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

[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!

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Yeah, your final two sentences are really important as is the fucking reality check you give them (by bravely) talking about your own experiences.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I wrote a hostile comment (http://community.livejournal.com/jackxianto/3668643.html?thread=12636835#t12636835).

Dude...

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

To me, people not wanting Ianto to die the death he died, are on the same plane(And there's snakes on that plane!) as the people who didn't want him to be Teh Ghey.

I don't mean wishing he hadn't died. I mean not respecting it.
I have a real life relation going to a real life war zone soon, and this is not the first time someone I care about has gone out of their way to go into harm's way, and I think I'm just a little crazy on this subject just now.