Some things really do Require Only Hate
Two posts today with a similar theme came to my attention. One by Ferrett Steinmetz suggests that antipathy toward Twilight and Justin Bieber is due to deep-rooted misogyny. The other, by Jason Sandford suggests that the popular genre of paranormal romance is being suppressed via "false categorization."
Both authors are male writers of short stories. Ferrett was also the chief propagandist of the ill-fated open source boob project. This will actually be important later.
First, yes, of course, anything women like is disparaged. I've defended Twilight on a few grounds-against liberal "moral panics", and as a positive example of work that actually digs into the teen female id as opposed to using women as objects of desire for the male id. This past weekend at FOGcon, at the Our Monsters, Ourselves panel, I challenged the moderator who used Stephen King's old line comparing Harry Potter and Twilight. You know, "Harry Potter is all about confronting fears, finding inner strength, and doing what is right in the face of adversity. Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend." So is Carrie, I said. A lot of the antipathy toward Twilight within organized SF fandom and the lower ranks of prodom is due to the popularity of the series and the fact that and its author came out of nowhere to make a hundred million bucks. It's true. I said that as well.
But, of course, the books are deeply terrible and are also utterly ubiquitous. They are jokes because they are too horrid to be anything else and because we cannot escape them. I literally cannot walk a mile in any direction from my home without running into a Twilight-branded product or poster. Steinmetz stacks the deck by claiming that people love equally silly male power fantasies like Batman and don't face mockery, and that such masculine entertainments like Insane Clown Posse aren't mocked as much as Bieber. When folks in the comments section of the livejournal version of his post make a quality argument, he retreats in radical subjectivity (not good for a writer, btw!) and when people mention other work not so disparaged he insists that's because they're not as popular. So, the reason Twilight is so unpopular is because it's...popular.
He also stacks the deck when it comes to boy stuff, mostly mentioning B-level material like The Transporter or Insane Clown Posse. Conspicuous by its absence is any discussion of Transformers, which is clearly boy stuff and is clearly (and rightly) scorned. The movies are scorned. Long-time fanboys and both their complaints about, love of, and defensiveness surrounding the films are scorned. Michael Bay is scorned-he is, save Uwe Boll, the biggest joke in the whole world of sci-fi film. And all these things are scorned as they should be.
Then there's Batman. Batman isn't even a teen boy fantasy anymore-little kiddies watch the cartoons, and grown-ups watch the Nolan films as a summertime spectacle, but teen boys aren't into Batman or even American comics. Who is into Batman, who really is invested in Batman being "most bad-ass, smartest guy in the world"?
Dudes about Ferrett's age, or mine. Comic Book Guys. Neckbeards. The saddest social misfits in the universe. Of course these folks are roundly scorned-and please, continue! Even overly macho police officers and soldiers are occasionally mocked by their comrades and colleagues with one of two disparaging nicknames. "Cowboy" is one. The other? "Batman." Batman is stupid. Males over the age of eight who are very into Batman are horrifying nerds who are virtually barred from the gene pool thanks to universal social agreement. If you're surrounded by people who think Batman is awesome and mainstream, get out more! You're probably stuck in the armpit of fandom!
In the end, Ferrett's argument gives Twilight's own misogyny a pass, and gives the entire corporate structure that plastered the thing before our eyes in every direction a pass as well. There is a reason many Twilight-haters are women, and it's not because they're all self-loathing. In the end, I can't help but think back to the Open Source Boob project. To paraphrase the female friend who showed me Ferrett's essay this morning. Back then: either women wanted to be asked repeatedly if they wished to join the Titty Honk List or they were against open and free sexuality. (I should note that it is my understanding that Ferrett completely regrets and disavows the OSB project.) Now: women have to sign up with the "I'll bring my baby to term even if it kills me, then my ex-boyfriend gets it as he deserves some pussy that smells like me too" books or they hate themselves and all other women.
What can one say to that except, "No." People are allowed to not like Twilight, and yes, to think it is actually factually bad. There is plenty to dislike about it. (For one thing, it works to ruin another female power fantasy of long-standing, specifically the darker and more threatening vampire, and the fantasy of fighting/matching him. Women fighting Ferrett considers a male fantasy.)
Moving on to Sanford's piece defending paranormal romance (in which he includes Twilight and also the Sookie Stackhouse books), he actually cites Joanna Russ who, in her book How to Suppress Women's Writing describes "false categorization." The methods of false categorization as described by Russ included conflating a woman's accomplishments with a man's (a collaboration between the two becomes the woman simply assisting the man) or pushing a woman's work into a category to which it does not belong. Thus, Willa Cather is a regionalist, but Faulkner is not. This leads to the work being suppressed as it is not distributed so widely nor is it talked about as often.
That doesn't seem to be what's happening with paranormal romance at all. I don't see too many authors chafing at the categorization, and the examples used in Sanford's essay-two book series with millions of sales and successful film and television version-are not being suppressed in any way. One of Sanford's sources states that books are being shoved into the genre so they WILL sell-Russ's argument is literally the exact opposite! Women's work is often shoved into categories where it will NOT sell. It is useful to compare this essay to Meg Wolitzer's essay on "women's fiction", because in Woltizer's there are actual examples of false categorization. Fiction by women ends up being considered "women's fiction"-and many female authors DO chafe at this-and as such is given less of a chance in either the marketplace or among critics than is thematically similar fiction by men.
Paranormal romance isn't experiencing false categorization, certainly not in the marketplace, and not critically either-if only because were PR more fully integrated into either fantasy or romance, it would still be in a suspect category. (Just ones that don't sell as well as PR.)
What's happening is that some people, and some critics, don't like some examples of the stuff. No surprise there-most very very popular material is critically maligned, and often because it is awful. There is such a thing as a lowest common denominator when it comes to mass culture, really. And yes, there is special suspicion of anything well-liked by women, and of anything well-liked at all, but Sanford's essay only manages to quote a single movie review from the New York Times, and a single unnamed fan. It would be easy enough to demonstrate equal Times disparagement of the very male The Game of Thrones and its ostensible female audience. And no work has ever been suppressed because con-going fandom doesn't like it. Indeed, an author should worry when the con-going fans are her main audience.
In the end, what I see is a weird insistence that nobody is allowed to dislike that which is already popular. That way lies madness. It's no surprise to me that both authors are male writers of science fiction and fantasy short stories. There's an ideology of popularity as quality within SF-aren't the "best" stories naturally published in the most popular magazines? Isn't the popular-vote Hugo the "most prestigious" award? There's an utterly bizarre notion of whose opinions are important (dopey fans, online wankers), which leads to the insistence that cultural ubiquity is concurrent with cultural marginalization. We should all be so marginalized.
And finally, there is an element of being on the outside looking in. SF short stories generally have a readership somewhere between the low-four and mid-five digits. Maybe high-five if a story is anthologized. Nobody cares about short fiction. Nobody will ever get rich thanks to it, or get a giant movie out of it, or nail polish made from it. Which means that by the formula of quality=popularity, short story writers write the worst stuff. Plenty of folks stop writing stories when they start selling novels, and not only because they're too busy or make too much money per-keystroke working in long form. It's because short fiction is the pits, a chore to do to get taken "seriously." (By whom? The neckbeards of con-going fandom!) I'm not saying that Ferrett and Jason feel this way, but that the feeling is a part of the atmosphere of the hardcore of the SF community. It does have an influence on people. I smell it in these essays. One is reminded of poor monarchists-sure, they're starving, but isn't the coach and crown of the King magnificent? Don't you dare say otherwise!
I say that it's okay to hate the king. It's even okay to hate the queen. Honestly, once one gets over one's own neckbeard social fallacies, it's pretty easy to hate the king.
Both authors are male writers of short stories. Ferrett was also the chief propagandist of the ill-fated open source boob project. This will actually be important later.
First, yes, of course, anything women like is disparaged. I've defended Twilight on a few grounds-against liberal "moral panics", and as a positive example of work that actually digs into the teen female id as opposed to using women as objects of desire for the male id. This past weekend at FOGcon, at the Our Monsters, Ourselves panel, I challenged the moderator who used Stephen King's old line comparing Harry Potter and Twilight. You know, "Harry Potter is all about confronting fears, finding inner strength, and doing what is right in the face of adversity. Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend." So is Carrie, I said. A lot of the antipathy toward Twilight within organized SF fandom and the lower ranks of prodom is due to the popularity of the series and the fact that and its author came out of nowhere to make a hundred million bucks. It's true. I said that as well.
But, of course, the books are deeply terrible and are also utterly ubiquitous. They are jokes because they are too horrid to be anything else and because we cannot escape them. I literally cannot walk a mile in any direction from my home without running into a Twilight-branded product or poster. Steinmetz stacks the deck by claiming that people love equally silly male power fantasies like Batman and don't face mockery, and that such masculine entertainments like Insane Clown Posse aren't mocked as much as Bieber. When folks in the comments section of the livejournal version of his post make a quality argument, he retreats in radical subjectivity (not good for a writer, btw!) and when people mention other work not so disparaged he insists that's because they're not as popular. So, the reason Twilight is so unpopular is because it's...popular.
He also stacks the deck when it comes to boy stuff, mostly mentioning B-level material like The Transporter or Insane Clown Posse. Conspicuous by its absence is any discussion of Transformers, which is clearly boy stuff and is clearly (and rightly) scorned. The movies are scorned. Long-time fanboys and both their complaints about, love of, and defensiveness surrounding the films are scorned. Michael Bay is scorned-he is, save Uwe Boll, the biggest joke in the whole world of sci-fi film. And all these things are scorned as they should be.
Then there's Batman. Batman isn't even a teen boy fantasy anymore-little kiddies watch the cartoons, and grown-ups watch the Nolan films as a summertime spectacle, but teen boys aren't into Batman or even American comics. Who is into Batman, who really is invested in Batman being "most bad-ass, smartest guy in the world"?
Dudes about Ferrett's age, or mine. Comic Book Guys. Neckbeards. The saddest social misfits in the universe. Of course these folks are roundly scorned-and please, continue! Even overly macho police officers and soldiers are occasionally mocked by their comrades and colleagues with one of two disparaging nicknames. "Cowboy" is one. The other? "Batman." Batman is stupid. Males over the age of eight who are very into Batman are horrifying nerds who are virtually barred from the gene pool thanks to universal social agreement. If you're surrounded by people who think Batman is awesome and mainstream, get out more! You're probably stuck in the armpit of fandom!
In the end, Ferrett's argument gives Twilight's own misogyny a pass, and gives the entire corporate structure that plastered the thing before our eyes in every direction a pass as well. There is a reason many Twilight-haters are women, and it's not because they're all self-loathing. In the end, I can't help but think back to the Open Source Boob project. To paraphrase the female friend who showed me Ferrett's essay this morning. Back then: either women wanted to be asked repeatedly if they wished to join the Titty Honk List or they were against open and free sexuality. (I should note that it is my understanding that Ferrett completely regrets and disavows the OSB project.) Now: women have to sign up with the "I'll bring my baby to term even if it kills me, then my ex-boyfriend gets it as he deserves some pussy that smells like me too" books or they hate themselves and all other women.
What can one say to that except, "No." People are allowed to not like Twilight, and yes, to think it is actually factually bad. There is plenty to dislike about it. (For one thing, it works to ruin another female power fantasy of long-standing, specifically the darker and more threatening vampire, and the fantasy of fighting/matching him. Women fighting Ferrett considers a male fantasy.)
Moving on to Sanford's piece defending paranormal romance (in which he includes Twilight and also the Sookie Stackhouse books), he actually cites Joanna Russ who, in her book How to Suppress Women's Writing describes "false categorization." The methods of false categorization as described by Russ included conflating a woman's accomplishments with a man's (a collaboration between the two becomes the woman simply assisting the man) or pushing a woman's work into a category to which it does not belong. Thus, Willa Cather is a regionalist, but Faulkner is not. This leads to the work being suppressed as it is not distributed so widely nor is it talked about as often.
That doesn't seem to be what's happening with paranormal romance at all. I don't see too many authors chafing at the categorization, and the examples used in Sanford's essay-two book series with millions of sales and successful film and television version-are not being suppressed in any way. One of Sanford's sources states that books are being shoved into the genre so they WILL sell-Russ's argument is literally the exact opposite! Women's work is often shoved into categories where it will NOT sell. It is useful to compare this essay to Meg Wolitzer's essay on "women's fiction", because in Woltizer's there are actual examples of false categorization. Fiction by women ends up being considered "women's fiction"-and many female authors DO chafe at this-and as such is given less of a chance in either the marketplace or among critics than is thematically similar fiction by men.
Paranormal romance isn't experiencing false categorization, certainly not in the marketplace, and not critically either-if only because were PR more fully integrated into either fantasy or romance, it would still be in a suspect category. (Just ones that don't sell as well as PR.)
What's happening is that some people, and some critics, don't like some examples of the stuff. No surprise there-most very very popular material is critically maligned, and often because it is awful. There is such a thing as a lowest common denominator when it comes to mass culture, really. And yes, there is special suspicion of anything well-liked by women, and of anything well-liked at all, but Sanford's essay only manages to quote a single movie review from the New York Times, and a single unnamed fan. It would be easy enough to demonstrate equal Times disparagement of the very male The Game of Thrones and its ostensible female audience. And no work has ever been suppressed because con-going fandom doesn't like it. Indeed, an author should worry when the con-going fans are her main audience.
In the end, what I see is a weird insistence that nobody is allowed to dislike that which is already popular. That way lies madness. It's no surprise to me that both authors are male writers of science fiction and fantasy short stories. There's an ideology of popularity as quality within SF-aren't the "best" stories naturally published in the most popular magazines? Isn't the popular-vote Hugo the "most prestigious" award? There's an utterly bizarre notion of whose opinions are important (dopey fans, online wankers), which leads to the insistence that cultural ubiquity is concurrent with cultural marginalization. We should all be so marginalized.
And finally, there is an element of being on the outside looking in. SF short stories generally have a readership somewhere between the low-four and mid-five digits. Maybe high-five if a story is anthologized. Nobody cares about short fiction. Nobody will ever get rich thanks to it, or get a giant movie out of it, or nail polish made from it. Which means that by the formula of quality=popularity, short story writers write the worst stuff. Plenty of folks stop writing stories when they start selling novels, and not only because they're too busy or make too much money per-keystroke working in long form. It's because short fiction is the pits, a chore to do to get taken "seriously." (By whom? The neckbeards of con-going fandom!) I'm not saying that Ferrett and Jason feel this way, but that the feeling is a part of the atmosphere of the hardcore of the SF community. It does have an influence on people. I smell it in these essays. One is reminded of poor monarchists-sure, they're starving, but isn't the coach and crown of the King magnificent? Don't you dare say otherwise!
I say that it's okay to hate the king. It's even okay to hate the queen. Honestly, once one gets over one's own neckbeard social fallacies, it's pretty easy to hate the king.