Things in Fandom that Make Me Go Huh?

[gymble]

Wow, I really don't post much anymore. Blame it on my general feelings of "eh" when it comes to TV.

So anyway, through a combination of browsing etc., I ran across the following post discussing the news that Dumbledore is gay. The post itself was fine, but some of the comments perplexed me, namely the labeling of Dumbledore as a "token gay

Comments

[spectralbovine]

No. As usual, we think alike on this issue.

[gymble]

Heh. Perfect icon usage.

[fickledame]

So true. It just exhausts me what people get worked up over. I just think - don't you have better things to be pitching a fit over? Really?

[gymble]

Yeah, that's a lot of it. I mean, I read and watch stuff because it entertains me. If it's not entertaining me, then I don't watch. I just don't have time to get so upset over the little things. If I'm going to get worked up over something, I'd rather it be, oh say, torture in the U.S. Now that I'm perfectly happy to rant about.

It's like people don't even see the line between reality and fiction anymore.

[daynr]

Have you seen all the fabulous stories coming out about those girls just fighting and hating on each other? I so wish they were filming it for t.v.

[gymble]

Right. From all the outrage, you'd think that no one had ever used that term in that way before. My high school boyfriend and his friends used it constantly. It bothered me then; it bothers me now. If I could go back in time, I'd like to say something about it. But, I don't think that it means that much.

[daynr]

While I agree with you here, I'm not sure I can agree with you in all instances ... I'm not sure that this is the same thing, or that I want to spend the time thinking about it, but I do get upset with t.v./movies/books that characterize women, or treat women, certain ways. If they seem to be perpetuating or encouraging violence against women, or an idea of inequality, or are just too misognistic then I get upset. Obvs no one wants to encourage those things, but I think some times I may react to words or phrases, the way that some SPN fans are over the Dean's use of gay.

Not that I think your wrong, but if it's the right issue I can get worked up.

[gymble]

I see what you're saying. There are patterns out there that are disturbing, but I think that people have an over-tendency to see patterns where there aren't any. I feel like a lot of people have buttons that are too easily pressed.

Here's a good example of a disturbing pattern: Moe's test for movies requires that a movie contain a scene where two women speak to each other about something other than men. Think about it for a bit; it's pretty upsetting to realize how few movies fit that criteria. But this doesn't mean that I'm going to boycott every movie that doesn't satisfy this or that all the directors and writers are sexist.

[modlin]

I agree with you, mostly. It's strange what people get worked up over, and I certainly don't think entertainment should have some checklist of politically correct requirements that need to be fulfilled. But I don't think "it's just entertainment" either. Everything has a subtext, whether we want to look at it or not, and it all reinforces (or not) what's normal and what's acceptable. I think it's important to be aware of those kind of messages.

[gymble]

But to what extent are writers etc. responsible? Sometimes I feel like people use television or other media as their primary moral touchstones or think that others do. And doing that just seems foolish to me.

Subtext makes me leery, or rather the interpretation of subtext does so. I've written an awful lot of English papers where I pulled some theory out of my ass and found support for it and yet think it's completely not what the author was saying. Especially when it comes to television, whose purpose is almost exclusively for the pleasure of the audience, I worry about attaching too much weight to things. Subtext does exist, but I think that people are very good at seeing things that aren't there.

[modlin]

Honestly, I think more often than not writers are just lazy, and go for the cheap joke or the character that reinforces stereotypes because it's easy. That's not very interesting, but I'm not going to get worked up about it unless it's pretty blatant. Still, lots of little things add up to a whole culture, like your example of women talking to each other in movies, and that's why it does bother me.

Heh. I've written plenty of papers like that too. But at some level I don't think it really matters what the author was intending to say; messages can be there whether they are intentional or not. And actually I think some of the ones that annoy me the most probably aren't intentional -- they're just lazy, like I was trying to say before.

But I certainly don't disagree with you that people can read way too much into little things. There's a lot of inconsistency, since the same people are usually perfectly willing to love characters that do all sorts of other non-good things. Maybe it comes from being too involved.

[gymble]

Sure, writers can be lazy. And sometimes things do end up in the work that weren't intended. Generally speaking though, I see movies and TV and the like more as a reflection of our culture than as responsible for shaping it. I don't think that writers should bear the burden of fixing all of our culture's faults.

Still, lots of little things add up to a whole culture, like your example of women talking to each other in movies, and that's why it does bother me.
Yes, I find that one bothersome primarily because it doesn't agree with real life. Clearly women talk to each other all the time and about many different subjects. So in that case, our alternate fictional fantasy world really isn't representing real life well at all. But it's difficult to blame any one movie.

It occurs to me that I can think of way more TV shows that satisfy the condition of women talking to one another than movies. Partly that's because TV has more time to develop characters and the like, but it's not just that.