What annoys me about fanfic meta about itself

[alias_sqbr]

(separated out as a tangent from Old school fandom: Can we fix it?)

There's a difference between "here are some flaws in X group"/"Here are some awesome things about my group" (both of which are valid) and "Let's think about the differences between X and my group. Well.. X has all these flaws. And my group is awesome. Because we are awesome people, and they are flawed people (apart from the ones who eventually realise how awesome we are and change sides)."

There is a jump from "there is an undertone of misogyny to some slash"/"There is an undertone of homophobia to some non-slashers behaviour" to "slashers are misogynistic"/"non-slashers are homophobic" to "If you really cared you'd write (fem)slash"(*).

One of things which made me feel excluded from fanfic fandom for years was this attitude that "A lot of fanfic works this way"->"This is What Fanfic Is"->"Everything that is not This sucks and is probably written and enjoyed by misogynistic and/or dull men". Yes, a lot of fanfic takes canon characters and puts them into a romance, but that doesn't mean that I'm Missing The Point of fanfic if I take the setting and write gen about some original characters. And the fact that male dominated fandom tends to be sexist and dismissive of fanfic doesn't mean there's a direct correlation between having tastes in line with conventional fandom and being sexist/narrowminded. Acting this way means female fans with "male" tastes get treated badly in both fandoms.

I'm not sure I've ever seen any "Let's compare stuff from fanfic fandom to equivalent stuff made by people outside" meta that didn't spend every second paragraph talking about how much more awesome and creative and feminist and postmodern "our" stuff is.

One of the things about online fandom (especially on lj) is it's much bigger and more finely delineated which makes it easier to avoid really obnoxious people and create your own space but also makes it easy forget that your like-minded friendslist is not all there is to fandom. When I see a comment like Ursula LeGuin fans could demonstrate a little of the progressive social values of Stargate:Atlantis fans I have to wonder if they count all the fans in mainstream male dominated fandom who think Teyla is hot and enjoy the explosions or whatever. And if they don't count, why don't I get to redefine "Ursula LeGuin" fans the same way? (And here I start shading into my next post :))

nb: I realise one of things fanfic meta does is tend to focus exclusively on fanfic (and specifically, boyslash) to the exclusion of other sorts of fannish creativity and I've kind of done that here. I guess I can't break out of the very mindset I'm criticising!

(*)These arguments annoyed me a lot less once I wrote some femslash, since now I'm one irrational-smug-moral-superiority level above the smug m/m slash writers :)

Comments

Re: no race, but I think I'm allowed here

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

I want to say I feel terribly misunderstood, but instead I'll apologise for writing so poorly as to be so misunderstood about a subject that's clearly so problematic. I need to take much more care when expressing my ideas around fanfic.

Re: no race, but I think I'm allowed here

[hlbr.livejournal.com]

Heh. And now I feel all guilty. I don't think talking about ff is so fraught. I mean, perhaps it is, but it's not really an offence/hurt thing, exactly, so it's not so terrible if you screw it up.

I do get nervous because the analysis will be way off base if people don't take into account the whole of fandom, or they will have to reduce their conclusions to apply to a tiny tiny minority of the real thing.

I just... it really depends on the fandom. There are ones where the one to introduce the concept of Mary Sueism was me (or any of the two or three openly multi-fandom people), so it def wasn't applied to any fic--in a fandom with predominantly feminine povs. Just as an example. (And there isn't any accusation similar, either, just so you know I'm not being intellectually dishonest about it.)

I don't claim to know about all fandoms. There are ones, even, though I very well know they exist and I know nothing about them. So I'm hesitant to generalize, specially when already in the few I know, the rules aren't really working.

But I don't want to terribly misunderstand anyone. I promise that if you explain again, I will make more of an effort, (after I come back tomorrow from my final).

I am interested in having this discussion, too, as you have more theoretical tools than I have, I think, and thus I want to get it.

Re: no race, but I think I'm allowed here

[hlbr.livejournal.com]

The is one fandom where I introduced the concept, I should say. Austen. And, you know, just used when I was a lol!newby and didn't know that vocabulary wasn't used. It's now used a little more, but not broadly. I don't really know if I was directly responsible, or any of those people I refer to, but it seems a reasonable conclusion.