sqbr | Discussing problematic fanworks that aren't all bad

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Discussing problematic fanworks that aren't all bad

EDIT: I have realised that this post, while it may have some merit, is mostly wrongheaded. I'm going to edit it to try and knock it into some sort of sense but keep in mind it used to be different. (Yes this erases my mistake, but it also means it's readable as a coherent argument)

I'm taking a break from responding to comments or editing the post etc while I think about the points people are making but I am increasingly uncomfortable with what I was saying. Ack.

So! Sailorptah made a comment on racism 101 proposing lots of small scale discussions of problematic fic rather than just these occasional big blow-ups about HORRIBLY problematic fic, and I was thinking that was maybe a good idea.

Or would it just cause horrible drama and pain and be a waste of energy? Note (I assumed this went without saying but I guess it doesn't): I'm not saying other people should host these discussions. I'm saying I should (and other people who agree with me) Also despite the example I'm linking to being about racism I would personally want to concentrate on the stuff that affects me personally eg class and disability.

What I am not calling for is less criticism of these really terrible fanworks written by really aggressively prejudiced authors. I'm saying we need more criticism of somewhat terrible fanworks by only slightly prejudiced authors as well, but that in those cases the criticisms shouldn't be so harsh or on such a large scale (especially since we're all at least slightly prejudiced in one way or another).

Unfortunately, there really isn't much of a culture in fanworks fandom of public criticism, so that when people do criticise fanworks publicly it tends to be the ones they hate so much they don't care if the author gets pissy at them. From what I've seen, there's very little crit lying in the continuum between private-ish communication saying "This is awesome though there is one thing…" and sometimes public stuff saying "THIS IS THE WORST FIC EVER".

Because we see any public criticism as a terrible insult, we're only comfortable making public criticisms of people we don't mind insulting eg authors who've really pissed us off, and the criticisms are thus very negative. And this reinforces the attitude that publicly criticising someone is always an insult.

We can and do of course privately email people and have discussions etc, and on a good day the end result is that that author has learned better and maybe fixed their story. But unless they then talk about it publicly (which can look a bit self promoting) noone else will know. And sometimes a reader just isn't up to putting their heart on the line for such a small possible gain when there's a fair chance the author will ignore them or freak out.

And of course all of this general reticence to be critical gets magnified by the huge drama around accusing someone of being racist or ableist etc. It doesn't help that there is a tendency, amongst the people being accused but also some of the accusers, of seeing it all in terms of who you are rather than what you did, equating "this one aspect of your story was *-ist" with "Your story is *-ist and bad" with "YOU are *-ist and bad". (nb that doesn't mean we shouldn't tell people "Your story is *-ist and bad" or "YOU are *-ist and bad" when it does apply. It just doesn't always)

I've hit this myself: I read a fic a while ago which upset me with it's ableism, and I wanted to talk both about the fic itself and the wider pattern it's a part of, but it's quite popular and in a lot of ways very good and I saw no way to talk about it publicly without the large possibility of hurting the author's feelings and/or having her or her fans getting narky. So I made a locked post and felt grumpy.

As sailor_ptah pointed out, general discussions of "what not to do" are all well and good, but they really benefit from examples.

It's difficult with recs, too, if you want to say "This was overall great, but I was a bit uncomfortable with…" (and if the recs I'd seen for that story had said something like that I would have been much less blindsided by the ableism and might have been able to enjoy the story or make an informed decision not to read it. Though I'm not sure the reccers noticed)

This goes double if you want to rec something for it's overall good portrayal of gender/race/sexuality etc but also poke at some of the stuff it got wrong or you're not sure of.

So! Do people agree with my take on things? Would it cause too much drama? Should I just suck it up and post about this stuff?

If nothing else: I hereby open myself up for being an Example To Others. I'd rather not be sporked or whatever, but if, say, someone wants to write a post about the heteronormativity of Disney fic and wants to use my rather heteronormative "Enchanted" story as an example then I won't Freak Out.

If public posting is too fraught, perhaps a locked community for people who are on board with the concept? Maybe they already exist and I've just never been invited :)

~~And maybe I'll make that post about class in "Written by the Victors"...~~

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There is always a cost for speaking out - and you seem to be saying more people should be taking up that cost as a cause, and doing so more frequently. Taking the cost for less agregious works, as if there's energy to spare.

And I wonder just who are you talking to? Who are you inviting to take the cost of people pm-ing and comment bombing and generally discussing one as 'One of those too serious so and sos taking all the fun out of fandom by bullying about social issues' as if pointing out isms mean the pointer has no feelings and is aka one of those PC Police - who're apparently all automatons.

How can you expect others to bear a cost that you yourself state is so overwhelming you've done flock and grumble because you knew it wouldn't be worth it. And do you mean to come across as saying to NOT TAKE the cost is to be lacking somehow or holding the conversation back from going forward?

Because I would disagree with that, strenuously and then disengage with you.

First off: the first two or so paragraphs of this post are obnoxiously self satisfied coming from someone like me who, however well meaning, has done so little to put themselves at risk in any of this. My apologies. I've edited them a bit and shall ponder a bit more after finishing this comment.

How can you expect others to bear a cost that you yourself state is so overwhelming you've done flock and grumble because you knew it wouldn't be worth it

I am absolutely positively not asking other people to bear a cost I'm not willing to. I'm trying to figure out if I should bear that cost. I'm really sorry that it came across as telling other people to do something I'm unwilling to do, I would never ask that.

Am I right in thinking you're picking up the subtext of "I think POC should criticise works which are less racist as well as the more racist ones"? Because that's definitely not what I meant, though I see now that linking to a white person (sailorptah) posting about racism while the main current discussion is about race makes that a very plausible interpretation. I do not consider myself remotely qualified to say what POC should or shouldn't post about with regards to race. I also don't think it's the fault of the POC that discussions about racism in fanfiction are so fraught. I think it's a combination of general fannish culture (which fans-who-are-POC are as complicit in as anyone else, but have no particular responsibility for, especially being in the minority) and people being racist asshats.

I'm mainly thinking about ableism and classism. I keep encountering works that really bother me, individually and in aggregate, and I think about posting publicaly, but then I think "Will people accept this? Is this post going to be constructive or will it just cause drama?" And they're not bad enough to inspire major righteous indignation, and I don't want to present it as the author being a Terrible Classist/Ableist Person, but I'm not sure how else to approach the issue. And I would like there to be a discussion about it, but I'm not sure how best to encourage and engage with it. Maybe I'm just in denial about there being no other option but the horrible hurtful (to POC in the case of race, to disabled and working class people in my hypotheticals) imbroglios around race that I have seen.

After posting this I thought about how HORRIBLE the drama around Glee and Amanda Palmer have been despite the disabled people posting about them's best efforts so yeah. I was being willfully naive I guess. EDIT: Wow, that sounds like I think disability and race will have different reactions. What I meant was people complaining about non-fanworks (Like in say Racefail, way to miss an obvious example, self) are just as at risk of getting attacked, so it's not entirely a fanworks thing. I do think there's more space for criticisms (social justice related or otherwise) by little no-name bloggers like me of commercial works than fanworks, but not much more.

I really needed to think about this more before posting.

(May post more but I've run out of the end of this train of thought)

EDIT: Have edited the post. Note to anyone thinking willow is complaining about nothing, the first draft of this post was terrible. (Of course the current version may be too)

Edited 2010-07-09 06:28 (UTC)

Willfully naive, to my mind, is a generous reading. Because it comes across strongly that you have enough privilege in other areas that the aggressions that hit, re: disability & class are manageable for you without having to say something. Of course, that may not be true at all. It may be a matter of you not having enough spoons and trying to judge possible continued pain via conversation, with current levels of exhaustion and possible future exhaustion.

Do you see how complicated it gets when one tries to judge why people don't speak out and what prods them when they do? All supposition and hierarchies of pain?

Also, and this part I stress, just because you or others don't see conversations calling out other fic and representations, doesn't mean those conversations aren't happening. Just because you close your eyes, doesn't mean the sky goes away. If it's raining and you go inside your house, the rain does not go away. If a tree falls in the forest and you're not there to see it, gravity still works and it still makes a sound.

As for discussions on isms, I think the only reason they're fraught is that fandom, in general, is not used to people pointing out the fail. It's coasted for a good long while on being 'feminist' and 'transgressive' and gotten comfortable.

Now conversations are spilling out and becoming louder and people are recognizing they're not the lone disabled person, lone transgendered person, lone non-white individual and there's a community within the community.

But also, the source CANONs have become incredibly ismist, with fandom pulling in those issues and then wanting to deny they were incorporating pre-existing problems along with their own warped concepts of personhood.

I'm not sure I get what your first paragraph is saying. I'm always "trying to judge possible continued pain via conversation, with current levels of exhaustion and possible future exhaustion" for everything (I am often at best a spoon or two away from collapse) but I'm not sure if it's in the way you mean.

Anyway, the more I think about the point I was trying to make the more horrified I am at what a horrible whitesplainer I was being. If there was a simple way around this crap people would be doing it.

I think I was just in denial. I've been feeling increasingly frustrated that there's all these things I'd like to see people (not just in fandom, the webcomics community is much worse) discussing more and I think I just have to admit to myself that there is no way for me to be the person hosting those discussions unless I make them very small and probably under flock, because otherwise they are pretty much doomed to explode in a way I can't handle at this point in my life.

Sorry I had to flail my way through a bunch of offensive crap in everyone's faces to come to that realisation :/

I was referring to spoons in the way you think - everything else a person needs or wants to do with the energy they currently have and choosing what to spend it on.

But bringing it up again, I'm reminded of Forks. Which exemplifies the conclusion you're coming to about limits.

I can understand thinking dialogue is a very good thing especially when it results in learning moments. And that you think continued dialogue can only help more. But the dialogue isn't new. There are books, studies, essays, taped lectures etc that people can search out if they want to know more - or share if they want to share more. And not just about race, but other issues as well. The resources are out there.

Awareness doesn't have to be spoonfed in order for it to stick. And it will always be frustrating if one ends up thinking 'if only they knew more! they just don't have the knowledge!' than to admit many don't want the knowledge and it wouldn't matter how much an individual put themselves out on the front line to 'host' said conversations.

So again, limits; making sure one is not losing one's sense of self by doing more, as if one's own singular effort will be the tipping point, if only one gave more (was more willing to give up that last spoon to some 'greater cause').

Sorry I took a while to reply, I was waiting until my cold had stopped making me feel quite so stupid. Still feeling a bit fuzzy, so my apologies if this is blah.

And it will always be frustrating if one ends up thinking 'if only they knew more! they just don't have the knowledge!' than to admit many don't want the knowledge and it wouldn't matter how much an individual put themselves out on the front line to 'host' said conversations.

This is definitely something I have trouble with. I really like explaining things to people (had my health not interfered I'd likely be a maths lecturer), and have had some really positive experiences explaining social justice stuff to others. But I've also had some very bad ones, and it's always very draining (and thus I really appreciate you spending your own limited forks on me!). I think this conversation has helped me realise that I need to give up on aiming my posts at The Entire World because there's just too many people in that world who will suck me dry.

The whole issue of criticism, critique, community, is incredibly complicated -- I'm thinking of how often people who write reviews of fanfic (or in one notorious case of a a RPG on LJ) are criticized; of how a few years ago, people who wanted to have full fledged literary analysis of fan fics because some of us LOVE doing that, caused major angst and conflict, and none of these even touched particularly on issues of race, disability, class, sexism. But somehow doing any of those instead of just LOVING everything was seen in some ways by some as a betrayal of fandom.

Think of how professional writers who should in theory be well used to negative reviews and criticism fling off their pants and have temper tantrums in public over criticism of constructions of race in their published works.

And Willow makes the very good point that a lot of this work has not been done with regard to source texts (and even then, when done, the attacks on people who point out racism, sexism, ableism, classism in media shows by fans of those shows can be horrific), add in the communal aspect of fandom (which some people translate to "never criticize me"), and......well, it's incredibly hard and painful.

Some of this work cannot be done in public, for multiple reasons.

And...I'm fumbling around.....because I think five years ago I would have loved/leaped on this idea, and I don't want to be a total arrogant ass...I wonder how much of this is going on that people don't realize already, and how much this sort of thing can be well...organized? Planned? I'm sorry, I'm now descending into babbling and wanting to not post, but I will shut up and post!

Those are all very good points. The more I think about it the more I realise it's not just an issue with fanworks fandom it's an issue with people. And that doing it in public is, if not impossible in principle, probably not a good idea for me (and thus I was inspired to expand my circle, making locked posts less private but still not public).

I do get the distinct impression I've just been not noticing/seeing some of this criticism.

As Willow said, smaller things are often talked about, both under flock and in public. But they're smaller, they don't always get a lot of notice. Often they don't ever go beyond one person's flist. If you're talking about discussing smaller fails on your journal, chances are they won't get that much notice, either. (And unless the author is on your flist or you or someone else points it out to them, chances are they will never know.)

I absolutely think you should discuss *isms in fic if you see them and have the energy to do so. And honestly, it doesn't have to be a huge discussion. Just by noting it, you are making people aware of it when they might not have before.

*nods*

Reading people's comments and thinking about it I think I might make more posts locked even though they probably won't get much attention just because that way I KNOW they won't. Because yes, those posts still have value.

A few years back in an attempt to raise the standard of criticism in fandom I organised a Concritathon - like a ficathon, but people signed up to crit one another's fics. It turned out to be very popular and produced some really high class in depth crits (I owe my current brilliant beta to it in fact). The key to its success was that it was voluntary - we weren't picking other people's fics but signing up to receive the crit ourselves first. There were also strict rules that every crit must be constructive criticism (concrit), and hence concentrate on at least two positive things and at least two negative things, and there was a raft of advice for how to interweave the negative and positive so as not to either destroy other people's confidence or artificially boost them. The idea was we were learning together how to crit in order to help one another as writers.

The main problem was it took to much energy for me to organise and I had to abandon an attempt at a second round a year or so later. I also discovered that people are idiots at following complex instructions when they aren't familiar with the format, so they need a lot of hand-holding about exactly what to do. There were also one or two authors who never thanked their critics, which I assume meant either they were just naturally rude or that they had in fact been badly upset by the crit received. In retrospect I would have included something about having to respond to your crit, since that should also be part of the learning process.

So I would suggest that if you did this you should begin by making it a voluntary reciprocal thing, to get the general standard of crit techniques up to a much higher level before you attempt critting wider fandom. At the moment people aren't familiar with the general idea of any concrit, let alone concrit on such a sensitive subject, so you need to start small and with willing volunteers before you work up. You will also need to give a lot of guidance and help for how people should go about their crits and ensure everyone is prepared for the fact that it may not be an entirely pleasant experience. You also will need assistants who can take over the admin when you are too tired, which probably means a community.

Those are good suggestions. I'm not interested in running a comm myself (ack, organisation) but I can see them being helpful for someone who was.

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Discussing problematic fanworks that aren't all bad

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