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

[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.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I don't know if age has anything to do with it.

I'm a baby! And even before I had the concept of myself as a political/social minority (I'm Queer) I knew that being in a community based around genre that is/used to be marginalised wasn't the same as being a person who lives a marginalised life.

Then again, us fans are known to be pretty narrow minded people. I (and obviously others, including yourself :-)) are just kind of sick of that.

[tod-hollykim.livejournal.com]

See, now I am use to the fannish community here in NYC that showed we were not narrow minded. Matter of fact, most of my activism was started from the fannish community. So many of us supported different causes. Multiple causes for that matter. So there was usually one person who was the 'pointman' for a cause who would let us know when we were needed for an event or fund raiser and we would join in.

Almost every Trek actor's official fan club had a club charity that the actor supported and the club raised money for. The few that did not have a regular one supported what needed to be done at the time.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

The Real Life Fandom that I'm a part of is so intertwined with other communities, I often see the same people at local cons, queer cafe's and other Leftist-political events... So I'm not sure we can compare.

I do know, that when I'm interacting in the Sci-Fi and/or Fandom context people's sense of entitlement and narrow mindedness really comes out and the ugliest most charged unthinking words can come out of the mouth of a person who would march next to me at Pride.

*shrug* it really is very contextual, obviously.