Pondering on reviews and viewpoints
I've commented there - and keep meaning to go back now that I'm not whipping through my flist in a Stratford cafe; I will be soon, promise, Karen - but wanted to bring this to my LJ for some more pondering out loud.
[R]eviews are completely and utterly subjective. That in almost every case, a review isn't about what's being reviewed, it's about ( Read more... )
[R]eviews are completely and utterly subjective. That in almost every case, a review isn't about what's being reviewed, it's about ( Read more... )
Yes, to the wierdass stuff that sticks out in multiple lumps, and authors not being self-aware enough - or just *aware*, period - to realize what this says about the Monsters from their own Ids; a *lot* of my own coming-to-feminist/social consciousness process was the effort of trying to write a Very Long Fantasy Novel, and realizing that I simply didn't know how to write a heroine who wasn't a neurotic mess, because I had virtually no real-life female role models who weren't, once I got to know them under their facades, and I didn't know how to write a love story, because I'd never seen anything remotely resembling actual, you know, affection between equals among adults of the opposite sex, IRL either.
So I'd keep catching myself writing these dysfunctional setups - Hero saves Heroine, so now she has to reward him with her love - wait, WTF, I don't believe this! I don't think I *owe* any guy anything for doing the bare minimal Decent Human Being thing, - so why am I writing it? Which is what I mean when I say that authors have the primary responsibility to be *honest* and to write truth, even in their fiction - you can have mad scientists riding blue unicorns on the plains of Mars and I won't blink if you do it *plausibly*, but you better write what you really believe about sentient relationships for them, not just regurgitate the Narratives - and what you believe may be f'd up beyond belief. And figuring *that* out can be a very chagrinning process, esp if someone else catches it in your writing and you missed it when you were letting it all flow out.
And granted, a reader may miss Irony, and consciously-arch and mocking subversion - I see it a lot with modern readers reading pre-1900s stuff - but sometimes it really isn't that complicated. If all your wilfully unmarried/childless female characters are EBOL or Hapless Wrecks To Be Pitied, and *all* your supposedly-strong female charas are feckless dolts in need of rescue by Big Strong Men - yes, I'm looking at you, Barbara Michaels - then you, ma'am or sir, have Sexist Issues in lumps.
what filters are the authors missing to suggest that this rampant misogyny is acceptable?
And their editors! And the other reviewers! And I'm sure these folks all shave and shower and look like sane, normal human beings, and act "nice" to women in public places.
Reply
Leave a comment