Can you enjoy a fandom/show despite its issues?
So recently I put up a link to an essay that I found very interesting, but other people on my f-list found problematic. The situation was kind of lolzy, as in I overreacted because I was afraid I'd hurt feelings all around but everything ended up perfectly okay, but it brought up something that's been bothering me in an oblique way.
Is it okay to enjoy a fandom, or a show, despite 'button' issues (race, gender, etc)?
I'm going to use Supernatural as the vehicle for this discussion, because it's a highly visible fandom with a lot of highly visible problematic 'button' issues in both the fandom and show itself.
Probably the most well-known issue of the fandom is the rampant mistreatment of women. This is prevalent in the fandom (where the most visible quadrant of fandom whines that every woman that appears in the show sucks), and in turn, is prevalent in Show, which seems to react to fandom dislike by killing the characters in question. It has been acknowledged by the actors in question that Castiel survived his original three-episode run because he's a male character who gained instant and massive popularity with the fans; by contrast, Anna, who was originally intended to do a lot of what Castiel ended up doing, was marginalized and eventually devolved to a villian who died ignomoniously the middle of season 5. There's a whole lot of examples of Show killing off women characters, and plenty of examples of the fandom vehemently hating said women.
Slightly less visible is the killing off of characters not of the arian race: Gordon, Hendrikson, etc. I'm less clear on fandom reaction to these characters.
Now, I'm willing - to some degree - to forgive Show because pretty much everyone is being killed off these days, and they sent some of these characters off into the wild blue yonder quite beautifully. Also, Supernatural is somewhat unusual in the incestuous relationship between Show and its fans, what with Kripke being extremely aware of his fanbase and seeming to loathe it for being all girls. (Whoops?) Nonetheless, these issues are frankly inexcusable when taken as a whole, and the fact remains that the four people Most Likely to Survive the Apocalypse are all white males.
On the other hand, there's quite a lot about the show I like! Sometimes it's quite funny, it tells some really good horror stories, the characters are interesting most of the time, and, well, pocket angels Castiel. And the fandom has a lot of aspects that are quite excellent: very good, interesting meta on topics ranging from treatment of women/non-white race/etc to character eating habits, fun picspams, excellently executed fic, and beautiful art.
So, as an active member of the Supernatural fandom and someone who does enjoy viewing the show from week to week, what does this mean about me as a person? Am I tacitly agreeing with everyone who hates women and wants them dead? Does this make me a Neo Nazi? The kneejerk reaction might be 'no' when I frame the question in such an extreme way, but the truth is, I might be. After all, by tuning in and purchasing episodes on Amazon I tell Show that they're doing things just right enough to retain me as an audience member. I am implicitly accepting their misogyny and racism. No matter how vocal I might be on the subject here on the Internet (and I'm not vocal on it, obviously), that has little to no effect on the show itself. You have to hit television in the pocketbook to make it change its course (or, in SPN's case, be on the twop forums!), and that means stop tuning in.
Sometimes I don't notice issues within canon. I'm a white female of basic Western European background living in the priveleged land of America: this is no excuse, but basically, I'm not always of heightened awareness to little or even big race/gender issues in television/anime/movies because I don't encounter such issues regularly IRL. I told it to moonsheen and killyoudead and yoiyami like this: Sometimes, there is a white elephant in the room. And sometimes someone runs into the room and screams, "HOLY COW, A WHITE ELEPHANT!" And I drop my tea and look around going "WHERE!?" Other times - such as in the case of Supernatural - when the person tells me of the presence of the white elephant, I tell them, "Yes, he's not a very good pet, but I let him hang around because I don't know how to get him back out of the room."
Other times someone runs in and screams about the white elephant and I mostly just want to tell them, "Look, it's not an elephant, it's a mouse. Feed it a sunflower seed and get over it." Because sometimes people are just looking for ways to be offended, turning over stones in search of some hidden agenda or coded message in the canon speaking of racism/sexism.
So, discuss? At what point are the issues in a show too big to ignore? Is it as soon as the smallest issue comes up, or is it okay to enjoy a show despite ugly race/gender issues raising their ugly head?
EDIT: I know that the part of the post right after the lj-cut appears to be a broken HTML link, but it's not - it's just LJ being weird because its new code sucks and they should have waited until the kinks were out before introducing it universally oh it seems to have gone away now. On an unrelated note, does anyone else get stack overflows when they try to comment on posts that have a separate link to the comment box?
why do i even talk anymore orz
Is it okay to enjoy a fandom, or a show, despite 'button' issues (race, gender, etc)?
I'm going to use Supernatural as the vehicle for this discussion, because it's a highly visible fandom with a lot of highly visible problematic 'button' issues in both the fandom and show itself.
Probably the most well-known issue of the fandom is the rampant mistreatment of women. This is prevalent in the fandom (where the most visible quadrant of fandom whines that every woman that appears in the show sucks), and in turn, is prevalent in Show, which seems to react to fandom dislike by killing the characters in question. It has been acknowledged by the actors in question that Castiel survived his original three-episode run because he's a male character who gained instant and massive popularity with the fans; by contrast, Anna, who was originally intended to do a lot of what Castiel ended up doing, was marginalized and eventually devolved to a villian who died ignomoniously the middle of season 5. There's a whole lot of examples of Show killing off women characters, and plenty of examples of the fandom vehemently hating said women.
Slightly less visible is the killing off of characters not of the arian race: Gordon, Hendrikson, etc. I'm less clear on fandom reaction to these characters.
Now, I'm willing - to some degree - to forgive Show because pretty much everyone is being killed off these days, and they sent some of these characters off into the wild blue yonder quite beautifully. Also, Supernatural is somewhat unusual in the incestuous relationship between Show and its fans, what with Kripke being extremely aware of his fanbase and seeming to loathe it for being all girls. (Whoops?) Nonetheless, these issues are frankly inexcusable when taken as a whole, and the fact remains that the four people Most Likely to Survive the Apocalypse are all white males.
On the other hand, there's quite a lot about the show I like! Sometimes it's quite funny, it tells some really good horror stories, the characters are interesting most of the time, and, well, pocket angels Castiel. And the fandom has a lot of aspects that are quite excellent: very good, interesting meta on topics ranging from treatment of women/non-white race/etc to character eating habits, fun picspams, excellently executed fic, and beautiful art.
So, as an active member of the Supernatural fandom and someone who does enjoy viewing the show from week to week, what does this mean about me as a person? Am I tacitly agreeing with everyone who hates women and wants them dead? Does this make me a Neo Nazi? The kneejerk reaction might be 'no' when I frame the question in such an extreme way, but the truth is, I might be. After all, by tuning in and purchasing episodes on Amazon I tell Show that they're doing things just right enough to retain me as an audience member. I am implicitly accepting their misogyny and racism. No matter how vocal I might be on the subject here on the Internet (and I'm not vocal on it, obviously), that has little to no effect on the show itself. You have to hit television in the pocketbook to make it change its course (or, in SPN's case, be on the twop forums!), and that means stop tuning in.
Sometimes I don't notice issues within canon. I'm a white female of basic Western European background living in the priveleged land of America: this is no excuse, but basically, I'm not always of heightened awareness to little or even big race/gender issues in television/anime/movies because I don't encounter such issues regularly IRL. I told it to moonsheen and killyoudead and yoiyami like this: Sometimes, there is a white elephant in the room. And sometimes someone runs into the room and screams, "HOLY COW, A WHITE ELEPHANT!" And I drop my tea and look around going "WHERE!?" Other times - such as in the case of Supernatural - when the person tells me of the presence of the white elephant, I tell them, "Yes, he's not a very good pet, but I let him hang around because I don't know how to get him back out of the room."
Other times someone runs in and screams about the white elephant and I mostly just want to tell them, "Look, it's not an elephant, it's a mouse. Feed it a sunflower seed and get over it." Because sometimes people are just looking for ways to be offended, turning over stones in search of some hidden agenda or coded message in the canon speaking of racism/sexism.
So, discuss? At what point are the issues in a show too big to ignore? Is it as soon as the smallest issue comes up, or is it okay to enjoy a show despite ugly race/gender issues raising their ugly head?
EDIT: I know that the part of the post right after the lj-cut appears to be a broken HTML link, but it's not - it's just LJ being weird because its new code sucks and they should have waited until the kinks were out before introducing it universally oh it seems to have gone away now. On an unrelated note, does anyone else get stack overflows when they try to comment on posts that have a separate link to the comment box?
why do i even talk anymore orz