Who gets the benefit of the doubt in fandom?
One way that the racial empathy gap shows itself in fandom is that fans often straight-up make things up about some (read: white male) characters to be able to call them marginalized--somehing ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lb_lee has pointed out--while making interpretations and inventions in the other direction about characters of color to "justify" their own lack of interest/sympathy.
This is endlessly hilarious on its face because, for one thing, you don't need some social-justice-based reason to obsess over, or rationalize your disinterest in, a character. It's even more laughable when the effort to be enlightened in your preferences so transparently favors RL privileged groups while disfavoring people who are marginalized IRL.
Here's an example from SW sequel trilogy fandom: I have seen people say about Kylo Ren, the main villain of the trilogy (his hardcore fans dispute this characterization), that he is "femme-coded" and his detractors are mysoginistic. I've seen people say they relate to him because he is so emblematic of trans male experiences. His fans say he has BPD and is not responsible for his actions, that he is a victim of child abuse, etc. etc.
And of course, these same fans tend to do the reverse for Finn, the Black male lead of the trilogy (also a disputed characterization, sigh). Finn is unrealistic because child soldiers can't tell right from wrong (an outright and hurtful lie, of course), Finn is a sexual harasser because he took Rey's hand, Finn is mentally stable and well-adjusted (really?) and therefore unrelatable as a victim of abuse, Finn killed more people than Kylo, Finn is abusive to Rey and so on and so forth.
I have seen this in other fandoms that I am not as much involved in. In the MCU, for instance, Loki gets described as a child abuse victim with PTSD while Valkyrie is dismissed by some fans as being "male-coded" and having a stereotypical male veteran's story.
So why is any of this a problem? Can't people imagine things for the characters they like, or might not care as much about for that matter? Isn't that the point of transformative fandom?
They have every right to, of course. I have as much of a ball as anyone else theorizing and imagining about fictional characters. What fans are not entitled to is freedom from criticism, especially when their imaginings touch on real life. If you're making a statement like "child soldiers can't have a conscience" or "people with BPD can't be held responsible for their actions" you are making statements about real-life people and not simply being fannish.
You are entitled to your opinions. You are not entitled to agreement. You are entitled to be free of harassment. Disagreement is not by itself harassment. I hope these parameters are clear.
It also becomes a problem when people convince themselves that their headcanon is actually canon and come at people for not subscribing to their headcanon--one that was repeatedly debunked by the unwitting originator, in this case. These headcanons can take on such a force in fandom that large numbers of fans can convince themselves of their canonity, prompting the creators themselves to confirm that some popular headcanon is, in fact, just a fan theory.
Most fundamentally, though, it shows the gap between the characters fans are willing to do the work of imagining oppressed identities for to make them more relatable, and the ones they are not willing to do the same work for, and in fact take efforts in the exact opposite direction. Again, I can't believe this even needs to be said but this doesn't meant they don't have the right to their own imagination, or that people who do this are Bad People who need to be bullied. It does mean that this gap in empathy can make fandom a hostile place for many fans of color, and yeah, it's kinda racist.
lb_lee has pointed out--while making interpretations and inventions in the other direction about characters of color to "justify" their own lack of interest/sympathy.This is endlessly hilarious on its face because, for one thing, you don't need some social-justice-based reason to obsess over, or rationalize your disinterest in, a character. It's even more laughable when the effort to be enlightened in your preferences so transparently favors RL privileged groups while disfavoring people who are marginalized IRL.
Here's an example from SW sequel trilogy fandom: I have seen people say about Kylo Ren, the main villain of the trilogy (his hardcore fans dispute this characterization), that he is "femme-coded" and his detractors are mysoginistic. I've seen people say they relate to him because he is so emblematic of trans male experiences. His fans say he has BPD and is not responsible for his actions, that he is a victim of child abuse, etc. etc.
And of course, these same fans tend to do the reverse for Finn, the Black male lead of the trilogy (also a disputed characterization, sigh). Finn is unrealistic because child soldiers can't tell right from wrong (an outright and hurtful lie, of course), Finn is a sexual harasser because he took Rey's hand, Finn is mentally stable and well-adjusted (really?) and therefore unrelatable as a victim of abuse, Finn killed more people than Kylo, Finn is abusive to Rey and so on and so forth.
I have seen this in other fandoms that I am not as much involved in. In the MCU, for instance, Loki gets described as a child abuse victim with PTSD while Valkyrie is dismissed by some fans as being "male-coded" and having a stereotypical male veteran's story.
So why is any of this a problem? Can't people imagine things for the characters they like, or might not care as much about for that matter? Isn't that the point of transformative fandom?
They have every right to, of course. I have as much of a ball as anyone else theorizing and imagining about fictional characters. What fans are not entitled to is freedom from criticism, especially when their imaginings touch on real life. If you're making a statement like "child soldiers can't have a conscience" or "people with BPD can't be held responsible for their actions" you are making statements about real-life people and not simply being fannish.
You are entitled to your opinions. You are not entitled to agreement. You are entitled to be free of harassment. Disagreement is not by itself harassment. I hope these parameters are clear.
It also becomes a problem when people convince themselves that their headcanon is actually canon and come at people for not subscribing to their headcanon--one that was repeatedly debunked by the unwitting originator, in this case. These headcanons can take on such a force in fandom that large numbers of fans can convince themselves of their canonity, prompting the creators themselves to confirm that some popular headcanon is, in fact, just a fan theory.
Most fundamentally, though, it shows the gap between the characters fans are willing to do the work of imagining oppressed identities for to make them more relatable, and the ones they are not willing to do the same work for, and in fact take efforts in the exact opposite direction. Again, I can't believe this even needs to be said but this doesn't meant they don't have the right to their own imagination, or that people who do this are Bad People who need to be bullied. It does mean that this gap in empathy can make fandom a hostile place for many fans of color, and yeah, it's kinda racist.
no subject
To which I say absolutely nothing because why bother. But, like...
1. False assumption (that a given person who critiques *ist fandom trends doesn't also critique the same issues in mainstream entertainment)
2. Different circumstance. The creators of mainstream entertainment are not all up in the fandom grille directly interacting with fannish people on a peer-to-peer basis and, e.g., "coming at" individuals for disagreeing with them
(2b. Mostly, anyway. Anne Rice type situations are... Extra Badde with Side of Yike...)
no subject
I would argue the false assumption goes even deeper, however. It's something
Absolutely it's true that white men got and continue to get the lion's share of the good writing and central roles in Western media, which deserves a lot of criticism and analysis. However, the pattern of white men getting more fannish attention hasn't changed even while we started getting women leads, leads of color etc. Meanwhile even extremely one-note and flimsily written white male characters--Hux and Mitaka in the SW sequels, for instance--are frequently the subject of obsessive fannish speculation and creation.
Mitaka is an interesting case in point, actually. If you don't know, and I don't blame you for not knowing, he is a bit character who showed up in one scene of The Force Awakens to get strangled by Kylo Ren. His name never even comes up in the movie proper. Imagine the amazement and amusement when we learned that he has a fan creation week dedicated to him. And let's not even go into Hux, the space Hitler analogue who had 2-3 minutes of screentime in two movies and has a humongous, and to me disturbing, following.
That's the level of work fandom is willing to put toward white male characters, at least the young, skinny, able-bodied ones. The fact that these characters are a whole lot of nothing on screen doesn't deter them, which shows that it's the obsession that comes first, not the canon material. Where there is a will, fandom will find a way. If they "just don't see it" with a character, chances are it means they're not interested enough to put in the fannish work.
And that's fine, fans have a right to their disinterest as well as their interests. It's just disingenuous to pretend that fandom at the mercy of canon when the entire point of transformative fandom is that it is anything but a passive yes-person of canon. This argument also erases the existence of well-written female characters, characters of color etc.
Anne Rice is like the result when someone made a wish that the creator of their favorite franchise would be more involved in fandom and got exactly what they wished for. Be careful with those wishes indeed.