Quick meta rec

[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*

[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.

[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.

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.