Today's rant
Fandoms can be very frustrating, as we all know. Unless you find a very special safe haven where intelligent discussions can be had, you're going to get depressed and angry all the time. Art may be subjective and open to interpretation, but as you venture into online discussions of popular TV shows, books and movies, chances are that you're going to come across a great deal of absurd opinions and blatant Point-Missing. Chances are you'll also find a great deal of sexism and misogyny, including the extreme privileging of the male character's POV, and the vilification of female characters, going together with the idealization and saintification of the male characters. This in particularly tends to happen once you come anywhere near the rampant shipping or slashing... which means, in pretty much every fandom.
I'm not that surprised when this happens in fandoms of TV shows that are focused on male characters or where fans are obsessed with slashing the male characters and therefore treat the female characters as threats. But what is particularly irritating is when this kind of thing permeates fandoms of franchises based around an amazing, strong heroine, especially when shipping starts taking everything. Now, don't misunderstand me. There's nothing wrong with shipping. I ship, too, in the sense that I am more invested in some fictional relationships than other, or prefer one relationship to another. Where it all becomes infuriating is a particular type of "shipper" war that is all about squeeing over the male characters and privileging their POV, even if their function in the story is just that of a love interest (or a quasi love interest), while the heroine is treated as a trophy for one's Favorite Guy. This kind of shipping isn't about relationship at all, since many fans don't care about things like, how these two people function together, or what their story is about, and it's not unusual to see "shippers" who hate the female character, but just want Their Guy to be rewarded. Or they're furious because this female obviously doesn't deserve Their Guy, since she committed the grave sin of not falling into his arms the moment he showed an interest in her and proclaiming eternal love and commitment the very moment, realizing just how incredibly awesome he is (the way that I, Mary Sue, would do, if I only had the chance to insert myself into the fictional narrative).
I wonder when and where it all started. Was it with the Buffy fandom? Somewhere along the way, Twilight fandom came along and introduced the concept of "Team [insert favorite male character]". I hate that term with the burning passion of thousand suns... But on the other hand, maybe it's just a sign of fans being more honest these days about the fact that all they're interested about is a competition between hot guys for the hand (or in modern terms: heart, vagina) of a Trophy Girl. But Twilight is all about this; however, the term has meanwhile spread like cancer across fandoms and media.
However, flip the genders, and... no, there is no equivalent. I'm not well versed in Smallville fandom, but somehow I doubt that there are "Team Chloe", "Team Lana", "Team Lois" etc. there, or that there's is a lot of rampant hatred for Clark Kent for supposedly "stringing along" various girls.
Don't get me started on the blatant double standards about how male and female heroes are treated. Heroines aren't allowed to have flaws, or they'll be exaggerated beyond all measure (but then again, if they don't have flaws, they're called Mary Sues, so... Catch 22). Or at least if they're flawed, they have to be so in a cutesy way. Here's what I've learned since making the mistake of randomly reading reviews or discussions of the Hunger Games trilogy outside the confines of places like the journals of my LJ feminist friends (and I'm not talking about teenagers on Youtube, but places from Amazon and Goodreads reviews, Buffyforums, or even articles in sites like I09), apart from the fact that Internet is full of reading comprehension fail and Hamnoo?opinions: If you're a woman, the biggest crime you can commit is to not have a sweet, bubbly, please-like-me personality, and to be emotionally guarded. The things that would make a male character adored, like being brave, compassionate, protective, self-sacrificial, won't save you from being judged as a cold, selfish sociopath incapable of love. It's also perfectly possible to be a complete user who doesn't love someone at all, while you're literally trying to give your life for theirs. Apparently, this makes some kind of sense that's not, to someone.
And I thought that the Buffy fandom was bad.
Going back to what I previously said about the focus on shipping wars: the bashing of female characters is very often based on the Nice Guy (TM) attitudes among fans (even though many of those fans are female). I get startled by the sheer amount of rants at female characters for failing to fall in love with this or that guy (He loves her so much, poor guy!); or for failing to Prove their Love sufficiently, according to the fans in question (e.g. you didn't fall in love with Awesome Guy the very moment he showed any interest in you, give him a bunch of romantic proclamation and promise him longtime commitment ASAP? Fail.).
That motivational poster with the line "Girls are not machines you put kindness coins into until sex falls out" needs to be posted everywhere.
Speaking of which... To end the rant, let's have a good laugh. I want to share this Hunger Games parody video I've just discovered (an 'alternative version' of the Gale/Katniss scene where they say goodbye- even though it was posted in February) cracks me up literally every time. The only thing that's almost as funny is how many people didn't immediately realize it was a parody rather than a clip from the movie. . :D (Then again, it's not that far off the actual text...)
I'm not that surprised when this happens in fandoms of TV shows that are focused on male characters or where fans are obsessed with slashing the male characters and therefore treat the female characters as threats. But what is particularly irritating is when this kind of thing permeates fandoms of franchises based around an amazing, strong heroine, especially when shipping starts taking everything. Now, don't misunderstand me. There's nothing wrong with shipping. I ship, too, in the sense that I am more invested in some fictional relationships than other, or prefer one relationship to another. Where it all becomes infuriating is a particular type of "shipper" war that is all about squeeing over the male characters and privileging their POV, even if their function in the story is just that of a love interest (or a quasi love interest), while the heroine is treated as a trophy for one's Favorite Guy. This kind of shipping isn't about relationship at all, since many fans don't care about things like, how these two people function together, or what their story is about, and it's not unusual to see "shippers" who hate the female character, but just want Their Guy to be rewarded. Or they're furious because this female obviously doesn't deserve Their Guy, since she committed the grave sin of not falling into his arms the moment he showed an interest in her and proclaiming eternal love and commitment the very moment, realizing just how incredibly awesome he is (the way that I, Mary Sue, would do, if I only had the chance to insert myself into the fictional narrative).
I wonder when and where it all started. Was it with the Buffy fandom? Somewhere along the way, Twilight fandom came along and introduced the concept of "Team [insert favorite male character]". I hate that term with the burning passion of thousand suns... But on the other hand, maybe it's just a sign of fans being more honest these days about the fact that all they're interested about is a competition between hot guys for the hand (or in modern terms: heart, vagina) of a Trophy Girl. But Twilight is all about this; however, the term has meanwhile spread like cancer across fandoms and media.
However, flip the genders, and... no, there is no equivalent. I'm not well versed in Smallville fandom, but somehow I doubt that there are "Team Chloe", "Team Lana", "Team Lois" etc. there, or that there's is a lot of rampant hatred for Clark Kent for supposedly "stringing along" various girls.
Don't get me started on the blatant double standards about how male and female heroes are treated. Heroines aren't allowed to have flaws, or they'll be exaggerated beyond all measure (but then again, if they don't have flaws, they're called Mary Sues, so... Catch 22). Or at least if they're flawed, they have to be so in a cutesy way. Here's what I've learned since making the mistake of randomly reading reviews or discussions of the Hunger Games trilogy outside the confines of places like the journals of my LJ feminist friends (and I'm not talking about teenagers on Youtube, but places from Amazon and Goodreads reviews, Buffyforums, or even articles in sites like I09), apart from the fact that Internet is full of reading comprehension fail and Hamnoo?opinions: If you're a woman, the biggest crime you can commit is to not have a sweet, bubbly, please-like-me personality, and to be emotionally guarded. The things that would make a male character adored, like being brave, compassionate, protective, self-sacrificial, won't save you from being judged as a cold, selfish sociopath incapable of love. It's also perfectly possible to be a complete user who doesn't love someone at all, while you're literally trying to give your life for theirs. Apparently, this makes some kind of sense that's not, to someone.
And I thought that the Buffy fandom was bad.
Going back to what I previously said about the focus on shipping wars: the bashing of female characters is very often based on the Nice Guy (TM) attitudes among fans (even though many of those fans are female). I get startled by the sheer amount of rants at female characters for failing to fall in love with this or that guy (He loves her so much, poor guy!); or for failing to Prove their Love sufficiently, according to the fans in question (e.g. you didn't fall in love with Awesome Guy the very moment he showed any interest in you, give him a bunch of romantic proclamation and promise him longtime commitment ASAP? Fail.).
That motivational poster with the line "Girls are not machines you put kindness coins into until sex falls out" needs to be posted everywhere.
Speaking of which... To end the rant, let's have a good laugh. I want to share this Hunger Games parody video I've just discovered (an 'alternative version' of the Gale/Katniss scene where they say goodbye- even though it was posted in February) cracks me up literally every time. The only thing that's almost as funny is how many people didn't immediately realize it was a parody rather than a clip from the movie. . :D (Then again, it's not that far off the actual text...)
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