majorly annoyed...
Well once again I posted something and wondered why I hadn't heard anything from anyone... was a pretty interesting post about Hollywood and all, but now when I look, its not there...
I'm beginning to hate this.
I'm beginning to hate this.
Followed your disgruntlement ;) over to your own LJ out of curiosity -- and unless you have objections, I'd like to post the link to your first long post in my own LJ. I tried to reply there, but you've got me blocked.
I got a touch of deja vu reading your comments since I was just somewhat in the middle of an ugly, ugly situation. It started with one person expressing her intense distaste to a particular form of 'transgressive' fanfic (in her own LJ)... and then a bunch of trollish types coming in, telling her she didn't know what she was talking about. The next thing you know, she and her fellow archive-members are being characterised as prudish, Victorian and pro-censorship.
My personal objection to the Transgressors (so to speak) is this lack of respect you mention. It's not our sandbox -- we're a strange sort of guests. Writing incest 'fic, no matter how symbolic it alleges to be of... what did that one person call it? An exploration of similarities and parallels or something... it still strikes me as disrespectful of the original material (a juvie series, incidentally). I wasn't able to put my finger on it before, I was too busy swinging a virtual defensive broadsword and got worn out. But I think you've got it exactly.
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As for 'transgressive fic' I have to confess that I am not personally fond of many of these types of stories. Incest 'fic would be right up there in my 'I don't think I'm gonna read THAT one' category too... HOWEVER I am quite willing to let someone else write and read it if that is what they want to do, and as long as they keep in mind they are playing with someone else's 'toys'. If they WANT to write an incest fic then they should at LEAST realize they are altering canon, should at LEAST act somewhat respectful of other's opinions on the subject, and should at LEAST present the work with humility and appropriate warnings.
BUT... and this is what irritates me - it seems that many who write this type of VERY AU Tolkien fic post it without even considering such deference. Perhaps these people feel that because slash, incest, rape and torture is so common in the genre that it has become the norm and they don't have to provide warnings. :rolleyes: Many of them are defiantly arrogant about it too - and I think it is more their apparent attitude that makes me skip over their stories than the stories' content itself.
It doesn't matter one tiny bit what ANY of us write - it doesn’t change the parent material. The canon characters in Tolkien's major work were presented as non-incestuous (except for certain notable exceptions in the Silm) and straight (considering many of them married). It may be the fashionable to detail an incestuous relationship between characters, but once, and with the appropriate humility, it might be AU, daring and exploratory, 50 stories later and with a chip on the author’s shoulder, it is just plain disrespectful.
Ariel
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Oh, where were you, O Voice of Sanity, when I needed to unmuddle my arguments with the decadent and the mistaken?
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Humbly, though...
;)
Ariel
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