oh fandom, NO!

[rm]

http://community.livejournal.com/jackxianto/3668643.html
in which someone says something that sounds an awful lot like "die-hard SF/F fans are an oppressed minority."

http://community.livejournal.com/jackxianto/3668643.html?view=12636067#t12636067
In which I yell.

thanks for the heads-up from starstealingirl

Subcutlures, because they are by definitions not the mainstream dominant culture, are technically minorities.

But here's the deal, I'm a minority because I'm queer, because I'm Jewish, because I am not as white as look.

Engaging with enterainment in a non-culturally dominant way may be responsible for affecting the tone of huge swathes of my life, but it doesn't define it. Being a member of an actual minority does.

I am not a minority because I like SF/F or because I cried and cried and cried for Ianto or even because I have an unpopular fannish opinion in the sense that I'm not all worked up about RTD and whether he respects fandom or not -- I don't care, I don't need his approval.

Believe me, I get what you are saying. For older fen in particular, there is this very real sense of being in this small, sort of looked down upon subculture and since many of us interact with the world differently than the mainstream (there are studies on the high incidence of the non-neurotypical in the fannish community), I do sort of get why you chose this angle to frame your point.

But with things like Harry Potter, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Comic Con, Dragon*Con, and, yes, the Children of Earth miniseries, fannishness is now a pretty nearly mainstream activity.

But more than that: no one ever threw beer bottles at me for being fannish. No one ever threatened to rape me for being fannish. No one fucking threatened to beat my face in with a brick for being fannish. They have (the first two) because I was gay and (the third) because I'm Jewish.

Considering one of the biggest plot points and now fandom controversies relates to the show's handling of Ianto's sexuality, you really might want to check yourself here.

I am a minority and it's not because I loved a man who never was, even though I did.

Comments

[vashtan.livejournal.com]

Looking at this whole clusterf*ck, I'm honestly glad I will never make it mainstream, or big budget. The crazy, the passive-aggressiveness, the rants, the death threats... I mean, really. I'm sure the writer had his reasons, and he can do whatever he darn well pleases. It's his characters. Playing the passive-aggressive card is, in my humble opionion, pathetic.

I'm writing this from the perspective of somebody who's been called a bastard and a horrible writer on the basis of the fact that my characters did what they did and I didn't let them have a happily-ever after one third through the story. Just because I failed to do what some people wanted me to do, I was called all kinds of names. I can't even imagine what the writer of CoE went/goes through.

It's those passive-aggressive, self-entitled "fans" that make reaching out and contact with your readers such a very precarious thing.

(Plus, co-opting real minorities for your little passive-aggressive spazzing? Not cool).

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

I don't know if you really meant to say self-entitled(perhaps you meant self-titled)but it is just the perfect description.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I saw that and thought how it connected with what I wrote about the whole K/S thing and I couldn't help but feel those fans really do not GET IT.

I don't know why, but I feel that it's a waste of my time to tell people, in a comm, that they're doing it wrong because I know I'll be told that I'm "harshing their squees" even if the "squees" are idiotic fan entitlement.

I may have to comment on that in any case, just to show that fandom is not a monolith.

[rm.livejournal.com]

It's so..... argh! Also, it's disrespectful to the fucking character in this instance, which is sort of the punchline of that one!

[juniperus.livejournal.com]

you're dead-fucking-on, as usual.

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

*headdesk*

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

There seems to be a perception, among some people who's only understanding of real oppression comes from the media, that the struggle of minorities has a kind of glamour and beauty about it - which, we can all be beautiful people, and I think actually SF fans are beautiful people in their own way - but it rather overlooks the daily grind, and the part where you don't get to opt out if things get a bit hot.

[tod-hollykim.livejournal.com]

I'd bet, if we took a survey of the age of all the protesters in this mess, they would all be young.

IE not around during the civil rights marches and protests, the Stonewall riots or have been attacked because they are different.

Not that I was ever at a march or riot. Mostly, I was too young back then. But I remember watching the news reports and wondering why is this happening to people. I just saw other human beings, not their differences.

Hey, I was a naive, young science fiction fan who still didn't know her own sexual identity yet.

Younger fans just have no idea what it was like. It's all too far in the past and glamorous and heroic. They haven't seen the blood on themselves, their friends or loved ones.

[tod-hollykim.livejournal.com]

I posted a mini rant myself. This is it:

Yeah, minority is kind of a strong word here, specially with all the real minorities out there.

Now, I have been a science fiction fan practically since I could read. Way back in the bad old days when we got a few movies a year and only had Twilight Zone and the Outer Limits (the original series) on regular television. I remember the first episode of Star Trek.

Now a days, we ain't a minority. My favorite genres are mainstream. The number of top grossing movies and prime time TV shows show that.

Did I hate the fact that a fictional character got killed off to tell a story? Yeah. I liked Ianto and I was very upset that Jack used his own grandson and wound up killing him, too. But it fit the story and made it more real. Because let me tell you something:

In real life, people die.

I know. In the past few years, I've lost my mother, my stepfather, in-laws, dear friends, and people from the media I was fans of that I will miss terribly.

Besides, Torchwood isn't your toy. It's RTD's. And he can do with it what he wants. Including killing off characters as he has done. Not everything can end on a happy and fluffy note. Deal with it.

If you really want to do something positive with that emotion, turn it around and do something in the real world. Support some charity, some human rights cause, something!

But to get your knickers in a twist over a fictional character's death- not cool. It only upholds the nerd living in his/her parents' basement stereotype. And that is something we have been fighting for years to get rid, from even before I was a fan.

[jackolantern.livejournal.com]

Sad to see that that whole "fans are slans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slan)" thing--that the popular kids make fun of us, but deep down inside we're really the X-Men--is surviving when you can't turn around without hearing about a new SF or fantasy TV show and Comic-Con is rivaling two wars and a major financial crisis in the daily news feed. Liking the works of Terry Pratchett--the best-selling author in Britain before that other fantasy author, whats-her-face, came along--doesn't retroactively earn you a triangle badge to pin on your PJs.

[laughingacademy.livejournal.com]

Oh man, I am so happy someone else remembered "Fans are Slans."

[axeslade.livejournal.com]

Oh geez *headdesks*I'm so glad you and others all ready said what I would say with so much eloquence and so little swearing. As a fellow queer, non-christian, gender non-conformer...yeah. Those make me a minority. Fandom just made it hard to get a date.

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

I totally get your point, but I think she's saying that the invested fandom subculture is being dimissed/ignored, not oppressed. Subculture might have been a better and less loaded term than minority, though it seems to me that she likely means it in the statistical sense.

I'm with you on RTD. I don't care if he gives a damn about my opinions or not.

[godofstrife.livejournal.com]

At CC RTD himself said that the internet fandom and the fans that want Ianto back are just a minority. I'm convinced they are just using the same term RTD used without thinking about other implications, which doesn't make it less annoying.

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

Wow, this makes me itch in about seven different ways.

I could comment further, but it would be rambly and potentially derailing.

Pfeh.

[eac.livejournal.com]

...I'm having such a problem relating to this relatively loud voice of fans who feel so betrayed by RTD...

[oncomingscone.livejournal.com]

Bravo.

[iterum.livejournal.com]

'I'm in a minority! And there's more of us than you think!'

Given that the OP leads off with a bunch of Whedon shows as favorites, one might imagine a higher tolerance for beloved character death.

[fmanalyst.livejournal.com]

That's what I was thinking when this whole conflict started. Those of us who lived Buffy and Angel learned not to get complacent about our favorite characters.

[laughingacademy.livejournal.com]

Wow. Someone has reinvented “Fans are slans”. *headdesk*

...although I have made jokes about “passing for a mundane,” fandom is not some kind of unacknowledged and oppressed elite.

[karnythia.livejournal.com]

OMFG. They are determined to appropriate *everything* aren't they?

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

It's their Manifest Destiny!

[godofstrife.livejournal.com]

Oh dear, I commented.

[all the comments flying around about how it is only a very few of us that are upset over CoE, I found myself thinking about the fact that I have accepted the fact that I am part of this worldwide minority.

While I agree that there are less SF/F fans in the world than, say, white, straight males, you are clearly confusing numeric minorities (e.g. subcultures) with the contemporarily political and social meaning behind the term minority. I'm part of subcultures like SF/F, FPS games, gothic scene and I belong to minorities (mixed ethnics, gay, living in a foreign country), only being part of the latter has ever subjected me to discrimination.
Please think about different meanings many words in our language have before you apply them to yourself or anyone else.

From the comments: I'm a minority.

We are Pope! (Please, someone get this reference)
]

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

The "Wir Sind Papst" incident(s?), by any chance?

[http://users.livejournal.com/peasant_/]

Well, belonging to subcultures can make you a member of an oppressed minority - religions are the obvious example, though there are plenty of others. And I suppose somebody somewhere once got beaten up or lost their job because they were a sci-fi geek. So in some senses I feel if they want to define themselves as an oppressed minority it isn't for anyone else to step in and disagree - they know their own lives best. But on the other hand, they don't give any actual factual examples to back up their claim and it certainly doesn't gel with my own experience of being a sci-fi geek, so personally I'm going to dismiss them as attention-seeking wankers. Life is too short to do any more.

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

And I suppose somebody somewhere once got beaten up or lost their job because they were a sci-fi geek
I'm pretty sure they didn't.

[bluejeans07.livejournal.com]

I'm assuming that this is the 'backlash' of what RTD said at the SDCC panel? Dude, I WAS THERE. RTD is in a place where the number of viewers can be monitored whereas people in fandom seem to see things in a skewed view. Plenty of people in the world watch and enjoy things loyally and not take part in internet fandom, and this is something BBC Wales and other major television networks can monitor.

The hilarious thing overall about all this wankfuckery is that I totally found RTD at the panel charming and hilarious! He was REALLY REALLY FUNNY and my friend and I laughed hysterically at all his jokes! There was nothing about him that was malicious or cruel at all. If people can't handle any of this, then they're clearly watching the wrong show.

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

Some things that are funny in one tone of voice are offensive in another.

And I think people who have been physically harmed or threatened for things they can't help and can't change, like their skin color or ethnic identity, have been taught to be wary of words, words that might be a pretense of a joke, words that could, if they're taken seriously by anyone, any reader or listener, lead to danger.

____

Don't we all have a view that is from our own perspective, rooted in our own experiences, and therefore skewed from the views of people whose experiences are substantially different? We all see only part of the picture, after all. (Unless there's an omniscient God, and if there is, he's not talking.)

[meirion.livejournal.com]

No bloody wonder SF/F writers are trying to run away from fen. To the point of giving up writing.

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

There's a reason why, some 25 centuries or so ago, some writer invented noms de plume.
Fen would be that reason.

[thessalian.livejournal.com]

I think this individual is barking up the wrong tree anyway. I decided to take the bull by the horns and bring up some of my geekier interests with work colleagues when conversation got slow and this poster would be amazed at the number of Doctor Who computer wallpapers, cries of "You know where to buy manga in this city?!?" and "Hey, is this LARP stuff easy to get into, because it sounds like fun" I've received.

People get bullied in high school because they're different; geekdom is just an excuse bullies use. Apparently, some people take it as read that this means that all geekdom is unacceptable forever and ever. Truth is, feeling persecuted makes them feel special, and they need a reality check because ... really, no.

Yeah; baby crossed a line there and needs to get over it.

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

I seriously doubt if any of the people who bullied me in grade school bothered to learn enough about me to know what I liked to read.

"die-hard SF/F fans are an oppressed minority."

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

BWA-HAW-HAW!
Sorry, that degree of narcissism is funny. It just is.

Or I just broke something.

[addyke.livejournal.com]

Here bloody here!

Try being a Catholic in Northern Ireland at the high of the troubles.
Try being queer in Northern Ireland.
That's being in a minority. That is getting abuse for being in a minority.
Hell, I've got abuse and bullying for simply being ginger!

Being a nerdy, geeky Torchwood obsessed fan girl is me being mainstream, not a minority.

On the big homophobia arguement:- I would have given my right arm for my family to react to my coming out the same way Rhiannon and Johnny did to Ianto. Really.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

On the big homophobia arguement:- I would have given my right arm for my family to react to my coming out the same way Rhiannon and Johnny did to Ianto. Really.

Amen to that. I still remember my father driving me around the neighborhood for half an hour, threatening to shoot my girlfriend in high school when he found out about it.

[laufeyette.livejournal.com]

This "oppressed minority" makes me want to lock the door to fandom, swallow the key, and immolate myself. And now my delicious afternoon coffee has RAGE!!! all over it. Not a very fitting tribute.

By definition, the word drama implies suffering - so why do people feel so betrayed that this is what they got? I had a few issues with CoE, sure, and people have the right to feel disappointed when things don't turn out the way they hoped - but this wankery? Things just became embarrassing.

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

Mostly I agree with everything you say. And mostly you say it so well, I don't feel a need to stick my two cents in. I enjoy seeing someone who is so articulate and clear-thinking as an advocate for queer issues in fandom.

But here I think you're tilting at windmills, and I don't think you're making certain very valid points effectively, given predictable human responses to being "yelled" at.

I saw nothing in the original post that indicated to me that there was an intent to dis the very real and dangerous oppression that queer folk, religious minorities, and people of different skin colors face. The poster was talking about his or her own life and experiences, not yours.

Is oppression meaningless simply because it's mild instead of severe?

I've seen fans bully and belittle other fans, because they are "media fans" instead of "readers", or because they like "fantasy" better than "hard sf" or because they are religious instead of atheists or Christian instead of something "more cool". One convention even had a panel on whether some people were too weird for fandom, and I was later told that they spent a lot of time talking about my transgender sweetie, who couldn't pass on a moonless night during a power outage, in that context. (I didn't see that panel; I think I was on another panel at the time.)

The reason that I bring this up is that I have seen at least as many people hurt (emotionally hurt--the microcosm of fandom is far more into words than fists) for having people decide they were the "wrong kind of fan" as for being queer or of the "wrong" religion.

Also, my observation is that the people who were hurt for being the "wrong kind of fan" were hurt worse. I think this is because they don't have the life experiences that obviously queer people have, which means they don't have the emotional resources to deal even with that kind of casual playground-bully-style oppression.

So, the original poster has obviously led a sheltered life compared with yours. There's nothing inherently wrong with that--in an ideal world, all people could live a life like that. But the world isn't ideal, and queer folk, and Jewish folk, and Pagans, and so on, need allies, not enemies.

If this is the first time said poster has felt oppressed enough to rant about it, then this is his or her first chance to be able to imagine what it would be like if people were throwing beer bottles and bricks and rape threats. It's his or her first chance to have even a tiny inkling of what it would be like to walk in your shoes.

But I've noticed that when people are feeling defensive, they are mostly incapable of that leap of empathy--they're too busy defending themselves from you to put themselves in your shoes.

I certainly agree with you that in the large scheme of things, being fannish and/or liking speculative fiction is no longer being part of an oppressed minority (though I believe it used to be, before Star Wars first came out, and even moreso before Star Trek was aired).

But then, I also remember when gays were afraid to march in the gay pride parades in their own cities, and would call distant friends to trade, "I'll march in your parade if you'll march in mine". (I got asked to come to the first Gay Pride gathering in Milwaukee not because I'm bi, but because I was a student from out of town, and didn't have to worry about losing a job or having my family disown me if my face was broadcast on local TV.)

Today, it's not that dangerous even to be an obvious transwoman (or to live with one).

And we didn't get so far in my lifetime by becoming a majority. We got so far by getting many of the majority to empathize with us, to see us as people not so different than them, to see us as friends and neighbors and family.

And for many, fandom is their family of choice. If they are not feeling attacked by some segment of it, they are inclined to be protective of other fans--any other fans. (And this is especially true of fans who still think of fandom or some part of it as an oppressed minority, regardless of evidence that this has changed--that's part of the pattern of being, or having been, part of a pariah subculture.)

Small but rapid minority of Janto fans make my head hurt

[dkellergrl.livejournal.com]

All of their ranting and raving isn't doing ANYTHING to help them at all, so I don't have any sort sympathy.

Re: Small but rapid minority of Janto fans make my head hurt

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

Hey lady!

I added you as a friend. :)