The FedEx arrow and how to deal with it.

[innerbrat]

WARNING: The following post contains abuse of symbolism.

There's a arrow on the FedEx logoIf you don't see it, that's fine. Some people don't do negative space. But I see the damn arrow, I cannot unsee the damn arrow, and I would appreciate it if people didn't accuse me of being some kind of psychotic arrow fetishist, or accuse me of accusing them

Comments

[trelali]

I think this post wins in so many ways.

I'll admit, part of our distance lately has been busy schedules and conflicting periods of awake-time, and part of it has been that your journal features a lot of arrow-illumination lately (or that I'm noticing, I don't know). I'll use SPN as an example because I talk about it so damn much. It's a show I feel strongly about for many different reasons and you've pointed out a few arrows in it that, once I noticed, I can't unnotice. It hasn't ruined the show exactly, but it's brought down my enjoyment of it a fraction or two.

There are arrows there. Once pointed out, I can't un-see them. But I can accept that arrows exist and move on.I have a tendency to enjoy things without looking too hard at them, because what they mean to me personally is so much more important to me than whatever universal message they're putting out. I don't see myself as important enough or influential enough that my personal opinion on something will make or break it. So to have arrows pointed out (assuming I don'

[innerbrat]

I accept your apology fully.

I think I have been talking about arrows for a long time, but it's only with SPN that I've been talking about arrows in a fandom we share, and the arrows in SPN are very glaring ones (for me).

I also thought I detected some distance, and worried it was about things more than this, so I'm glad it is just an arrow thing, if that makes sense?
ANYWAY, I accept your apology and thank you for commenting. I'm also sorry for being annoying. I do need to bear in mind what I've said here and learn to not attack people with arrows.

(I'm trying to practice Right Speech, and it's HARD.)

[trelali]

I think the only reason it bothers me with SPN (because, actually, I was there for arrow discussion of Dark Knight and Watchmen, which are both movies I adore) is because the issues SPN touches on are issues that hit really close to home with me. If you ever read my episode commentaries (and I totally understand if you don't), I get really absorbed into the show in a way that I'm honestly quite uncomfortable with. But because the issues it addresses are so important to me, I can't just quit watching. So to have all these things upsetting me that the creators are actually making an effort to portray, and then find out about all these other little things that may or may not have been intentionally inserted into the show is even worse. Because the issues I saw before were personal and upsetting for their enlightening qualities, whereas the arrows are just hurtful and biased and ugly

[innerbrat]

The only reason I don't read SPN commentaries is if they're written before I watch the episode; I don't go back looking for them. This is more often than not the case with your commentaries, is all.

Actually, what you say makes a lot of sense, given the investment you have with the characters - something I can relate to with other characters. So to have all these things upsetting me that the creators are actually making an effort to portray, and then find out about all these other little things that may or may not have been intentionally inserted into the show is even worse. Because the issues I saw before were personal and upsetting for their enlightening qualities, whereas the arrows are just hurtful and biased and ugly.
Well put, thank you.

Anyway, I'm crazy fond of you, as I'm sure you know, and I hope the you-crap comes to a resolution, not just a collision. I'm always on email if you need me <3.

[pmoodie]

Excellent post!

I see some arrows, but others have to be pointed out to me. It's never a good feeling to have something like a racist/sexist subtext pointed out in a piece of entertainmnet that I've enjoyed, but I try not to let that cloud my perceptions.

It creates a dilemma. How do I reconcile my enjoyment of something that may have a message that I disagree with vehemently? For example, I enjoy the work of HP Lovecraft and Robert E Howard, and both wrote stories crammed with racism and sexism that make me cringe. But the stories themselves are superb examples of horror and fantasy pulp. I suppose the one that I wrestle with most is - are the stories good in spite of their creators' ugly world-view, or because of it?

[innerbrat]

If an element to a story you like makes you cringe in a not-good way, and you enjoy the rest of the story, I'd venture to say that's 'in spite'. If you enjoy even those bits, then the line blurs more, but it's possible it doesn't even matter.

I let the reconciliation just happen. I explain away the race issues of Conan Doyle as being a Product of that Time - not repeatable, but not hindering my enjoyment of the book. The race/gender issues in Supernatural do hinder my enjoyment of the show, so I may comment on them or ignore them and get on with watching. The gender issues in one of my comics titles is enough to get me to abandon the title. I think it depends on the work in question, but the reconciliation is personal.

[pmoodie]

Yeah, the "Product of that Time" defense is handy when talking about older fictional works, but it often feels like a bit of a cop-out to me. Even in less "enlightened" times than ours, there were progressive thinkers who chose not to perpetuate prejudice. If they could manage that, then what's the excuse for those who didn't?

With Lovecraft, I do believe his "skewed" world-view informed his writing, and that's what gives it a lot of it's power. He is an example of a writer whose work is a clear product of his personality, warts and all. Not that being an artist should be some kind of license to be a horrible human being!

[nellorat]

I think you're somewhat right about HPL, but I think still enjoying his fiction is easier than with some authors, because it's relatively easy to see it as about his fear of certain things, rather that as saying that those things are inherently fearful. It's very sad and/or repugnant that he felt that way, but the fiction is all about his feelings and so easier to dismiss as a statement about reality. Anyway, the style helps me take it this way, and so does the demonization of many things I can't even imagine being frightening (fish? tentacles? nom nom nom!).

[catalyst2]

I just couldn't spot the FedEx arrow, no matter how hard I looked and then there was that little outline of where it was. Then (and only then) I could see it. And I think I have universal arrow blindness or something because I never seem to see those other arrows, never until someone draws another one of those "little outlines" again

[gao]

Here's something funny:

I recently 'saw an arrow' in a story I'm telling. Mostly in things that are planned and aren't happening yet, and I'm now scrambling to shift things around a bit. But the thing is--it made me realize how easy it is for unfortunate implications to sneak in, or for a useful symbolic binary to get out of control and take on the appearance of a statement about the symbol that drowns out your actual message.

I don't know, that may be opaque. Maybe I'll come back to this topic once everything is played out and I have a sense of if I managed to sort things out satisfactorily or not.

[buongiornodaisy]

I may have to link to his post in this thread.

[innerbrat]

Oh! Please do so if it'll help!

[buongiornodaisy]

There's another thread in that forum that I started about racism in Lost. If that pops back up I'll link this post there, too.

[buongiornodaisy]

Of course when I say that and check the form, look, there it is! lol