what I call romance, aka CW Thursday *snort*
I made a deal with my husband a while ago that we were not going to do anything for Valentine's Day, and I told him I'd be annoyed if he got sneaky and bought me flowers or chocolate or something like that. He agreed. Then on Valentine's Day morning, he left me this on my bedside table:
One of my favorite Rons! So I couldn't be too upset. :-D
*
I've been spending some time in the "klaroline" tag at Tumblr because of recent developments on The Vampire Diaries. Basically, a pairing has been building on the show which consists of your standard bad boy villain woobie reforming (attempting to reform? reluctantly reforming? reluctantly attempting to reform?) himself for the love of a good woman, aka Spike/Buffy-lite [eta: speaking of which, confidential to M, look at how far we've come, ahahah].
(It's working for me, mostly because of chemistry and prettiness and because sometimes I just like creepy Dirty Bad Wrong relationships. Like, I ship Harry/Hermione, Ron/Hermione, Draco/Hermione and Snape/Hermione, you know?)
Anyway, I'm finding the tag on Tumblr...interesting. Previous to this I've primarily just used Tumblr to look at pretty pictures. But I think this is my first real experience of fandom as an insta-reaction kind of place -- Tumblr makes it so easy to just pop out quick, pithy exclamations, and its setup is not great for in-depth discussion or TL;DR kinds of meta.
So in some ways, I feel like I'm looking directly into the unfiltered, irrational id. (Specifically, the id of very young women -- I've checked a few profiles for ages to be sure.). As you might guess, there is a lot of romanticizing going on, a lot of sympathy for the villain, a lot of imploring his love interest to take his declarations at face value and love him back.
I know so much of this is cultural and can largely be derived from the hoary old expectation that women are supposed to be chaste and "pure" whereas men are biologically wired with baser instincts. So, for instance, derivation 1 = women should only reluctantly enjoy sex (or at least only be enthusiastic about it with the right man); derivation 2 = the best women can reform the worst men; derivation 3 = when a (bad) man (finally) offers his love, a good woman accepts and returns it, etc. etc.
I am generally fine to recognize all of this intellectually, and then let myself and everyone else carry on experiencing fandom and feminism however we like -- I mean, provided I don't see active harm being done -- because I feel it's not my business or responsibility how others do that stuff. But man...wading past all of this mess on Tumblr just to get my pretty pictures is hard.
The thing is, I personally credit fandom-at-large with deprogramming my brain out of a lot of unsavory insta-reactions I used to have (I grew up in a particularly sexually conservative culture and household and geographic region, on top of all the messed up stuff we learn and internalize just by living in the world). And now I'm like, is this an opportunity to pay it forward? Do I get in there and try to engage in discussion or education or whatever? Isn't that just going to devolve into me acting superior and/or arguing with teenagers? Should I just hope/assume they figure this stuff out eventually on their own? And also, aren't I still learning and figuring this stuff out?
...blah. There's a lot more I'm thinking and feeling about all of this, but it feels very fraught.
*
I also watched Beauty and the Beast and that gave me the blahs as well. The show continues to please me with its racially diverse cast and focus on female relationships. But it miscalculates so much on plot and romance -- I would so much rather have watched Cat and Tess's Valentine's Day back-and-forth than basically anything that happened with Vince and Alex, gorgeous as Bridget Regan is. And I hear it's been struggling in ratings, so I'm just waiting for the news that it's been canceled like Emily Owens, MD.
Hmm. Perhaps it's now time to finally try Nikita before that gets canceled too.
*
Commentary on other Thursday night shows to follow.
This post has
comments at its original location at http://hesychasm.dreamwidth.org/259339.html. Please comment there or here.
One of my favorite Rons! So I couldn't be too upset. :-D
*
I've been spending some time in the "klaroline" tag at Tumblr because of recent developments on The Vampire Diaries. Basically, a pairing has been building on the show which consists of your standard bad boy villain woobie reforming (attempting to reform? reluctantly reforming? reluctantly attempting to reform?) himself for the love of a good woman, aka Spike/Buffy-lite [eta: speaking of which, confidential to M, look at how far we've come, ahahah].
(It's working for me, mostly because of chemistry and prettiness and because sometimes I just like creepy Dirty Bad Wrong relationships. Like, I ship Harry/Hermione, Ron/Hermione, Draco/Hermione and Snape/Hermione, you know?)
Anyway, I'm finding the tag on Tumblr...interesting. Previous to this I've primarily just used Tumblr to look at pretty pictures. But I think this is my first real experience of fandom as an insta-reaction kind of place -- Tumblr makes it so easy to just pop out quick, pithy exclamations, and its setup is not great for in-depth discussion or TL;DR kinds of meta.
So in some ways, I feel like I'm looking directly into the unfiltered, irrational id. (Specifically, the id of very young women -- I've checked a few profiles for ages to be sure.). As you might guess, there is a lot of romanticizing going on, a lot of sympathy for the villain, a lot of imploring his love interest to take his declarations at face value and love him back.
I know so much of this is cultural and can largely be derived from the hoary old expectation that women are supposed to be chaste and "pure" whereas men are biologically wired with baser instincts. So, for instance, derivation 1 = women should only reluctantly enjoy sex (or at least only be enthusiastic about it with the right man); derivation 2 = the best women can reform the worst men; derivation 3 = when a (bad) man (finally) offers his love, a good woman accepts and returns it, etc. etc.
I am generally fine to recognize all of this intellectually, and then let myself and everyone else carry on experiencing fandom and feminism however we like -- I mean, provided I don't see active harm being done -- because I feel it's not my business or responsibility how others do that stuff. But man...wading past all of this mess on Tumblr just to get my pretty pictures is hard.
The thing is, I personally credit fandom-at-large with deprogramming my brain out of a lot of unsavory insta-reactions I used to have (I grew up in a particularly sexually conservative culture and household and geographic region, on top of all the messed up stuff we learn and internalize just by living in the world). And now I'm like, is this an opportunity to pay it forward? Do I get in there and try to engage in discussion or education or whatever? Isn't that just going to devolve into me acting superior and/or arguing with teenagers? Should I just hope/assume they figure this stuff out eventually on their own? And also, aren't I still learning and figuring this stuff out?
...blah. There's a lot more I'm thinking and feeling about all of this, but it feels very fraught.
*
I also watched Beauty and the Beast and that gave me the blahs as well. The show continues to please me with its racially diverse cast and focus on female relationships. But it miscalculates so much on plot and romance -- I would so much rather have watched Cat and Tess's Valentine's Day back-and-forth than basically anything that happened with Vince and Alex, gorgeous as Bridget Regan is. And I hear it's been struggling in ratings, so I'm just waiting for the news that it's been canceled like Emily Owens, MD.
Hmm. Perhaps it's now time to finally try Nikita before that gets canceled too.
*
Commentary on other Thursday night shows to follow.
This post has
comments at its original location at http://hesychasm.dreamwidth.org/259339.html. Please comment there or here.