slash fiction

I've noticed a trend in the content attributed to and depicting the three male Harry Potter leads—Rupert Grint, Tom Felton, and Daniel Radcliffe—and the running joke that they might secretly be gay for one another. This idea isn’t original to them, of course. The male leads of any science fiction or fantasy epic will be paired off in the minds of their fandom. For example, TBS ran a spot a few years ago advertising an airing of Lord of the Rings, with the spot focusing on the relationship between Frodo and Sam and "Secret Lovers" by Atlantic Starr as the background track. The narrative has been queered so severely that not admitting the likelihood of a Sam/Frodo pairing makes a person seem a little bit naïve.

And you thought the Gandalf-on-Frodo slash fiction that circulates every time there’s a new LOTR installment was unsettling? You have no idea. Or actually, maybe you do. I didn’t, though, until longtime Bitch contributor Noah Berlatsky asked me if he could write about the Obama slash that’s apparently been sweeping the nerdier corners of these Internets for some time.