Aww, little Merlin fandom. You're having your first wank.
How cute.
I read this post this morning over my first cup of tea.
WTF? How patronising and arrogant can you be?
But then I read more posts here,
here and, here and felt a bit better.
So, here's the deal.
Merlin (the TV show) has flaws. It's not true to the Arthurian legend. It's not historically accurate. It's targeted for a family audience so obviously is is written in a way that kids will get it. The main characters are pretty twentysomethings. If you do not like the show for any of those reasons, that's completely fine with me. I don't like all the shows that my friends like.
What is not fine though is someone telling me I should not like a particular show because it's so "crappy". Oh, and mysoginystic, I forgot to mention that. (Funny that nowhere in the discussion anyone complains about the way Arthur treats Merlin most of the time, which is not very well indeed, but that's presumably ok because you know, Merlin is a man and men deserve to be treated badly). I can decide myself what I like and why I like it, thank you very much. And there is no need for anyone to get on a high horse because I like a "crap" show. Because, actually, most TV shows have flaws. And who gives you the right to judge what people should like and what they shouldn't?
And also: I don't do meta - I saw the expression "source text" for the first time today and wondered what it meant (and I think I figured it out). I think the stuff some people write is fantastic and impressive and smart. But for me, fandom is not about that. For me, it's not about fixing all the issues about gender and race and whathaveyou that we encounter in RL (which is also why I didn't get the noise about Eleven not being black and/or female), but about forgetting about RL and be in a shiny, happy, sparkly, gay place full of pretty young men. Yes, I'm shallow like that. If you don't like that, tough.
Two other things that came up in those discussions:
- People don't like Merlin because the main characters are young. Well, like I said in my recent rant about Eleven - learn to live with it, because we are all getting older, and the sexy new stuff on the telly and in the cinema will continue to have twentysomethings in it. That's the way it is. Get over it. (Or become a perv like me...I'd do Bradley James in a heartbeat)
- People are frustrated about their fandom (SGA, in this case) falling apart. Which is completely understandable. Still does not give them the right to look down on those that have found a new fandom just because they think it is not up to their high standards. In fact I'm wondering if there is some envy here...I've seen it happen in the LOTR fandom where some that had not migrated somewhere else were deliberately trying to spoil the fun of those that had. Well, that's not cool, is it?
Ahh, feeling better now.
I read this post this morning over my first cup of tea.
WTF? How patronising and arrogant can you be?
But then I read more posts here,
here and, here and felt a bit better.
So, here's the deal.
Merlin (the TV show) has flaws. It's not true to the Arthurian legend. It's not historically accurate. It's targeted for a family audience so obviously is is written in a way that kids will get it. The main characters are pretty twentysomethings. If you do not like the show for any of those reasons, that's completely fine with me. I don't like all the shows that my friends like.
What is not fine though is someone telling me I should not like a particular show because it's so "crappy". Oh, and mysoginystic, I forgot to mention that. (Funny that nowhere in the discussion anyone complains about the way Arthur treats Merlin most of the time, which is not very well indeed, but that's presumably ok because you know, Merlin is a man and men deserve to be treated badly). I can decide myself what I like and why I like it, thank you very much. And there is no need for anyone to get on a high horse because I like a "crap" show. Because, actually, most TV shows have flaws. And who gives you the right to judge what people should like and what they shouldn't?
And also: I don't do meta - I saw the expression "source text" for the first time today and wondered what it meant (and I think I figured it out). I think the stuff some people write is fantastic and impressive and smart. But for me, fandom is not about that. For me, it's not about fixing all the issues about gender and race and whathaveyou that we encounter in RL (which is also why I didn't get the noise about Eleven not being black and/or female), but about forgetting about RL and be in a shiny, happy, sparkly, gay place full of pretty young men. Yes, I'm shallow like that. If you don't like that, tough.
Two other things that came up in those discussions:
- People don't like Merlin because the main characters are young. Well, like I said in my recent rant about Eleven - learn to live with it, because we are all getting older, and the sexy new stuff on the telly and in the cinema will continue to have twentysomethings in it. That's the way it is. Get over it. (Or become a perv like me...I'd do Bradley James in a heartbeat)
- People are frustrated about their fandom (SGA, in this case) falling apart. Which is completely understandable. Still does not give them the right to look down on those that have found a new fandom just because they think it is not up to their high standards. In fact I'm wondering if there is some envy here...I've seen it happen in the LOTR fandom where some that had not migrated somewhere else were deliberately trying to spoil the fun of those that had. Well, that's not cool, is it?
Ahh, feeling better now.