2015 Fandom Year in Review

[pocochina]

Happy new year, everyone!

I'm slowly catching up on fandom reading and comments. My old laptop recently sad-tromboned its way into obsolescence (tbh it was obsolete LONG before that but I put things off) and now I'm more or less adjusted to the new one. Before that, though, the annual retrospective:

Comments

[sunclouds33]

Oooh, Rome! Are you finished? How do you like it? It's one of my favorites- but I've been burned before on reccing it to one set of grandparents (who thought it was perverse even though my great-uncle on that side of the family counted it as his favorite show going) and a friend who majored in Classics in college (who resented the historical inaccuracies and soapiness, even though chick recommend *I Claudius* which was good but so 1970s cheap looking and soapy).

I've also watched/been watching Jessica Jones (good but overrated), Mr. Robot (pretty good), Show Me A Hero (slow-burning but excellent), Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (actually *underrated*, even though I took some eps to get into it) and UnREAL (my favorite of this bunch and IMO, the most the long-term potential for compelling arcs and twisty stories.)

Very cool parallel with Jon Snow and Cersei in the finale. Must think more about that.

I had a similar reaction to Supergirl based on the promos. Then, I got hit in the face with reviews/gifs accusing anyone with an instinctive dislike to the promos of inner sexism so I felt the preemptive guilt- but then, I read the reviews/gifs selling/defending the show a little closely....and still felt turned off. So I haven't really wanted to try it- and every histrionic post about the confirms my beliefs.

[pocochina]

Rome is really good! +1 on your recommendation track record. I'm about four episodes into the second season.

I got hit in the face with reviews/gifs accusing anyone with an instinctive dislike to the promos of inner sexism so I felt the preemptive guilt- but then, I read the reviews/gifs selling/defending the show a little closely....and still felt turned off. So I haven't really wanted to try it- and every histrionic post about the confirms my beliefs.

ahahaha. Like, it's perfectly calculated to enable fandom fauxmenism:

Kara: It's just, uh... A female superhero. Shouldn't she be called Super... woman?
Cat: I'm sorry, darling, I just can't hear you over the loud color of your cheap pants.[1]
Kara: If we call her "Supergirl", something less than what she is, doesn't that make us guilty of, of being anti-feminist?[2] Didn't you say she's the hero?
Cat: *I'm* the hero. I stuck a label on the side of the girl. I branded her. She will forever be linked to CatCo, to the Tribune, to me.[3] And what do you think is so bad about "Girl?"[4] Huh? I'm a girl.[5] And your boss, and powerful, and rich, and hot and smart. So if you perceive "Supergirl" as anything less than excellent, isn't the real problem you?[6]

[1] The "cheap pants" kind of presentation-based bitchiness can be funny, when it's used between two peers (people who aren't wearing cheap clothes because they have to) or by someone who's systemically penalized for their gender performance, and so forth. But it's not funny for someone in a position of power to engage in gender-policing. Sniping about clothing in the workplace, as long as the clothing is workplace appropriate, is not acceptable, ESPECIALLY not from a boss to a low-level employee. Don't like her cheap pants? PAY HER MORE, jackass.

[2] uh. Yes. Case closed.

[3] See, at this point it could have stopped and I'd have been okay with it. Gross sexism does bring in the $$$.

[4] Like. That's what we say when "girl" is negatively contrasted to "boy." Perfectly slippery appropriation of feminist language.

[5] No, you're not. You're forty.

[6] ARGH, and this is what stuck with people! Wooo, EMPOWERING!!

[sunclouds33]

Yay for Rome! Yup, I've been so burned by people not taking my recommendation that I'm stuck saying "GOOD BREAD THIS!" or "It's hotter than Vulcan's dick!" or "I could have had half the whores for Nabo for that price...AND THEIR MOTHERS" or "It's only hubris if I fail" or "I didn't know he existed...until he didn't" or "A large penis always welcome" and no one knowing WTF I'm talking about. Really for a show about ancient Rome, it's very applicable to how I see the modern world.

But seriously, based on Game of Thrones nonsense, I'm almost glad that Rome never caught onto fandom and I didn't have to suffer through fandoms' "Sunday school abolitions against salty language and grisly historical reality = feminism and moral virtue." Do you have a favorite character? I really can't choose. Atea, Ceasar, Octavian, Marc Antony, Pullo, Lucius Vorenus, and Servillia are basically tied for first! Everyone else is basically an honorable mention.

Speaking on the Sunday schoolness of fandom, I feel like that's why Supergirl took off, based on how I hear it described. "Girl" is a G-rated word while "You want a bad girl but you need a bad pussy" is totally R-rated, but based on that exchange you quoted, I'd rather experience R-rated phrases as a fact of life than being preached how I must want specific G-rated words to describe myself.

[pocochina]

I don't think I do have a standout favorite, exactly. Caesar and Servilia are pretty great, I always enjoy a good megalomaniac. I also tend to feel for Octavia, even though she's basically the polar opposite of those two. Like, not everyone in a particular orbit can be a ~hard-bitten player. Some people just are tragically susceptible.

Come to think of it, I might have paused in my watch of the show because I was reading The Assassination of Julius Caesar and it was a little weird to have the two takes on him in my head.

I'd rather experience R-rated phrases as a fact of life than being preached how I must want specific G-rated words to describe myself.

LOL, exactly. I feel like over the last couple of years fandom's gotten very loud about insisting that ~realism doesn't have to be grim~ and ~complexity doesn't have to be dark~ and blah blah blah.....but it will gleefully laud cotton candy simplicity which somehow manages to be both banal and offensive as morally superior to messy, difficult humanism every time.

[sunclouds33]

I love Octavia too.

Atea: Castor, be sure to cut Octavia's throat before you cut mine.
Octavia: Please, Castor, let Mother do it. I won't deny her one last pleasure. It would be undaughterly.

Or her FACE when Octavian declares, "And now the price. Maybe you'll renew your strange interest in Caesar's health" after he's gotten his fantasy of sex with her but he's already chess-mapped what her pillow talk is going to be. Octavian knows that it's dangerous pillow talk- but it's nothing that he can't handle AND get the incest sex.

But yeah, Octavia isn't even THAT vulnerable as a human being. She has lots of strengths and she's not especially squishy. She just wants healthy loving honest relationships more than political backbiting or fun with murder. That healthiness (along with her qualities as a marital chesspiece as a young highborn woman) renders her a "weakling" among their set.

LOL, exactly. I feel like over the last couple of years fandom's gotten very loud about insisting that ~realism doesn't have to be grim~ and ~complexity doesn't have to be dark~ and blah blah blah.....but it will gleefully laud cotton candy simplicity which somehow manages to be both banal and offensive as morally superior to messy, difficult humanism every time.

Ick. I feel like this ~realism doesn't have to be grim~ and ~complexity doesn't have to be dark~ is the much-rebelogged starting position but the long-con among distressingly too many is to de-legitimize any fan who loves the controversial characters, the characters who aren't always pre-determined as the Hero. Because if someone can write a list of their Problematic Actions and they're not even notably interesting or realistic because of it, than any fan of theirs must not have their head screwed on right. These Pollyanna generalizations so fucking phony.