Question: Does genuine enthusiasm make a difference?

[thelana]

There is usually a lot of talk about why certain characters of color don't get embraced by fandom or don't get embraced by fandom as much as they should. People often try to give explanations or excuses why a particular character didn't explode as much as they should have. Which got me thinking. I was wondering about the opposite case, when a COC

Comments

[kattahj]

*grin* You know, I've been thinking about similar issues lately. Because among CoC there are big gaping holes (like Gus from Psych - main character, nearly no fic), and there are medium-to-small characters with nearly no fic, and characters who have a more or less the amount of fic you'd expect - and the overrepresented ones, like Mohinder. So I thought, if race itself is enough to make certain fans reluctant to write, what about the "good" examples is appealing? (By "good", I mean both the overrepresented ones and the "as could be expected" ones.)

I haven't gotten around to making a post, but during the thinking process I noticed that a vast majority of the positive examples I could think of were Asian (all categories) or Hispanic, rather than black. I haven't finished thinking about the "why" of that yet, nor do I feel it's something I can answer for other people.

Re: what to find in the fics, I've read a fair deal of Matt/Mohinder, and I've found that while fetischization of Mohinder's skin colour in particular isn't that common

[kattahj]

Don't think that needs to be interpreted from a race perspective, since that's basically his characterization on the show.

[kattahj]

I don't entirely agree with that. I think Mohinder on the show is less thoroughly awesome. I mean, I like him, and I obviously think he's gorgeous like whoah, but a lot of fic (not nearly all of it, not even all of it with Matt in that position) seems to treat him more like an idealized image than as a character. I mean, this is ALSO the guy who gave rise to the verb "mohinder" for "doing really stupid things even though you're supposedly smart."

[tiferet]

Uh, Mohinder Suresh does not have the sense to get out of the rain. Not even. Although he's got more common sense than Sylar does, that's not really saying a lot?

[cellshader]

hmm...really astute observations, and I was wondering if you could expand on the cultural influence comments you made, specifically, where do you see examples of people ignoring the background culture, and it having a major effect on the validity of the fic? Because I'm thinking now of mohinder fics I've done and that others have done, where maybe there should be something there about Mohinder's background.

Also, I agree on almost all your points, except that I do believe the majority of Heroes slash fics (particularly mylar) are quite well written. Especially when you look at other fandom (random ie: Cain/Glitch from Tinman).

anyway, thanks for the thoughts! ^_^

[thelana]

Sorry it took me so long to reply I was slightly less computer accessible the last few days.

Personally, I don't think that people have an obligation to write in a lot of cultural background or do a lot of research and I particularly don't think that they are obligated to do better in their fact checking or be more deeply informed than the show portrays the characters.

I was thinking about it mostly in the context of people who are from that culture reading those things and who know what it feels like to be part of that culture and who might pick up on subtilities that a writer has gone wrong that nobody else would pick up on. Culture has a way of defining people. It might be random things like the kind of fairy tales Mohinder grew up with, the kind of movies he watches, the kind of humor he has, the kind of sports he likes, the kind of political opinions he has, the kind of authors he admires, what kind of cultural events he uses as reference points etc. I think the way Mohinder is portrayed on the show itself is probably not

[tiferet]

I'm not a non-white reader, but one of the things that I have done is talk to Indian friends who watch Heroes and asked them to beta for this kind of thing. Of course they are American desis and they always say that they may miss things, but I feel it's better than just throwing in a bunch of stuff from Wikipedia without any knowledge of proper context.

One thing you mentioned though, mean traditional parents--I'm sorry but every Indian friend I have asked has said that it would be very very very unlikely for Mohinder's parents to be other than upset at him choosing to identify as gay and live openly with a male partner. Even if it's not a creepy serial killer

[thelana]

One thing you mentioned though, mean traditional parents--I'm sorry but every Indian friend I have asked has said that it would be very very very unlikely for Mohinder's parents to be other than upset at him choosing to identify as gay and live openly with a male partner.

Oh, I do bet that it's in character or in character enough. I generally think that mean parents are a slash trope that is beloved and people have the wish to write it in because it creates angst, sometimes regardless of whether it would fit into canon. Mohinder just happens to be a case where it fits with canon (though of course I'm sure everybody still has the liberty to write about how much he would care about his parents' disapproval or how much of a role it plays in the story).

I have a friend who's supposed to be writing me one where Molly wants a Christmas tree but of course neither Matt nor Mo know how to do Christmas and there are fights about curry powder in the latkes and what not, but I've been waiting for this kind of fic forever.An Indian friend of

[monimala]

I tend to avoid a lot of Mohinder fic in general, just because I feel like people don't "get" him or his cultural sensibility and he's so often used as half of a pairing. I'm at the point now where I can't read Mohinder/Matt OR Mohinder/Sylar because both set my teeth on edge. The former for being too too precious and the latter for just being insane. Mohinder's more than just pretty and lacking in common sense, but in fandom and fic, I really do feel like he's fetishized for both. The pretty dumb boytoy for X character... which is insulting on so many levels.

[thelana]

Sounds like my blind guessing (I think I can count the amount of Heroes fic on any character or pairing I have read on one hand) was rather on point?

Again, as somebody who has really been only on the outskirts of Heroes I often wondered if getting a second pairing with Matt brought any bonus for him as a character, kinda the way that a profile of a soap character rises if he or she has a bunch of pairing. Kinda with the hope if Mohinder doesn't automatically default to just one guy and be his pretty accessory, that might lead to writers being forced to give his personality more thought. Because now it's a decision between at least two popular options and one has to explain why he would go for one and not the other or why one guy is better for *Mohinder* rather than him just falling at some character's feet without rhyme or reason or characterization.

But it sounds like not too much has changed.

[monimala]

Yeah, I don't know if Mohinder's gotten a bonus or a raised profile because his shippability increased. I think it just means he's in more bad fic. LOL. It implies a bit of putting him everywhere willy-nilly because he's pretty. There's no thought given to HIM but rather to the other character who now "has" him.

[thelana]

Congratulations fandom, you have got... a bottom boy! Join the line of Reid and Spike and Xander and the other crybaby fetishized bottom boys!

We really need some Mohinder meta. Not even culture/race meta, but basic "What is Mohinder doing/thinking" meta.