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

[therealycats.livejournal.com]

What in the fucking fuck?

Also, it's not really the key factor to hone in on of that post, but wtf@ "Dr Who (pre Matt Smith)". No one has even seen the man in action yet, for Christ's sake, get over his age/not Tennantness.

Why are people like this? Why is Who/Torchwood fandom like this? It's not exclusive to Whoniverse, I realize; most fandoms have these subsets of people who take things way, way too seriously, to the point of threatening violence to creative teams, throwing tantrums at people who disagree with them, or feel as if they've been personally targeted when something doesn't go the way they want in the story, but for god's sake. I would wager that everyone has some sort of social deviance, whether open about it or not. I wouldn't consider fannishness (okay, maybe if you're a Trekkie who has had plastic surgery to look like a Cardassian or something--I kid, I kid) to be one of these, and I can't understand the people who seem to be so deluded as to think that something so, in the scope of the universe, trivial as being a fan of a fictional relationship between two fictional characters merits comparison people who have literally died for equality.

[gwyd.livejournal.com]

Back in the '80's when the Goth thing was new, I used to get followed around stores a lot under the assumption that because I looked different, I was obviously a thief. I was real clear at the time that this was a minor inconvenience. I could change my clothes and they'd stop treating me as if i were a criminal. That I could change my hair colour and cut and poof, no job discrimination. This sure isn't and wasn't for POC. I really wish people would grasp that a minor inconvenience (like losing a character one likes) is not the same as systematic harassment, discrimination, or violence over something one didn't get to chose. I like Torchwood; I rather wish some different artistic decisions got made, but it's just a TV Show. Real human beings are getting arrested, fired, beaten, killed, etc out in the real world and it seems a lot saner and more helpful to get worked up over that and try to do something to stop it than to issue death threats over a pretendy fun time character dieing in a TV show.