsky spends the next fifty agonising about it?
Give me the old 'my-partner-is-missing' scenario any day. It's asking a bit much these days to echo Mr. Hutchinson's 'Tell me something I don't know' -- but that, in a nutshell, is what I want to read.
Imagining a fifth season:
Hutch "dangerous-looking" in 4th season? Well, perhaps not quite that, but he grew up, didn't he? Acquired a lot of angst, and a persona some way removed from the first two seasons. Starsky seemed baffled by the change, and he had no idea what to do about it, so in the end, he gave up trying. He'd
changed too, of course, but not so obviously, So, what would they have been like in a 5th season? Something I've speculated on before. Would the characters have deteriorated, been in some way diminished, or the scriptwriters run out of ideas (they didn't have all that many)'? Or might the show itself have developed and evolved in competition with the new detective series then coming along? Perhaps 5th season might have been the most interesting of all.
Some convention thoughts:
Regarding MediaWest: Has anybody gotten into the con hotel? Most of the people I know or know of, haven't. Also, any personal reports on the Howard Johnson? I've heard conflicting, from "not fancy but clean" to "I'd rather sleep In the car!" I am looking forward to the con, seeing everybody and attending panels, but am finding the hotel hassle increasingly annoying. I'd really like to see a good, viable alternative to MW, but I get the impression Eclecticon isn't looking like being it. I've heard good reports on Mountain Media, but also hear that this year's will likely be the last if they don't start drawing more members (averaging about 100 a year, so far.)
Regarding epithets:
Well, Starsky is shorter than Hutch. Irrefutable fact. He is also dark as opposed to blond, and (probably) Jewish as opposed to gentile. (And he's bow-legged, but you won't find that in much fanfic. It is the attractive qualities that are used in this way.) It is a shorthand, a convention of fanfic. It's tough to escape from it, but if you start listening to the different speech-patterns, for example, you can use those subtle things, the almost subliminal clues, to avoid the repetitions. Perhaps we spend too much time describing them. Hands up anyone who doesn't know what they look like? There you are, then.
Of course, the descriptive passages are what a lot of fanfic are about. A kind of mental drooling down the page.
(Nobody take offence, here — I am as guilty as anybody of doing this. Read ONE MORE RIVER for some prime examples.)