#another example of fanon somehow being even MORE racist than canon | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lais-a-ramos · 4 years

Text

On Lovecraft Country and the way the narrative presents queerness

"No masters or kings when the ritual begins

There is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin

In the madness and soil of that sad earthly scene

Only then I am human

Only then I am clean"

Hozier, Take Me to Church

oh, boy...

i knew some of these deaths could happen in the finale, but i definetely wasn't prepared for any of this, wow.

i guess that, with the events of the finale, including atticus' death, there really is no point in getting the show renewed for a season 2, as as i hoped and wished before, because all of the conflicts that were set up were resolved. i mean, there's always the possibility of using time-travel to do a retcon and bring all the dead characters back, or, at least, two of the protagonists and the villain, but, maybe it would take too many alterations in the narrative, because it seems like the whole thing was planned for a mini-series.

so, now, all we have left is to do a breakdown of what worked and what didn't in lovecraft country's limited series run.

i think that, overall, the message of black ppl taking back the power of ancestry that was stripped from them by white supremacy and structural racism was well-done, and the symbolism was very well-crafted in the final takedown of the season's main villain, which was a representation of how the racism based on indifference born out of white privilege is almost as bad as the racism based on pure hate and despise, which is a valid message, considering the former is a bystander to the abuses and rise to power of the latter.

although i still find the timing was poorly chosen because, well, as of now, all over the world, it's not white ppl who dub themselves "liberal" or "progressive" and claim themselves to not be racist but refuse to act anti-racist that present an actual threat to our human rights, but literal, actual fascists and neo nazis...there are bigger fish to fry now...

but i digress...

on the final score, i guess that when it comes to queer/LGBTQ+ representation, the show fell actually felt real short for a product that crafted so well the race issues, proving that there is still a lot to go before we get to see intersecting identities being portrayed in media the same compex way they exist in the real world.

no, lovecraft country is not guilty of queerbaiting, unlike some of the same ppl in fandom that are the firsts to either erase the half of a couple that is a BIPOC or to deny a canon cis het biracial ship to hype up a fanon white wlw ship and other problematic stuff plenty of times in LGBTQ+ fandom spaces might say.

but that doesn't mean that the treatment of LGBTQ+ issues was satisfying or can be considered good rep, and it actually repeats some of the same tired tropes about queerness and blackness.

while we can say that the show did a relatively good job with montrose as an individual, the same can't be said of the other characters and the final messages.

like, for example, introducing a trans/non-binary indigenous, the Arawak two-spirt Yahima, only to kill them on the next episode was insensitive, to say the least.

while it's true that misha green apologized for the mistake, and said she and the writers tried to make a point that even oppressed groups are capable of oppression, the final score was that a trans/non-binary character was introduced as a plot-device and brutally murdered before having even a chance to properly develop.

in other words, used as a prop.

in a world in which trans ppl are brutally murdered at alarming rates, and most of the victims are BIPOC trans ppl, that is something that we can't let it slide just because the general message of the show was good for cis het black ppl.

the same can be said on the treatment of sammy in the narrative.

while it's true that montrose being aggressive and acting the way he did, pushing ppl he cared about away and shunning every chance of vulnerability due to internalized homophobia, toxic masculinity and misogyny, as this very interesting critique by amani marie hamed of nerdist pointed out, his characterization nonetheless falls into the same old stereotype in american culture of accusing black ppl of falling behind when it comes to queer acceptance and associating black masculinity with homophobia.

also, the author of the article says it better, but, overall, sammy's existence ends up being just another plot device, serving to say to the audience that the producers and writers know that queer ppl existed in the 50's, but, at the same time, repeating some of the same tropes as usual, like associating being queer with being clandestine and deviant instead of showing it as a natural thing that was perceived as deviant at the time, as we can see by that scene of sammy having a sexual encounter in the alley behind his bar.

the author even mentions that queer ppl overall had houses, and most of the encounters actually happened there, and that scene reinforces the idea that queerness is inherently animalistic.

the article also points out how sammy is mostly there just to be shutted out, first by montrose and latter even atticus, and, ends up being another prop to lift montrose to deuteragonist status, being rejected and abused by montrose solely to highlight tic's father journey with his personal issues that apparently he simply wrapped up in a span of 2 episodes.

the fact that sammy was a also a more feminine gay man, even participating in ball culture as a drag queen, and yet most of his appearences involved him being degraded or shut out or overall mistreated by montrose, even tic, and that scene in which atticus forgives montrose after he revealed he never acted on his homosexuality and cheated on tic's mom, even though it's implied she did cheat on him with his brother george, just reinforces the idea it's ok for black and brown men to be gay, as long as they are not THAT GAY™️.

the introduction of thomas in episode 1x09 only to be murdered in the riots is another example of how queerness seem to come with a price in this show if you act on it.

once again, a gay character was introduced in the narrative to further montrose's pain and trauma.

and his introduction was absolutely not necessary, because being a survivor of a massacre like the tulsa riots and a survivor of parental physical abuse is already was already enough for making tic and the audience begin to emphatize with montrose's pain, there was no need to kill another queer character just for that.

not to say we should agree with everything the nerdist article says, of course.

at times, it felt like the author was saying that addressing these issues in the black community is a problem on itself, and that is definetely not the solution.

but, when we consider the setting of a limited series with a plot-driven approach to the scripts, the way the topic is addressed ends up being superficial and rushed, and what could have been a delicate approach to a complicated man discovering his sexuality if the show was an on-going series, ends up being just a narrative built to put montrose in the spotlight in an attempt of getting a few emmy nominations for outstanding performances, and that's about it.

now, what really serves to cement the LGBTQ+/queer representation in lovecrat country as a disservice is the treatment of ruby, christina and their relationship.

i did a few metas explaining christina's and ruby's characterizations, including one i posted before the finale started explaining why ruby was so important to queer black and feminine-aligned nbs being a dark-skinned fat black queer woman discovering her sexuality and figuring out there was more to life than the social roles that were pushed into her, and how the parallels between her and christina, two different women separated by race and class but with the common feeling of being interrupted by social restraints that binded them, were a way for a character like ruby to be treated by the narrative the same way white women get to be treated in fantasy stories, as someone worthy of being courted and romanced as a light-skinned and thin black woman like her sister leti.

but with that finale, and the way the whole thing played out, with not only christina and ruby dead, but also with christina killing ruby, felt, ironically, like the very same trope that's been the norm for queer characters for a long time.

if we consider the tropes of the genre the show and the source material draw inspiration from, pulp fiction magazines, a medium that was very popular until the rise of the cinema and TV in the 50's and 60's that also served as an inspiration for them, then we know that in this medium some of the harmful tropes about queerness that exist until this day were particularly prevalent, including that of the queercoded villains.

to talk about this, i'm going to refer to this amazing article by tricia ennis on the history of queercoding for syfy wire.

first, a definition:

"queer coding, much as the name suggests, refers to a process by which characters in a piece of fictional media seem — or code — queer. this is usually determined by a series of characteristics that are traditionally associated with queerness, such as more effeminate presentations by male characters or more masculine ones from female characters. these characters seem somehow less than straight, and so we associate those characters with queerness — even if their sexual orientation is never a part of their story."

between the hays code in cinema going from 1934 to 1968, the comics code authority in the comics industry from 1954 to the early 21st century (with dc comics and archie comics being the last to break with it in 2011, mind you), the code of practices for television broadcasting from 1952 to 1983 and its predecessor for radio NAB code of ethics, the authors all over mass media couldn't approach the topic of queerness and portray openly and proud queer characters under the risk of being persecuted by the censors, and so, begin to hide queer chracters under the disguise of subtext.

and given the content creators couldn't show any form of positive queer/LGBTQ+ representation under the risk of being punished by the censors, the alternative they found was to portray the queer characters as the villains or antagonists or degenerates, and punish them with death.

the syfy wire article says it better than i ever could:

"even dangerous LGBTQ tropes rose out of this time period, as the depictions of pulp noir femme fatales and other deadly women rose in popularity. these women were usually written as promiscuous and sexually devious, both with men and sometimes with women. they were also evil and usually met their end as a result of their sins. While depictions of LGBTQ characters were frowned upon, depictions of them in this specifically negative light were not. you were not endorsing an “alternative lifestyle” if your gay characters always met an untimely demise. Instead, they were merely paying for their poor choices. this trope would eventually give way to what we now refer to as 'Bury Your Gays.' "

and the thing is, all those censorship laws are over by now, but the tropes/clichés that arised on that era are still prevalent in pop culture 'till this day, consumed by the audiences and reproduced by content creators, in the industry or in fan spaces, whether they are aware of said trope/clichés or not.

now, that is where ruby, christina and their affair on the show enter.

to explain how problematic and harmful the way these characters have been portrayed is, and what kind of message it sends about black queerness, i first have to explain christina's function on the story.

christina, as a character, was basically the texbook pulp noir femme-fatale, checking most of the boxes of the tv tropes description of the trope, from the "red equals evil and sin" imagery to being a wild card, that character who changes sides according to their own desires and individualistic goals.

in her specific case, helping the white supremacists and the black heroes alike in her pursue for unlimited power to protect herself from the oppression that comes with being a white woman, particularly a wealthy one, in which the very same presumption of innocence that gives them privilege over BIPOC is used to infantilize them and strip them from their agency, putting their bodies and choices under the tutelage of cis het white men.

so, her function on the show was basically to manipulate the characters on the two sides alike.

and that is where the problems in queer representation come in, because, to manipulate them, she acts as a sensual seductress.

and what does the script uses to highlight that this is a character willing to go to the most immoral places to achieve her goals? it makes christina a sexually fluid and gender fluid character.

that is basically playing a move straight from the hays code era.

not only does the show plays christina's sexual and gender fluidity as her being "freaky" and a proof of her deviant nature, but it makes her seduction of ruby as a central part of the scheme that positions her as the main villain of the show.

this portrayal of christina as a textbook femme-fatale with a touch of white feminism is already very problematic on its own, especially when we consider her death and how brutal it was, because, yes, while it's true she is privileged because she is white and wealthy, she is still a woman and a queer one at that, and giving her the same traditional treatment for femme-fatales in pulp fiction ends up reinforcing harmful stereotypes about gender and sexuality.

but, when we consider what it means for ruby as a character, it gets WAY worse.

ruby is a character that's been shown to feel very frustrated about the ways in which societal structures of power interfere in her life, not only on a professional level, but even on a personal level as well, making her feel "interrupted".

dealing with the same issues that all black women and feminine-aligned nbs who don't fit into the eurocentric standards of femininity and of beauty do, and not matching the criteria for being hypersexualized by society as the black women considered conventionally pretty -- with thin bodies like the white women or hourglass body frames, being light-skinned and so on --, ruby has her humanity stripped from her because everyone expects her to be stronger than it's humanly possible.

everyone seems to expect something of her at home, her younger sister took advantage of her money for years, and not only all of her goals in the professional realm seem to be frustrated by social structures of oppression, but even her relationship goals as well, given that most of the men that she gets involved with, whether they are black or white, seem to believe they have the right to abandon her and treat her like trash because she doesn't feel a thing and is "strong" enough.

ruby feels frustrated and tired, and she has every single right to do so, because, as what happens to most black women and feminine-aligned nbs, she is disrespected and disregarded by everyone, white and black alike.

so, when christina comes in with an offer of improving ruby's life with magic, of course she takes the opportunity.

and it seemed like the show was willing to deal with the moral complexities of christina's shapeshifting potion and validating ruby's feelings, or at least, sort of validating.

but, by killing her at the end, it just played out as if ruby's feelings meant she was merely a traitor to the race, and not a woman who was tired of feeling frustrated with all of these impossible obstacles society sets for black women and feminine-aligned nbs, especially dark-skinned and fat ones like her, and justified in her anger and frustration.

she did everything right and accomplished nothing, and, when she finally decided to rebel and focus on herself for a change, she met her demise.

but that is just the tip of iceberg, really.

what makes this situation with ruby so frustrating is the fact that, when the show presented christina's queerness as another sign she was "on the wrong side of the tracks" and a villian that should be defeated by the black heroes, which consist in a family, the narrative is implying that a person has to choose between their queerness, on one side, and their blackness and community on the other.

of course, one might argue that the fact montrose was turned into a gay man himself in the adaptation prevents this from happening. but, when we consider montrose was forgiven by tic only after reinforcing he never did cheated on dora and acted on his queerness and lived his gayness, when he really had every single right to do so, especially because it's implied dora slept with his brother george and the three of them knew she was just montrose's beard, then we have the message that it's ok to be queer as long as you don't act on your queerness at all.

there is a part in the review for nerdist that i mentioned above, in which the author says that one of the book's best qualities was that "the source material also illustrates the importance of family and community ties between Black protagonists", and that the TV show ruins it when it "introduces abuse, alcoholism, and family dysfunction, and strips Black characters of their own magic."

that is a part of the article, published in october 14 2020, that now no longer makes sense after the finale, because that message is there.

but, the actual problem is that the ideas of family and community shouldn't be taken for granted bc they are always under political dispute, and are oftenly used to reinforce backward messages when it comes to gender and sexuality, serving as a tool for the control of the bodies and authonomy of ppl of various marginalized groups and intersecctions, including women, BIPOC and queer ppl alike.

while these things are not inherently good or bad, and they are also part of the culture and identity for plenty of BIPOC ethnical identities, the concepts of family and community are usually weaponized by conservatives and used to justify things like queerphobia and the restrictions over reproductive rights.

queer ppl in all walks of life and skin colors all over the world have to deal with plenty of conflicts about coming out because, by deciding to live their own truth, they can never know for sure whether coming out will put them at odds with their families and community until they dare to do so.

so, ruby's dillemma for not knowing what to choose, her family or a life with christina, plays out as the type of experience queer ppl have to deal on a daily basis, and when we consider the intersection with race/ethnicity, it gets even more cruel because our gender identities and sexual/romantic/aesthetic orientations, that are natural parts of us, make us being invisibilized and silenced in our own cultures and feel like we have to give up on our own communities in order to be able to live our queerness.

there are few things more gut-wrenching than that feeling of fear that you might be disowned by your family and relatives and your community -- whether is it a neighbourhood, a village, a small town etc -- because a part of yourself is considered at odds with your heritage.

and when we consider all the christian imagery in the show, the final result is a really troubling one.

while it's true that being christian and believing in god doesn't authomatically makes anyone a bigot (i actually still retain some of the beliefs i was raised into as a catholic latin-american), it's also true that now, more than ever, we can't ignore science, including history.

the entire way in which they referred to magic as a devil's work was very troubling and evocates the same discriminative rethoric that white european colonizers used to justify the destruction of the ancient old religions and beliefs of BIPOC in their own homeland, the ancient culture of our ancestors, and also the oppression of peasant women in europe.

while we can't generalize, given each culture had its own particularities, there's an agreement in the scientific community that, overall, the cultures of the first nations and indigenous folks from the american continent, the african continent, the asian continent and oceania/pacific islands were far more accepting of different manifestations of queerness.

that means that queerphobia was part of the colonial project, once the traditional family values of christianity were used as a tool for the white colonizers to regulate the bodies and sexuality of the colonized and keep them under control.

and that is why the association of these ideals of family and community as inherent to blackness ends up being problematic, because we can't discuss racism without discussing colonization, and we can't discuss colonization without considering the ways in which queerphobia and religion were used as tools of colonial oppression.

the worst part is that, when it comes to ruby, the producers and writers really didn't need to do kill her at all.

and while the show did right in not showing how christina killed ruby, sparing the audience from watching another black body being brutalized, it's also true they didn't have to kill the character to get her out of the way from the final confrontation between christina and tic's family.

they literally went and changed her background from her book counterpart and made the woman a musician, and a blueswoman at that.

all they needed was to have her share a goodbye scene with christina the same way she had with leti, saying that she wanted to be with christina but couldn't fight her family and friends like that, grab a copy from the safe travel negro guide and set off in a bus to travel all over the U.S., singing very sad blues songs about falling in love with a white devil once.

that's all the producers and writers needed, to use the "sent in a bus" trope.

but the choice was to portray ruby as a character facing the consequences of following her desires , which ends up feeling like a punishment for a dark-skinned and fat queer black woman for daring to question the position society has placed her because of who she is.

this is in no way an attempt to "cancel" the producers or the writers, because a) their work is still important as a team of mostly black creators and b) canceling doesn't seem to have significant consequences, and seems to lead only to more social media wars than anything else.

but now that it finally seems diversity is getting more space in media, this type of discussion gets more important.

there is a slow increase on more representation of queer/LGBTQ+ characters in media and more productions involving queer/LGBTQ+ creatives, but, most of the time, the characters and are white, or, when there are biracial couples, the characters of color are just token minorities, and the same happens with the creatives involved in the production.

there is a slow increase in BIPOC characters representation in media and more productions involving BIPOC as creatives, but, most of the time, the characters are cis heterosexual, and the same happens with the creatives involved in the production.

but, for pop culture and media to be truly diverse, there has to be more space for the narratives of ppl that exist and belong to the two groups to raise our voices and be heard, whether is it in the entertainment industry, society at large or even in fandom spaces.

because she shouldn't be forced to pick between one identity over the other.

our existences shouldn't be interrupted just because society doesn't know how to deal with them.

and if that make us sinners, then so be it.

#lovecraft country #ruby baptiste #christina braithwhite #ruby x christina #rubtina #rutina #montrose freeman #lgbtqiap+#lgbtq representation #queer representation #poc representation #woc representation #moc representation #black women representation #representation in media #representation in fiction #tv representation #it's ok for non-BIPOC queer folks to reblog #and it's ok for non-queer BIPOC folks to reblog

83 notes · View notes

sleepykalena · 6 years

Text

“It’s not a problem if you don’t look up.”

I’m a POC and I love Jyn Erso.

And lately it seems like there are some folks (literally just a few folks, afaik) who seem keen on painting parts of the fandom with such a broad brush that their shouting has made their way into my corner. It’s such an angry brush, and I understand where the frustration comes from. But I’d like to remind anyone who’s bothered to actually look at this post:

Fandom is what you make of it.

I mean this in the intended sense as well as with regards to the things you create and put out there in the fandom itself. I don’t want to contribute to the anger or the fighting. I go out of my way to try and not pick fights with people. Yet somehow the fighting finds me. The real life has me tired. So tired. Between the Orange Skull, the racist white folk who decide to actively trash my POC friends and neighbors in one of the most liberal areas of the US, and politics within the industry I chose to have a career in, I just want to sit in my corner and do my thing on my own terms, with the people who’ve supported me, in my own little section of the Rebelcaptain fandom.

So here’s the thing about Jyn Erso, and why I love her so much: “it’s not a problem if you don’t look up.”

I have been raised as a second-generation Asian-American to keep my head down, stay quiet and don’t cause a stir, and just try and climb your way out of your social class and aim for a higher rung on the ladder. I was blessed to be raised with a level of privilege that the military comfortably provided me, with an income that brought food to the table and helped pay my tuition.

But that doesn’t change the atrocities committed against me as a female and a POC- the emotional manipulation, the sexual assault, the slurs thrown at me from people of all walks of life.

Regardless, I kept my head down and didn’t bother to “look up”. I literally do not like to look people in the eyes, because it implies I’m itching for a fight or a confrontation. I kept quiet where I could. I tried to make change where I was able to, knowing full well that it would make a difference. I would try my hardest to help others (and sometimes a little too hard if I think back on the last few months), only to find myself still beaten down by some other entity- be it the people I once trusted, by the powers that be in government, or even down to the people who try to fight for causes I also believe in. But if you piss me off enough, if you push my patience to the very edge and test me, then I will lose all sense of remorse for whatever I do unto you when I snap.

Jyn’s emotional development and attitudes aren’t too different from my own, and I love that this was written in to her character. Her character arc lines up so well with my own life and experiences that I will continue to write about her and draw her until my wrists break.

I also love Cassian Andor, but it has less to do with Diego Luna and more to do with my significant other (who, for the record, is also Latinx).

It seems expected that I would like him, given that I’m a rebelcaptain shipper, Lunatic, and likewise a fellow POC. But if it weren’t for my partner and all the qualities I see in him as I see them in Cassian, I don’t actually think I could be as fervent a rebelcaptain shipper as I am right now. Cassian’s brightest character points, as well as his darkest ones, are very easily found in my partner. In the same way that Cassian gave Jyn hope, my partner gives me hope in a world that deserves to be burning in the depths of whatever hell you happen to believe in. In the same way that Cassian internalizes all his character flaws, so too does my partner try his hardest not to dwell too much on the negative aspects about him. He’s quiet, a man of few words, and even fewer true ones. Cassian speaks just enough for people to be appeased, but the words carry little meaning, a ploy to comfort people to make sure he can live to fight another day. His words of honesty, of thoughts in his mind, are rare, and shared only to those he finds himself trusting. My partner is hardly any different.

But, if there’s anything he let himself admit to me, it’s that he loves that I’m there for him when he needs it, and that I’ve taught him to be less apathetic. Me, the cynic, the one bitter with the real world, had taught him to be less apathetic. Who’da thunk?

In every piece of fanfic I write, I almost inevitably fall back on this: Jyn teaches Cassian something that changes him for the better. It brings me immense joy to be told that I, a Jyn, had helped him, a Cassian, to be less apathetic, to care just a little bit more about his actions, how they affect others, and why he should take more effort to visibly care just a little bit more.

Is it a problematic trope? Sure, according to some of those folks in the fandom. But I write these stories because, for once, I made a difference to my partner’s life, to someone’s life. To me, Jyn teaching Cassian a thing is a result of her finally making a difference in a galaxy where she was inundated with the idea that her existence doesn’t matter, that what she does makes very little difference. My reasons for writing fic are intensely personal, and there are bits of me and my partner scattered in all of them, in various proportions.

What I don’t appreciate is being told that, as a POC and based on my personal experiences, my “silence” and refusal to be loud and join this tirade of sorts makes me complicit in what is allegedly rampant sexism and racism in the fandom.

Being a POC, particularly a WOC, puts a target on my back on the internet. I keep quiet, especially with regards to my racial identity, precisely because I know how dangerous it can be to open my mouth and scream too loudly into the void. Out of all the fights I want to pick, fandom “discourse” is far and away from my list of priorities. I’m busy trying to get my representatives in to make actual difference in my city, state, and country, informing myself for the broader problems that exist outside of this fandom, making money to put food on the table, etc. All I want to do is enjoy my corner of the fandom in peace, and not have an extra “duty” to fight this racial fight at the risk of looking like “a bad POC”. If anything, that puts an onus on POC to be “perfect” with all that preaching, and not only am I far from perfect, I also think that expectation is damaging to the movement as a whole.

Much like Jyn, you could ask me if I care not for the cause. Much like Jyn, I do. But, cynically, I have to say again: “It’s not a problem if you don’t look up”. Making that much noise to fight a cause is a huge waste of my time and effort because I’m surrounded by people who either 1) are so fully-formed in their development that they’re set in their ways and are otherwise unchangeable; 2) are already are aware of these issues and tropes, and thus I’d be preaching to the choir; or 3) don’t care for my existence because I’m not really a big name in the fandom.

But the biggest reason why I don’t make a huge noise about it is because fandom is what you make of it. These people literally have every right to write whatever trope they want, including exceedingly problematic ones, because- you guessed it- it’s their space too. I acknowledge that their presence exists and I refuse to share my space with them, but so long as you’ve written your line in the sand over your space, I won’t interfere with your space. Don’t interfere with mine. Any overlapping peers who happen to like us both are free to cross to and from the borders. My kink is not your kink, my headcanon is not your headcanon, but so what? I’ll still tell people to write that stuff anyway. Because that’s what they want to make of fandom, whether or not it’s canon/fanon, whether or not I like it.

I fight problematic tropes by setting an example. If kudos, views, notes, and comments are currency, then I, as one could phrase it, “talk with my money”. And believe me, some people have got me feeling pretty stingy. I think it’s far more effective to incite change in this small fandom by creating content that (hopefully) sets an example that inspires others to do things a little more like the way I do them, rather than trying to scream at people. I try my hardest not to adhere to these tropes or dynamics I find disagreeable. I boycott content from certain users if I find their presence and/or actions a threat to my enjoyment of the fandom. And I block people who regularly engage in fandom wank and abuse the tagging system. In a fandom that seems to be increasingly sensitive to note counts and feedback, my withholding of attention is a more than effective tool at showing people that I don’t like their stuff.

Does it create an echo chamber? You betcha! But this is my echo chamber; the real world is already looming over me with its own set of drama. Creating an echo chamber for my corner of the fandom and making a safe space out of it is something I deserve as a human being.

I’m relatively confident that others have taken the same policy and thus do not give me their attention to any of the things I’ve created. And that’s perfectly okay. It sucks, but it’s perfectly okay, because I don’t owe them my time just as much as they don’t owe me theirs.

I will fight by encouraging change to those in my purview in my own terms, in my own way. I refuse to be painted with this brush of being uncaring and complicit, especially when all I’ve seen from those people is hate against the enemies and very little uplifting, encouragement, and love to the ones they claim to fight for. I don’t even think they’ve read or liked a single thing I’ve ever made in the fandom; I am, in short, a POC not worth supporting. What’s more, their shouting had become so loud and so angry that I nearly cancelled a fic because it was a modern AU in which Cassian is Mexican-American and speaks Spanish off and on depending on the situation. I planned for him to speak Chicano English by default, but use Californian English whenever he’s outside his own home. I chose them because I think his identity and accent matter to the plot. These people, who were so fed up with the use of the Spanish language and Mexican identity for Cassian, had me scared to ever write this fic even though people I’ve discussed the story with insist that this upcoming fic is perfectly fine. It was hard to hear their support when the loudest voice in my head repeated all those gripes that other people had about the depiction of POC in the Rebelcaptain fandom, and it took several tries and a relentless barrage of support to give me back the courage to draft this fanfic, which has a huge socio-political slant specifically targeting the POC of the Rogue One squad.

The people who encouraged me to do it? Still predominantly white folk (and I deliberately choose not to use the word “women” here). I get support from people of different racial identities as well, no doubt (and one POC in particular comes to mind because she’s been my loudest supporter since I officially entered the fandom), but most of them have been white.

My corner of the fandom has been peaceful and the least problematic, and the people are, at their very core, truly lovely people. I’m sorry that people mistake my alleged silence for compliance. I’m sorry that people find my work so uninteresting that it’s not worth their time to give me their support. I’m sorry that some people are finding their corner of the fandom violated and full of toxicity that no amount of blocking can help matters.

But please, for the love of every deity in human existence, keep your anger away from my corner of the fandom. I only get a few hours each week to myself, and I’ve chosen to spend it here. I want to make each minute count. And the next minute, and the next, on and on until I’m satisfied with my contributions here, or until the minutes are spent. Let me love Jyn and Cassian in my own way. Let me celebrate their relationship in my own way. Let me fight my fight in my own way. If you don’t like it, that’s fine! Use that currency I mentioned earlier and take your money elsewhere. But do not dictate how I should act within my space and place expectations on me because I’m a POC, and do not make assumptions about my character.

#1 #2 #rebelcaptain #jyn erso #fandom wank #sleepy rambles #a hell of a lot #tl;dr: let me do fandom things on my own terms and gtfo my lawn please #to co-opt Chirrut's line:#let me pass in peace

36 notes · View notes

janiedean · 6 years

Note

Fandom and politics, that's the topic of this message and a request for your opinion on fandom and politics. In recent days in polish fantasy fandom one of the prominent figures, a writer, asked why can't we all just talk and be fandom and leave politics behind, like in "good old days". And explained how he and the wolę fandom just doesn't like ideology pushed at him in media. (1/2)

(2/2) The problem is, what he calls ideology, is often media not being as racist, sexist or homophobic as usually (i.e. the feminist head of the team of writers of The Witcher netflix show, black Heimdall in "Thor" etc.)Or women in fandom demanding to do sth with t-shirts that was sold at one convention, with a print that goes sth along the lines of "I love burning villages and raping virgins". Because those are the prominent scandals of polish fandom.

hmmm the thing is, I think that fandom shouldn’t meddle with politics when it comes to fans period and when it comes to authors, it should but to a certain point. what I mean is:

when I say fandom shouldn’t be meddling with politics when it comes to fans I mean that whole part where you’re judged as SOMETHING just out of your fandom preferences. I mean, people saying you’re homophobic because you don’t ship the slash ship, people assuming you’re racist because you ship two white guys or the likes, people thinking you’re pro-pedophilia because you ship underaged characters and so on. that imo is a thing that regardless of the media in question should die in a fire because you cannot judge people on their fictional preferences. no one should assume I’m okay with incest in general if I ship thor and loki, no one should assume I’m racist because I like stevebucky better than stevesam and no one should assume I’m homophobic if I ship a m/f ship and so on. especially when it comes to people who ship/like problematic stuff for whichever damned reason and they get told they’re monsters when they just wanna do their thing. like that imo is a thing that has to die in a fire right now especially when it becomes a fandom-wide thing and you get people basically going like ‘if you’re white you can’t engage with a fandom with black/poc characters because you’re gonna be racist anyway’ and then complain when they get zero content. or worse, the star wars lists of problematic people that you need to avoid because they ship rey/lo and are therefore *insert problematic word here* and such things. fandom should be a place where fans are free to do whatever they like and explore whatever subjects they like without being judged for it. obviously if someone fucks up MAJORLY (see: the infamous j2 haiti fic of doom) calling them out should happen, also because it means that if they’re ignorant they’ll learn, and using fandom as a platform to learn stuff about people different from your social/ethnical background is always great, but people shouldn’t be shamed for what they do in fandom as a general rule. that is my general opinion when it comes to fans. you can’t go on and judge someone on whether they like noncon in fiction or not. like. no.

what you’re talking about instead is the media itself being more progressive, and in that case I don’t agree with the *good old days* thing because more diversity is good and honestly if someone’s problem is that heimdall is black in a marvel movie that isn’t even accurate per se because in theory thor and loki aren’t even odin’s sons then like, you need to get over yourself.

and like, one thing is having reservation over a shirt such as what you said and another is telling other women they can’t like kink or m/m porn, so like that is a kind of politics that needs to be discussed and absolutely should, but that’s not what I mean when I say I’d really like politics out of fandom space. one thing is fandom space, one thing is the original content. I’m entirely down for diverse original content of whichever kind, what I don’t think should be done is fans engaging with it just looking at the politics and judging it based on the politics only and not on the plot, and mostly judging it on whether it’s progressive enough or not and judging other people for liking it if they don’t think it’s progressive enough, not fans asking for more diverse stuff in general and/or wanting to feel included in fandom spaces, and I think creators should acknowledge that.

like, the polish fantasy writer obviously doesn’t care for diversity - but no one forces him to. but saying that FANTASY IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS WAS JUST WHITE PEOPLE is also ridiculous bc diverse fantasy has been around for ages like ffs.

what I mean is that we absolutely should have politics - if by that you mean more diversity - in the original media we consume, though I don’t think authors should be forced to do that because you get better things when the author actually wants to write them, and fandom should engage with more diverse media absolutely, but fandom can’t also judge what people in it do all the time based on how *they* engage with the content in case, because everyone will like different things and you can’t force people to engage with that specific thing just because you think it’s woke. and you also can’t trash the author for things you might perceive as problematic but actually aren’t.

examples of what I mean: I, author, write a fantasy story.

not so ideal case of politics in media: I, a white cishet female author, decided to write a fantasy story. I don’t know much stuff outside standard fantasy and I don’t feel like writing people who aren’t what I am. I write your usual standard lotr-ripoff, everyone is white, cis and hetero, there’s one romance, a couple bromances, no social or political hidden commentary. it has a good story. it’s an okay book. the fandom most likely will ship the guys in the bromances. no one feels challenged. tumblr declares me problematic for not writing diverse stuff and then ignores me.

ideal case of politics in media: I, a white cishet female author, decided to write a fantasy story. I don’t want to do the same usual lotr rehash and I know that diversity is important and I want to make a good job. I make my character list. I decide who’s white and who’s not, giving a decent balance. I make some of them non-straight. I don’t see many trans characters in fantasy, so I decide one of them is. I spend months talking to anyone belonging to the aforementioned categories asking them what they think of my approach - ie I find a number of trans people to discuss what I want with the trans character, I talk to a number of black people if I want the character to be black possibly not all from the US and I pick people from all over the place. I write my book. I make sure every character has a meaningful relationship with the others so that all their interactions are interesting. I try as much as possible to not have stereotypes. I get a bunch of betas and I change anything they find improvable. my book gets published. everyone loves it.

now, ideal fallout of the above which is what I mean with healthy fandom consumption: I get a fandom made up by diverse people because I have a diverse book. people enjoy that I gave everyone some space. they might interact with me on twitter and asking me ships headcanons. I tell them that they can ship whatever they like write whatever fic off it they want. every character gets some fic or moodboard and everyone enjoys whatever they like in whichever dynamic. not-trans people who had never run into a trans character in fantasy might go like ‘wow I hadn’t realized that’s how it felt’ and might get informed. if I based it on some specific historical period people might get informed on that. people belonging to the minority categories educate the others in fandom about what they might not know, nicely. everyone writes all the porn in the world. everything is great. if someone asks me why I have black/lgbt+/etc people in my book I reply them that minorities exist so why shouldn’t they be in my book and that’s the most twitter hate I get. life is great. my publisher wants more. that book becomes a series. rinse and repeat.

not so ideal fallout, ie what I mean with fandom shouldn’t be about politics: somehow, there’s a fanon ship that gets most fans for a reason. it happens to be idk, bisexual white guy + gay white guy who are not together in the book. they get more fic than dunno, hetero black woman with hetero asian guy. people start calling the first group problematic because they don’t ship the poc couple and THEY’RE RACIST. the trans character isn’t a stereotype/isn’t *good enough* for fandom standards so they decided that idk, feminine straight guy I put in because feminine straight guys exist is actually the only trans one because HEADCANONS and suddenly all fics with a trans character for that book are about the headcanoned character that’s actually a stereotype if you go for that, not the one I actually spent six months researching, and if you don’t agree you’re suddenly a transphobe. someone sends me a twitter message asking me what I think of HEADCANONS and I answer that I’m okay with HCs but I put canon characters that aren’t white, straight and cis for a reason and suddenly I’m THE MOST PROBLEMATIC AUTHOR EVER and people decide that my efforts aren’t good enough and that as a cis woman writing gay men is problematic and everyone in fandom who writes m/m and is a woman is shit. then people decide that shipping the black cis bisexual guy with anyone white is racist and writing porn where he’s on top is racist but then another side says that if he bottoms it’s racist (guys LOOK AT SW FANDOM I DIDN’T MAKE THIS UP), so no one ends up touching the black character out of fear of being dissed. six months after the book is out, the only thing there’s a fandom following for is a problematic as hell crackship in between two cishet white guys that hate each other and barely interacted because it’s the only fandom space where people don’t get shamed for what they like.

I, the author, look at all the hate messages I get on twitter and think fuck it, next time I’m just doing high fidelity 2.0 just with cishet white female protagonists so no one can tell me I did it wrong since I’m white, cishet, female and I hang out in record stores all the damned time or at least I used to when I was younger and they existed. I never write a diverse cast again. I never write a trans character again because that wasn’t what I wanted to do, I just wanted people to have fun and enjoy a more diverse cast of characters without fans murdering each other over it.

like, that’s what I mean with politics shouldn’t be in fandom that much, not that politics shouldn’t be in fandom spaces/in the media we consume period XD ;)

#janie rants #yes my fantasy book is the upgraded version of the sw ST fandom #I MEAN THAT WAS AN EXEMPLAR CASE WHAT DO YOU THINK XD #fandom for ts #valentinevilleforts #ask post

18 notes · View notes