repeats “other people are allowed to have fun in different ways to you” to myself over and over

[alias_sqbr]

Am trying very hard to not be a jerk about the “what if Jane Austen wrote Star Trek” post a few people have reblogged today on tumblr but godddd how can so many people take these canons that are WALL TO WALL social commentary and jokes and throw away everything except (to me) secondary aspects like character quirks and a distinctive use of semi colons.

Like...I have been rereading a bunch of Jane Austen’s character descriptions recently for a Thing, and I am pretty sure she was incapable of describing anyone for more than a sentence without insulting them, and then probably making some jab at the hypocrisy of whoever is observing them.

I was going to say this is like people in two hundred years writing about Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert and putting a lot of effort into making the language and fashion accurate but having the Daily Show just be a mainstream, earnest news show that never makes jokes but...people kind of do that now, and I GUESS it’s ok that they’re enjoying themselves, and that not everyone has fun the same way I do. I GUESS. MAYBE.

It mostly annoys me because it's not just a subset of fans doing this. There's room for all sorts. But the intellectually shallow nostalgia driven approach is the default across all of popular culture, and the more visible and well funded the adaptation the more likely it is to ignore the things that make the original unique and challenging. (I just had the mental image of Zach Snyder's Pride and Prejudice. That would be...something)

It's also possibly relevant that I am ok at matching Jane Austen's sarcasm but gave up on the semi colons entirely; this may affect my idea of the core traits of an Austen pastiche.

Comments

[lilacsigil]

I GUESS it’s ok that they’re enjoying themselves, and that not everyone has fun the same way I do. I GUESS. MAYBE.

As a long-term comics fan I went through this when the movies started coming out (starting with X-Men) and the movies were good, if small in scope! But the fandom was doing it wrong! But they were enjoying themselves! It's okay I GUESS. MAYBE.


(Also, this post is unlocked and I'm not sure if you meant to post it unlocked.)

[flamebyrd]

But now I really want to see your take on "Jane Austen writes Star Trek" because I think it would be awesome. :D

(It was years after I read it for the first time [in high school English class] that I realised how deliberately funny Pride and Prejudice is.)

[bunny_m]

I GUESS it’s ok that they’re enjoying themselves, and that not everyone has fun the same way I do. I GUESS. MAYBE.

Noo! Someone is WRONG!! on the internet! You can NOT let this stand!!1!

;)

I sympathise, because I am not nearly innocent of this particular attitude myself, far more often than I'd like.

<.<

;>.>

[anghraine]

Same! I always get tagged in those posts and I don't want to be a joykill, but :|

[lizbee]

For me, it's one of those posts that was cute the first time, and is increasingly less clever every time I scroll past it.

Someone is wrong on the internet!

[sami]

I also have a problem with that kind of thing, within various... subcategories? Degrees?

Like, if someone writes something that's essentially a brief, comical toying with stylistic elements and tropes, sure, go for it.

But if you mean it, for want of a better word, *seriously*, then by all that is holy in the sum of all faiths, you better do it properly, and people rarely put in that kind of effort.

Because if you want to do Star Trek By Austen, then are you also putting in the kind of obscure-to-us contemporary referential elements that Austen had? Are you at the same time maintaining the core elements of Star Trek, where characters have complexity, and yes, it's pretty much wall-to-wall social commentary? (Especially if you're using TOS. That was absolutely hardcore social commentary/speculative fiction.)

I mean, yeah, have fun, if that's what you want, but fundamentally some things have earned a certain measure of respect, and it is, to me, wrong not to pay that respect.

[lea_hazel]

All I can say is :|

I feel like this probably has something to do with Austen being the model for modern historical romances, and that somehow strips the context that made her stand out in her own time.