Well, it's been a while since I posted publicly on something fan-related, and it figures it would be something shit-stirring to draw me out
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I keep wanting to shake people and say that these things? They are not academic issues! Maybe some people have the privilege to sit in their living rooms and think about it impersonally, but these are things that have a daily effect on others, and it hurts.
Ugh, in this case not even just think about it impersonally, but actively use and exploit it to make her porn seem all deep and shit. It slays me that people actually think this is worthy of applause.
I remember there being some vague discussion just post-9/11 about whether it was tacky as hell or what to write 9/11 fic AT ALL, let alone stories where somebody's OTP was all, "omg, I just saw 9/11 on the news. Let's fuck."
I mean, at the time.... You'd really hope that anybody writing a story involving 9/11 *at all*, you know, would be actually trying to express something that they deeply felt, that *personally affected them* somehow, or trying to work something out through writing-as-therapy, and not just-- I don't know. Using the death of real people as a cheap plot device in your travelogue PWP because mass murder is OOH SO ANGSTY AND DRAMATIC.
"Hey, can you name a place in America that's interesting and dramatic? Manhattan, huh? Anything cool ever happen there? Oooh, like, a couple thousand people died a while back?? That Ground Zero place sounds sooooo angsty! I can totally use that to get my OTP to fuck!"
Yeah, exactly! I was telling someone else this: this is exactly the exercise I went through when I was writing an SPN fic a while back. When I started it I thought it would be Sam/Dean, see, and then I found myself referencing slavery and racism in the South, and I said, nope, there's not gonna be any wincest next to that in my story. And I still felt guilty for even mentioning those subjects in a fanfic, you know?
So to have someone plowing right on ahead with a story like this just takes the cake.
(Which I suppose could get us into a whole other debate about the legitimacy/importance/significance of fanfic as a commentary on or response to RL issues, and from there we could get into fiction as such a commentary...but in this case we're talking about a straight-up excuse for porn and I am just not able to even get into it seriously. Not on that story's behalf.)
erm. hullo (here via the Carnival)bellatrysOctober 25 2007, 18:38:12 UTC
I hesitate to bring this up, because it's not exactly the same, but I was wondering if you've a) read the short story by Geoff Ryman "Pol Pot's Beautiful Daughter," and b) if so, how did it strike you? Because it gave me the same reaction - RPF! + RL atrocity + WAFFiness = Major Squick - while lots of other white readers loved it and found it "deep" and "moving" and expressive of the truth of Cambodian culture - but my connection to Cambodia and Cambodian history is of course not the same as yours (although I do have a tangled, messy, familial-guilt/personal connection of a sort.) So I'm curious if you had any opinions on it
( ... )
Re: erm. hullo (here via the Carnival)hesychasmOctober 27 2007, 13:54:55 UTC
Someone else linked the story as well as an article discussing it -- I don't know if you feel inclined to search through these comments for cryptoxin, but the link to the article will be in one of those. I've downloaded it but haven't had time to read it myself. Not sure how high a priority it should be either, considering.... But thank you for the pointer.
And yeah, I visited the WTC myself after everything, and it was curiosity more than anything else, basically just wanting to witness the space and see the memorials people had left. But even then I felt like it would be skeezy to take pictures of any of it, and I certainly wasn't trying to feel any ghosts. Sigh. I do understand the impulse behind Disaster Tourism, definitely -- I just think we should always be aware of what we're doing (which could be quite different from what we THINK we're doing) and the context surrounding us.
I am not really surprised either. But you would think especially after the round of meta on anti-Semitism and Yuletide and cultural sensitivity, people would put two and two together.
But you would think especially after the round of meta on anti-Semitism and Yuletide and cultural sensitivity, people would put two and two together.
We might hope that was the case, but I suspect we've all be around long enough to know otherwise. I'm really sorry about this, and also feel ashamed and embarrassed that people are offering supportive comments to the poster. I mean, really. Let's go to Auschwitz and fuck -- won't it be romantic, rolling around on the ashy ground?
Thank you for the link. And I'm glad about the discussion people were having in your LJ. It wasn't something I felt up to myself -- too pissed off -- but I do think this is worth talking about in addition to reacting to.
I did see your comment before she screened -- I'd thumbtacked the post -- and I just want to say thank you. Maybe she's been thinking about what you said, maybe other people got to see it too and are thinking about it. But you at least tried and said something, and that could only be of the good.
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I keep wanting to shake people and say that these things? They are not academic issues! Maybe some people have the privilege to sit in their living rooms and think about it impersonally, but these are things that have a daily effect on others, and it hurts.
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I remember there being some vague discussion just post-9/11 about whether it was tacky as hell or what to write 9/11 fic AT ALL, let alone stories where somebody's OTP was all, "omg, I just saw 9/11 on the news. Let's fuck."
I mean, at the time.... You'd really hope that anybody writing a story involving 9/11 *at all*, you know, would be actually trying to express something that they deeply felt, that *personally affected them* somehow, or trying to work something out through writing-as-therapy, and not just-- I don't know. Using the death of real people as a cheap plot device in your travelogue PWP because mass murder is OOH SO ANGSTY AND DRAMATIC.
"Hey, can you name a place in America that's interesting and dramatic? Manhattan, huh? Anything cool ever happen there? Oooh, like, a couple thousand people died a while back?? That Ground Zero place sounds sooooo angsty! I can totally use that to get my OTP to fuck!"
Jesus, people.
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So to have someone plowing right on ahead with a story like this just takes the cake.
(Which I suppose could get us into a whole other debate about the legitimacy/importance/significance of fanfic as a commentary on or response to RL issues, and from there we could get into fiction as such a commentary...but in this case we're talking about a straight-up excuse for porn and I am just not able to even get into it seriously. Not on that story's behalf.)
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And yeah, I visited the WTC myself after everything, and it was curiosity more than anything else, basically just wanting to witness the space and see the memorials people had left. But even then I felt like it would be skeezy to take pictures of any of it, and I certainly wasn't trying to feel any ghosts. Sigh. I do understand the impulse behind Disaster Tourism, definitely -- I just think we should always be aware of what we're doing (which could be quite different from what we THINK we're doing) and the context surrounding us.
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We might hope that was the case, but I suspect we've all be around long enough to know otherwise. I'm really sorry about this, and also feel ashamed and embarrassed that people are offering supportive comments to the poster. I mean, really. Let's go to Auschwitz and fuck -- won't it be romantic, rolling around on the ashy ground?
Argh. I don't even know what to say.
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Seriously. Thank you.
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