Meta Fandom: Teen Movies as a Sociology Context Discussion for Preferences

[crankyoldman]

So, I've been having thinky thoughts. And since I'm between tasks at work (and when those come up I will be OMG busy, but thankfully right now things are basically in waiting mode for me) I figured now was a good time to get them all down.

I think one of the more beneficial things about fandom, for me, has been encountering people that are Not Me; they don't have my opinions, my background, my geography, my demographics. Chances are, due to said demographics I would not have encountered them, and at very least not encountered them in a forum where I have a chance to sit down, breathe, and think before responding. It's good practice for when I am in real life and encountering differing opinions and viewpoints, and don't just splooge all over. And believe me, tact was a very slow learned behavior, considering my status as a Science Type Person, so this is good.

What I'm meandering towards is that the longer I'm around fandom and pop culture and the like, the more I see that it's in the response to things that you learn the most about people, almost more than the source itself. So this is REALLY about sociology more than anything, if you're now thinking "OH GOD FANDOM WTF".

My first example is going to be The Breakfast Club, which appears on a lot of Top Whatever lists for teen movies (in America at least). And I'm using teen movies because most people go through puberty, and it's a genre that is constantly being revisited and explored. I know that this won't hit on a lot of OTHER cultural issues, and the distinct lack of diversity is not lost on me. But it's something I know well and will serve this purpose. My second example will be Heathers because the source is very different and almost a response to The Breakfast Club and its kind.



The Breakfast Club attempts to take five stereotypes and deconstruct them, which is does somewhat. It completely succeeds on the interaction standpoint, and the stereotypes build up some fun characters. But the effectiveness of the movie isn't that these characters have their own personalities and are real people, it's that they aren't. They have just enough personality to not be boring, but really, the point is for you to find something that you as the audience identify with and will build upon.

How you react to the characters says more about you than it does the actual source.

For instance, I can pretty much guage my maturity or at least maturity of opinion on my liking and disliking of certain characters. For instance, the first time I watched the movie I was about 13, and I hated Claire, who is the "poor little rich girl". I was gawky, awkward, and generally disliked at that age, and she was pretty, liked, and still unhappy. How dare she! I also wasn't terribly fond of Andy, the "dumb jock" because in addition to being awkward and gawky, I was also an intellectual snob and a half. Jocks like him were the sorts that went along with what the bitchy "richies" would do, so they were just as bad, and dumb to boot. I most identified with Brian and Allison, because I was a nerd, but I was also a freak at the same time.

Then I actually got into high school, stopped caring about a lot of shit, and watched it again. And this time I started to kind of feel for Claire and Andy. In fact, the movie spends some time with parallels that I had just ignored because well, this is what you do as an angry little peanut. Claire and Bender are paralleled in some ways on masculine and feminine tragedies; Bender's tragedies are related to external harm (family abuse, poverty and the baggage that comes with that) and Claire are related on internal harm (note her reactions to Bender's "fat" comments, her passive attitude to her "role"). Their focus on image is closely tied to the tragedy of their lives in completely different socioeconomic spectrums and the relative helplessness they feel within that. Not to say that the others don't feel helpless (in fact, if there is ONE THEME in the movie, it's that it sucks to be a teenager because you don't really have power over your own life yet) but the sources of the helplessness are mirrored differently. Andy and Brian are helpless due to achievement; their images aren't just for simply being they have to be doing. Performing. And Allison is struggling to just be seen, not having the upbringing to get attention naturally. EVERYTHING about her is about attention.

But these interpretations aren't perfect. I still have my own filter I'm seeing them through. And the whole setting is still suburban white midwestern, so my eventual finding idenification in everyone isn't an entirely big stretch.

You can learn probably even more about a person by learning what they 'ship. Because interactions and the interpretation of those really say a lot about your filters. This isn't derogatory by any means. Even if what you 'ship is potentially triggering to some people, you're not necessarily wrong about it, because it is all preference. I think it's very silly how people can get so incredibly bent out of shape over something as simple as a preference. Preferences change, they aren't inherent to a person, but a person will have a bias towards certain preferences based on their experiences.

For instance, when I discovered the actual "fandom" for The Breakfast Club I was extremely surprised to find out that quite a lot of the writing paired Bender and Brian with each other. Very happy and fluffy a lot of times too! And it really gave me pause, as I do not default to "picking on someone = flirting". Despite the fact that this is what Bender does in canon with Claire, I just could not for the life of me see how this was applied to Brian, as most of what Bender said or did while picking on Claire was sexual harrassment, but with Brian was always more on the general demeaning side.

Then I remembered that as a girl I've spent a lifetime being exposed to the Romantic Comedy Tradition, which perpetuates that men must be assholes (and various levels of sexual harrassers) and women must be shrews or doormats (both things that Claire is accused of during the course of the movie) and love them despite this. So I realize my filter is that I don't expect a boy to put up with that? I'm still not sure entirely. Either way, I realized I had a bias there. And probably will always have a preference against borderline-or-actual-bullies and nerdy-or-somehow-not-very-aggressive-guys as a pairing. And I'm sure that a lot of fandom, which is mostly female when concerned with fanfiction, may actually have a bend towards it, either as a subversion of Romantic Comedy Tradition, or upholding it in different ways (or something else, but that's what comes to mind immediately). Or it can be associated with a media remixer's obsession with change; wanting to take the source past where it stopped, bringing it to a more satisfying or at least different conclusion.

Not saying this is always the case, but there, that's a reason I can see. I'm sure there are manifestos out there that break down every single interaction down to something very positive, and I won't disagree with them! Go you for spending that much free time breaking down what you love, even if I don't love it too. (and if you're curious, I lean towards Bender/Allison more, because he actually acknowledges her first and treats her with more respect than others, and Bender/Andy because Andy can kick his ass. XD). Again, how an individual percieves a media-type thing says more about the person than the actual media.

But now that I've mentioned interactions, let's get to Heathers. It is basically the anti-Breakfast Club in that it depicts people in different groups and how much they really won't get along no matter what you do--or does it? Interestingly, this view is held by the main love interest/antagonist and he tries his damnedest to make it happen, but actually fails at that. So what is it really saying?

Heathers is a ridiculously meta movie, which is half of what makes it such a fun thing to watch, the other half being "did it just go there?" It's a movie that wouldn't be made today, because there have been kids that have bombed schools and shot other students and I'm not sure if anyone could handle it with the innocence that it was handled back then (and I'm basically reiterating stuff said in interviews).

But what is most interesting is how directly it deals with perception.

The main Heather is not a good person. Even during her moment of vulnerability, you know that she has completely bought into Society, and her disliking it won't lead her to passive sadness like that of The Breakfast Club's Claire, but she will lash out and defend it and bring everyone else down to her level because while she hates it, she hates being out of some kind of power more. Veronica, on the other hand, isn't sure about buying into it, and Main Heather's response to this is to push her around until she complies with it.

Then the main Heather dies, in probably one of my favorite movie deaths ever. And then a couple of the "dumb jocks" die, when given the right "suicide notes" people suddenly change their perceptions on them. In a meta sense, an sudden influx of new fanon changes people's perceptions of these characters, who within their own canon are considered less as people, but more as characters (which happens with celebrities in real life). These shallow (or at the very least people that have bought into The Way Things Are and continue to enforce this view) people are suddenly deep and tragic.

And then Heathers goes a step further with JD, the resident extremist and states that people will never get along because they are too different and buy into too much bullshit and the only solution in annihilation. But the fact that Veronica, our main character and thus stand-in for us rejects this idea actually leaves everything on a positive note. It doesn't tell us how she's going to turn perceptions around and mess with The System, just that she's rejected both annihilation and buying into it.

Now, let it be known that JD is my type. That is, I find that sort of nihilist sociopathic ridiculously hot. If I were to write fanfiction for that movie, they would have totally blown up the school and then run off and had a life of crime and shenanigans and doom and destruction. And this says A LOT about me.

Anyway, Heathers gives you less of a blank slate and aim for universality and goes straight for the jugular of Problematic Socialization. That is, it points out perceptions and truths and it tells you that you have to weigh them. That you as a person are wholly responsible for how you project yourself onto the world and that there really are only two types of people; followers and leaders. And both can be terribly terribly wrong.

This is the position we find ourselves as fans and as people; weighing preference and rightness and wrongness and trying to find the right place in there. I often hear, "if something is written well enough, then you should be able to like it and maybe agree with it."

JD is very eloquent and shows his position well on wanting to blow up the school and destroy everything. His only problem is that it's not very well thought out; has it occurred to him that not everyone wants to be a part of his extremist message? That maybe he's wrong? I would rather hear "if something is written thoughfully enough you should at least be able to consider it." There have been a great many skilled people in history that have used their skill for propaganda and other really not good things. Even on a small and completely harmless level, do we want to be encouraging this?

Should we be spending all our time trying to convince people to agree our preferences, or state them as what they are and focus instead on the real problems?

I'm not sure that I have the answer there. All I know that is I am always learning more about people by their reactions to external sources, by their defenses and their squees. Sometimes this makes me want to be friends with people, sometimes this makes me want to hide. XD But I think a little more awareness about preferences, maybe a little bit of taking it with a grain of salt can go a long way. That way when faced with real hate, real oppression, real harm, we can actually act, instead of just flailing. I know it's something that I am working hard on, and am still fail at sometimes, and some of you may actually already be there.

Just think about it. Would you want your world changed in Saturday detention, or blow up the school?

Comments

[wandererriha]

I've never seen either of these movies. I am a bad, bad 80s child.

Just think about it. Would you want your world changed in Saturday detention, or blow up the school?

You've all heard my rants about my horrid experience with Public School. Honestly, I don't think a Breakfast Club situation would have been possible, not with the kids I knew. I'm old enough now to recognize that they must have had their own issues, but part of me still wonders. I believe my class was just on the cusp of the school violence that manifested in the late 90s/early 2000s.

I wasn't there anymore, but I remember hearing about a girl being pushed down the cement stairs that led down to the locker rooms and consequently breaking her leg because another girl THOUGHT she was GOING to steal her boyfriend. This was in 8th grade. I also heard and saw the infamous walkout-- the 8th graders left the school as a body and walked downtown in a junior version of an angry mob. They tried to lay siege to the elementary school (why, I don't know), kicking over trash cans and committing minor vandalism along the way. I remember being not just verbally abused, but physically, by both the boys and the girls.

I'm not sure hanging around for high school would have been an improvement.

Would I like a BC situation? Heck yeah. But I'm not sure it's entirely possible. I have to say, had the Geek Squad hung around...well, we weren't the black leather types, but things might have been interesting.

[crankyoldman]

That question was less aimed at school in general and talking about socialization; are you collaborative, or an extremist, essentially. I was trying to be clever. XD

However, I tend to disagree with home school A LOT of the time, but if your school was really that dangerous, I can see it.

[wandererriha]

I tend to disagree with home school A LOT of the time

Well, that's the thing about home school: it depends entirely on the individual. In my case, it was awesometastic and you'd never know I was home schooled. I didn't fit the stereotype- indeed pretty much all the people who were part of the church home school group defied the stereotype like A LOT.

I still want this t-shirt.

And yes, it really was that bad.

[wandererriha]

That question was less aimed at school in general and talking about socialization; are you collaborative, or an extremist, essentially. I was trying to be clever. XD

Ah. ^^; I was being oblivious.

To answer the initial question, probably the former, because I'd LIKE to have gotten along with people...but they made it HARD.

[novel_machinist]

I can say that when I was in public system of mass schooling I was in a few fights. When I was in the private system of schooling I was in a few fights. I can say that while there were fights and a lot of verbal abuse, I came out knowing how to put my foot down, force my way through, and make myself be understood by a wider range of people. I loathed private schooling because it made me a staunch atheist. I'm old enough now to just be horrified with the way that they used to the school to institutionalize the misogynistic and rigid role of “God” and use religion as a way to make themselves better than other people.

Really, that sort of thing makes me physically ill. The point of school, perhaps really is the forced socialization. Getting to get along with people you wouldn’t agree with otherwise and really don’t like. I think I’d be a doormat if I was allowed to never have to face opposition to myself. It would have been more difficult to formulate my own identity.

Not to say that you cannot socialize with a Home School setting. I’m well aware that many parents can and do a good job of introducing their children to different subcultures and people. The problem is that many people use it as a sheltering technique and this leaves people in a perpetual state of adolescence.

Unfortunately there is also a time where there ARE places that are too violent for some children. I would rather not have a child facing their day in fear for their safety. While I had a couple fights and dealt with teasing (I think everyone spent a few months crying in HS over bullies) I was never really afraid for myself. And that’s the key. One should never be forced into a situation that they are afraid in for the good of someone else’s view of how many people they should meet.

[wandererriha]

Indeed, home schooling is not for everyone. Personally, I loved it. My sister did not.

I was more worried in a public school setting, about quite literally surviving the day than anything else. It came as something of a shock when I discovered that kids in the co-op were NOT, in fact, out to kill me.

I will assent that home school didn't really prepare me for dealing with the jerks of the world. Then again, I'm not sure middle school/high school is the place to learn how to deal with people who are ultimately out to take advantage or hurt you in some way. I'm not a parent, so I'm not sure what age IS appropriate.

My $0.02 anywho.

I'll stop now.

[novel_machinist]

Oh yeah, like I said, I understand that if you feel like YOU ARE IN DANGER you should never be there. Even in the real world, you shouldn't have to deal with fear, that's what HR departments are for.

That, I think, is the real problem, yanno? When is ready to deal with the jerks? I spent a long time being really mistrustful and it took me a long time to realize that a LOT of the problems I had in HS were self inflicted, I wasn't the easiest kid to get along with so other people weren't receptive.

People, like you said above, mature differently, so what's good for the gander isn't good for the goose and everyone has different triggers. There's sadly no test, and it's really up to the parent to do what's best for the child. Sounds like in both of our cases, thankfully that was true.

[novel_machinist]

Well, I'm finding whatever religious "truth" currently. I don't quite know what I believe, so I listen a lot to everyone else's. It took me a long time to realize that spirituality wasn't a tool to be used to elevate people over each other.

And yes, that's the over-riding point. I mean, if you feel like you're going to be harmed by a coworker there is the HR department. If you are harassed by a coworker, there's the HR department, the police, there's a sort of institutionalized protection for people in the "grownup" world.

There just isn't such a thing in schools a lot of time, be it for whatever reason. And the VERY bottom line is that NO ONE should feel like they are not safe. EVER. If you can't feel safe in one school, it's providing a service and there are other options.

It's got nothing to do with personal strength or being weak. It's about if you feel safe or not. Period.

[yukie]

I had a much longer comment here, but I decided it wasn't worth getting bitched at by strangers for.

I came out of my schooling situation fucked up. :P If that makes me weak in people's eyes, I can't do anything to stop them from being wrong and idiotic. But yeah. Suffice it to say, some of that does have to do with the fact that Catholic schools are misogynistic as hell. There are wnderful teachers in them sometimes. I had a lot of very good ones. But there are horrible bastard teachers too. I've seen teachers who feel up students (if the students are female guess who gets blamed - hint: it's not the person with the dong), I've seen teachers indoctrinating students into their woman-hating bullshit (the closest I ever came to really hurting my sister was when she parroted this back - thank the gods World Youth Day opened her eyes to what fanaticism looks like and she grew a clue) - guys generally get away with MORE because I swear there's this unspoken assumption that girl = Eve-derp = more sinful-like = we must have done something to deserve it.

Catholicism is hugely kyriarchal. And now all its ghosts are coming out of the woodwork to bite it in the face, and I cannot say I am sorry. Priests and teachers who have problems are not removed from their positions. They just get shuffled around. The asshole teacher I mentioned above who felt up my classmates? He was never fired.

My parents probably would have transferred me if I'd asked enough, but I was the kind of person who dug her nails in and held on with her teeth and went 'fuck you all'. I learned that the front people put up can tell you a lot about how they're weak or afraid (unless they're a sociopath like one of my bullies was - like, she actually WENT TOO FAR for the others and one threatened to kick the shit out of her because she was going to bring my family into it - which is kind of funny, like, I'm an okay target but my family is not). And now bullies are afraid of ME. Which is kind of funny.

So yeah. Weak, maybe, but not helpless by far, and seen as potentially fucking dangerous to people who turned into bullies because they were harassed themselves. Why? Because I never turned INTO an abuser like several foolish folks I could mention did. I never went "OH BUT MAH LYFE SEW HARD BLOOO BLOOO BLOOOO" and used that as an excuse to be a fucking douche to all and sundry. I never became my enemy.

So in that, I am not weak.

[novel_machinist]

You've really touched on the point, I think. It's just... ugh. I feel like the whole point of this whole "love" message was lost on my Highschool.

And, like I said above, when someone doesn't feel safe, it doesn't make that person weak. It's got nothing to do with weakness. Personal safety has nothing to do with being strong or not. There is always someone meaner and bigger down the lane, and when you are somewhere that provides a service, like a school, then I think that the people being served, the students, are entitled to safety.

[yukie]

Gah. *hugs* I'm sorry about the RAEG tone - I got pinged hard by god knows what-the-fuck and was snarling universally for a it so yeah. @_@ Y'all did not deserve the snarly.

My high school had a peer mediator program in effect as part of its Zero Tolerance Policy (that phrase makes me lawl because it's such nonsense on all fronts), but it only really worked if the peers were YOUR peers, you know? And I guess anyone in the school technically kind of is, but if one was like me and rather nerdtastic, there was always the fear that you were going to get turned on by both people. I never made use of the service. I wnt to teachers even though one wasn't 'supposed to do that' because even before I almost lost my dodgeball from undiagnosed anxiety issues I knew it as either that or - I dunno what I thought the alternative was.

There's not much in the way of support systems available for most kids. A hole hell of a lot of the time, the person being harassed is 'The Problem'. People don't like being told their precious systems don't work. They don't like being told that the school's aura of peace and brotherhood is the thinnest possible veneer over a seething bunch of rabid tadpoles (...what the fuck was THAT metaphor XD) and that giving the stink-eye to the kids in black coats isn't the solution to the overall problem.

May I say that I loathed the damn Columbine dips because they made my life that much harder? Because they did. Suddenly I wasn't jut a noisy geek. I was a time bomb. It really didn't matter to them that the idea of death and people dying terrified me enough that I'd started to cry in classes more than one time and didn't care what people thought of me.

I don't know what the solution to the issue is. A better mediation system for one. Counselors in the school BESIDES the guidance ones (oh god stupid guidance counselors I should have ignored you and dropped calculus and algebra and taken finite math and something else). I just - BLARGH our school model was 'to love and to serve' but there wasn't much love and there was a lot of SELF-service but very little else.

It went way downhill after Ms. LeBrum the epic EPIC principal left. I always seem to come into institutions at a time when they're in a decline that's going to be rectified. I'm never there to see the results of the repair.

Eh. I left my mark on that school. The chapel window is pseudo-stained-glass and the overall placement of the holy family (kidJesus in front, parents behind) was my idea. The window was a collab effort overall but I'm still incredibly proud that my idea got in so prominently. Even if I'm no longer Catholic and the church drives me batshit insane I like the guy who's the subject of the gospels, because he was cool. XD

Word on spirituality not being a 'i'm-better-than-you' badge. It took me a while to get around to that too. I was ONE OF THOSE PAGANS. Like, you know the kind XD THOSE pagans. Thankfully I got over it speedily enough because (a) my parents were like 'it's all good, do your own thing, just open the window if you burn incense' and (b) the 'coven' flopped on account of the de-facto leader being the sort of person who used spirituality to elevate herself etc. I could not talk to her about any spiritual experience without her blowing it off or belittling me, so yeah, fuck a ton of that noise @_@

Ehn. I don't know. I apologize again for the clawing at ankles. You didn't say anything wrong. I just get hugely envious of people sometimes. D: I mean. I guess I came out ofhigh school better prepared for adult world bullshit, and oh wow I -know- my psycho bully has made things oddly easier for me out here because NO ONE HAS EVER MANAGED TO BE WORSE THAN HER - like, seriously, a nine year old trumps all you fuckers, try harder XD But yeah. I feel like a lot of people came out of shit much stabler than me and I get all 'ahrgh why can't i--' and I pissyface everywhere. So I'm sorry.

[novel_machinist]

It's fine, man. And word to the above. It's hard to actually find a system that people don't cling to. I think it's like the people who relive their past achievements. Like... not like "oh I did this and it was cool" when it's on topic, someone who moves on and has OTHER achievements, but there are people who NEVER move on from Highschool, they graduate, they get married, have babies and prep those babies for HIGHSCHOOL THE END OF THEIR LIVES.

Same, I can imagine, goes for religious movements. We can't always cling to what we know as the best for everyone. Just the best for us.