Separating the grain from the wank.
May. 21st, 2008 06:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladymirthI have a destructive sort of curiosity, which is what accounts for the fact that I went through nearly every one of the comment threads on that fandom wank entry. Self-laceration, I know. I'm an odd egg, sometimes.
The thing about this wank was that it didn't just diss the perceived stupidity of one fan, as is usually the case, but attacked the whole show, writers, the entire SPN fandom and Dean fangirls as a whole. That was what hurt so much. Random people from other fandoms who crapped on the show based on a lot of second hand misinformation from their flists are one thing, but fans within the SPN fandom accusing other fans of sexism and misogyny just because they didn't agree with their views was something else.
My butthurt. Let me show you it.
I didn't realize how much it got to me until I woke up from my nap today shaking with anger, called up my boyfriend and yelled "I FUCKING HATE FEMINISTS!" out of the blue.One must pity the poor dear boy. The things he has to put up with, really.
Well, that was a bit of an over-reaction. True, I've had serious issues with the rabid bra-burning types in the past, and the cries of "misogyny! racism! homophobia!" that invariably sweep fandom after every freaking episode makes me have a sneaking sympathy with sazzlette's post, rude as it was. But such a blanket statement as that would make me quite as bad the people who get on my nerves.
So we come to this post. It concerns mostly the SPN fandom, but I think that other fans on my flist would also find my theories interesting, as it involves modern social and fannish issues.
(Very mild spoilers for 3x15 and 3x16 of SPN Season 3 under the cut)
That's my thirty dollars and two cents, folks. I may be wrong, I may be biased, and I may not have looked at all points of view, although I've tried my hardest to avoid any of that. I'm open to debate and discussion as long you keep things civil. (This is not a warning to my lovely flist, who has never been anything but courteous to me, but for other lurkers and such.)
The thing about this wank was that it didn't just diss the perceived stupidity of one fan, as is usually the case, but attacked the whole show, writers, the entire SPN fandom and Dean fangirls as a whole. That was what hurt so much. Random people from other fandoms who crapped on the show based on a lot of second hand misinformation from their flists are one thing, but fans within the SPN fandom accusing other fans of sexism and misogyny just because they didn't agree with their views was something else.
My butthurt. Let me show you it.
I didn't realize how much it got to me until I woke up from my nap today shaking with anger, called up my boyfriend and yelled "I FUCKING HATE FEMINISTS!" out of the blue.
Well, that was a bit of an over-reaction. True, I've had serious issues with the rabid bra-burning types in the past, and the cries of "misogyny! racism! homophobia!" that invariably sweep fandom after every freaking episode makes me have a sneaking sympathy with sazzlette's post, rude as it was. But such a blanket statement as that would make me quite as bad the people who get on my nerves.
So we come to this post. It concerns mostly the SPN fandom, but I think that other fans on my flist would also find my theories interesting, as it involves modern social and fannish issues.
(Very mild spoilers for 3x15 and 3x16 of SPN Season 3 under the cut)
Dean is not a sexist, and if he were, he should not be condoned.
sazzletteasserted that Dean, according to his upbringing and environment, was fundamentally sexist. Sexist, but a good man. Good men can be sexist. Boys will be boys. If you don't like it, quit watching and leave the rest of the fans in peace.
Naturally, most of the fandom took exception to this. Her post had several good points about Dean's motivations and urged to take a good look at the context in which the slurs were used, all of which were undermined by the fact that she started out trying to downplay sexism. One person replied in the comments that the same argument would hardly stand up if one replaced "sexism" with "racism" or "homophobia". Would the fans have been as quick to dismiss Dean's pottymouth as a character quirk if he had gone around calling the demons "niggers" or "faggots"?
I can get on board with that argument. However, my problem is that I've never seen Dean as sexist (which is a serious accusation to make against anyone in these times) and certainly not because he keeps using the words "slut, skank and bitch" to derogate she-demons and Bela. Most people, including myself, have commented that they should have felt offended by his language, and yet didn't. They were, of course, attacked as being morally lax liars. But I have a theory on why people don't find these insults offensive to them, personally.
Look at the words themselves. Is "bitch" and "slut" in the same league as "nigger" or "faggot"? When you say "nigger" you imply that a person is worthless because he is black. When you say "faggot" you imply a person is worthless because he is homosexual. Discrimination via generalization. But when you say "bitch" you mean "a mean woman". "Slut" = a promiscous woman. Note the adjective. The insult is not that you are a woman, but what kind of woman you are. I fail to see how this implies discrimination any more than if a person called a man "asshole" or "dickhead". I am not, however, disputing that these are serious insults to make against a woman.
And, assazzlette pointed out, look at the context in which they were used. The insults were levelled at a she-demon who was out to kill Sam and Dean. I don't see how or why Dean should feel the need to be more politically correct in abusing her. What other invectives could he have used in that situation?
The potholes of feminism
This failure of most feminists to look at the context and the individuals invloved in certain scenarios is a pet peeve of mine. In the comments in the F_W entry, one person noted that in one scene Dean corners Bela and advances upon her in what she thinks for a moment is a sexually predatory fashion. She shrinks back, and Dean, understanding what's on her mind dismisses it by saying "Don't flatter yourself". Then he goes on to pat her down for weapons in a business-like way.
Feminist reaction: First he sexually intimidates her and then he makes light of her fright by derogating her sexual appeal! Asshole! His dick must be set on fire!
This judgement holds weight till you realize that Bela's character is a classy thug who has shot, nearly killed and betrayed Sam and Dean time and time again. If Dean really were the giant prick some viewers make him out to be, he could have kept Bela guessing. Yet, he reassured her. With an insult yes, but he did reassure her. In that scenario, confronted with a person he had all too good reason to despise and fear, should the manner of his reassurance have been softer and less deragatory?
I'm an individualist. I prefer to see the individual and the context first and the gender second. In my opinion, the insult used in this situation was a reflection on the immorality of the character rather than a power-play upon her gender.
So what exactly are sexually discriminating invectives?
I suppose one could make a case for the fact that there is glaring lack of insults equivalent to "bitch" and "slut" that targets males specifically. The most popular insults for a man are "son of a bitch" and "bastard". Yes, we do use "asshole" and others, but "son-of-a-bitch" and "bastard" is increasingly seen as the more palatable and PG-13 invectives in popular culture, due to what I think is the sheer frequency of their usage.
Ironically, while these words have never come under fire as far as I know, if you think about it, they are the ones that really do carry misogynistic undertones. "Son of a bitch" implies that the man is bad because he was spawned by a bad mother. "Bastard" implies that he is a bad man because his parents were unmarried, and we all know that the stigma of spawning illegitimate children fall more on the mother than the father. In short, they subscribe to the Dickensian notion of "bad blood" which holds the mother responsible for the wrong-doing of the son. And yet, as far as I know, these terms have never come under scrutiny.
In conclusion, I wish that people would be more circumspect about who they accuse of misogyny. I'm not blind enough to say that Supernatural has no implied misogyny or sexism in content. It has about as much sexism as many other shows on TV, and the horror genre as a whole have always courted sexism ever since the days of darkly handsome vampires sucking on scantily clad nubile women. I'm just saying that a) you're barking up the wrong tree by taking this route, b) trying to improve a show we love by pointing out elements about it which disturns us do not make us bad fangirls and c) just because we feel that the good outweighs the bad enough for us to love the show anyway doesn't make us blind hormonal twits.
Everybody has a different opinion. Things that are "obvious" and the "One True Way" for you aren't that obvious and agreeable to others, at which point you're supposed to either give them an audience and present your viewpoint in a manner that doesn't make everybody else feel like you're attacking everybody else's intelligence. And if you don't really give a fuck about "stupid people getting butthurt about your opinion" (read: mortally insulting them for having a different opinion) well, fandom really, really can do without you.
sazzletteasserted that Dean, according to his upbringing and environment, was fundamentally sexist. Sexist, but a good man. Good men can be sexist. Boys will be boys. If you don't like it, quit watching and leave the rest of the fans in peace. Naturally, most of the fandom took exception to this. Her post had several good points about Dean's motivations and urged to take a good look at the context in which the slurs were used, all of which were undermined by the fact that she started out trying to downplay sexism. One person replied in the comments that the same argument would hardly stand up if one replaced "sexism" with "racism" or "homophobia". Would the fans have been as quick to dismiss Dean's pottymouth as a character quirk if he had gone around calling the demons "niggers" or "faggots"?
I can get on board with that argument. However, my problem is that I've never seen Dean as sexist (which is a serious accusation to make against anyone in these times) and certainly not because he keeps using the words "slut, skank and bitch" to derogate she-demons and Bela. Most people, including myself, have commented that they should have felt offended by his language, and yet didn't. They were, of course, attacked as being morally lax liars. But I have a theory on why people don't find these insults offensive to them, personally.
Look at the words themselves. Is "bitch" and "slut" in the same league as "nigger" or "faggot"? When you say "nigger" you imply that a person is worthless because he is black. When you say "faggot" you imply a person is worthless because he is homosexual. Discrimination via generalization. But when you say "bitch" you mean "a mean woman". "Slut" = a promiscous woman. Note the adjective. The insult is not that you are a woman, but what kind of woman you are. I fail to see how this implies discrimination any more than if a person called a man "asshole" or "dickhead". I am not, however, disputing that these are serious insults to make against a woman.
And, as
sazzlette pointed out, look at the context in which they were used. The insults were levelled at a she-demon who was out to kill Sam and Dean. I don't see how or why Dean should feel the need to be more politically correct in abusing her. What other invectives could he have used in that situation? The potholes of feminism
This failure of most feminists to look at the context and the individuals invloved in certain scenarios is a pet peeve of mine. In the comments in the F_W entry, one person noted that in one scene Dean corners Bela and advances upon her in what she thinks for a moment is a sexually predatory fashion. She shrinks back, and Dean, understanding what's on her mind dismisses it by saying "Don't flatter yourself". Then he goes on to pat her down for weapons in a business-like way.
Feminist reaction: First he sexually intimidates her and then he makes light of her fright by derogating her sexual appeal! Asshole! His dick must be set on fire!
This judgement holds weight till you realize that Bela's character is a classy thug who has shot, nearly killed and betrayed Sam and Dean time and time again. If Dean really were the giant prick some viewers make him out to be, he could have kept Bela guessing. Yet, he reassured her. With an insult yes, but he did reassure her. In that scenario, confronted with a person he had all too good reason to despise and fear, should the manner of his reassurance have been softer and less deragatory?
I'm an individualist. I prefer to see the individual and the context first and the gender second. In my opinion, the insult used in this situation was a reflection on the immorality of the character rather than a power-play upon her gender.
So what exactly are sexually discriminating invectives?
I suppose one could make a case for the fact that there is glaring lack of insults equivalent to "bitch" and "slut" that targets males specifically. The most popular insults for a man are "son of a bitch" and "bastard". Yes, we do use "asshole" and others, but "son-of-a-bitch" and "bastard" is increasingly seen as the more palatable and PG-13 invectives in popular culture, due to what I think is the sheer frequency of their usage.
Ironically, while these words have never come under fire as far as I know, if you think about it, they are the ones that really do carry misogynistic undertones. "Son of a bitch" implies that the man is bad because he was spawned by a bad mother. "Bastard" implies that he is a bad man because his parents were unmarried, and we all know that the stigma of spawning illegitimate children fall more on the mother than the father. In short, they subscribe to the Dickensian notion of "bad blood" which holds the mother responsible for the wrong-doing of the son. And yet, as far as I know, these terms have never come under scrutiny.
In conclusion, I wish that people would be more circumspect about who they accuse of misogyny. I'm not blind enough to say that Supernatural has no implied misogyny or sexism in content. It has about as much sexism as many other shows on TV, and the horror genre as a whole have always courted sexism ever since the days of darkly handsome vampires sucking on scantily clad nubile women. I'm just saying that a) you're barking up the wrong tree by taking this route, b) trying to improve a show we love by pointing out elements about it which disturns us do not make us bad fangirls and c) just because we feel that the good outweighs the bad enough for us to love the show anyway doesn't make us blind hormonal twits.
Everybody has a different opinion. Things that are "obvious" and the "One True Way" for you aren't that obvious and agreeable to others, at which point you're supposed to either give them an audience and present your viewpoint in a manner that doesn't make everybody else feel like you're attacking everybody else's intelligence. And if you don't really give a fuck about "stupid people getting butthurt about your opinion" (read: mortally insulting them for having a different opinion) well, fandom really, really can do without you.
That's my thirty dollars and two cents, folks. I may be wrong, I may be biased, and I may not have looked at all points of view, although I've tried my hardest to avoid any of that. I'm open to debate and discussion as long you keep things civil. (This is not a warning to my lovely flist, who has never been anything but courteous to me, but for other lurkers and such.)
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(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-21 04:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-21 04:34 pm (UTC)Honestly, though, I'm only ambivalent about the porn industry. It mostly caters to the entertainment kinks of men and women, right? Kinks can't be politically correct. I mean, I have a prediliction for non-con and dub-con in fics and suchlike, but that doesn't mean I condone it in real life.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-21 09:16 pm (UTC)When the heroes of a show mention porn that casually, like It's *obvious* they watch it, it affects the way people see it. TV has a huge effect on our lives, after all, whether we realize it or not.
The porn industry...let's say every porn star I ever heard of but one has been sexually assaulted . I watched a documentary about a girl who's professional name is belladonna, and was quite shocked. It followed her around for quite a while, and showed the way she went downhill (she also, of course, was molested as a kid). Anti-porn is a big issue, and I can't really summarize it in one LJ comment, so I'll just refer you to the site of this lady, Dr Diana Russell. If you feel like it, read around it.
http://www.dianarussell.com/newarticles.html