drive-by linkage
chaila43 has suggested that we should all post awesome things in the month of July to counteract the summer ghost-town feel of the place. I think this is an excellent idea, though unlike Chaila, I don't have much of a backlog list of things I've been thinking of posting about (except my Steerswomen review, which I do still need to get to). Any suggestions? Topics, fannish or perhaps otherwise, that you'd be interested to see me weigh in on?
In the meantime, have links to other people's awesome things:
This has been making the rounds, but in case you've missed it, Lev Grossman has done something I thought I would never see: a balanced, interesting, intelligent, and sympathetic discussion of fanfic in a mainstream media outlet! The Boy Who Lived Forever, in today's issue of Time. I particularly like the emphasis he places on the way love for characters and narrative worlds makes people feel proprietary--whether those people are fans or the original creators of the works. That kind of proprietary love is one of the aspects I've always felt particularly distinguishes fans from people who simply read/watch and enjoy something.
And I admit I don't know anything about Wonder Woman, except that she's the one in the swimsuit, but I nevertheless loved beccatoria's post about the way Wonder Woman is awesome because she makes everyone uncomfortable. There's so much in that post about the feminism(s) and the way we react to different sorts of tropes in our female characters, and really quite fundamentally about how women are in the world. She just exists in this nexus of gender politics both textual and metatextual and is at complete ease with herself, even when we're not, even when we wonder if she should be. Etc. Good stuff if you're interested in female characters (and, frankly, in women), regardless of how whether you know anything about Wonder Woman.
Crossposted from DW, where there are
comments. Comment here or there.
In the meantime, have links to other people's awesome things:
This has been making the rounds, but in case you've missed it, Lev Grossman has done something I thought I would never see: a balanced, interesting, intelligent, and sympathetic discussion of fanfic in a mainstream media outlet! The Boy Who Lived Forever, in today's issue of Time. I particularly like the emphasis he places on the way love for characters and narrative worlds makes people feel proprietary--whether those people are fans or the original creators of the works. That kind of proprietary love is one of the aspects I've always felt particularly distinguishes fans from people who simply read/watch and enjoy something.
And I admit I don't know anything about Wonder Woman, except that she's the one in the swimsuit, but I nevertheless loved beccatoria's post about the way Wonder Woman is awesome because she makes everyone uncomfortable. There's so much in that post about the feminism(s) and the way we react to different sorts of tropes in our female characters, and really quite fundamentally about how women are in the world. She just exists in this nexus of gender politics both textual and metatextual and is at complete ease with herself, even when we're not, even when we wonder if she should be. Etc. Good stuff if you're interested in female characters (and, frankly, in women), regardless of how whether you know anything about Wonder Woman.
Crossposted from DW, where there are
comments. Comment here or there.