So I'm reading Livapenn journal (yeah, I know she still hasn't come up with that 'solution for future actions to do with warnings and labels' that she claimed had originally been holding her back from an apology. But she's got to the new year in September. After which I'll drop and forget). But anyway she, and several people commenting to her post here are all 'But where has my gritty, hardened criminals and an asshole gone?'.
Which is basically the opposite of my cry (hint: Where has the light hearted impossible world of fun criminals gone? Whyfore the darkity dark and serious?)
( Cut so as not to bore others )
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So someone sent me to this conversation about Gen (there's Sarah Connor Chronicles stuff in the beginning) and the conversation sucks. Not because the conversation isn't interesting. But because the conversation so far (I'm still reading comments) seems to go like this:
In the old days, there was gen. Everything was gen. Gen begat Gen begat Gen and then, begat Gen again. But one day someone said 'Sexoors! Woo!' and someone else said 'Pervy Looks of Longing, Homoerotic! Woowoo!' and Slash was born! Partay. Hey, Gen's leaving - well, that's sad. Woo. I'm taking off boypants! So Gen defined as being not slash and relegated to a corner like a spinster aunt in Victorian times. Though someone actually says " Gen rolled its eyes and cleared the field". The someone else pops up to say that Gen isn't really welcome on LJ. And yet another someone else pops up to claim that's all melodramatic bullshit and how she writes Gen all the time blah blah blah. It's Liz Marcs. I've heard things about her. So I go to her LJ, and randomly pick a fic. It's DS9, and the first part is all about Kieko and Miles' doomed relationship in San Francisco. There's even mention of Miles whacking it. So the exact thing I'd hoped wouldn't happen - happened. There was sex in my peanut butter. So I scroll up to re-read the info. I'd checked things weren't R. It was PG. Personally someone whacking it, even if it's a 12 word or so sentence isn't PG to me. But whatever. Then I see ' hinted-at-slash'. I tell myself I'm not gonna read again. Fuck that. But I pick another fic of Liz Marc's - at random. I'm just gonna read the header. And I read the header, which said G, but also mentioned char death. Silly me scrolled down, and there's 'You and Anya, Me (Buffy) and Spike. I stopped reading. I've decided I'm not gonna read anymore random Gen claimed fic. The title's too damn ambiguous. Even a G rating doesn't mention that 'Here there be experimental one sided fic with buildup to relationship talk' Ugh. More reading of the Gen Conversation Post and someone suggests that squee and pic spam etc, which is how lj fandom works - is best served with pairings etc. Because apparently (my interpretation) Gen fans can't get excited about a tightly written story, good pacing, killer plot, the writers exploring some aspect of the world they never did before and doing it well, how well the team worked, the funny moments, or the character defining moments. Squee and picspam and how people talk about a fandom to define it, just works so much better with porn and pairings. So not only did I pick up this snobbery of Gen FROM Slash, but I'm beginning to see why Gen ficcers could think Slashers are a bunch of porn obsessed pompous twits. I mean really? Pic spasm isn't easy for the gen fan is an insightful thought? I... can think of several characters from several fandoms where ' Look at our guy be a goof' would be love of the character. Not to mention 'OMG! Check out the matte painting and the world building!' As I tried to continue reading, another commenter mentions these points, only to follow up with 'Fan source = TEH PRETTAY PEEPLES. P? WP?' They also mentioned that often time character and or actor appreciation is highly sexualized. This, I admit, I have been confused and discomforted by. I do feel a lot of the times, like I'm in a hot house of hetero woman, all drugged up on some kind of sex pollen, which makes them crave men, often men with other men. Young ones, old ones, who cares. Teh penis sexxors rulllles! Maybe discomforted is too tame a word. Because there's an entire culture in slash about 'We are women yearning to be free with our sexuality' that seems to want to smack anyone who says "But I'd like to enjoy my fandom without a whole bunch of; sex, porn, lust, UST, oggling etc." I almost ended up liveblogging my reactions to the post, but I stopped reading and left it overnight. Because I was swiftly getting in touch with a whole lot of well, rage. Maybe this is why I haven't wanted to go into this before. Maybe this is why I just drifted into meta and have just stopped reading fic - because it was easier to be on the edge/fringes that perhaps confront the thought that - Not being interested in a/ shipping fandom,means then maybe you aren't in fandom at all. I have been so tired of the focus on physical appearance and sex appeal and some character's fucking hair - John Sheppard if you must know. I know part of it is that I'm sick on fandom clinging to all the white characters and maybe the one -bestial/savage man- CoC, (male of course). I've been sick of seeing CoC ignored in this highly surface, highly sexualized expression of fannishness. Because the subtext message has been 'not pretty enough, not hot enough, not interesting enough, but no it has NOTHING to do with race, why do you even ask?. I'm sick of hearing the rumours -around- the ' WTF Uhura/Spock?' I'm lucky I'm not seeing original source material of stupidity much myself, but my excitement about a new timeline universe and new possibilities and who fits where now and how and what happens next, does not revolve around who's having sex in the command chair. Ok, low shot. But that's how I feel. I admit I tried to go for that angle myself. And days later I thought it sucked and sucked hard like a blackhole, not something sexual. Because my interest in, for example, the R!Jim and Prime!Spock mind meld, has more to do with with the revelation to Jim that in another universe he had family in Spock. An indepth and unbroken by death relationship and how that would affect his concept of self now. Not so much the unfulfilled romance. I'm sick of the tape in my head (which I saw reflected in TEXT at that link) that Gen is just a stronger story, that doesn't revolve around romance, thus making it better shipfic. Aka Gen is pre-slash Aka Gen is a residual character. Aka Gen, the Red Shirt. Now, being a possible Gen fan, is not at all like being black. But hot damn, it's got it's own special version of being invisible. Everyone I see trying to define it is doing so by defining what it's not. And then there's the whole 'Gen is more fandom specific I bet' and 'Does Gen have any tropes at all?' and 'Maybe Gen's wishy washy cause it doesn't have any culture or real history'. So, in sum so far? I loathe y'all many of you 'faceless' Slash Bitc heas (eta). I really, really do right now. My Boo gets a pass. She's my Boo. She's special. Marvel at the protective forcefield. It sparkles. My Partner In Crime also gets a protective forcefield. The rest of y'all? I'll just remind you that sharp, pointy things can lead to the stabbity. Also? It occurs to me that my discomfort with things may stretch back to the early stirrings of Harry Potter Fandom. Where I was looking at people slashing Harry with Draco and gong "WTF? You never had someone you just loathed? Not cheerleader vs nerd shit. But someone from an opposite House, who was always getting praise and pettings and who you wanted to punch in the face, except it'd take away House points?" I spent a lot of time wondering why British fans weren't cluing in American fans on that special kind of hate. Or on the odd social pressures that would occur for cross house friendships. My best friend growing up and I were in two different houses and it was a frigging nightmare. P-effing- S: FOR THE RECORD: I do not find romance threatening. ( ETA )
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I think, somehow, that I've become a Gen fan. I mentioned this to ![[info] - personal](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) zvi weeks ago, possibly months ago. After the conversation, her suggestion was that I'd become a Gen fan, and I should look up the Gen infrastructure.
I didn't.
I'm not sure why, actually. What I do know, is having certain things happen quite recently that made me uncomfortable, I had the thought hit me that "Hey, I'm a Gen Fan."
And now I feel the need to define that. Because by GEN, I don't mean 'Canon relationships only'. I am not pushing a Het4TheWin! posterboard anywhere.
I've just discovered I don't want to read about sex, anyone's sex. And the thing that's been surprising to me, is that I'm perfectly fine (or at least I think I am) dealing with sex in an RP situation. Quite possibly, I'm fine when sexual situations happen to characters when I'm rping with someone I trust - I don't rp with strangers all that much anymore. And the one exception? No sex. And I've been quite relieved about it.
So yeah, I don't want to read the descriptions written by strangers of characters I like enough that I hunted down their fannish led further adventures.
But, I think I just might be a Slash Infrastructure Snob.
Slash fandom is the only fandom I know. Ok, maybe way back when, when I hunted down Xena fic that wasn't slash fandom. But that had less to do with fandom as I understand it today and more about being a lesbian. If you'd told me back then that the people writing the stories which explored Gabrielle and Xena's relationship weren't lesbians, I wouldn't have just disbelieved you. I'd probably have hit you and pushed you out into the middle of the street (not my fault if a car happened by).
So again, Slash Fandom, is the only one I know. What I do know of Gen Fansom - well, it's not pretty. It's possibly propaganda mixed with a little truth, mixed with an undercurrent. But Gen Fandom = whiny little buggers who don't want to put in the work of carving out space for themselves, who complain that slash writers steal good gen writers (and somehow make them stop writing gen) and who have friction within their own ranks about just what Gen even means.
Which might explain part of my initial resistance to hunting down Gen stuff. Because if my current deal is not wanting to stumble onto any sex - then the canon het stuff (further explored) would just piss me the hell off. (No sex in my peanut butter, damnit! *gives Detective Chen the cut eye*)
Now of course I need to go put Gen in a search engine and see what pops up and if they've solved the definition problem (or if it's only certain quarters bothering to put up the word Het as a truer definition of their work). But I thought I'd face my feelings first and sort out all these messages I have about Gen, so I can deal with them.
Because I've become aware I need to catch myself on ablist thought, and transphobic thought and racist thought and misogynistic thought - but I have no mental filter against my community' quiet internal messages about Gen? And did I even get these messages from my community, the slash community at large, randomly on the internet? Where exactly?
In fact, now that I think about it ![[info] - livejournal.com](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif) copperbadge probably counts somewhere within Gen ranks. I've read a few things by him that I really enjoyed (though I admit to waiting with a very tense stomach for the sex to charge in on a Harley like a 60's propaganda biker stereotype and mess everything up). And while I think copperbadge needs to think more, and follow up more on ongoing internet discussions (particularly about race) before he opens his mouth and inserts both feet, properly coated in pig swill, up to his knees - I don't think of him as particularly lazy, whiny, infrastructure ignorant, overly entitled or any of that shit.
So when were the Slash/Gen wars? And how did I pick up on some kind of party line thoughts?
Oh, and if anyone wants to drop a line to the secret world of Gen fiction (maybe they should PM me - it is a secret, right?), my first internet search brings up the portmanteau 'noromo' - for which I'd like to say right now, I'm iffy about. Romance and a fade to black is alright. But I don't really want to read something that's about nothing but the romance between two characters.
Example; if I even liked Bones? I'd want a story about a case or an event, not an excuse to get Booth and Bones making barely there googoo eyes at one another.
Roughneck Chronicles has six romances going on, one character having three, the other having two. And I still adore it, re-watch it often and do not think said romances take time away from THE ENSEMBLE, which is my big thing.
But given the initial search engine look see - it seems as if noromo is a phrase that I should be looking for.
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This post was actually started sometime last year, but I don't think I ever went through and posted it and on finding it I realize it was a perfect part two of the query and discussion I started here; Watching The Show In Your Head.
I had wanted to write about the tv show Monk. Then I had wanted to write about all the tv shows I'd liked and or dropped and how lately I'd realized that the tv show I liked, was NOT the tv show the executives inevitably decided to push. And so past the 1st season (or the season that caught my eye) - I simply didn't watch tv anymore. At least not on my own, without someone watching with me ie, bugging me and cajoling me to watch with them or keep them company.
Then later on I'd ended up thinking out and talking about the subject with a friend, (I believe it was ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) kdorian). I realized there's so much more with Monk that I'd found disappointing. I found it the waste of a good actor. I found it a waste of a good premise...
I started watching a show about a man who'd been so traumatized by the loss/murder of his wife than his OCD went mega - total overddrive. He wasn't functional. But he was still a brilliant mystery solver. Solving mysteries was a way to make the world right and a way to hone his skills so he could track down the person who'd taken his wife away from him.
I loved that show. Yes it had silly moments and yes sometimes it also made me cringe. But I loved the show. It was about survival and growth and trauma and recovery and yes, I know I can take those themes very personally. But I was so happy with it. I wanted to buy the DVD when it came out. I couldn't wait for where they'd pick up in the next season to move along the arc involving his wife's killer. And where they would go with the friendship he was developing with his assistant's son.
And then I saw the Season 2 trailers. And it was all "Crazy man is afraid of germs. Watch him dodge monkey poop and try to solve crime!".
I was aghast. But the commercial played over and over again. Despite where the last season's arc had ended they were going to play up the disease/ the illness as a JOKE. They were going to play up the mental health issue and the trauma AS A FUCKING JOKE.
What whacky things will freak him out this season!"
Shock became disgust and I never went back. I even changed the channel when previews and ads came on. I still do. There was nothing I could salvage to continue to watch. There was no mental re-writing I could do. The ads made me afraid to go back and watch the first season, for fear I'd suddenly realize how exploitative it had always been.
SGA is another similar show. (To those currently mourning I suggest you skip. I'm not aiming to be particularly reverent).
( More here )
I started off both of my posts not sure why I mentally re-wrote on the fly and what prompted it, and what differentiated it from privilege. And the few responses I got back seemed to agree that privilege was denying that problems caused the need to re-write, vs just an active imagination.
So if there are other things that interest me(in a given media) then I have something to lose; I've been captivated and I don't want to have to come down from that experience. So in order to make the media palatable to me I have to work around/re-write/re-think the scuzzy parts - that is the problems.
But if the loss is far too big; if the scuzzy parts take over something conceptual I was waiting for, along with taking over too many other parts of the show/book, then there's no point in re-writing, because that'd be basically doing it all over from scratch - not imagining if this or that pitfall had been avoided / could be reinterpreted as something else.
This hints at a continuum for me and reminds me of when ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/openid-profile.gif) zvi-likes-tv.livejournal.com wrote a post asking and eventually describing the attributes that make a show fannish. (I can't find said post now, so Zvi if you're reading and you remember what I'm talking about could you drop a line? I think you did tables and it had something to do with less content = more fandom filling)
Even without checking Zvi's post though, I think it's safe to say for me there does seem to be a continuum. If I place Memoirs of a Geisha on one end and SGA on the other, it feels Smallville is an example of a show that started somewhat near the middle and eventually drifted right into SGA's side of the fence and thus I dropped it completely.
(odd aside: I dropped Smallville before I dropped SGA I think. And yet SGA definitely feels like the best marker for the disappointed side of the spectrum. Maybe because the moment they changed Elizabeth I immediately started watching the show in my head, whereas that was something I turned to in Smallville until I couldn't anymore) When can't I watch the show in my head? When there's not enough to anchor me into the world of the show itself, I guess. When there's not enough to draw me in to be invested and caring if I 'throw out the baby with the bathwater'. But that phrase makes me think about privilege again and how I have heard that phrase used when I've complained about what a show or series of books or comic etc was lacking. I have been accused of doing that, while harshing someone's buzz about their show because I was letting a little thing upset everything. But the point is, it isn't little to me. Everyone probably has different things that cross the line from needing to Watch The Show In Your Head to being Unable To Watch. Maybe continuum isn't the best word choice. Scales suddenly seem much better. If a show starts off balanced with things that interest me and no, or little problems then I can watch it. As things go wrong, as problems begin, in order for me to keep watching, then I need to watch the show in my head. But as the problems pile up things become very lopsided and when I think of it in terms of weight, then suddenly I need energy to deal with that weight. I guess I feel like there probably needs to be respect for the fact that when you can't watch anymore, it means there's too much weighed on the side of dislike and disappointment. And those weights can be aspects of racism, sexism, classcism, national isolationism or just not enough plot (ala, in some Urban Fantasy novels - being unable to read the book you're reading in your head vs the actual text). *ponders* I doubt there'll be a part three, I'm currently tired of thinking and typing. But I think I'm going to pay more attention to when someone tells me they can't even watch the show in their heads anymore and I hope those who know me will pay attention to me when I say the same thing. Hmm, best thing about doing the opposite was in realizing that the very act of Watching The Show In My Head, means that I'm working around problems I see; whether or not I'm conscious of what I'm doing, whether or not the discomfort is momentary or even lucid.
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Discussing Memoirs of a Geisha with tatterpunk@LJ, here, I stumbled into the thought that watching the show in your head has similarities to privilege and how things are ignored or invisible or immediately dismissed when one re-writes the narrative on the fly.
As I stated here I began to wonder if the difference between watching the show you want to see as a fan (in fandom, discussing the source and interacting with it and having that mentality) and watching the show as a 'mundane' is that discussing the source and talking about it brings you moments of realizing just exactly how and where and why you ended up seeing what you wanted to see.
In Memoirs of a Geisha, I saw tropes I loathed and so I chose to interpret them in ways that made me feel more comfortable with the story and that gave the characters more depth. But I suddenly realized there might be no difference in the actions themselves to someone who chooses not to see the racial problems and dynamics of say SGA with Teyla and Ronon, or racial dynamics in any other tv show or book/fandom property.
When brought up in discussion I can tell you why I chose to see something in a particular way. But while watching it, I don't think I was at all consciously aware of what I was doing. I was so wrapped up in the music and the costumes and the cinematography that I didn't want to have shallow stereotypes ruin things, so I changed my view. I ignored things and created my own fannish reality. If I wrote a review analyzing Memoirs, for example, I'm not sure if I'd have written about the movie I wanted to watch, or the movie I actually did watch. And I wonder if it's only in fandom that someone would understand what I did and understand that my interpretation was my reactions to the things that bothered me and thus were an acknowledgement those things existed.
So I'm suddenly confused about how my re-writing of the story acknowledges what's wrong with it vs how someone else who watched what they wanted to see, might have been blinded by privilege.
Is it privilege to re-write like that?
Is this precisely what infuriates me about the fans who watch SGA for example and see Ronon the MoC Fantasy Fodder and completely miss or dismiss valid notes on racism, colonialism and manifest destiny?
I admit that slash is an example of re-writing thing on the fly. You watch the show and you see subtext and you fill in backstory even if you never write it out as fic (perhaps you postulate in a meta post). But the point is you filter your experience. Is my anger at the fans who dismiss my and others complaints about the hurtful aspects of some shows, as turbulent as it is because I'm already aware they have an ability to filter their experience and I'm angry that they don't consider using my filter?
I'd probably be writing a much less hesitant post if I could figure out the right words to describe this moment of confusilation (it's like illumination, but with confusion)
ETA: Pt 2 (I'm not sure why Metafandom listed it under an SGA tag. But I do discuss SGA in part 2, which I only just posted Saturday the 23rd Aug)
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This: http://spinningspinsters.wordpress.com/2008/03/03/in-the-tradition-of-the-wickedary-part-two-by-dissenter/
Anyone have links to people who're not so 'OMG, look at the CRAZY WOMAN', that they've actually posted responses in their own journal spaces? Miss Thing having decided that other spaces in fandom are pro-slash, so she hid/deleted all defenses of slash on her post and won't allow others.
Mallet hon? Don't look. That link heads towards one of those ALL MEN ARE OPPRESSORS bs. Actually das_dingi, you shouldn't look either.
I can't even finish reading it myself, my mind keeps being blown apart by the bright pink neon letters that say: My Cisgendered Female Self Has Been Oppressed By The Patriarchy! With a little "Rise up my sisters everywhere and defeat this self repugnance against feminine qualities - bash the oppressors" and other nonsense.
I want to have a strong analytical argument about the essay. But all I can do is shake my head and think "Wow, she's full of shit." Maybe the essay is turning me towards my inner Clint Eastwood - taciturn and orally fixated (yeah yeah, I'm already orally fixated - but who's counting).
WWS - Coming To devour A Meta Fandom Near You.
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| 2008-07-28 11:00 |
| More On Nice vs Mean (Fannish) |
| Public |
| fandom: is, meta |
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Long comment reply to carodee
( Comment here )
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If you want to read the message go here to Svmadelyn @ LJ.
Meanwhile I laugh and giggle and revel in feeling naughty. Fanlib.Com is dead. DEAD DEAD DEAD.
How dead?
Deader than dead. Never gonna be reanimated dead.
Heh. I'm not sure when I knew they were gonna burst, pop and die. I want to say it was from the beginning and I gave them some time. But my clear memory of knowing how much they failed? Was when they did a writing contest for the horror that was Walden Media's: The Seeker: We Spit On Susan Cooper's Creative & Epic Work To Bring You HoHum Regergitated Hollywood Blantasy That Made Even The Eragon Movie Look Good. Rather long title, but it deserves it. Seriously they had the gall to try and collect fanfiction for the movie, before it opened. There was a writing contest! Fanlib trying to get fan interest for a story that didn't utilize much of anything from the source, which had gathered the actual fans. I said "It is of the Dark." And now a Rider of the Dark is Dead/Gone/Lost!
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This and also this and unbelievably but true this all relate to purplepopple here on iJay being an individual who shamelessly and boldly links fannish pseud's to RL Identities and may have a thing for harassing the OTW folk in particular.
I'm not pro OTW. I rather avoid thinking about it where I can.
But people I care about are involved in OTW. It brings them squee.
Calling up BS about how if they have their real identities listed a) anywhere on the net, b) as part of OTW then it's all public property / a simple connection/ wtf ever? That's... I don't even have words for that.
I went to the _fanhistory wiki_ that the outer is promoting and did a quick search to make sure none of the fans I've known and cared for who've since died are in the directory. It wasn't likely since it seems to be build_me_a_wiki_via_bot_&_ff.net profiles_ but I needed to double-check.
It's been asked that folk not link to the _fanhistory wiki_ because doing so pushes up the page's google-rankings.
Just today I posted about how I view fandom vs how other people seem to be viewing it and the 'Cult of Nice'. And yet I don't think there's anyone who believes in reviews and recs (or concrit for that matter) who'd be all for linking identities.
JC, Mary, Joseph and the Prophet Elijah. That's some bold faced vindictiveness.
If you want more information please do read the links, on LJ or not. Because those are well phrased and spaced explanations of what's going on. This right here is as coherent as I get before the cussing starts.
( The Cussing )
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My fandom, my fannish space involves critique. It involves opinion, contrary or agreeing. It involves meta and analysis. It involves reviews. it involves constructive thought. It involves deconstructing the source.
And when I can't enjoy doing that anymore, when at the end my constructive thoughts and analysis result in utter frustration because nothing changes in the source and I feel personally hurt by the exclusion of people of colour, or the inclusion of stereotypes and just plain foolishness - I walk away.
I walked away from SGA and SG1. I walked away from Harry Potter, tried to circle back to it, but that hasn't worked out quite so well.
My fandom is not a solely happy funtime place.
I realize there are people in fandom who come to it from an all squee, all the time, only positive place. Those people need to avoid me. I saw it quoted in the recent hubub that:
...so why is the concept of why people are in fandom so terribly hard to understand? We come to it from a mutual love - of canon, of actors, of fannishness itself. No one comes to fandom looking for a grade and critique from a professor.
--shayheyred @ lj This is a fundamental mistake. If people are assuming that everyone comes to fandom for the same thing, from the same place in life / pov / comprehension and understanding - then no wonder they're throwing hissy fits when they discover the world is not filled with clones of them. I came to fandom to learn. I learned about male characterization. I learned about female bonding. I learned about media analysis. I learned other people did more than just blink at the screen and absorb the spoon fed bits. I learned how to write and how to think and how to figure out what matters to me in story and plot. I learned that other people saw a lack of Characters of Colour. I learned about tropes for PoC in media fandom and other fandoms. I learned about bad villains and good villains and how far back some tropes go. I learned history and philosophy. I learned vocabulary. Sometimes my learning involved getting a grade - whatever form that grade took; feedback, meta, im conversations, email, etc. Sometimes my learning involved watching other people get grades. And sometimes it involved my giving people grades. Most recently I've been giving out a whole lot of F's in diversity and thinking about issues unrelated to White America. That is my fandom. That is the fandom I'm trying to hold on to even as source material after source material leaves me shaking my head and backing away from watching tv. ( ETA: Oh for crying out loud! Yes, this is a sign I should stop reading the stupid. )
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This is mostly for me. Don't want to read it? Heaving a sigh? Skip it.
( Read more... )
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| 2008-05-12 14:05 |
| Meta |
| Public |
 contemplative + tired |
| meta |
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LJ user Saeva wrote a post over on lj about her dislike of the use of the word pimp in fandom.
First off I looked at meta fandom cause I was bored and winding down from an early, hectic day. So far I'm not seeing any names I recognize in her comments so I don't know if I'd have found this otherise.
Secondly, Saeva declares the use of the word 'pimp' to be the same as the n-word (used as a verb). I... really don't agree with that. I see what she's trying to say but the n-word's been around and used a lot longer than the 4 letter word pimp (and used to denote a lack of humanity) - no matter the history lesson of the profession (pimp) being as old as the hills and then some.
Thirdly, she talks about street survivors and prior runaways who had to do what they needed to do do in order to survive, possibly being triggered by use of the word. And that's the first argument made that made me pause and think. I understand triggers and I understand being needlessly triggered.
But Saeva also talks about whether or not the fannish community is consciously trying to reclaim the word and if so what possible reasons could they have.
And I was, well, surprised to see things put this way. Because I thought it'd already been reclaimed. When people 'pimp' a tv show, or a musical artist or band or a book, series of books or a particular author to me - I do see them as making the object they want to share, wiggle to show me the good bits.
I am perusing for some entertainment and they are displaying some goods.
For that reason I'm also comfortable with them describing the action as hawking - as in hawking their wares.
I actually liked the dichotomy of fandom with it's majority female participation displaying and showing off in ways that would appeal to a majority female audience, a tv show, book or author.
When one throws slash into the mix, it all seems even more appropriate to me. I in particular think SPN gets pimped out like it has serious rent to pay. And that Jericho didn't get pimped enough, so people passed it by and left it to languish.
There's this odd combination of: PROMOTIONAL DISPLAY that comes to mind for me with the word pimp, when combined in fannish activities. I call it odd, because it brings to mind word pictures of Bookstore and Library displays and Amsterdam sex workers in their windows, lit by a red bulb.
I'm really not sure 'promote' would work as a replacement. One can promote a fic-a-thon, but one pimps the individual fics. In Sweet Charity, fanfic writers put themselves and their talents up for bid (they pimp themselves out). A tv show's network may promote it in an effort to get more viewers but fans will 'pimp it' in a way different from the generic promotion. They will spotlight fannish tropes and pretty men and UST or other kinks to hit fannish buttons.
If there's some other word that can do what pimp currently does, then, like the substitution of imbroglio for 'wank' - someone should find it and begin to use it.
But until then I think it might be difficult to do more than be aware of which individuals on your flist don't like the term.
ETA: I still think this discussion is worth having. But I've become turned off by the OP's comment here. I may just be hair triggered after Kristallnacht as the name for an HP game. But I do not like arguments of this oppression beats that oppression. Saying something is horrific in it's own right is one thing. Saying it's horrific and has gone on for ages is also one thing. Saying that it's horrific and present and multi-limbed and likely happening just down the street is yet,another (third) thing. Calling the Nazi regime a neat, easy to document, package, (unlike your current discussed topic of oppression) especially in the wake of The Missing Jewish Women of Block 24 is three buckets over the weight line of upsetting.
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Now that I've got 'the day' post out of the way. I have a post I'm working on about the tv shows I watch vs what's actually on the screen. But I want to write this little bit first.
My beloved former roommie and boston marriage wife of - wait would it be former wife? Ok whatever - witchqueen.livejournal.com now zvi-likes-tv.livejournal.com knowing that The Sentinel fic is my comfort fic of choice, sent me here to read about this wonderful AU that spins the premise of Sentinels and Guides and incorporates characters from other shows who'd fit into the formula.
I really enjoyed it, from Jessica Fletcher (yes, you heard me) all the way down. It's a series I will continue to look forward to reading. But it made me think about fandom and remixes and original product.
I realized I think of Imperfections as a Remix of PetFly's universe. A wonderful, well thought out, cracky and funny and poignant remix, but a remix. This is how else things could have gone, given a and b and a little of z y and #2.
I realize that not all fanfic falls into this, because there are stories that are deleted scenes and stories that are 'The Continuing Adventures'; just like the show but in text. But slash and AU pairings, isn't it all a remix? Isn't it all a retake on the plots and how the characters developed? Maybe even why they developed?
Anyway, pondering this I realized that a lot of my favourite story telling, fanfic wise is Remix of Canon. I love the AU verses which seem to hint that this is what could have happened if the show had been pitched like this instead of like that or if the creators had their eyes opened about racial inequities, various cliches and tropes, othering and the invisible powerful woman; she's there, somewhere, but doesn't get much screen time.
This post isn't really meant as a "And that's why people who don't want their babies to be remixed are...." - insert your opinion here, for or against. This is mostly about me realizing that I'm not likely to get either side of that, because for the most part the minute you change something; the moment you make me think "Oh... so this is what would have happened if", even if it's just a case/planet/whatever they never saw/dealt with on the show, but that would have affected the characters away from the status quo - I think remix.
I wanted to add little bit here about elseworlds and comics and the tv show Smallville and how much I think it could have benefited from being thought of a remix of Superman Canon- so the producers didn't have to keep hopping forward to milestones 'just because' despite the rest of the hands flailing at them in the universe. But the thoughts are not at all clearly out. I tend to just throw up my hands with SV anyway. Huh, I wonder if I think it's an incredibly bad Remix of Comic Canon Superman? Hmm. That puts a new spin for how I process remakes.
*goes to think more thinky thoughts*
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mentally tired
incredulous
naughty
thoughtful