Fandom Secrets, small fandoms, and good v evil

[jlh]

Last night mistful asked me why I like fandomsecrets so much. I was thinking about this—I had an answer in the immediate but it took me a second—and I think that the reason I like f!s is the very close to the reason Yuletide was one of the most rewarding experiences I've had in fandom.

They're both massively multi-fandom. While f!s isn't as purposefully skewed to small fandoms as Yuletide is, it still over-rewards small fandoms because when people post about them, they often get a lot of feedback. It's a way of feeling like, wow, I am not the only one who cares about this thing.

And I find that this is really valuable for me, at this point in my LJ life, because—and if I were more worried about conforming to my friendslist, this would totally be a secret—I don't like good v evil narratives. This was made clear to me in a post I read recently on "fridging" where the OP said in a comment:

The thing about horror, action, crime, noir, and superhero genre writing is -- people are props. You need a certain level of mayhem to demonstrate the BADNESS of what is occurring. I could see a person saying, "I don't like those genres, or I only like the gentle edges of them, for exactly that reason -- people are not props." But presuming we are staying withing the genres and writing about terrible things happening, and the people desperate to stop the villains, not every corpse is going to get a lot of screen time.

I need characters to not only be fleshed out, but to change during the course of, and as a result of, the events in the narrative. I don't like narrative that is, "everything was great, and then this bad guy caused chaos, and now we need to restore order." To the extent that I do get into those narratives, that isn't what motivates me—I care about the characters involved and the way living through this intense moment changes them.

It can be frustrating because this is why Harry Potter was ultimately so deeply unsatisfying for me—I thought (and for good reasons, I maintain) that I was interacting with rich and interesting characters who yes, were fighting evil but also were growing up and growing into themselves and who they were going to be. Unfortunately, that wasn't where the narrative went—it was much more interested in the good v evil than in the characters themselves, who were very static. So now, while there are good v evil narratives I might be interested in, like Avatar or Iron Man, I'm very very careful about choice. (So yeah, I'm a little irritated with the people who said to me personally that I should watch Dr. Horrible—I bought it and all, but I really don't like Joss Whedon's narrative priorities, and I really should have known better, NPH or no.)

I think my hesitation in saying this so openly is twofold. I'm certainly not so contrary that I don't like belonging—half of what makes fandom fun is sharing the thing you like with other people. And since I met so many of you through HP, most of you are really big fans of that sort of narrative. I wish I could follow you to SGA, or Doctor Who, or Heroes, or even Supernatural, but instead I'll just stay here watching HIMYM and reality shows on TV and dramas and romantic comedies at the movies and reading shoujo manga and wish you well.

The other reason is that in many ways I feel, well, rather badly that I'm not a very good fangirl. Like I'm letting down the team in some way? I always thought of myself as plenty nerdy—I went to an Ivy League college and I'm in graduate school now—though generally I'm a music nerd rather than a science nerd. But fanboys didn't like me in college; they mostly thought I was stupid because I watched television and read People magazine. Now that I'm older and have grown into my intellect more, they're merely confused, in a "how can you be smart and talk like that" sort of way.

No really. I get that a lot.

At my advanced age I'm trying harder to assert who I am, bad fangirl and all. I'm still not always able to just "let the chips fall where they may" because of course I like having friends and people to talk about things with and all that, but that part is getting better. So for me, what fandomsecrets does is remind me that however hegemonic my friends list might seem, or however much the latest cool thing seems to have completely taken over, there are people out there who are interested in something else. There might not be enough of us to coalesce around any one thing, but there are enough to give me daily encouragement that difference is also good.

Besides, yesterday someone posted a secret about how Bruce McCulloch and Michael Ian Black should play brothers and how fucking awesome is that?

Comments

[misscake]

Your clarification on why you were ultimately disappointed with HP really struck a chord with me. I've spend the last year having this similar discussion with my best friend and his reasoning is very similar, if not the same, as yours. I think I went into it not expecting to see a focus on character development so I didn't have that reaction.

But, now that I think about it, I can see that I've been in this pattern the last few years of gravitating towards the good vs. evil genre even though it leaves me a little unfulfilled and now I realize why.

Anyway, thanks to you and Carrie, I've finally been sucked into watching HIMYM and am re-discovering my love of character development. :D

However, I take issue with one thing in this post. And that is that you cannot be of advanced age! Because I am the same age and I am not ready to be advanced yet! (Even though I recognize that in the world of fandom, we are ancient.)

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Not a "platonic" advanced age, but more, an advanced age to be still trying to assert who I am in the face of resistance. Isn't that what your twenties are supposed to be for?

JKR built really intriguing characters with really amazing backstories, and then ultimately didn't realize a single lick of that potential. It was shocking.

Ultimately, a plot is not enough to keep me interested in a long continuing narrative—plot sort of bores me, especially the MotW sort of plot that keeps things going while the arc develops, because evil bores me. And so many good v evil stories have huge gender, race, age, class and sexuality issues because they are by and large written by and targeted to young middle class straight white men. According to the people I know who really like those sorts of genres, there's a thing that it gives them, that gets them past the issues—I'm not getting that "thing" from it. I'd rather watch people grapple with problems of their own making.

It's funny—it's soooo hard for me to talk about things I don't like; much easier to talk about things I do!

[millefiori.livejournal.com]

I can so relate to this -- I'm all about the characters and their development and interactions with each other. To me the plot is the framework that shows off the characters. Unfortunately, I think that's a pretty minority opinion, as many (most?) creators seem to view their characters as supporting structures for the plot of the story they want to tell.

I think that's actually why I'm kind of drawn to plot/action-oriented fandoms -- the fans are there with fic and meta to fill in all the characterization blanks that the creators don't have time for. And I tend to be much more invested in the fandom than the canon.

I can also relate to your disappointment with Harry Potter, as it was deeply unsatisfying for me, too. I was with it until book six, but that one just ruined everything for me. I mean, I don't want to sound like a dramatic fangirl who thinks fandom does it better than Jo, but I was just astonished at how a series I'd been traveling right along with had suddenly and unexpectedly veered off in this Do Not Want! direction. I only read book seven because I'd invested so much time and effort and love into the fandom that I had to see it through to the end. But I didn't like seven any better than six and was just so dismayed and sad that all the potential I'd seen was (IMO) squandered. BUT, I can also see that all that 'potential' I'd seen was about the characters (my interest and love) and that just wasn't the story JKR wanted to tell.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

JKR referred to her characters as chess pieces she was moving across a board, and I should have pulled out as soon as I heard that!

The thing about good v evil is that I'm not interested in evil. I find many who write, or are drawn to, good v evil are fascinated by evil as such, and how people react to it and why people become so and all of that. But I'm not interested in it at all, so that part of the plot always bores me.

I get the idea of coming to fandom for what you aren't getting in canon, but I do want a canon that's at least somewhat satisfying. And I find that in canons that have no real ending—television, for example—the dissatisfaction piles up and the satisfaction never comes, at least for me. Friends who love Supernatural, for example, want something with "hot guys with guns" and neither a hot guy nor a gun is a reason for me to watch a television show.

Which sounds so snobby, and I'm far from that! After all, ridiculous guys and people who can't sing are definitely reasons to watch a television show like American Idol!

But this is just part of the endless reaction I'm having to last spring, when three different canons collapsed on me, and I still have the PTSD, for reals.

[longtimegone]

I agree re: characters as "props" generally. And also, I agree with millefiori above about being drawn to the plot/action-oriented fandoms because of the HUGE amount of character stuff in fandom.

You said "To the extent that I do get into those narratives, that isn't what motivates me—I care about the characters involved and the way living through this intense moment changes them." and YES. Again though, I think those of us drawn to the action/epic/hero thing are drawn for the potential more than what is actually there. Hence, fandom and fic and such.

I mean, SGA is not a show I watch solely for what's onscreen. It's propped up by the fandom, and that makes it a satisfying experience for me. I can see how it would NOT be satisfying for someone else though that needs more richly drawn characters in the text and onscreen. And hell, it wouldn't have been satisfactory to ME about two years ago, honestly.

I don't think you are a bad fangirl because you expect different things out of the media you consume. I don't expect you to like what I like or what people on your flist like. There are a lot of things I've discovered because of people on my flist who do like things that aren't Fandom of the Moment and all that.

I kind of reject the idea, personally, of the "typical" fangirl. Because that kind of goes against (in my opinion) what being a "fangirl" is all about. I do understand that there is pressure to like "what everyone's watching" at any given time, but I really don't think of people as "bad" or "wrong" because they don't like what I like. Mainly because usually there's something THEY are gaga over that I'm not into, so it works both ways.

I felt that with Supernatural BIG TIME (and, to a lesser extent and more in my "RL" realm, reality TV). It felt (and still feels) like Everyone On My Flist was into it. However, I gave it a try, and didn't like it. Not my cup of tea! Though I do feel left out from time to time when the flist goes nuts over the latest SPN episode or whatever, it's a feeling I can push past because I tried it and don't care for it, so, sure, I could be a part of it, but there's just not anything THERE for me, you know?

I think I posted the other day about buying S1 & S2 of HIMYM from Amazon for a total of $40. If I didn't, I'm telling you now, because I totally thought about you when I hit "Buy"! <3

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Well, I'll start with getting satisfaction from fandom. I know that one thing that's frustrated you with SGA and Doctor Who fandom is conversation about gender and race and I have to say, I can't not see that. I just can't. And there isn't a corresponding satisfaction that allows me to. I don't respond to heroic characters or villainous ones; I sort of don't care about the struggle at all. So I should have said that much stronger—it isn't that I don't care as much about the main plot or "what's at stake" or the action scenes, it's that I actually don't care, and have been known to fast forward through action scenes.

The other day I was at Val's and someone put on an episode of Buffy—the one from right after she slept with Angel and then he's bad again. And I could barely stand to watch it. I thought the metaphor was overdone, and bad!Angel was just really boring and annoying, and Spike and Drucilla weren't more interesting, or the quippy "let's shoot a rocket launcher in the movie theater" scene. The only parts I was vaguely interested in were when Willow caught Xander and that girl kissing, and then later when Willow was talking to Oz in the van. And … that was it. Less than five minutes in a 45 minute show, the rest of which actively irritated me. I turned to Val and asked her just how long Angel was going to be evil, and she said, "the rest of that season" and I said, "can we please watch something else?" And you know, I'm always ambivalent about not liking something, and with something as generally popular and canonized (in the old sense) as Buffy, I'm even more at sixes and sevens about it.

It isn't just flist; it is also people I know here in NYC, and who to be fair often know each other through various geek pursuits like gaming and the like. In those circles there is, very much, a sort of fangirl template. Or, you know, looking at Carrie's recent little survey project and noting how far I feel from that type, or the type who are running around in that media slash crowd. Or just the type that are the girlfriends of fanboys generally. Or all of my friends who are writing genre YA fiction. Or maybe it's just how apologetic I feel about not liking things, as though if I just tried harder, I would. I don't feel that way about people liking what I like, so long as they aren't condescending.

I'm excited about HIMYM! It is the only ongoing television show I'm watching, and the only pair of creators I trust right now, so I'm really looking forward to season 4!

[longtimegone]

I know that one thing that's frustrated you with SGA and Doctor Who fandom is conversation about gender and race

Well, yes, it has, but that stems mainly my feelings that the race discussion in Doctor Who was co-opted by batshit crazy shippers, which pissed me off and (perhaps wrongly) REALLY caused me to shut down. SGA's explosion coming on the heels of that was an unfortunate coincidence and got my indifference by association.

I will say, I don't feel that way about those two specific discussion anymore (I did some housecleaning of the flist, which helped), and my reaction in that specific situation in Doctor Who doesn't mean I think that fandoms shouldn't discuss race and gender issues. I don't think that's what you are saying to ME, but I do want to be clear about that in case my babbling is unclear! :D

and I have to say, I can't not see that. I just can't.

I wouldn't expect you to not see it nor would I ever expect you to stop talking about it.

I thought the metaphor was overdone

Yeah, not so much with the subtle there! Buffy was something it took me forever to watch, and almost 2 years to actually finish, and while I generally "love" it? There are seasons and plotlines I did not love from it.

the type who are running around in that media slash crowd.

That has been a new experience for me since I got into SGA...it's a whole different animal that I am used to. o_O Not in a bad way. Just new and different.

And re: the people you live around... I can sympathize with that in a general way. Living in Alabama and thinking the way I do about, well, everything, means that I feel very removed from even my "closest" friends here. And extremely lonely.

They just don't care about the things I care about, and that can be disheartening, particularly when it's about their politics and world view. Everything I like in terms of media is "geeky" (in the bad way, not the affectionate way we use it in this space), and I feel so very stifled sometimes.

I can't say that I honestly feel apologetic about it in the way you describe above, but that's really because, in the big picture in my situation, I don't WANT to be like them. So it's not really the same on that level, but I do understand the feelings of frustration and isolation when you don't "fit the mold".

Next up on my list to watch is Farscape (which I'm doing now), and then HIMYM is next! And then, I think, West Wing...

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Of course, as someone who loves horror movies I'm a little horrified at the idea that anyone should accept corpses or characters just being props in them.:-)

First, of course, horror does not have to equate to violence at all--and when it does, it's usually more horrible if you know the person a little, even if it's just like L&O where the series realized that the stories were far more interesting once they added a scene of the cops talking to the family so that you got a sense of who this person was and who they were leaving behind. (Also the opening scene is always funny where you see a snapshot of the people who discover the body.)

But there's nothing necessarily scary about people just dying. I've never been a big fan of the slasher subgenre of horror--though I like some. Actually, I remember talking to my friend about the second Hostel movie being better than the first, and those have a lot of torture which I don't care for in themselves, but I think they're good, especially the second one. Anyway, the thing is she likes violence in movies more than I do, but couldn't face them and wasn't interested in that kind of violence. I said that I thought the kind of violence she liked was about anger and the violence in Hostel is more about death.

The long point being that sure, sometimes an author might need somebody to do something where somebody you don't know gets killed, but I don't think anybody should necessarily say that any genre requires people to be props. I mean, in a romantic comedy one could say that certain characters are props too--the people the main characters don't want to date, for instance. (Like in a montage of bad dates.) But narratives that decide to be just about things without characters can sometimes just be flat. Even if they're not about the inner lives of these people or whatever, they can be about something that strikes a chord in the life of the viewer.

Though speaking of being out of step, I think that's why even though I like horror movies, I've never really had much to do with movie boards about them or anything. For me things like using people as canon fodder in slasher movies is a flaw. That's why the later installments in many series get to be so soulless--you start rooting for the villain because it's all about creative and messy ways to kill people. Once they get away from the disturbing idea, whatever it was, you just don't care. (It's like the Omen movies winding up being obsessed with crazy deaths because the point of the original movie was that there was always supposed to be the possibility that they were accidents.) I just remember seeing one of the later Halloween movies and it really disturbed me not for the killer but because of the bad world-buildling. There was this girl who got killed trying on a sweater and nobody ever asked about her. I spent the whole rest of the movie thinking I was the only one who even remembered that stupid girl who tried on her sweater for ten minutes. Where were her parents? Weren't her friends supposed to pick her up for the hayride? WTF??

It seems like a lot of horror fandom really does cheer for lots of carnage or this elusive voting on what movie's actually scariest without realizing that that's going to be different for everyone.

I feel like I totally went off point here, but I really liked what you had to say in your post!

[jlh.livejournal.com]

I'm willing to grant that maybe this wasn't representative, though as I'd said at dinner it reminded me of some things Holly had said. Though it's less the anonymous killing and more, the needing to prove the big bad through its scale, never mind just "evil as catalyst of story". It's a whole mindset and exploration that doesn't grab me at all. I guess, a metaphor I would rather not be a metaphor.

Your points about horror sequels are interesting; it's as though they have already decided that they're only going for the hard core audience that just wants a thrill and little else. And all these hierarchies of what's scariest and all of that—so fanboyish in its approach.

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

I maintain that people as props is not a hallmark of genre - it is a hallmark of bad writing, which happens across the board!

Not to say that you Should Like Genre, but I really do think thst characters being fleshed out and growing and changing is something that happens in genre too, so I wanted to stand up for it. ;)

[longtimegone]

I maintain that people as props is not a hallmark of genre - it is a hallmark of bad writing

That's a really good point. I think sometimes in genre, characterization is sacrificed to focus on the plot/action/epic doings.

Which is laziness? And/or a shorthand from decades of intensely loyal viewer/readership that some genre writers rely on too much...to the point that it becomes counterproductive to pulling in new viewers?

That last part Actually none of this is statement of fact, obvs...just some "out loud" musing. :D

edited for clarity

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

I've just recently got addicted to fandomsecrets as well. I love postsecret for its message in the bottle/found art aspect - but I have trouble really believing many of the secrets on it. I mean, humans are a strange and varied breed, but I try never to underestimate people's ability to go for shock value on the internets. With fandomsecrets, by its very nature, the secrets are not about what people do but about what people think, and I find that almost infinitely interesting. The multi-fandom part you mention I also find deeply charming, much like yuletide. The parts I like best are the sort of celebratory ones - the secret joys that people are for whatever reason unwilling to share in other venues. I so much prefer fandom when it is motivated by satisfaction rather than correction (although I have my fair share of corrective quibbles), but ultimately I don't want to go to fic to *fix* things; I want to go to explore things.

But though I don't share many of your specific fandom opinions (love genre etc, etc.) I completely get feeling like a bad fangirl. I feel like that a lot. I like things that other people look down on. I take things seriously that other people don't. It's the price of geek after all, and even after all this time, it's a hard price to pay. Somewhere, before I discovered the internet, lo these many years ago, I think I always thought that fanpeople would respect fannishness wherever they found it, whether or not they really grokked whatever the thing itself might be. It still disappoints me a bit that it's not so. And there's ways in which so many of our social structures - designed supposedly to bring us together - can be so isolating. I feel this way academically a lot too. Gah.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

It's funny because it seems like fannishness grabs people who are the most hierarchical in their thinking, the most clannish in their socializing, and the most likely to be ridiculously condescending to others—that is, teenage girls and men in their early 20s. Add to that the acafen who are driven to make definitions of who is in the space and who is not based on their own wish for tidyness (that person you just defined as an outlier is a real person in your space, not a data point, darling) and the whole thing ends up being very rejecting. f!s is like my daily reminder that there are plenty of people doing plenty of things and caring about plenty of things that are not whatever is sweeping the universe at that nanosecond, even if that thing is also generating a lot of f!s traffic and metafandom comment and all that sort of thing, etc etc. And particularly as you say, f!s is often about the happy discovery, rather than the "I think this is shit," and I do love discussions about the thing you love right now.

I suppose, in the end, there can't be an "us" without a "them" and it's disconcerting to be in an "us" space and suddenly feel like the rest of the people are "them"-ing you out of it. And I personally don't have enough of that geekish bravado to say, whatever.

Mostly though, I just want people to stop trying to get me to watch Joss Whedon projects.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

So yeah, I'm a little irritated with the people who said to me personally that I should watch Dr. Horrible—I bought it and all, but I really don't like Joss Whedon's narrative priorities, and I really should have known better, NPH or no

Remind me to ask you to explain this to me when I see you.