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[magnetic_pole]

There's an interesting discussion going on right now at happydork's journal, Why am I not writing the stories I say I want to read? I know, I know, we've discussed this a hundred times already: why does fandom decry the lack of women and characters of color in our fic* and then turn around and focus on the attractive young white men? But this is a thoughtful post, with some very interesting comments, particularly on the ways in which fandom reinforces the perception of white men as our common denominator. (Note to self: my own thoughts are here.) Thanks, Sophie, for pointing me in the direction of this discussion!

* I was about to type "fic and art and vids," but then it occurs to me--thinking purely anecdotally--that art might be less skewed toward the white dudes than fic or vids. Or not? Something to think about.

Comments

[elsane]

What an interesting discussion; thanks for the link! *bookmarks for later when more time is available*

This is something I grouse about a lot to myself -- like many people here, I get tired of writing men, men, men, all the time, and while I do make an effort to shake up the race as much as I can (this is easier in literature-based fandoms and manga-based fandoms) it's pretty much men-of-dominant-ethnicity or men who aren't feeling particularly oppressed for their non-whiteness. Pretty much all of the characters I get interested in in their own right in fandom are male, and it drives me crazy. My original stuff is full of (non-white as well as white) women, but have I been writing it? No. I've been writing fanfic (when I write anything at all).

But I personally only get inspired to fic by characters that bite me hard, and it is so rare that people write female characters that really get to me, as people, in a way that would inspire me to fill in their stories. I flip hardest for characters who are dealing with the kind of conflicts of the abstract that are usually only given to male characters. Authors who can write female characters who have this particular kind of mental life usually put out fiction that is too good for me to feel the need to dive in -- I seem to fic only for flawed things. There are plenty of female characters whom I love to death, but I could never imagine ficcing them; their stories are already well enough told.

Like you, I find that fic about characters I ship or am otherwise actively engaged with (usually white or -- in the context of manga -- other unmarked ethnicity, but almost invariably male) hits different buttons for me than fic about the characters that didn't originally get me into the fandom. I love reading the latter kind of fic, especially when it addresses the kyriarchy, but I don't spontaneously generate ideas for it. I pick up fandoms for the characters that ping me first, and it's only after I get involved that I can even think about writing the latter kind of fic. And it's definitely a different intellectual pleasure.

The obvious thing to do is to just stop writing fic and leave my very limited writing time for the original stuff. But fic has this lovely interactive aspect to it that's hard to forsake. *throws up hands in a dither*

[magnetic_pole]

I flip hardest for characters who are dealing with the kind of conflicts of the abstract that are usually only given to male characters

*nods* Fandom's focus on pop culture and popular genre fiction and movies and tv shows means that we have an uphill battle from the start, doesn't it? Because the women and characters of color in these media tend to be so thinly drawn, it's a vicious cycle of the-powers-that-be creating stronger men characters with more compelling problems, and fandom seizing upon these characters and exploring their worlds and then wondering what happened to everyone else.

As I said to Kelly below, I'm not quite sure how much of the focus on men (concentrating on the gender issue, for right now) is a deep, unquenchable desire to admire men, or crush on them, or watch two hot guys together, and how much is just insecurity about writing women, with all of our own issues, and a reluctance to swim against the tide of media and fandom culture. Part of my love for Remus/Sirius is due to the sheer amount of fic available about them, and the fact that I'm fairly sure my audience will love them as much as I do. They're also more complex characters than Lily, for example, but heaven knows that fandom's had a field day with the next gen boys, who have almost no canon characterization at all, so the lack of complex canon characterization doesn't prevent our forming cultures of reading and writing around specific characters.

I guess I believe that fandom can grow and diversity, and talking about these issues can only help. M.

[elsane]

(sorry for the incredibly long comment, by the way; I hadn't quite realized how much I was rambling on. obviously, this hit a nerve *rueful smile*)

I'm not sure how much of this is just me finding my way and how much of it is fandom genuinely changing, but it does seem to me that since I've been here fandom has started to be a bit more self-critical; certainly I personally have learned a lot about writing interrogations of the source (painful fail!armadas: good for something). But then there's things like the next gen slashapalooza, as you say, which I have to admit to finding deeply dispiriting.

I agree it's a complex thicket of issues, with the individual branches not easily pulled apart. But, like you, I think the more we talk about this and think about what we're doing, both individually and collectively, the better.

[glass_icarus]

Thanks for the link!

I am staying out of the discussion because I'm... already past the point of not writing (less-represented subsets of) the stories I want to read. I do have sympathy for people in that position (it wasn't that long ago when I was only writing white male slash pairings and couldn't get out of the mainstream-dominated headspace, and those pairings are still the vast majority of Things I Have Written Ever), but right now I'm in a place/have made a space where I can have just about everything I want, including the discussions. For me it's just a matter of prioritizing my output, and while I don't think I have any useful advice as to how to get here, I will say that it is an awesome place to be.

[magnetic_pole]

I've watched you get to that place, Y, and I'm impressed. I tend not to be multi-fannish, so I'm mostly left wishing HP were a bit more progressive than it is, but perhaps things will change over time. (I'm excited about the year-end exchange focused on the Hogwarts professors; that's a step in the right direction on some issues.) And I did love Avatar, which has got a lot of the same wonderful elements that drew me to HP--I can always experiment with that. M.

[glass_icarus]

Oh, multifannishness definitely lends itself to different avenues (solutions?)! And A:TLA fandom is so ginormous that I have barely scratched the surface of it (though the DW contingent I'm currently nesting in is quite amazeface), so you may want to spend some time exploring that.

But, moving back to the topic at hand, I do think that a large part of it, for me, was literally building the community/circle in which I could take these paths and learn and read and experiment, and a lot of that wasn't fandom-specific at all (those 'fails and rages were good for some things, heh!). I don't think I've ever written for fandom-at-large, but now instead of writing solely for me, I have a specific audience of friends who want to see the same kinds of stories I want to see, and that's helped me more than anything else. :)

[magnetic_pole]

a large part of it, for me, was literally building the community/circle in which I could take these paths and learn and read and experiment

Indeed! And that's one of the reasons I'm so glad you have you here. *smooch* M.

[kelly_chambliss]

I generally think such issues are more rather than less complex than they first appear, but as I read post after post of I-don't-really-want-to-write-about-two-hot-white-guys-but. . . . I can't help thinking it's all a bit disingenuous. Not that any of the reasoning is necessarily false; it's just that it seems like a good-reason-versus-real-reason sort of situation. The "good reasons" are "hypocrisy (maybe). . .laziness. . .reinforced into the cultural pattern. . .self-discovery. . .self-concealment. . .Don't-Get-It-Wrong. . .we-subvert-the-patriarchy-by-being-queer-women-writing-slash. . .etc." And these reasons are not untrue. But the "real reasons," it seems to me, aren't too difficult to discern: people write what they want to write...because it pleases them, comforts them, satisfies them, makes them hot, excites them. And what I'm hearing is that white-boy-slash writers are getting that pleasure/comfort/excitement from white-boy-slash -- regardless of what they think they "ought" to be writing. They write it because they want to.

I'm not judging here...not saying this is a good or bad thing. I think it's just a thing. I'm not sure it needs any elaborate justification or excuse or explanation. It is what it is: slash for fun and hotness. Why not? It's not what turns me on, but so what? Many things that DO turn me on are no doubt equally indefensible in a social-justice or gender-equality sense. White-boy slash probably doesn't make the world a better place, but so what? Does it make the world a worse place? It might, but I'm not sure quite how. Is it hypocrisy? I don't think so -- at least not in the usual sense of the word. Here is where the complexity comes in: writing slash obviously serves some sort of psychological need for the people who write it. It benefits them in some way (somewhat differently for each person, probably), and it doesn't seem to be doing overt harm, so I say -- don't agonize. Just write what you want to write. Enjoy it for what it is. Don't expect it to be what it's not. And work for justice some other way.

If I'm being horribly offensive, Maggie dear, do tell me, and I'll delete this. I don't mean to be. And maybe it's too easy for me, a person not particularly moved by two-hot-white-boys, to be dismissive of the anxiety. I don't mean to be that, either. If I'm the one being disingenuous, tell me.

Okay, I'll shut up now, lest I become even more annoying.

[magnetic_pole]

No, no, I've heard you on this issue before, Kelly, and I'm in agreement with you, on the whole. Folks like what they like, and they read and write what they read and write, and "ought" doesn't have much to do with it. But I also think that that spark of desire to read or write Harry/Draco, for example, is culturally developed and not a unquestioned "given" in the equation, and by talking about our habits and preferences and desires, we have the opportunity to change and expand fannish culture. It's an uphill battle; we start with genre shows or movies or books that tend not to question the social order very much (when they're not actively reinforcing power structures), and then we compound the problem by congregating around popular things and things we know others like. Part of the reason Harry/Draco is so popular may be an unquenchable, innate desire to watch two hot white dudes get it on (or whatever, not my cup of tea), but that's not the only reason for their popularity. To the extent that our lack of diversity comes from insecurity writing about women, minor characters, characters of color, or various characters who are perceived to raise "issues" in fic for whatever reason, talking can only help.

I'm not saying that Minerva/Hooch is ever going to rival Harry/Draco, but it can always be more popular than it is. Part of my desire to read and write that pairing is the joy of encountering other folks who read and write it, and that's one of the engines driving fandom.

That said, I tend not to enjoy explicit fic of any sort, or overt romance, really, and so I always feel like I'm missing out on some of underlying logic of fandom.

So, yes, I'm with you on the "ought," but I do think that fandom learns and grows (indeed, quite a few people seem to be here to explore their sexuality or talk about gender or identity politics) and we may need practice at coming up with themes and characters that actually help us develop in those directions. M.

[kelly_chambliss]

by talking about our habits and preferences and desires, we have the opportunity to change and expand fannish culture.

Oh, I definitely agree here. I don't want to come across as denying the value of these sorts of inquiries. I'm always the one insisting to my students -- "it's never 'just' entertainment; it's never 'just' that you 'happen' to like something; there's always something constructed or learned about such things."

But it seems to me sometime that in these sorts of discussions as the one linked to, some people (not all) are doing two things: they're analyzing, and they sometimes seem to be saying, "please tell me it's all right to write this/like this/want this." And to the latter, I think people should be assured that it's fine.

But yes, I agree that we're not dealing with "innate" desires here and that it's very important to question where those desires come from, how they are created, and how they function culturally. I really don't want to discourage discussion! I just don't want people to think that they need to feel guilty for what they enjoy reading. (Not to say, of course, that I think there are no potential problems with what people like -- I'm still a bit conflicted about that. . .)

Sorry I'm late to this conversation

[jazzypom]

But you know what, I hear you. I think after last year, with my various fandom hiccoughs, I decided to give my writing about Steve/Tony (two white dudes) for a while and focused on knitting instead, with the intention of phasing out of fandom and going into knitdom, to have a think about my fandom life as it were (and get some cool clothes and accessories, damn it. I hadn't knitted in so long).

Only thing though, earlier this year, a flister directed me to comment_fic (a fic prompting comm on LJ), and I noticed that there were various prompts being left untouched, and that There Was A Trend. This fen kept leaving YA prompts with the black guy/white girl pairing (whilst everyone was writing the white, gay guys, or white girl with much older white guys), and the prompts (of which there was negligible fic at the time) were over six months old.

Wanting to do A Good Deed and to reward faith (because come on? Throwing prompts into the cyberether, and no one claiming them for months? Faith), I went off, dug up the trades (it seem I had them for over a year and hadn't read them) got bitten by the bug of the pairing and it was off to the races, so to speak.

The thing is, as much as the comments on my fic have plummeted (from say, a good dozen or more to about, oh, one, or two on a good day), I'm pretty happy with the dynamics of the pairing I'm writing right now. Yes, the guy is black with Male Privilege, but he is aware of his position in White America, and the fact that he chooses a name ('Patriot') and serves a country where most of the public would look at him with mistrust, is pretty glaring. Or, the young white woman in this case who's a survivor of assault, and chooses not to be a victim. In addition, they are teenagers, so their emotions are skin deep and they tend to be careless, so it's been an interesting experience writing that (having their identities contribute to their personalities, but trying not to make them define them (which is hard).

In addition, the fact that I write for a comics based fandom is good, in the sense that there are a lot of characters that you can lead people into liking, with a scan of comics as proof. Considering say, a fandom like Leverage, where if you can't or don't watch the show (I live in the UK and don't really futz with torrents), I can't really see the awesomeness, and it's one less fandom I'm able to participate in.

But yeah, with regards to the whole potential of "Jazz, you're doing it wrong," I'm not adverse to taking the fic down and rewriting it and doing it right. I'm also not adverse to having the work called out on merit. Although I reserve the right to sit down, grapple with it, and reject the conservation if it comes up wanting though, because that is how I roll.

At the end of the day though, to be honest with you? A fair amount of people will write for comments and squee, and fic with white guys will get much more of a look in than fic with 'the other' re: comments and squee. Fandom is a market, and people know what sells, so to speak. Which is why, for example, you'll see say fic for Eames/Arthur vs Saito/anyone or Yusef/anyone for the same fandom. The market forces are against one.

So short of making people change their tastes for the type of product out there (which is why the reverse chroma fests and fests about women have been interesting and welcome), we'll get what we've gotten.

Re: Sorry I'm late to this conversation

[magnetic_pole]

Not late at all! In fact, Sophie just pointed out that the original meta writer posted something else today: How I can write more of the stories I say I want to read (I still need to read it, myself.)

I've been reading all of your posts about your relationship with fandom and your reservations about it (and one of the first things I remember about finding LJ, very shortly after discovering fanfic on the internet, was seeing your tag line "Being a fan helps no one" [or something to that effect]). I remember you had issues with the black man/(younger?) white woman pairing--am I remembering this correctly?--and with fandom was treating them, so I'm happy to hear you've found something about the pairing that interests you and inspires you and keeps you writing. (Selfishly, I don't want to lose you to knitting.)

The market forces are against one.

Heh. So true. LIFE is against one. But as I said to Kelly above, the smaller (non-major pairing) parts of fandom can always be a bit more vibrant, and it doesn't take that much.

(having their identities contribute to their personalities, but trying not to make them define them (which is hard)

This is the $60,000 question, or whatever the phrase is. (What's the British equivalent?) But I suppose that's the issue with good writing more generally, so it's not a bad problem to be working on. M.

Re: Sorry I'm late to this conversation

[jazzypom]

"Being a fan helps no one" [or something to that effect]).

Yes, that's still my signature line on LJ :). On my DW it's "To the uneducated, A is nowt but three sticks". I do live my fandom life according to the first rule though, because although I might squee, I do reserve the right to point out things which make me pause.

I remember you had issues with the black man/(younger?) white woman pairing--am I remembering this correctly?--and with fandom was treating them, so I'm happy to hear you've found something about the pairing that interests you and inspires you and keeps you writing.

Oh yeah, I had issues. I think I've gone into it with great detail, and I'm trying to keep my head down for the while, so to speak so [heavily redacted].

the smaller (non-major pairing) parts of fandom can always be a bit more vibrant, and it doesn't take that much.

Yeah, it can be. But like I said, it's pretty much two (canonically) gay white dudes in the fandom, which is okay, but not subversive (but then again, is fanfic subversive? As much as we romanticise it to be so, especially since we write the stories as things are and not as they could be? This in terms of being in lockstep with the echoes of privilege found in society).

This is the $60,000 question, or whatever the phrase is. (What's the British equivalent?) But I suppose that's the issue with good writing more generally, so it's not a bad problem to be working on. M.

Well, it makes you think.