Goodness Gracious!

Hello, friends ... I know it's been ages since I've chimed in, owing to the usual desperate effort to stay busy in the world of Theatre, but of course I try to check in from time to time and see what y'all are up to. After taking a look at this "slash fanfic" business, I felt I had to exclaim, as Aunt Bea might have, clutching her apron and holding the side of her face, "Goodness gracious!" I know that Tatia warned me, but, innocent lamb that I am, I had no idea what I was in for! Can you imagine, I thought "slash fanfic" might have something to do the Horror genre -- meaning, possibly it might place our heroes Kelly and Scott in a haunted house and see how they might react to it! Little did I know that it would be "Horror" of quite another kind!

What does everyone on the forum think of this business? I know this may sound funny, coming from me -- who could never be termed, by any stretch, homophobic -- but I find this stuff rather horrendous. It isn't that I am an utter prude -- though I suppose I am rather old-fashioned; the things that I sometimes run across on the World Wide Web still have a tendency to make my mouth drop open in dread and wonder -- but I find it bizarre and irksome that some people find titillation in taking characters, long established as "one way", and depicting them as being "the other", just for the sake of perversity. I can only wonder what Mr. Culp or Mr. Cosby would say, being traditional macho guys all the way!

What's next? Romeo runs off with Mercutio, leaving Juliet to do God knows what with her Nurse? Will John Wayne and Ward Bond find solace in each others' arms? It reminds me of a cartoon I saw once in the New Yorker -- it showed Popeye and Bluto at a cocktail party, holding hands and talking to a lady, and the caption read, "Finally we realized where all that anger was coming from!"

Regards,

Dotterer