Things I Just Don't Understand...

[cybermathwitch]

Tonight, I happened to run across an eljay comm dedicated to finding really bad bsg fic and (apparently) trashing it.  Now, I am deliberately not posting the name or link to the comm, because a. I don't want to single them out, b. I'm sure there are not alone, and c. I believe that they have the right to do so and will support that right.

That doesn't mean that I understand *why*.  Because I don't.  I just Don't. Get. the "wank" trend in fandom.  I can understand not liking a fic, or a show, or an episode.  I can even understand well-rounded discussion about fics, or episodes, etc. where you might go into detail about *why* you don't like it.  I don't understand out and out bashing things and making fun of them.  I know a lot of people are huge TV w/o pity fans, and I could never get on that bandwagon for the same reason.  It just makes me sad.  

I keep almost wanting to post about RaceFail, except that I have no desire to read any of it, and therefore can't actually speak to it.  I do know that I have serious issues with feminist-critique, and my only experiences with racial/cultural critique really aren't (it consists of an English Prof in College bitching about how Farscape wasn't being "multi-cultural" because they hired a "white" girl to play a grey character instead of someone who might be more ethnically diverse and complained about how they were filming in Australia but didn't have any "native" actors. (I'm sorry, but first off, if Lani Tupu isn't at least *part* Maori, **I'll** eat Crais's pretty-PK hat, and secondly - they're all playing aliens. They're blue and green and purple and orange - and it's not happening in an Earth environment, I just don't think saying that it doesn't show a multi-cultural view of Earth is a valid arguement in this situation.  It's not showing Earth's future, it's showing a completely different galaxy's present.)

Am still planing on a fandom rundown later. 

Comments

[ez-as-pi.livejournal.com]

yeah, I've seen that comm, it's pretty ridonkulous and mean and stupid....

[cybermathwitch.livejournal.com]

The thing is, I've looked at some of the things they've listed... and they're *good*! I mean, it's a genre area that might not appeal (they seem biased against Pilots! and baby!Pilots) but ... not crap, by any stretch of the imagination. ::sighs::

[ez-as-pi.livejournal.com]

DIdn't you see the episode where Kara said she didn't want children ever?

How dare some stupid Mary Sue wannabe writes that Kara would have a kid and actually OMGS! want to raise it...

*makes a pained noise*

[cybermathwitch.livejournal.com]

nodnod. I **know**.

Urgh.

[rainne]

...

*hides memberships to fanficrants and bad_ncis_fic*

[cybermathwitch.livejournal.com]

Well, like I said - I completely support the right to *do* it... I just don't get it. ::shrug::

[popelizbet.livejournal.com]

Re: Fic Snark

I'm prejudiced, because we once had a flamewar in statements with people from an SPN-themed spanking fic comm who, three weeks after someone posted a statement that was mildly critical, BOMBED our community to yell at us for being big meanie haters who hate fanfic and freedom and probably also pie. So. I don't snark fic, because I don't read fic, but people snark other people's makeup on LJ, too. :d NO HOBBY IS SAFE.

As for TWOP, although it sucks now that the original owners left it, it was never dedicated to uncritical snark. I don't watch a lot of TV, but I used to read that site obsessively, and it introduced me to shows I never would have watched and got me to watch a few of them later - having a point-by-point recap is helpful for someone like me who fails badly at following a TV show without knowing who the people are and where they fit.

When a show was awful - later seasons of Charmed, where the longtime recapper remembered the rules of the show better than the writers - they gave it hell. When a show was good, or passable, they gave it a much more critical reading, with humor. I don't recall that site ever "bashing" shows uncritically.

As for RaceFail, the PSA that wistfuljane posted is helpful. This is not about wanting more representation for POC in SF TV (although that is a concern, and I don't think "hey, they're aliens" changes that too much) and more about wanting for fandom to be a safe place for POC, including not having massive orgasms of fail every time race and media is discussed. Which is good. At the very least, without reading any RaceFail links at all, know that verb_noire (new website coming super soon), the small press that was started at least in part to reaction to this, has as its focus publishing works that deal with POC and GLBT characters in a central role - not the gay best friend or the Black sidekick, but central characters whose story is the focus. And I think that's intensely valuable.

[cybermathwitch.livejournal.com]

Regarding snark and Fic and TWOP: When I tried to read TWOP, what bothered me was the tone that was taken. I'm not sure exactly when in the history of the site I was trying to read it (though it was quite early since Farscape was in it's first or second season).

Regarding race/gender/etc.: I think that ultimately, I believe in story first and foremost, and in the serendipity of things. I hate the idea of writers trying to "adjust" how they tell a story in order to try to please certain groups of people (in any direction) or feeling like they should or shouldn't hire a given actor or actress who *fits* the roll because they're trying to make a quota or be "balanced". Sometimes things work out that way, sometimes they don't. I am all for anyone and everyone being able to participate in fandom and meta, and I'm all for more material that focuses on different races and cultures and sexualities, etc - but as both a fan and a writer and artist I resent the hell out of the implication that I can't just write the characters that come to me in the story that they give me without having to agonize over being politically correct and inclusive. Art *shouldn't* be inherently politically correct or we run the risk of having one of those fake, plastic, brain-washed societies that you read about in distopian fiction.

[popelizbet.livejournal.com]

I have similar reservations about the idea that writing the other is necessarily "political correctness", but then again, I hate the term political correctness anyway.

Life is not white, straight, and male, but science fiction tends to be. If all of the characters that come to you are white, that doesn't necessarily make you a bad person, but it does mean you are writing white, which can be a detriment both to your fiction (because the world is not all white, and if your fictional universe is, that demonstrates or can demonstrate a lack of world-building talent) and contribute to further alienation by groups who are pretty much used at this point to not having representation in fictional media.(See also: cover art which lightens or whitens POC characters to, supposedly, make books more salable.)

Similarly, as with the criticism that started this, you may have a character come to you, as Elizabeth Bear apparently did, who is Black and enslaved by a white woman. No one is saying "don't tell that story." They are saying "if someone gets Mandingo imagery out of that story that is bothersome enough to make them reject further interaction with the work, engage with that criticism when it is expressed to you without feeling the need to tear down the person expressing it."

I feel that it's important to take a look at what comes out of our imaginations, because like the rest of our thinking, there are snarly gnarly puddles of ickiness and/or ignorance that can spurt up into our creative work no matter what lovely people we are as human beings...and it makes us better writers to confront that and look for places where our writing reflects thinking that may be problematic, or where it reveals areas of ignorance about the contextual meaning or symbolism of things we have expressed. I don't think that process makes us plastic or fake; I think that process enables us to increase our authenticity as people and writers.

[elflore.livejournal.com]

Not only is Lani Tupi Maori or part Maori, he's a frickin' Maori *lord.* No dren! He mentioned that at one of the talks at the last Scapercon--his family is actually Maori nobility.

Or so he claimed, anyway. But would you doubt that guy? *g*

[cybermathwitch.livejournal.com]

Hee! That's really kind of awesome. That conversation just pissed me off *SO MUCH* - between that and an in-class discussion where she asked for our opinions on a group of stories (including Harlan Ellison's "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream") and I said that I hadn't liked them because they were unrelentingly dark without showing any hope and she told me (in class) what amounted to everything couldn't be happiness and fairy tales and was generally nasty about it. Also, she insisted on treating everything in feminist context (even though it was general sci-fi, not feminist sci-fi) to the exclusion of almost everything else. I didn't realize all the background in German Expressionism in Metropolis until I took another class later that studied the movie.

[elflore.livejournal.com]

Damn. But yeah, I totally get how you feel.

I'm the comic geek that could understand the praise for Dark Knight (mostly), yet couldn't really *enjoy* it, because of the unremitting grim. Give me a light/dark balance, give me some jokes and hope. There's room in the world for straight-up grim tales, but not much room in my library--just not my taste.