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Mon, Jun. 1st, 2009, 08:14 pm

[identity profile] acari.livejournal.com: Monday, June 1, 2009


  • [livejournal.com profile] fairestcat: Wiscon, Media Fandom and The Larger Fannish Conversation - Here's the thing: online media and fanfic fandom is a vibrant, active community within broader SF fandom. It's predominately female, strongly feminist-leaning in areas, and actively engages in discussions of race, gender, sexuality, privilege and oppression.[...]And yet, when it comes to having a voice in larger fandom, we're still the embarrassing cousin shuffled off into the corner (or the hotel lobby). Even at Wiscon, the feminist science fiction convention, we're mostly under the radar, carving out a tiny niche for ourselves. -
    (tags: fandom discussions cons)

  • [livejournal.com profile] oliviacirce: Admitting Impediments: Post-WisCon Posts, Part I, or, That Post I Never Made About RaceFail'09 - As much as I think "book fans" and "media fans" are deeply problematic terms for what we're actually talking about, the division was there, between the old guard and the young upstarts, between the supposedly hidebound and the supposedly progressive. I'm not certain that we have the words to talk about this in the right way -- although we tried at WisCon -- but what hurt me most, after the horrified realization that people I knew and respected were saying and doing racist, thoughtless, disrespectful things, was the realization that my community was far more divided than I had ever wanted to know. -
    (tags: fandom race racefail09 cons privilege)

Wed, Jun. 3rd, 2009, 04:16 am
[identity profile] dysprositos.livejournal.com: Re: Silenced by Dreamwidth...

So just to make it utterly clear: my descriptions of the differences I've observed between the Pretty Princess Monsters Blargh and Scary Ponies Oh No are meant to be exactly that, descriptions. Obviously I prefer the Pretty Princess Monsters Blargh way of doing things overall, or I would (~still) be a Scary Pony Oh No. And there are differences between the groups that I think are objectively in favor of Pretty Princess Monsters Blargh (handling of issues like racism and sexism, a more diverse demographic), but there are also Scary Ponies Oh No things that I wish Pretty Princess Monsters Blargh had more of. (Support of, and commercial catering to, our interests and activities from the PTB would be nice, as would a stronger support system in place for those who do want to move from fanfic writing to being a professionally-published original-fiction writer.)

Anyway, if my attempts at describing some of the differences I've observed between Scary Ponies Oh No and Pretty Princess Monsters Blargh are at all giving off the vibe of the Scary Ponies Oh No are dupes of the evil "hegemony" or Scary Ponies Oh No aren't capable of "analyzing" a text for "subtext", I apologize. There are several Scary Ponies Oh No whom I greatly admire, and many more whose thoughts in particular cases I admire, including David Brin's positing of the "this is propaganda for the 'good guys'" with respect to Star Wars and Lord of the Rings in two essays where I first encountered the idea, which certainly indicate that Scary Ponies Oh No and analysis can get together and beat up any evil hegemonies out there.

Guess what? This Scary Pony Oh No doesn't agree with most of this stuff, particularly since it seems rather like Orwell's 1984 Newspeak.

Well, I don't agree with most of it either. Attaching moral judgments to reading styles = plusungood. Totalitarian dichotomies allowing no room for exceptions = doubleplusungood. ;-)