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crankyoldmanSo, 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?
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?