The flip side. ("Pickering, why can't a woman be more like a man?")

[bookshop]

Hello to everyone coming over from metafandom!

I am very pleased at the outpouring of response to my post about gay subtext and heteronormativity.

And the thing is, you can't talk about hating the heteronormative tropes of mainstream media without facing up to the fact that having this conversation within the context of slash fandom is, well, profoundly

Comments

[arboretum]

I just wish all the media I consume would do me a favor and write me some women I GENUINELY ADORE

it happens sometimes. Kara Thrace & pretty much all the women on BSG before the show went insane. the women on Friday Night Lights. all the girls in this video game I am playing right now called Persona 4 ahhhh all the amazing girls and women in P4....

but it happens way too rarely. I mean, to tell the truth? I don't really give a crap about Mary in the new Holmes movie. I don't really give a crap about Irene Adler either. sorry!!!!!! I don't dislike them... I just find them wholly uninteresting. and maybe that's because of my own internalized misogyny but maybe a part of it is also because the narratives we are presented with are always ABOUT men. men who are more interesting because they are the ones the stories are about. :( maybe Mary would be interesting if the story actually gave a crap about her and her life and her desires etc etc, but honestly every time she shows up in the movie it's to fuel conflict between Holmes and Watson and/or highlight Holmes' deep relationship w/ Watson, so basically my experience of her is not of her as a person but of her as a prop.

Morgana/Gwen is cute to me but I just can't really get behind it because honestly... Gwen is adorable... but somehow so bland?????? I haven't watched past s1, of course, so granted the show may change, but I never got a sense from her that like. she has goals. or like. that there is ever any internal conflict in her. that she struggles over things. that she has serious problems in her life that she needs to overcome. or whatever! I mean, she is just Nice. that is pretty much all I get from her, and while that's pleasant enough, it's not very interesting to me.

ugh I feel like this is derailing into me trying to justify to you why I don't like the female chars I don't like, which sucks, that's not really where I want to go.

I basically agree with your post entirely & I think we've talked about this before, but I also refuse personally to pretend interest in someone who is not interesting to me, and it feels like 98+% of female characters in popular media today... are not very interesting to me. (which is why of course it's always so refreshing and amazing when I meet one who is interesting to me!)

[bookshop]

Yes. Yes. Yes.

And I almost included a bit about this in my post, about how so often it's *not our fault* because so often the women are written in ways that just promote our rejection of them. But I'm trying, at least in the context of this post, not to use that very real, very unfortunate element, as an excuse for why I, personally, don't write/talk about/engage with women more.

Also: so many of the girls in YA lit are amazing and lovable, and I wish I could carry them around with me and insert them into all my fandoms.

ALSO also i think sometimes we beat ourselves up for not liking characters who we, you know, GENUINELY DON'T LIKE, because it's so hard to reconcile not liking them with knowing how problematic that is. And you just wind up wanting there to be stronger writing, more choices in terms of well-written women in mainstream media, and just feeling frustrated with all of it. But rejecting all your choices the way we always seem to do in slash fandom *can't* keep being the answer. Not if we want to grow or develop into a conscious and *truly* progressive community.

(And I'm not saying that we all do want to grow or develop and really not speaking for anyone except myself, but certainly I would like to see that happen as a collective unit!!)

i'm not actually trying to be obtuse and derail you fjglkdjlkfjglksjdlfg

[arboretum]

hmmm I'm not really trying to deflect blame, I guess, or even make excuses, so much as I am just expressing a long-nursed grudge that I have.... :D

but what exactly do you mean by

But rejecting all your choices the way we always seem to do in slash fandom *can't* keep being the answer. Not if we want to grow or develop into a conscious and *truly* progressive community.

??

like does that mean... you would like us to write Arthur/Gwen or that you would like us to write Gwen/Morgana? that we should do these things, and that that would make us a more progressive community? or are you getting at something else?

also I mean to be honest I find slash fandom pretty problematic and very very unprogressive just IN GENERAL in some of the same ways I find pornography problematic and unprogressive: this shit is enjoyable because it's fantasy, and often if not most of the time, this means a lot of skipping over nuances like does she want this or should we write this or how would people who have been in a real-life situation like this feel upon reading this and getting straight to whatever titillates. and I am not sure I buy that a community based on people's sex fantasies -- which seem by nature to be sometimes dredged up from some of the darker parts of our psyche -- is ever going to be progressive???? like if the community ever became unproblematic, it just wouldn't really be slash fandom anymore.... would it.....

I'm not sure where I'm going with this haha, just that while I can understand coming at slash fandom from a sort of distant academic perspective and saying, "yes, this phenomenon of women writing/drawing/creating sex fantasies about men in contrast to the long tradition of men writing/drawing/creating sex fantasies about women does seem somewhat subversive and empowering!" I'm not sure "subversive and empowering" is a banner I want to be flying over my fic, personally. in fact, I'd rather not fly any banner at all. XD;;

[two_if_by_sea]

because the narratives we are presented with are always ABOUT men. men who are more interesting because they are the ones the stories are about.

I don't have the same lack of interest in female characters that you do, but I agree with this so so so so much.

Also Aja, ♥ AMEN, SISTER.

[arboretum]

dying somehow this makes me sound like such an asshole, hatin' on girls left and right

I TRY TO LIKE FEMALE CHARACTERS I REALLY DO I just sometimes wonder why the onus falls on me to try so hard, god, can't the writers do some of the grunt work for me. XD;;;

[two_if_by_sea]

No no no! I totally know where you're coming from. And then I have the whole debate, like whether or not I am having problems with the women characters (being too Nice or too much of a Mary Sue or being too secondary or whatever) because I'm used to literature being about men, and so when they're not I judge them even more harshly? Or whether it's because they're actually are more boring/less quirky/less lovable than the men in stories. And so I don't know if it's you that needs to try harder or if it is the authors/creators failing us!! It's so hard to choose. That's also why I hate when people say "if so and so character was a male, he would have his own fandom/fanclub/wildly popular ship!" because on the one hand I'm like, "that's totally true!" and on the other hand I'm like that's not true, there's just so many male characters in literature that it seems like they're getting their own fandoms left and right when the fact is...

and since it's you, Eddy, and because I don't think Aja will judge me too much, I feel like I can talk about how in anime, because it's a fandom that historically consists of men objectifying female bodies, I feel like there's a lot more of minor female characters becoming excessively popular. Like, Tsuruya from Haruhi Suzumiya, or how I can like, pornographic fanart of minor K-ON characters. I don't know exactly where this thought is going but maybe that is a similar phenomenon to this whole "girls love boys so we will make a lot of fictional boys and very few (and mostly cookie-cutter) girls in our works". The most obvious example I can think of re: anime is like how in Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, almost all of the named students in Nozomi's class are female. The male characters have very little depth or defining personality traits. They are so bland that most of them could be wiped out completely without the plot of the show changing at all.

[arboretum]

AHHH I have that exact same internal debate. like all the time. "what if I made X character into a boy. would I like him then?? how about if I made Y character into a girl. would I still like her? am I being unfair to X just because she is a girl?" these hypothetical questions are so hard to answer :/

ahahaha yeah I've never entirely understood the Tsuruya phenomenon, but then in general the Haruhi Suzumiya phenomenon has just been COMPLETELY BEYOND ME, like I can't even believe this shit it's so insane. (oh Haruhi :">) I'm curious though if you know the demographics of Haruhi or K-ON fandoms. I have never watched/read (?) K-ON, but I always got the sense that Haruhi was (as opposed to say, Ouran, heh) more of a boys' series, and in fact was introduced to it through my little brother. and so I always feel that Haruhi-related fan-phenomena is more... well, I attribute it more to the male side of fandom.

I have only ever seen one episode of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, so can't comment ahaha, all I remember is that he seems always to be trying to kill himself ♥

[fairestcat]

And then I have the whole debate, like whether or not I am having problems with the women characters (being too Nice or too much of a Mary Sue or being too secondary or whatever) because I'm used to literature being about men, and so when they're not I judge them even more harshly?

I think this is something I definitely see sometimes in fandom and it always frustrates me. There are a lot of popular male characters who are more than a little Mary Sue-ish, but they rarely get called on it the way similarly written female characters sod.

[fairestcat]

female characters do

*facepalm*

[loftily]

Weirdly this is one of the reasons I think GG is so awesome when it's on point, because I genuinely believe Blair, Serena, Lily, and Jenny have the most going on, and Dan and Nate and YES EVEN CHUCK, FANGIRLS, have nothing on them personality-wise, complexity-wise, plot-wise, whatever. And yes, it's a shallow show, Jacob/The Hypermodern recaps notwithstanding, but it is basically a show predominantly about girl culture with really fucking interesting and awesome women in it. (And I'm not saying it isn't mega-problematic and hetero, buuuuut still. I just love BW okay.)

[arboretum]

LOL KARA ♥

ONE DAY I WILL WATCH GOSSIP GIRL

JUST FOR YOU.

[loftily]

This is making me want to make my big post about why I find Jenny so interesting as a character and why her arc is important and how it ties in with Blair and Eleanor vs. Serena and Lily and ideas of family and women/mothers/mentors and uh. STUFF. BUT I AM SURE I NEVER WILL.

Also, for weeks, I have been trying to make a version of Aja's "100 women characters I love" that is like, ten female TV character I love with lots of detail, maybe this will make me finish up.

[arboretum]

hahaha everything you just said about gossip girl went right over my head, but I would love to see that list you are compiling!

[tsuvi]

asdfghjkl; THISTHISTHIS. Please write this, I agree with everything you've said about the leading GG ladies and even though it is a show about a lot of 'material' issues, the characterization and explorations of women and their relationships is really interesting and quite in depth.

/jim in :)

[jianna]

I love Persona 4 and I was so relieved when I found out I could max out the girl's social links without having to SEDUCE them like you had to in Persona 3. Iiiiiccccckkkkk.

Also, I only kinda sorta thought of the main character as a guy since he was so specifically crafted to be a personality-less player surrogate (ie, you give him personality in your actions). Which is also why I can't read any fanfic about Persona 4 with the main character in it.

//derail

[arboretum]

//continues derail!!!

I AGREE COMPLETELY

still not terribly satisfied by the way girls throw themselves at you whether you want them to or not, but at least you-as-protagonist are somewhat less of a creep this time around! man, p3 was so stressful, what with having to date EVERY SINGLE GIRL IN THE GAME. SIMULTANEOUSLY.