RSL did a whole slew of radio interviews recently. All the House actors did, all to promote the fourth season premiere. The message boards are focusing mostly on RSL's because they're just so bizarre and surreal. I mean, not only did we get the breakfast cereal one I posted here, but there's also another one where he talks about bushy eyebrows, wants to know how pictures get into computers (has the man never heard of a scanner?), and rambles endlessly about sperm whales. Seriously! A whole rant about sperm whales! Only RSL...
In one of the interviews, he chatted a bit about Hugh, but had rather little to say about the recent Jessifer breakup. And that's all well and good. Until I was reading a message board and a H/W shipper heard the interview and pointed out that RSL was happy to talk at length about Hugh, but didn't want to discuss Jessifer. They thought that was Very Interesting Indeed.
And here's where the rant comes in. I get slash. I don't slash, but I get it. But real-person slash, the so-called RPS, just completely escapes my comprehension. (This is not to be confused with DPS, Dead Poet Society, which also often comes up in RSL discussions. The man is doomed to a life of acronyms, apparently.)
I guess I'll start with slash and work from there.
Typically I don't get slash at all. I never followed Voyager fanfic, but I'm positive there's Paris/Kim slash fic out there, for instance. It seems inevitable that when two guys are friends, the slash fic shows up. Actually, I don't think that's even a requirement. I've seen House/Foreman slash, and there's nothing resembling friendship between those two! I've even seen Wilson/Foreman and Wilson/Chase. Since when do those characters have any interaction? But back to my point. (Did I have one?) It seems whenever two males have some sort of friendship, slash fic immediately results from this. And typically I seriously do not understand it. Those characters have as much of a chance at striking up a romantic relationship as I do with that creepy guy from the Six Flags commercials. Never going to happen.
But the House/Wilson thing, while I don't agree with it, I can understand a bit better. The show does set them up for it. That much is undeniable. How many Wilson is gay jokes have we had now? Everything from the Village People scene, to the Poconos, to the steam room joke, to the Hector the Pool Boy gag, to the ducklings discussing H/W being more likely than Cam/Chase, and then some!
And that's part of the fun of those two too. The H/W jokes ARE funny, at least to some viewers. And it's pretty true to life. I've seen guys tease each other in real-life like this. If everybody knows each other well enough to get away with it, such jokes can be funny. The slash parodies in the fandom are pretty funny too. My two favorite House comics are still a House/Tritter one and a House/Wilson one. They're both completely tasteless and absolutely hilarious. And of course, my own videos have a dash of parody slash every so often. The Jerry Springer video, my most popular by far, has the H/W bit in the middle, and the "Does Tritter Creep You Out?" video is Tritter/Everyone, regardless of sex, but mostly Tritter/House. Sometimes slash is very funny.
So the House series sets these two up for slash with the jokes. It also does it with the "House is the Other Woman" scenario. It's made very clear that Wilson spending all his time with House is what ruined at least two of his marriages. Wilson puts House above absolutely everything, his wives and his job included. Wilson obviously likes to be married, and he likes the company of women, at least for a while, but marriage never truly seems to satisfy him. When he's not busy cheating with the nurse of the week, he's hanging out with House.
I firmly believe that Wilson will NEVER have a happy marriage, and that one of the main reasons for this is his commitment to House. I have a pet theory that Wilson knows intellectually that it's his relationship with House that destroys his marriages, but admitting that means having to change his relationship with House. Since he's not willing to do that, he sabotages his marriages with infidelity so that when the marriage dies, he can blame the affair instead of House. Notice he tells House in "Fools for Love," "My marriages were so crappy, I was spending all my time with you." Wilson sees time with House as the side effect of a failing marriage and not the cause. I think he's just in denial about this and knows full well that picking House over his wives is why he can't stay married for any reasonable length of time. But Wilson wants it all: the white picket fence and the crippled, addicted best friend, so he's not willing to choose one or the other and keeps trying for both. Wilson is starring in his own version of "The Dog with Two Bones." This is why I'll sometimes say that I think Wilson is married to House in the way that a sailor is married to the sea and an executive is married to his job. House is such a huge priority in Wilson's life, that he can't have a life beyond House, try as he might.
So the show sets itself up for slash with the jokes and with casting House as "The Other Woman." It also does it by refusing to show that these two care about each other as friends. Regardless of your definition, it's obvious House and Wilson love each other. They have a deep sense of caring for one another and both, in their own twisted, broken, manipulative ways, try to do good by each other. Nothing says "I love you" like dosed coffee! But the frustration is that neither of these men wear their hearts on their sleeves. They have to be pushed to the extreme to admit to any sort of bond, and even then, it's usually couched in a metaphor or is part of some dramatic angst. "Maybe I don't want to push this until it breaks" is about the closest we've ever heard House come to admitting he needs Wilson. Wilson's bit about "We have an evolutionary incentive to sacrifice for our offspring, our tribe, our friends; keep them safe" when discussing parents' unconditional love is the warmest sentiment we've ever heard from Wilson. We've seen Chase, Cameron, Stacy, and Cuddy all hug House, but Wilson has never hugged House. We've seen everyone cry at least once on the show except Wilson. Both men have huge brick walls around them that even the other has great difficulty finding the cracks in.
Because of this, the fans get restless and frustrated. They KNOW that House and Wilson care about each other (to what degree is, of course, the disagreement), and they want to see that actually play out on-screen. Personally, I'm hoping for some sort of hug between the two of them before the series ends. The House and Chase hug, with Chase's quiet crying and then hiding his tears quickly, was just heartrending. I'm not saying the hug has to be sad or painful. I'll take a happy hug too. Just SOMETHING. Some physical sign that these two are friends.
I've read non-slash fanfic where Wilson has held House's hand when he's unconscious, drugged out on morphine. I've read a wonderful tale where, through a series of horrible circumstances, Wilson nearly dies and it's all House's fault. As House tends to the severely-damaged Wilson, his growing guilt finally becomes insurmountable and he finds he can't leave Wilson's bedside as Wilson dozes away on a morphine high. House ends up next to Wilson on the hospital bed, and when Wilson wakes up, they have the most heart-breaking conversation ever. Even the slashers, I mean the people REALLY into slash, said in the comments that there was absolutely nothing at all slashy about that scene, but it was so incredibly moving. I nearly cried and most of the people leaving comments did admit to crying. It sounds corny out of context, but it was incredible and, though it doesn't sound like it could be, completely in-character.
So this impulse to see House and Wilson connect physically in some way is what drives a lot of the slashers, I think. Because House and Wilson NEVER express more tender emotions physically, and because they spend so much of their time hating one another, fans (at least some fans) are aching to see some certain, physical sign that they actually do care about one another. I think the ache to see this is especially strong because the relationship seems so out of balance. We all know Wilson cares about House, but some of us want some sort of clear, indisputable sign that House cares about Wilson as more than just as his Vicodin supplier.
But this is where I branch off from the slashers and where I think our society gets a bit weird.
I think one of the problems is that we, as a society, seem to have trouble differentiating between love and love. I joke that it's English's fault, because we try to cram too many feelings into one small word. I love my iPhone. I love Taco Bell food. I love my pets. I love freedom. I love America. I love my family. I love my friends. I hope to someday love a husband. I love God. I love life. That's way too many concepts to fit into one word and expect it to always make sense.
House and Wilson love each other. I doubt anyone can watch the show and argue with that. Maybe they love each other as casual friends. Maybe they love each other as close friends. Maybe they love each other as brothers. Maybe they love each other as so-called "soul mates." The slashers would have you believe they love each other romantically. But no matter what definition you use, I'm certain House and Wilson have some degree of love for each other.
I plop House and Wilson's love for one another somewhere between brothers and a phrase I hate but have no better word for: soul mates. I hate that because it sounds too romantic and because I doubt House has a soul. ;-) But I do believe their bond is stronger than brotherhood. I think if House went missing, Wilson would put much more effort into finding him than Wilson seems to put into finding his own flesh-and-blood brother. And Wilson seems to be unable to have a discussion with anyone without bringing up House, whereas Wilson is so unwilling to mention his brother that House didn't even realize this second brother existed. As for House, he has no siblings and his father hates him, so I'm sure his mom and Wilson are the only family he has. He spends Christmases with Wilson, but won't do more than call his mom when he knows she's gone on Christmas Eve. I think House's ties to Wilson are closer than his ties with his flesh-and-blood family.
I think maybe they have a "brothers in arms" sort of bond, but without the war. Or maybe facing the realities of the infarction and the addiction and Wilson's huge string of losses throughout his entire life is enough like the horrors of war to bond them that closely.
Whatever the reason for it, however it got there, I think that's the level of love they have for one another.
But the slashers seem to glide from "House and Wilson love each other and are closer than brothers" to "House and Wilson love each other and must have sex this very instant." I would love to have a conversation with a slasher some day and ask if they think it's possible for two men to have a bond so close that they are intertwined in each other's lives, and yet not fall into bed with one another. I of course would say absolutely, and would point even as far back as David and Jonathan as a good example of this strong type of male friendship. Frodo and Sam make a good, more modern equivalent, I think, but have the disadvantage of being fictional. ;-) But David and Jonathan didn't pursue a romantic relationship and neither did Frodo and Sam. (Though, incidentally, there was kissing involved in both of those relationships, but our society has lost the ability for males to kiss anyone in anything other than a sexual context, with the exception of small babies on the cheek, especially if they're a politician.) And of course there's always Holmes and Watson, on whom our dynamic duo is based, but I'm not yet familiar enough with them to comment too much. I know Watson was committed to Holmes, but I don't know if it was reciprocated.
So I can sorta "get" the House/Wilson 'shippers. I agree with them on so many points. I joked once that I'm a H/W 'shipper up to, but not including, the slash. I agree that they care deeply about each other. I agree that neither of them will likely have successful romantic relationships because they're so heavily intertwined in each others' lives. I too am hoping for some physical display of their friendship, along the lines of that House-and-Chase hug. I draw the line at the romance though. I don't see any romance between the two and I wouldn't want to see that. I'm H&W, not H/W. What a difference a bit of punctuation makes. But with that said, I can see why people would slash those two. It makes a whole lot more sense than randomly slashing two other males. I just can't agree with the leap from strong friendship to romance. I don't see either character doing that. My hope remains that the series will end without on-screen slash, but we'll see.
Anyway, I was talking about that RSL interview. I can sorta get the House/Wilson slash thing. But what I seriously don't get at all is the Hugh Laurie/RSL real-person slash. I'll gladly speculate all day long on the nature of House and Wilson's relationship, but it just strikes me as completely inappropriate to try to slash real people.
Ironically, I think of the four of them (House, Wilson, Hugh, RSL), RSL has the best chance of actually being gay. I wouldn't be shocked if he eventually came out or was outed. I do believe Perez Hilton has hinted at outing him. (Though if I'm not mistaken, he tried to out Jesse a while back, and I would think the recent Jessifer thing would show he's not gay.) There are hints here and there that RSL may not be the straight arrow he claims he is, and of course there's a bit of "the lady doth protest too much" going on. His girlfriend going on 12 years without being married and now living in Germany doesn't help matters either. There are those who speculate Gaby is a beard.
So I wouldn't be all that surprised if RSL was outed one of these days. But to go from "RSL might be gay" to "RSL has a thing for Hugh" just seems so inappropriate. I don't mind the slashers picking apart H/W dialogue to find the bits to support their theory. Sometimes it's pretty funny. There are those out there who STILL think the Poconos was a real invitation! And to watch them wrangle dialogue and force it to fit their theory, or to interpret every bit of House-and-Wilson banter as "flirting," is also amusing. I know the writers write subtext into the show on purpose and the slashers have fun analyzing that. And since we're just talking fictional characters here, go for it, people. I don't buy into the slash, but then again, these "people" are fictional characters who exist at the whim of the writers. The writers very well COULD make House and Wilson gay tomorrow, for all I know. So speculate as you please.
And speculation about whether RSL is gay or not is questionable, I suppose, but probably not horribly wrong. I mean, the man brings it up himself more often than anyone else! When you step into the spotlight as a celebrity, you lose a good chunk of your privacy, right or wrong. You become the topic of conversation among the "common folk" and everyone loves a good sex scandal, I suppose.
But what definitely strikes me as wrong is trying to play match-maker with two REAL people, especially when you're recasting them as gay when you have no solid evidence that they are! And doubly-especially when you're playing matchmaker with a married man with three kids and a man who has been with the same woman for 12 years. And what's with slashing Hugh, anyway? WHERE is the hint that Hugh is gay? RSL I can buy, but Hugh? But there are HL/RSL slashers out there who analyze everything that comes out of the mouths of those two and try to make it into some sort of sign of their slashiness. Do they realize their speculation is implying infidelity to Hugh and RSL's actual lovers? Are they thinking of the three Laurie kids when they say these things?
Just because you want to see House and Wilson get together doesn't mean the actors have to do the same!
I don't know...
It's one thing to say that House and Wilson are in love. I'll hop into that conversation and speculate along with you in the opposite direction since they're fictional characters controlled by a writing team, and our speculation means nothing, really. But it's quite another to go around slashing HL and RSL together. These are REAL people and to slash those two means unfaithfulness on both of their parts. You really want to imply that?
Same with the HL/Fry slashers. (Though at least they have half the equation right, as Stephen Fry is very openly gay.)
So... I'm not sure what the point of this ramble was. I guess it was just:
1) I was annoyed to see H/W slashers try to find HL/RSL hints in an RSL interview. I expect that behavior from dialogue in a show between two fictional characters, not speculation about an interview with a real person.
2) There are many definitions of "love."
3) Real-person slash, ESPECIALLY when the people involved already have relationships with other people, is scary and inappropriate. These are real people, not characters for you to write new romances for.
I think I've rambled for long enough. Consider this my official slash manifesto...
