a fannish thing that is kind of bugging me

[mimesere]

where by "kind of," I mean, "it fills me with rage such that I cannot even see straight."

Look, I get that fannishly we do ficathons for a couple reasons. Gift exchanges, remix, kinks, etc. There is a huge amount of awesome fic that came out of the choc_fic characters of color ficathon and the Femslash ficathon is always awesome.

But.

You shouldn't need a ficathon to make you write about women and people of color. You shouldn't. Full stop. For me, the whole point has *always* been that there are amazingly fantastically interesting and wonderful women and characters of color *no matter what your personal character types are* and that there should be fic because they are at least as amazingly fantastically interesting and wonderful as white male characters. It shouldn't be a political statement, it should be an expression of love/interest in the characters.

I understand that these ficathons exist to drum up more fic/fannish product and that they're important and serve a function, but they shouldn't *have* to exist. Like, doesn't anyone else find it kind of hinky that these ficathons roll around and people write fic and then are like, "Well, I've done my good minority deed for the year," and then don't write any other fic?

Also, while I am on the subject? It is *great* to be talking about the problematic portrayals of women and people of color in the media. You know what would be EVEN MORE GREAT? Talking about the things that are done *right*. You want to talk about how Heroes is problematic with how they treat DL? I damn well want to hear about how awesome it is that Heroes *explicitly* took the black deadbeat dad stereotype and said, "HA HA NO." I want to hear about Heroes talked about the difficulties of an interracial marriage and how it brought up the concept of passing. I want to hear about how it is awesome that Heroes said, "Hey, you know who one of our gateway characters should be? A Japanese guy." I want to hear about how Linderman's right hand woman is Ms. Sakamoto and how Nathan's campaign manager is black. I want to hear about how it is awesome that the people of color on this show are the ones who are all, "Hey, you know what would be cool? Using our powers to HELP PEOPLE."

So tell me the interesting things. Write me fic about it. Tell me about how Teyla and Ronon are wonderful, because they are. Tell me about *Wallace*, who showed how Veronica Mars was wrong about the class divisions in Neptune. Tell me about Cristina and Bailey and Callie and Chief. Tell me about how Gunn's storyline is Angel's storyline in all the ways about what the cost of the greater good is and how you can go to the beige place and fight the good fight but WITHOUT THE MASSIVE DOUCHITUDE. Tell me about Wang and Damphousse. Tell me about Mr. X. Tell me about John Stewart GL and how it is amazingly fantastically awesome that Bruce and Diana hid out in a Middle Eastern restaurant when the aliens invaded. Tell me that. Tell me about Ben on Reaper and how he's the one who is the nice guy and who keeps bringing up the issue of free will in terms of the contract with the Devil. Tell me about Morgan and Anna on Chuck. Tell me about how fantastic Emerson is on Pushing Daisies. Hell, I don't even like Who, but tell me about Martha. Tell me the things you *like* about the people of color and the women, 'cause otherwise I'm just left wondering if you see them as interesting people or just as problems for you to fix.

Like, not to get all personal here, except for how I clearly am going to, but every time I read about Oh Noes, the Problematic Treatment of Race and Gender on TV/Comics/Movies/Etc, I just get more depressed. Not because those problems exist -- because they do and I'm not that much in denial -- but because that's *all* I see. Do you know how rare it is to see an Ode to the Awesomeness of such and such a woman/POC? Especially when it's done outside the bounds of IBARW or things like that? Do you know how depressing it is as a woman of color to almost never see anything *positive*? Thanks a bunch for making me feel like the characters that I love and find interesting are just problems to be solved. Thanks a bunch. Really.

If you want the writers on Heroes to deal with the problematic treatment of race and gender, maybe it would behoove you to also point out the things they get right. Because otherwise, I'm afraid that returning the show to the heights of last season will mean returning the show to comments like, "Oh my god, can we skip the family Sanders/Hawkins and get back to the Flying Petrelli brothers?" and "Why does the show keep focusing on Mohinder when it could be focusing on Peter?" You want more people of color and women on your media? Maybe it'd be nice to support the things that have them and that do them right *in addition to* criticizing the things that go horribly wrong.

And maybe if all you saw when you looked at DL was a black ex-con and not the dedicated father and family man that he was *clearly portrayed to be*, then it's entirely possible that the problem didn't actually lie with the writers of the show.

And now I am all irritated and must go to work and be nice to people.

Comments

[linabean.livejournal.com]

There's a lot of things in your post, and I'm just going to address one of them, to confine my comments to refer to people who are genuinely pretty learned about the racism/sexism/etc stuff. Often, I think people in that group really do start to get negative about a show's portrayals of people of color/women/etc when the show overall has lost its shine for them. I think a lot of anit-racist, anti-sexist fans are willing to put up with a lot of icky issues in portrayals of people of color and women if the show's hitting other fannish needs just right. So, even as they'll note where the show's being problematic, it's much easier for them to celebrate all the things the show's doing right--they like the show. They want to celebrate it.

In a sense, then, it might make sense for fans to just decide to stop engaging with a show if they can't find anything to celebrate about it anymore. That's a big reason I'm not posting much about Supernatural. I still watch it because I'm kinda obliged now to sit and make fun of it with my brother, after getting him hooked on the show, but I can't muster up a lot of fannish enthusiasm for it now. There's just a lot of things about what I see as a change in tone and about how the storylines are being put together that don't appeal to me. I'm sure it's in connection with this that the show's issues with gender and race--which it's always had--seem much more glaring to me. It's possible that the show's being objectively worse about misogyny this season; I haven't tried to go about measuring that objectively. It certainly feels worse to me, though--but it's also true there isn't as much other stuff I'm enjoying to distract me from the misogyny. But, right, when it gets to a point that the main reaction I want to post to an episode is about sexism issues--I feel more inclined to skip writing the thing, because I feel like what that really means I've decided is that the episode wasn't worth much of my time.

On the other hand, I don't feel like I can blame fans who decide to focus on those rant-making aspects of a show, at least for a while. Even if they're pretty much coming to the conclusion that the show's not worth their while anymore, it takes time to decide that after putting in fannish investment. A lot of fans want their show to be as good as it should be, and shows really should be doing better on race and gender by now. So it can be hard not to want to point out where the show's gone wrong. And I do think those rants can be beneficial for the folks who aren't quite as learned on why those issues can set off rants, but do want to be less ignorant. I've seen lots of people comment on rants with a "Geez, I'd had no idea X was problematic, but now that you've pointed it out, I see how that's really egregious. I'm going to make sure to avoid replicating that myself now." I've been in the position of commenters like that more than once. So I really appreciate the people who are willing to take the crap that so often comes along with posting a "squee-harsing" rant, because it does so often also lead to at least some people who otherwise wouldn't have known to figuring out that certain tropes or portrayals really are offensive.

Still, though...eh, I think I need to continue below about the awesomeness of Ronon [g]

[mimesere.livejournal.com]

You make a lot of very good points.

...no, that's really all I have. I tend to disengage when the things that annoy me outweigh the things that I like (even if I like them *really a lot* the way that I like Ronon and Teyla), because if my overall feeling when the credits roll is one of unhappiness, then what's the point?

And honestly, a lot of my frustration is not actually in criticizing the shows for the invisibility or poor treatment of women and characters of color, but it is in the lack of criticism of fandom itself for perpetuating those things. And like I said in other comments, I do think that in focusing the criticism on the text the way that we do, excuses fandom's issues by saying that if the show were better about XYZ thing, then the fic/vids/meta/art/what-have-you would exist. Which yeah, no. I'm sorry. I've rarely found the women and POC on a show so dull that there was nothing to be said about them, so it bothers me that fandom in general acts like it's entirely the fault of the text when at least part of that blame has to rest with us.

[fresne.livejournal.com]

"so it bothers me that fandom in general acts like it's entirely the fault of the text when at least part of that blame has to rest with us."

Here from links, but thank you for this post. Well, and for that matter, the post that spawned it.

Because while I want to read analysis of problematic points in race/gender representations, because I have found them very informative/widening in the best sense of the genius of crowds, I also long for tender green growth to unfurl. Not just in response to storms, but as if rains had made their 100s mile final way to the desert, leaving it verdant transformed.

And while I feel unqualified to speak in terms of problematic/unproblematic representations of race, the world would seem more full of love if there were more posts of, "the D.A. on Bones, who's puckishness will not be repressed, is made of win," or if there were more ramblyness analytics on the beauty that is Hawk Girl / Green Lantern. Or, or, or. How could Mohinder/the Haitian hurt-comfort fic not make the world a better place?

[mimesere.livejournal.com]

Right! I just...want balance. Criticism + joy, because if it's all criticism, all the time, no one will *want* to play in the sandbox. And that's not helpful at all.

And man, I loved Hawkgirl/GL. Together and separately.