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sistermagpie May. 24th, 2005 01:55 pm)
sistermagpie May. 24th, 2005 01:55 pm)There are a lot of discussions/comments on this topic recently, but it comes periodically in fandom. It's the one about writing "responsibly" or "with compassion" about real life issues like (as recently listed): rape, abortion, grief, alcoholism and miscarriage.
It's funny that I think a lot about writing, but this is one subject that I
To me these kinds of topics just aren't that different from any other topic. They occur in real life to real people, and can be used in fiction in as many ways as there are authors. Some authors are going to have a gift for making them seem real in their fiction whether or not they really know anything about them, just because for whatever reason they imagine them well. Some people are going to write them dreadfully with the best research and intentions. Some people are going to write these things with no interest in the above.
I guess the thing with me is, while I understand the importance of labeling these kinds of things because we know there are people who want to avoid them and I see no reason not to do that for them, I don't think I make that much of a distinction between them and any other human experience. For me, for instance, badfic is badfic. If a newbie author on ff.net reveals how little she knows about what it's like to have a job when she attempts to write about child characters she's aged up, it's just a newbie author who can't convincingly write about holding a job. It doesn't become more offensive to me when that same author decides to write about rape or eating disorders or grief or a miscarriage and shows the same level of cluelessness. In fact, one of the few times I sampled RPS I was thrown out of the story and back-clicked not because of any moral issues about it but because I just didn't believe this was what it was like on a movie set at all and it embarassed me!
Is it wrong to write about a subject just to play on the readers' emotions? I can't say I think so, since that's pretty much the goal of most fiction. Besides which, I understand how those fantasy stories work. As much as I can laugh at the concept of the healing!cock cliché I can understand where it comes from even if I don't like to read rape!fic. Frankly, I think part of the trouble is that a lot of writers simply aren't skilled enough to play on readers' emotions so always wind up reaching for hyperbole because they only know the character has to hurt *really really bad* and the only way they can put that across is through reaching for abuse and taboo. The fics that really work often don't have to reach that far--they use the small and humiliating to greater effect, and those are the kinds of things that everybody knows about and probably doesn't need to research. You can understand, almost, why some authors prefer grand tragedy, though. They can imagine a pain that demands respect in itself because that’s what they associate with the word "miscarriage" or "rape" (though the real things carry their own piles of mundane awfulness) that is less scary to try to describe that something like: "I don't find happiness anywhere" or "I'm lonely" or "I think if I disappeared tomorrow nobody would care or notice" or "I wish I were special but I'm not." I don’t think the advice to this person should necessarily be to learn more about the commonly seen emotional responses to rape or miscarriage. They would probably do better to focus on what it is they really want to write about.
It's funny, in a way, that you rarely hear anyone giving advice on how everyone should write mundane feelings more responsibly (better, please, but not responsibly). In HP-fic, for instance, you probably won't hear too many people demanding more realism and sensitivity in portraying the bully character or the bigot, although that's as much a part of the human experience as alcoholism. On the contrary, sometimes there almost seems to be the suggestion that this sort of thing must be done sparingly to avoid being offensive to the victims of these things. And victims they must be--even if the victim of the bully is by and large in a happier, stronger place than his/her tormentor they must be the one we sympathize with, according to many people, even if the other way around might be a more interesting story, and more in line with what the author wants to say. Are people offended by HP for its unrealistic portrayal of child abuse? Aren't the Dursleys a form of exactly the kind of hurt/comfort fic we see in fanfic, only in this case it's more the suffering/reward fantasy? Is it just that HP is obviously tongue in cheek? Even if it is, aren't kids invited to identify with suffering!Harry because it's fun and not just pity him?
Also, just as these topics, like any other, are going to be handled badly, so are they probably going to be reduced to plot points if the author needs it. It seems like a very recent thing to feel that some special subjects must always be handled sensitively--often according to a specific formula. It seems like in the past it wasn't considered strange to throw rape, child murder, miscarriage, madness and anything else under the sun in there because it was dramatic, without stopping to think about how this would effect the victim on a personal level.
I remember reading an article a while ago, in fact, that talked about this kind of trauma, and how there’s this instinct to overstate it. This article was talking about sexual abuse in childhood, specifically. It wasn't brushing the subject off as not being painful, obviously, just saying that the idea that a person could not ever recover from it, and that it must become the defining experience of his/her life, was not necessarily accurate. You just have to wonder about things like that, really, not because there aren't people who aren't seriously traumatized by this in the long-term (and that doesn't make them worse or weaker than people who aren't), but because what is the fear surrounding those people who aren't? What is the big thing that divides some painful experiences from other experiences, so that writing ignorantly about the life of a doctor is different than writing ignorantly about the life of a victim of abuse--is it just that the latter is more tasteless?
The possibly troubling fact is that being sensitive about trauma does not necessarily mean you're acting the best way you could be. For instance, there was this whole idea about how trauma should be handled after 9/11 that required making people tell their stories about what happened to them as a group within a set amount of hours after it happened. There were some companies near the towers who hired therapists to come in and do this with their staff. In fact, this is one of the worst things you can do, because it keeps people from forgetting all they might and, even worse, listening to other stories gives people false memories of more trauma. It seemed people had more of the right idea about handling trauma back in WWII where bombing raid victims were given tea and rolls and a place to sit comfortably. (Is it me, or do people seem to be portrayed as far more fragile than they once were?)
Anyway, in thinking about why this "tell the story within X hours to a therapist" was so popular the article writer suggested it was because it played to the vanity of the rest of us. There was something attractive in the idea that you could, by being the sensitive, understanding listener, take credit for healing another person in one big dramatically cathartic scene. We all know that scenario from h/c fics--how many times has Rosie Gamgee kept Frodo from needing to go over the sea with a well-timed cup of tea, a few hugs, and the gift to "feel" and understand everything Frodo went through as he tells it?
I guess all these angles just seem like such an unavoidable phase for many younger people especially, though plenty of adults still get a lot out of it too, that it doesn't seem as insensitive as all that. People are encouraged to learn to "feel it" but the thing is they do "feel it." Or at least, they feel something, only they're not very good at describing it. So in their fics maybe they're just wallowing in the feeling of being mistreated, and that comes out as gratuitous abuse!fic. Or, of course, otoh, they know exactly what they're doing and they're just writing to a kink. In that case telling them to be more realistic is really just not understanding the genre or the style. You might as well tell the person to be more realistic as you might tell a fantasy writer magic doesn't exist or tell a romance writer to write her male characters more like the guys in Tom Clancy. For better or worse, excessive abuse, trauma and suffering are a big part of the fanfic genre, and the genre has developed many of its own formulas, even if many of them can be cringeworthy. Maybe my problem is I just find all of it so weird and wonderful, just for existing.
It's funny that I think a lot about writing, but this is one subject that I
To me these kinds of topics just aren't that different from any other topic. They occur in real life to real people, and can be used in fiction in as many ways as there are authors. Some authors are going to have a gift for making them seem real in their fiction whether or not they really know anything about them, just because for whatever reason they imagine them well. Some people are going to write them dreadfully with the best research and intentions. Some people are going to write these things with no interest in the above.
I guess the thing with me is, while I understand the importance of labeling these kinds of things because we know there are people who want to avoid them and I see no reason not to do that for them, I don't think I make that much of a distinction between them and any other human experience. For me, for instance, badfic is badfic. If a newbie author on ff.net reveals how little she knows about what it's like to have a job when she attempts to write about child characters she's aged up, it's just a newbie author who can't convincingly write about holding a job. It doesn't become more offensive to me when that same author decides to write about rape or eating disorders or grief or a miscarriage and shows the same level of cluelessness. In fact, one of the few times I sampled RPS I was thrown out of the story and back-clicked not because of any moral issues about it but because I just didn't believe this was what it was like on a movie set at all and it embarassed me!
Is it wrong to write about a subject just to play on the readers' emotions? I can't say I think so, since that's pretty much the goal of most fiction. Besides which, I understand how those fantasy stories work. As much as I can laugh at the concept of the healing!cock cliché I can understand where it comes from even if I don't like to read rape!fic. Frankly, I think part of the trouble is that a lot of writers simply aren't skilled enough to play on readers' emotions so always wind up reaching for hyperbole because they only know the character has to hurt *really really bad* and the only way they can put that across is through reaching for abuse and taboo. The fics that really work often don't have to reach that far--they use the small and humiliating to greater effect, and those are the kinds of things that everybody knows about and probably doesn't need to research. You can understand, almost, why some authors prefer grand tragedy, though. They can imagine a pain that demands respect in itself because that’s what they associate with the word "miscarriage" or "rape" (though the real things carry their own piles of mundane awfulness) that is less scary to try to describe that something like: "I don't find happiness anywhere" or "I'm lonely" or "I think if I disappeared tomorrow nobody would care or notice" or "I wish I were special but I'm not." I don’t think the advice to this person should necessarily be to learn more about the commonly seen emotional responses to rape or miscarriage. They would probably do better to focus on what it is they really want to write about.
It's funny, in a way, that you rarely hear anyone giving advice on how everyone should write mundane feelings more responsibly (better, please, but not responsibly). In HP-fic, for instance, you probably won't hear too many people demanding more realism and sensitivity in portraying the bully character or the bigot, although that's as much a part of the human experience as alcoholism. On the contrary, sometimes there almost seems to be the suggestion that this sort of thing must be done sparingly to avoid being offensive to the victims of these things. And victims they must be--even if the victim of the bully is by and large in a happier, stronger place than his/her tormentor they must be the one we sympathize with, according to many people, even if the other way around might be a more interesting story, and more in line with what the author wants to say. Are people offended by HP for its unrealistic portrayal of child abuse? Aren't the Dursleys a form of exactly the kind of hurt/comfort fic we see in fanfic, only in this case it's more the suffering/reward fantasy? Is it just that HP is obviously tongue in cheek? Even if it is, aren't kids invited to identify with suffering!Harry because it's fun and not just pity him?
Also, just as these topics, like any other, are going to be handled badly, so are they probably going to be reduced to plot points if the author needs it. It seems like a very recent thing to feel that some special subjects must always be handled sensitively--often according to a specific formula. It seems like in the past it wasn't considered strange to throw rape, child murder, miscarriage, madness and anything else under the sun in there because it was dramatic, without stopping to think about how this would effect the victim on a personal level.
I remember reading an article a while ago, in fact, that talked about this kind of trauma, and how there’s this instinct to overstate it. This article was talking about sexual abuse in childhood, specifically. It wasn't brushing the subject off as not being painful, obviously, just saying that the idea that a person could not ever recover from it, and that it must become the defining experience of his/her life, was not necessarily accurate. You just have to wonder about things like that, really, not because there aren't people who aren't seriously traumatized by this in the long-term (and that doesn't make them worse or weaker than people who aren't), but because what is the fear surrounding those people who aren't? What is the big thing that divides some painful experiences from other experiences, so that writing ignorantly about the life of a doctor is different than writing ignorantly about the life of a victim of abuse--is it just that the latter is more tasteless?
The possibly troubling fact is that being sensitive about trauma does not necessarily mean you're acting the best way you could be. For instance, there was this whole idea about how trauma should be handled after 9/11 that required making people tell their stories about what happened to them as a group within a set amount of hours after it happened. There were some companies near the towers who hired therapists to come in and do this with their staff. In fact, this is one of the worst things you can do, because it keeps people from forgetting all they might and, even worse, listening to other stories gives people false memories of more trauma. It seemed people had more of the right idea about handling trauma back in WWII where bombing raid victims were given tea and rolls and a place to sit comfortably. (Is it me, or do people seem to be portrayed as far more fragile than they once were?)
Anyway, in thinking about why this "tell the story within X hours to a therapist" was so popular the article writer suggested it was because it played to the vanity of the rest of us. There was something attractive in the idea that you could, by being the sensitive, understanding listener, take credit for healing another person in one big dramatically cathartic scene. We all know that scenario from h/c fics--how many times has Rosie Gamgee kept Frodo from needing to go over the sea with a well-timed cup of tea, a few hugs, and the gift to "feel" and understand everything Frodo went through as he tells it?
I guess all these angles just seem like such an unavoidable phase for many younger people especially, though plenty of adults still get a lot out of it too, that it doesn't seem as insensitive as all that. People are encouraged to learn to "feel it" but the thing is they do "feel it." Or at least, they feel something, only they're not very good at describing it. So in their fics maybe they're just wallowing in the feeling of being mistreated, and that comes out as gratuitous abuse!fic. Or, of course, otoh, they know exactly what they're doing and they're just writing to a kink. In that case telling them to be more realistic is really just not understanding the genre or the style. You might as well tell the person to be more realistic as you might tell a fantasy writer magic doesn't exist or tell a romance writer to write her male characters more like the guys in Tom Clancy. For better or worse, excessive abuse, trauma and suffering are a big part of the fanfic genre, and the genre has developed many of its own formulas, even if many of them can be cringeworthy. Maybe my problem is I just find all of it so weird and wonderful, just for existing.
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From:
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However, it's not only badfic that deals with for instance rape in an "irresponsible" way. Otherwise good fics can portray a rapist as being "justified" in raping, and have the rape victim fall in love with the rapist etc, and I personally find that much more disturbing then when a badfic does the same thing. I guess I do because badfic in general sort of strikes me as uncencored, printed fantasies, rather than something the writer has consciously thought through, but when I come across a well-written story with a essage I have a hard time to swallow (which, of course happens in published literature, movies, TV shows all the time, for instance I remember a Spanish movie where the protagonist raped his love interest in the middle of the film, and she forgave him and married him at the end of the movie), I find that disturbing, because I have to wonder "what is the author trying to say here?"
From:
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that was supposed to be "message" and not "essage". ;-)
From:
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Honestly I think this is probably so so common, especially for teenagers. And really, if you'd been obsessed with finding out about real victims of these things I don't know if that would make it so much more respectful. I mean, if you didn't know the difference between your fantasies and the real thing, that would be one thing. But it seems more just like a private pity party.
Of course, in fanfic these things are written down so maybe people automatically assume you're then saying something about the real subject, but I don't think you really are.
For some reason this reminds me of an Oprah I once saw where she was saying how she really hates horror movies and she always says, "Why would you want to create horror when there's so much in the world?" or something like that. Needless to say I just don't think she gets horror movies at all and that's a dumb thing to say, but I thought what was especially weird is doesn't she like all that Lifetime Women's movie type stuff? Why is it somehow different to want to watch Jacklyn Smith get raped and then fall in love? That's standard Woman's programming.
Otherwise good fics can portray a rapist as being "justified" in raping, and have the rape victim fall in love with the rapist etc, and I personally find that much more disturbing then when a badfic does the same thing.
Absolutely. I find that much more disturbing.
From:
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Yeah, and just as we all have different reasons for writing fanfic, we all have different reasons for reading it, too. The people who like to read this type of fic, may very well do it for the same reason as I fantasised about those things. Personally, I don't want to read anyone else's fantasies when I read fanfic, I read because I want to read about the characters I know and love (and thus it's essential to me that they don't act in a way I would find extremely unlikely for them to act in), or sometimes to read a good story. Like instead of reading a novel, I'll read a story on the Internet in a setting and with characters I'm already familiar with. Basically, fanfic is a substitute for me, whilst awaiting new Canon. But for other people it may be about completely different things.