I think I could get to like this thing
My first use of 750words culminates in a Harry Potter essay, in which my own tastes are extremely apparent even if my logic is possibly not.
I think there must be a Muggleborn/half-blood culture of bitching about the Purebloods, to counter (and perhaps invigorate) the Purebloods' culture of bitching about the Mudblood immigrant filth. The Purebloods are louder, of course, because they've been in power for a long time and the words of people in power are, curiously, more powerful than those of the lower classes. And those with Muggle blood are, clearly, perceived to be of lower class. (I wouldn't be surprised if the Muggleborn movement coincided with the wizarding Socialist movement, actually.) There probably aren't direct laws against them holding power, because that would definitely push some people over the aggravating-but-not-worth-it line into actual aggression, but I'll bet they have a lot more paperwork to go through than, say, a member of the Black family, and a lot more trouble holding on to what they do get.
We've all been over this, really. I'm just restating it so it stays in the front of your mind.
The Purebloods talk about how Mudbloods are ignorant filth destroying their way of life, how they're not human, how they don't belong in polite (read: wizarding) society. What bigots usually say about immigrants, really. Or almost any marginalized group, but immigrants (and perhaps especially immigrants of colour) are the most direct comparison. In a few years they'll probably be making laws allowing ministry employees to ask for people's wizard papers.
We don't really get to hear the Muggle-born/-raised talking about the purebloods. Even in fic, we tend to hear the Mudblood vs. Pureblood argument as non-Purebloods trying to educate the not-total-bigots, or just putting up with them and trying to ignore it. (In fairness, this is what you do a lot of the time if you're a marginalized group. You want to make the world a better place, but you don't really want to think about ignorant and bigoted speech more than you have to.) But you don't really see the Muggleborns (and god how I hate that word, it's a little haha-funny-sounding thing that dismisses the subject in three different ways at once, and writers don't tend to discuss that either) talking trash about the Purebloods, except for the various comments about inbreeding that pop up all the time. Actually, the inbreeding thing seems to be the only acceptable insult in all of fandom to level at Purebloods. Not a lot of fic about, say, Dean Thomas going "Oh, wizard kids. Oooh, look, I can do maaaagic! I can recite a list of my relatives! I speak terrible Latin and like to mispronounce the names of other people's cultural artifacts! I have a name as long as your arm!"* Which is a real pity, because I'd like to see more of that. People don't just ignore/educate in silence; everyone likes having a safe space where it's okay to talk about and laugh at the oppressor.
Even if you don't see them doing it, though, they must be. Even if there's no fic about it, because that's what you do. Maybe there's no official movement, but there has to be a Mud (thank you,
dolores_crane) counterculture of some kind. Pressure of being in a disliked group will push at least some of that group into a more cohesive community, and when people with one thing in common get together they will tend to talk quite a lot about that thing.
And then, of course, there's spite. Powerful Pureblood wizards hate or are dismissive of Muggle music and Muggle clothes and Muggle writing utensils and Muggle food and Muggle culture in general? Fine. They can go right on hatin'. The Mud Pride people will just go on keeping their cultural traditions the way they always have, and maybe just keep them a whole lot louder.
This probable counterculture is the part of Wizard/Muggle prejudice most fics don't tend to engage with. Right; we've just gone over that. And so I suppose it's only to be expected that the effect which creates the most direct need for a counterculture is usually not discussed either.
It's a big point in both the fanfiction and the books themselves that Muggles and Muggle culture are marginalized and discriminated against. We see this. We see what people do about it. We don't get to see a lot of what people feel about it, how angry and disappointed they are when wizards just don't get it, how the micro-aggressions build up and up and up and eventually they're going to lose their cool and get hurt for it. Not someone crying at home after the fourth "Don't owl us, we'll owl you" in a row.
It just doesn't tend to get dealt with, and I'm not quite sure why. Maybe that's not what most fans want out of Harry Potter fic, I don't know. People do tend to go for the shiny magic and possible romantic relationships. Which is okay! They're fun to write about (or so I assume). Not everyone wants to write issuefic, and certainly not all the time. (Not even me!) And maybe it's ridiculous to get upset about people not writing in-depth enough about a type of discrimination that doesn't actually exist. But I find it frustrating that, out of all the fandoms that bring up and talk about prejudice, fictional or otherwise, this is the one that doesn't engage with people's coping strategies.
*Sometimes I really, really want to write fic that is just Dean and Hermione making fun of wizards.
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I think there must be a Muggleborn/half-blood culture of bitching about the Purebloods, to counter (and perhaps invigorate) the Purebloods' culture of bitching about the Mudblood immigrant filth. The Purebloods are louder, of course, because they've been in power for a long time and the words of people in power are, curiously, more powerful than those of the lower classes. And those with Muggle blood are, clearly, perceived to be of lower class. (I wouldn't be surprised if the Muggleborn movement coincided with the wizarding Socialist movement, actually.) There probably aren't direct laws against them holding power, because that would definitely push some people over the aggravating-but-not-worth-it line into actual aggression, but I'll bet they have a lot more paperwork to go through than, say, a member of the Black family, and a lot more trouble holding on to what they do get.
We've all been over this, really. I'm just restating it so it stays in the front of your mind.
The Purebloods talk about how Mudbloods are ignorant filth destroying their way of life, how they're not human, how they don't belong in polite (read: wizarding) society. What bigots usually say about immigrants, really. Or almost any marginalized group, but immigrants (and perhaps especially immigrants of colour) are the most direct comparison. In a few years they'll probably be making laws allowing ministry employees to ask for people's wizard papers.
We don't really get to hear the Muggle-born/-raised talking about the purebloods. Even in fic, we tend to hear the Mudblood vs. Pureblood argument as non-Purebloods trying to educate the not-total-bigots, or just putting up with them and trying to ignore it. (In fairness, this is what you do a lot of the time if you're a marginalized group. You want to make the world a better place, but you don't really want to think about ignorant and bigoted speech more than you have to.) But you don't really see the Muggleborns (and god how I hate that word, it's a little haha-funny-sounding thing that dismisses the subject in three different ways at once, and writers don't tend to discuss that either) talking trash about the Purebloods, except for the various comments about inbreeding that pop up all the time. Actually, the inbreeding thing seems to be the only acceptable insult in all of fandom to level at Purebloods. Not a lot of fic about, say, Dean Thomas going "Oh, wizard kids. Oooh, look, I can do maaaagic! I can recite a list of my relatives! I speak terrible Latin and like to mispronounce the names of other people's cultural artifacts! I have a name as long as your arm!"* Which is a real pity, because I'd like to see more of that. People don't just ignore/educate in silence; everyone likes having a safe space where it's okay to talk about and laugh at the oppressor.
Even if you don't see them doing it, though, they must be. Even if there's no fic about it, because that's what you do. Maybe there's no official movement, but there has to be a Mud (thank you,
dolores_crane) counterculture of some kind. Pressure of being in a disliked group will push at least some of that group into a more cohesive community, and when people with one thing in common get together they will tend to talk quite a lot about that thing.
And then, of course, there's spite. Powerful Pureblood wizards hate or are dismissive of Muggle music and Muggle clothes and Muggle writing utensils and Muggle food and Muggle culture in general? Fine. They can go right on hatin'. The Mud Pride people will just go on keeping their cultural traditions the way they always have, and maybe just keep them a whole lot louder.
This probable counterculture is the part of Wizard/Muggle prejudice most fics don't tend to engage with. Right; we've just gone over that. And so I suppose it's only to be expected that the effect which creates the most direct need for a counterculture is usually not discussed either.
It's a big point in both the fanfiction and the books themselves that Muggles and Muggle culture are marginalized and discriminated against. We see this. We see what people do about it. We don't get to see a lot of what people feel about it, how angry and disappointed they are when wizards just don't get it, how the micro-aggressions build up and up and up and eventually they're going to lose their cool and get hurt for it. Not someone crying at home after the fourth "Don't owl us, we'll owl you" in a row.
It just doesn't tend to get dealt with, and I'm not quite sure why. Maybe that's not what most fans want out of Harry Potter fic, I don't know. People do tend to go for the shiny magic and possible romantic relationships. Which is okay! They're fun to write about (or so I assume). Not everyone wants to write issuefic, and certainly not all the time. (Not even me!) And maybe it's ridiculous to get upset about people not writing in-depth enough about a type of discrimination that doesn't actually exist. But I find it frustrating that, out of all the fandoms that bring up and talk about prejudice, fictional or otherwise, this is the one that doesn't engage with people's coping strategies.
*Sometimes I really, really want to write fic that is just Dean and Hermione making fun of wizards.
http://esmenet.dreamwidth.org/64366.html |
comments | Feel free to comment at Dreamwidth