insert obligatory reference to Julius Caesar

[shimizu_hitomi]

Day 06 | Whatever tickles your fancy

Favorite misheard song lyrics:

- "Don't cry for me, Argentina; you see the truth is I never loved you" (Not having seen the movie/musical, this made sense to me for the longest time too.)

- "Rocksand~~~ Rocksand~~~~"

Comments

[nagasasu]

I'm still going through the Victorientalism articles, but urgh. So much fail in some of the comments. (like that one with the dude saying "hey, who knows, the colonized might have enjoyed being colonized.")

I hadn't heard of the miscegenation wank, but whoa. Just by looking at the wiki article, I don't see how that's acceptable for kink...

[shimizu_hitomi]

Yeah, after last year's racefail I gave up on reading comments for the most part (unless I recognize the original poster and know that they police comments or that their readers are smart cookies). Blog commenters who aren't keyed into the recursive LJ discussions are especially bad.

I don't remember if I followed the miscegenation wank "live" or if I discovered it later, but man, it was pretty bad. Much, much worse than the baristas and the other iterations of HP racefail.

[mark_asphodel]

As a fellow "theoretical" fan of steampunk (boy, was I disappointed when the alleged steampunk LoZ game turned out to be Spirit Tracks, all I have to say is that Edward Said spins in his bloody grave any time someone writes or types "Victorientalism."

If the genre is defined as Eurocentric, though, it's because the trappings of the Industrial Revolution are defined in the popular culture as European and specifically British (dark Satanic mills, blah blah). Heck, wasn't the landscape of Laputa inspired by Wales?

Meiji-era steampunk would be pretty cool, though.

[shimizu_hitomi]

Haha, poor Edward Said.

I agree with your assessment (don't remember what Laputa was inspired by exactly, but it's definitely European), and don't mind that in particular about the genre... In fact in my opinion any "steampunk" rooted in a non-European culture would probably have to take place in earlier time periods, or else would have to introduce the timeline divergence in the alternate history much earlier. By the time of the Industrial Revolution, it's harder to tease apart actual influences due to colonialism... not to mention that pop culture impression. That said, I would love to see some major deconstruction of colonialism in the context provided by the current definition of steampunk. I just don't think it's ever going to happen. Or at least not anytime soon.

Though -- having hung out with far too many Meiji-era geeks -- you are not the first person to mention Meiji-era steampunk to me. MUST BE A SIGN. XD

[mei_san]

A bit off-topic. But can you explain to me how you can be "theoretically" a fan? How can you like something "theoretically"? Sorry if this comes up before...

[shimizu_hitomi]

Oh lol, I threw that at you when describing how I felt about Michiko & Hatchin too, huh?

It's how I describe it when all the elements are there for me to like something, but for some reason or other I don't actually enjoy it as much as I THINK I should. I guess it's the difference between "this looks/sounds like something I would like" and "this is something I actually like".

[kor_pi]

After several confused minutes spend with a dictionary!... ...Funny these language jumbles, I had somehow understood that 'Orient' (and derivatives) as a term referred specifically to the way Asia is seen from a Victorian British point of view rather than Asia and its cultures in themselves, putting the emphasis on Britain, which is kind of 'exotic' from my point of view...

UH, carry on. /off-topic

[shimizu_hitomi]

LOL.

Yeah I think you had it right mostly -- Orient and the like are considered problematic terms nowadays due to all the baggage from the way it was used in the Victorian era. The problem usually is when people use the terms unironically or as a positive term (!!!), without understanding the actual connotations. If you're interested, Edward Said wrote the classic text(s) on the subject. (He wrote a second book too, can't remember what it's called atm.)

[kaeyko]

On the clueless side for most of thing, since I haven't gotten into Steampunk.

But Victorientalism doesn't sound terribly like a "neutral unloaded term" to me. Orientalism itself sounds very archaic and contains a connotation of the "exotic", sorta of a shallow "Oh, how quaint/fascinating!" without really trying to understand anything. Visually, a bit like Monet's painting of his wife, Camille, in a Japanese kimono when the Impressionists were becoming very influenced by Japanese prints (a painting that Monet actually hated afterwards). Plus, by calling it "Victorientalism" isn't it inherently suggesting that Victorian influences are intrinsic to the whole genre of Steampunk? The term becomes a misnomer if you have steampunk without the Victorian element, right

[shimizu_hitomi]

Yes, the term itself is ridiculous -- rather than the fact that Victorian influences are intrinsic to steampunk (mostly yes, but I think it's arguable depending on who you ask), Orientalism itself as a concept originates in problematic Victorian mindsets towards foreign cultures.

What really puzzles me is that whoever coined the term was apparently trying to reclaim the word Orientalism from its negative connotations (in other words, so that they could continue to use similar terms to describe their romanticized visions of Victorian era Asia). Uhhhhhhh, even disregarding the original motivations behind this (which again is essentially to legitimize or rather CONTINUE that whole mysterious/exotic presentation of Asian cultures), not so smart sticking "Vict" to the front if you want to reclaim the word...

(Though I agree that there's no such thing as a completely neutral term.... In this particular instance there's just an awful lot of all around STUPID floating around.)