Aaaaaaaaaaaaargh! The trains and buses are so screwed up today it's taken me twice as long to do anything I've needed to do so far. This is frustrating to say the least.
It is now, in fact, AWESOME, that I didn't finish that abstract, because someone tipped me off to another instance of fans engaging in mourning ritual over character death that I never would have stumbled on, on my own, and every single thing about the source narrative and the character matches my list of "these are the criteria the seem to need to be present for this shit to go down." And because the property in question is more classic, predates Internet/Livejournal fandom, and has a large (possibly even predominantly) male following, it gives my argument a legitimacy against hysterical women charges.
Is Gmail a slow piece of shit today?
Dinner at Olives was spectacular. Excellent company, the best wine I've had in years, fabulous tuna carpaccio with onions, caviar and cucumber and excellent roast chick with garlic and green beans. I can't even remember what everyone else had.
Right now: chips and salsa.
SAG screening start up soon. I need to call in and get the first films today.
We are booked on a new cruise. Soon we will choose shore excursions. Our destinations are: Fort Lauderdale, Florida, US; Half Moon Cay, Bahamas; Grand Turk, Turks and Caicos; Samana, Dominican Republic; Kralendijk (Bonaire), Antilles; Willemstad (Curacao), Antilles; Oranjestad, Aruba
We have also booked a room for the Regency Ball. And I've looked at B&B's and found one I like for another Fall getaway we've spoken about taking. WE ARE NEVER HOME.
It always sort of relieves me when someone who was an ass to me acts like an ass to other people. I'm not crazy and I can't take it personally! Yay.
it gives my argument a legitimacy against hysterical women charges.
I'm just curious -- maybe I'm misreading something here -- but how would your argument be less legitimate even if mourning rituals for fictional characters did turn out to be something mostly done by women?
I mean, I get that people who buy into the whole "hysterical woman" thing might be more dismissive of the cultural practices of women in general (and therefore dismissive of serious research concerning those practices), but their opinion wouldn't make your research less valid, particularly not in the context of the Bristol conference.
Just, I have this list of criteria in characters, that I think triggers this reaction for very specific reasons, but without a pre-internet, non-female dominated fannish example, it would be easy to dismiss what I'm saying as "well, it could be the characters, but it could just be the way chicks on the Internet are" which would also be interesting, but not what I think it going on. I really think there's a set of criteria in the characters, narratives that lead people, regardless of gender, to respond to in this manner in response to their demises.
That said, I probably phrased that too flip/viciously, but then, I'm sorta having a mercury retrograde of the soul lately, i.e., cranky and bitter and feeling silenced, so the ascerbicness probably came off as nasty in a different way than I intended.
I didn't think you came across as flip or vicious -- it's more that I had the feeling that you were insecure about your research.
"well, it could be the characters, but it could just be the way chicks on the Internet are"
Even if this was the case, that it was a woman-driven phenomenon (which it does seem to be in terms of contemporary examples, at least), that wouldn't invalidate your predictive criteria. Regardless of the gender identities of the people engaging in these mourning rituals, the sort of thing you're talking about is the product of a dialogic relationship between the criteria you've identified and the people who receive the text, and I don't think you can discuss either in isolation. "The way chicks are on the internet" would never be a satisfactory explanation for what's going on, because even if it was a woman-only/mostly phenomenon, there would still be certain patterns of response to certain types of texts/characters.
Having said that, however, I do think that it'd be interesting to look at the mourning rituals not only in terms of what happens in the texts themselves but the ways in which we are socialised to receive texts. You mentioned that your new example was quite old, so I'd be interested to see if certain ways of responding to texts in the past have, in contemporary times, been re-cast as "feminine" ways of responding to texts -- so perhaps contemporary boys and men are less likely to be socialised in a way that would engender that sort of response.
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Date: 2009-09-13 12:24 am (UTC)I'm just curious -- maybe I'm misreading something here -- but how would your argument be less legitimate even if mourning rituals for fictional characters did turn out to be something mostly done by women?
I mean, I get that people who buy into the whole "hysterical woman" thing might be more dismissive of the cultural practices of women in general (and therefore dismissive of serious research concerning those practices), but their opinion wouldn't make your research less valid, particularly not in the context of the Bristol conference.
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Date: 2009-09-13 02:10 am (UTC)That said, I probably phrased that too flip/viciously, but then, I'm sorta having a mercury retrograde of the soul lately, i.e., cranky and bitter and feeling silenced, so the ascerbicness probably came off as nasty in a different way than I intended.
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Date: 2009-09-13 03:37 am (UTC)"well, it could be the characters, but it could just be the way chicks on the Internet are"
Even if this was the case, that it was a woman-driven phenomenon (which it does seem to be in terms of contemporary examples, at least), that wouldn't invalidate your predictive criteria. Regardless of the gender identities of the people engaging in these mourning rituals, the sort of thing you're talking about is the product of a dialogic relationship between the criteria you've identified and the people who receive the text, and I don't think you can discuss either in isolation. "The way chicks are on the internet" would never be a satisfactory explanation for what's going on, because even if it was a woman-only/mostly phenomenon, there would still be certain patterns of response to certain types of texts/characters.
Having said that, however, I do think that it'd be interesting to look at the mourning rituals not only in terms of what happens in the texts themselves but the ways in which we are socialised to receive texts. You mentioned that your new example was quite old, so I'd be interested to see if certain ways of responding to texts in the past have, in contemporary times, been re-cast as "feminine" ways of responding to texts -- so perhaps contemporary boys and men are less likely to be socialised in a way that would engender that sort of response.