Bassett said in 2001 that she liked biographical roles and added: "That's the image that I like to put out there, and those are the parts I'm attracted to. But not iron-fist kind of strong, just self-assured. I'm nice too."[39] She has turned down roles which she viewed as demeaning to her image. "This is a career about images. It's celluloid; they last for ever. I'm a black woman from America. My people were slaves in America, and even though we're free on paper and in law, I'm not going to allow you to enslave me on film, in celluloid, for all to see. And to cross the water, to countries where people will never meet people who look like me. So it becomes a bigger thing than me just becoming a movie star, and me just being on TV. So if you're going to show every black woman as 400lb or every black woman as the prostitute on the street … But I have always maintained that [the roles] I cannot do because of the way I'm made up, or because of the way I think, I don't begrudge that there is someone else who has no issues with that."[118]
A Christian Perspective on Slash Fiction.
Disclaimer: This essay is aimed primarily at Christians, because few others will sympathize with the dilemma, or care about the argument. As such, it's full of unashamedly Christian language and references to the Bible. If that upsets you, you don't have to read it. Consider yourself warned.
I wrote it because I am a Christian woman who enjoys slash fiction, and I don't see anything wrong in that. But it took me much soul searching, prayer, reading the Bible and commentaries, and discussion to get to that position, and I would like to share my conclusions with other slash-reading Christians, in order to spare them the months of struggle, self-doubt and self-hatred that I've gone through.
So, you're a Christian, and that is very important to you. You love God and want to do his will. You want to obey him, but you can't stop reading slash… You want to stop, because you believe it's wrong. The Bible says that homosexuality is a sin, and it is therefore wrong to vicariously enjoy it.
You've tried to stop, but it's like an addiction - you keep coming back, and even if you can keep away from the stories, your own fantasy life is full of slash, and you can't get away from that. You're tired of fighting, tired of losing, afraid that God will condemn you, afraid that God hates you, because you are repugnant in his sight. You cry out to Him to free you from this sin. But he doesn't.
Perhaps you've tried to talk about it to your Christian friends, and you have suddenly experienced the full force of the condemnation which the Church can inflict; 'how could you do this? how could you betray your principles like this? this is a crisis of faith - you must stop the fantasizing, or lose your faith. God will disown you. God hates this.' And you're in despair, because only you know how hard you've tried to stop, but you can't.
I know, I've been there.
Or perhaps you come from the other side. Perhaps you're a Christian who cannot believe how vile this slash fiction is, how perverted and Godless the people must be who read and enjoy it - let alone those who write it. You feel it's your moral duty to speak up against it, to protect people from another of the evils of this permissive society of ours.
I hope this essay will help you too. I offer it in praise of God, whom I now understand to be far better, far kinder, far more accepting and loving than I had ever imagined. What truth is in it, He showed me. He rescued me from despair and in the process taught me to love him more, to detest a great injustice in society which previously I had ignored, and to resist the narrow legalism of the Church, which has turned into an instrument of hatred, where God intended us to be instruments of his love.
Anne Rice[2] (born Howard Allen Frances O'Brien, October 4, 1941) is an American author of gothic fiction, Christian literature, and erotic literature. She is best known for her series of novels The Vampire Chronicles, which revolve around the central character Lestat. Books from The Vampire Chronicles were the subject of two film adaptations, Interview with the Vampire (1994), and Queen of the Damned (2002).
https://www.themarysue.com/fetishizing-slash/