oh fandom, NO!
Jul. 28th, 2009 08:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rmhttp://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![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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.
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
starstealingirlSubcutlures, 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.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
*respectfully disagrees* (pt 1 of 2)
Date: 2009-07-29 02:49 am (UTC)I can't speak to what you saw on the video, but I can say what I felt, being one of the people sitting in the audience. From the moment he came out, RTD was grinning and almost gleeful at the thought that people might be upset at any of his decisions. And the more we objected, the happier he looked. The more we asked him to clarify and show even the slightest understanding that he'd slashed-and-burned TW to the point where none of us could see any future for the show, the more defiant, defensive, and dismissive he became. And JB and JG, both being good and decent people who really LOVE the show, defended him because... well... they have to.
Usually, my sympathy is with the writer/creator, because fans can be a seriously demented lot. (There is no way I would EVER defend the death threats. It's a SHOW, people.) But whereas someone like Joss Whedon knows which characters to kill and when (and how) and is very specific in his choices, RTD indulges in shock-value writing that does not serve the plot, nor does it allow characters to have naturalistic responses. It's the daytime drama model. Worse, he seems to equate himself with a Joss Whedon when in reality he's more the heir to George Lucas, except that he didn't actually create the series for which he's now known.
So in addition to the very real sense of insult that I felt, being in the room, let me identify a non-Ianto, non-personal CoE example of why the man earned first my dislike, and now an emotion that really does verge on hatred:
1) The 456 want 10% of the world's children because they're inter-galactic meth-heads.
2) The government has a chilling meeting in which they decide to save "the better half" and only cull the 10% out of the worst schools in Britain. It's eugenics at its worse.
3) The government launches a smokescreen campaign, in which they convince parents that there is a necessary "inoculation" and they should bring their children to school out of a sense of patriotism and in defiance of the 456. It's a very Bush-ian "can't let the terrorists win" argument, and as such is resonant and visceral with its audience, Americans in particular.
(CONT'D)