Question: Does genuine enthusiasm make a difference?
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 is embraced by fandom (presumably including a decent numbers of white fans) and gets feverishly shipped, vidded and written about.
My example is Mohinder Suresh from Heroes. To show his popularity, particularly in the slash side of the fandom I pasted the last 20 entries of the heroes newsletter ninth_wonders and counted the occurrences of Mohinder in it*. This newsletter covers new fics posted, manips, fanart, icons and vids.
Occurrences:
Mohinder/Sylar: 168
Sylar/Mohinder: 32
Matt/Mohinder: 80
Compared to that:
Nathan/Peter: 35
Peter/Nathan: 13
Peter/Claire: 66
I think it's safe to say that Mohinder has been embraced by the Heroes fandom and that at least at the moment among the most popular characters; particularly in the slash section of fandom (though that might change of course, popularity is a constant ebb and flow in the Heroes fandom and Mohinder is lucky to have two rather popular pairings at the moment).
I believe that some key factors to Mohinder's popularity are:
1.) His looks. Includes curls which might be read as being having potential as almost a feminine beauty ideal.
2.) Scientist = nerd
3.) High slash factor in two pairings. "They are so married" for Matt/Mohinder and angsty "You killed my father" enemy UST with Sylar.
Even without having read all that much Sylar/Mohinder or Matt/Mohinder fic, I'm gonna blindly guess that it will contain:
Then of course other issues, like, are characters like Sayid or Mohinder easier to embrace for fandom because they are closer to immigrants rather than Americans of a different skin color who grew up experiencing racism? (then again the same could be said for Teyla, Ronon and Teal'c who also didn't grow up in American culture/in a culture where they were a minority) Are South Asians more accessible to white fans because they fit the beauty ideal more? Or because they make a smaller percentage inside the American population, hence people know less about it, hence there are fewer ingrained stereotypes?
*Please note that I haven't actually watched Heroes since roughly mid season 1 and mostly follow the newsletter for the pretty and because to the squee of my flisters.
My example is Mohinder Suresh from Heroes. To show his popularity, particularly in the slash side of the fandom I pasted the last 20 entries of the heroes newsletter ninth_wonders and counted the occurrences of Mohinder in it*. This newsletter covers new fics posted, manips, fanart, icons and vids.
Occurrences:
Mohinder/Sylar: 168
Sylar/Mohinder: 32
Matt/Mohinder: 80
Compared to that:
Nathan/Peter: 35
Peter/Nathan: 13
Peter/Claire: 66
I think it's safe to say that Mohinder has been embraced by the Heroes fandom and that at least at the moment among the most popular characters; particularly in the slash section of fandom (though that might change of course, popularity is a constant ebb and flow in the Heroes fandom and Mohinder is lucky to have two rather popular pairings at the moment).
I believe that some key factors to Mohinder's popularity are:
1.) His looks. Includes curls which might be read as being having potential as almost a feminine beauty ideal.
2.) Scientist = nerd
3.) High slash factor in two pairings. "They are so married" for Matt/Mohinder and angsty "You killed my father" enemy UST with Sylar.
Even without having read all that much Sylar/Mohinder or Matt/Mohinder fic, I'm gonna blindly guess that it will contain:
- A decent amount of crap. Because a certain percentage of all fic is crap.
- A decent amount of fetishization of his skin color.
- Mohinder/Sylar fic that is mostly about Sylar angst. Matt/Mohinder fic that is mostly about Matt angst. (any fans of these pairings reading this, this is not a complaint, just something I would expect from a purely statistical POV)
- Girlification either as Sylar's swooning maiden in distress or as Matt's wise wife.
- People writing cultural background stuff factually wrong. People not including cultural background. People not including cultural background other than in the form of mean traditional parents. People being unaware about cultural background and not being interested in doing additional research (and not seeing why it is necessary if it's mostly about the emotional interaction between these certain characters).
- But just like I'm guessing that there is probably a decent amount of terrible fic, I'm equally sure that there's probably great fic too.
Then of course other issues, like, are characters like Sayid or Mohinder easier to embrace for fandom because they are closer to immigrants rather than Americans of a different skin color who grew up experiencing racism? (then again the same could be said for Teyla, Ronon and Teal'c who also didn't grow up in American culture/in a culture where they were a minority) Are South Asians more accessible to white fans because they fit the beauty ideal more? Or because they make a smaller percentage inside the American population, hence people know less about it, hence there are fewer ingrained stereotypes?
*Please note that I haven't actually watched Heroes since roughly mid season 1 and mostly follow the newsletter for the pretty and because to the squee of my flisters.