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It seems like in the past few days I've run across an awful lot of posts explaining how people other than the poster think. Boy, I love posts like that (not)
Yes, my reaction to the text is completely explained by my not being able to read, and the fact that I spend all my time projecting and twisting the text to say things I want it to say rather than what it does. Anyway, one of the many ways I seem to have stumbled across this recently brought up the idea of people identifying with Slytherin and why they do this. (This particular discussion was actually not obnoxious and was not part of the stuff I just described; I'm just mentioning it because I think it gets into that same area of trying to understand someone else without really leaving your own pov.)
The idea was that to identify as being Slytherin one must be turning them into what you want them to be, either the movie actors or the fanon versions. Obviously there are people who do that, who consider it the "Goth house" or the one that shows you're sort of a rebel or whatever. And while I think even those people are responding to something in the text people may want to deny, the fact is that sitting where I do in fandom, smack in the middle of Slytherin-land, that's not my experience. I, myself, do not identify with that house--in most tests I've taken I come out with Slytherin on the very bottom. Perhaps it's the fact that they're so foreign to me that makes me not dislike them as much as others. But anyway, of the people I know who do identify with those characters they actually seem not only accurate about where they would be but surprisingly honest about themselves. Because not only do they not deny all the bad qualities of Slytherin, they say they once had that mindset, and in some ways still do, and so understand them. HP is based on stereotypes which in themselves are based on reality. The Slytherin characters may be the most cartoony but even they are based on real people--so why would people not identify with them? They recognize themselves as the ones being caricatured. In fact, the one person like that who made the most impression on me was a kid who loved the books until she got old enough to recognize that she would be in Slytherin and so was really not wanted there. It seems like dismissing this pov as basically stupid, while that is what the text seems to favor, is a bit counter-productive.
Of course, you don't have to identify with the house to dislike the way it's used within canon or interpret scenes with Slytherin differently than someone else. Some of the things that seem perfectly obvious and uncontroversial to me are decried as absolute insanity in many parts of the fandom. People have been known to convince me that I'm seeing things wrong, though the arguments against my view of Slytherin still seem to come down, bluntly, to adopting way of looking at the world I don't like and don't see as a particularly good one.
Which brings me to the next thing that came up elsewhere, which is why one is in fandom? This came up in the context of saying that fandom is supposed to be "fun" and if you're making yourself miserable there's something wrong with you. First, this taps into something that's always going on in fandom, I think, which is always finding ways to show that you're not one of the crazies or the losers. We all know that people have been known to stalk and kill actors, or have no social life outside of fandom. To outsiders we're probably all perilously close to that stereotype. For many people the fact that you read or write fanfic is enough to mark you as a loser; they don't care if you only write genfic or you think slash b/w underage characters is abhorrent. I don't know if this is why we feel we need to police ourselves vigilantly, or if perhaps there's some self-hatred going on or what. But I'd say pretty consistently since I've been in fandom the standard way to insult anyone is to tell them they have no life and suggest their fandom obsession marks them as "one of those" people--unlike the person doing the insulting, who does not take fandom seriously at all, etc.
We all have certain behaviors that ping us as being unhealthy and weird in ways that our own behavior isn't. It'd be dishonest for me to act like this is everyone else's problem and not my own (or that people don't sometimes get unhealthy, of course). It's sometimes just different things that disturb us, different attitudes that strike us as indicative that the person is losing their grip on reality. The trouble is, fandom is by definition about agreeing to loosen your grip on reality, isn't it? It's about discussing works of fiction as if they were somehow "real," if not in terms of the characters actually existing (though for some people it is about that) then in terms of these works being solid enough to hold up to examination and tell us something about the real world.
This is maybe why it surprised me to hear someone say that there was something wrong about someone's fandom experience encompassing feelings of grief or dissatisfaction or sorrow or pain. To me, fandom is not for people who just really enjoy a piece of fiction, it's for people who interact with fiction a certain way--a way we really can't help, at least I can't. We're not just sitting around agreeing with something as being good. Some people do get something out of, say, squeeing at the fact that "their" book is a movie, or cheering for the actors who are in it, or whatever. I can't really relate to that social aspect. While I think this is a valid part of fandom, I think if that was all there was to it there simply wouldn't be much of what we call fandom.
Fandom is more people coming together because it means more than that. Last week on Bullshit Penn & Teller took on Mother Theresa, Gandhi and the Dalai Llama, proving they were all just people who didn't always represent what was best about the species. They kept going back to this group of women who were talking about what sounded like one of the three--a spiritual leader. They couldn't really explain why he made them feel so inspired, but they wanted to help him reach his goals etc. They discussed times they had met him in person and described how his actions in those few minutes supported their previous ideas that he was just a really special, good person. Finally at the end of the show they went out to see him and we, the audience learned the name of their idol-their American Idol: Clay Aiken-woo-hoo!!!
And you know? The show wasn't making fun of them. Partially because they'd just shown that deifying Gandhi or Mother Theresa is just as ridiculous as deifying Clay Aiken, even if they, personally, admired certain acts of Gandhi more than anything Clay's done. The point was just that people do this, that these figures are something we use to discuss what we admire, what we want to be. I think as strange as it sounds, this is just a common way of processing the world. People have always done it.
So what happens if it starts to become negative? Well, that's part of it too. How could you process the world through fandom, be it fandom surrounding a person or a canon, if it didn't reflect the bad as well as the good? In my own experience, if the object of my fannishness makes me upset it's because it taps into something bigger than just that I'm sad my character didn't get the girl or whatever. That's why you tend to gravitate towards people who read canon the same way you do, at least that's what happens to me. Why else would we need to come up with explanations of how those other people in fandom think? If it was all just the same people wouldn't need to explain away why people like Sirius rather than Snape-it would just come down to which cardboard cut-out you chose to squee at the feet of. That's really what it's about, isn't it, us thinking differently about the world? That's why it seems impossible to privilege our own fannish experience as being the one that's not crazy or not as much of a personal investment. It's kind of like ignoring the huge elephant in the middle of the fandom room, which is that we all get something personal out of this, and we all put something into it personally. When we debate about scenes or characters we really are arguing about different ways of seeing the world, and that's not, imo, a waste of time or having no life. The thing that makes fictional fandom potentially more self-aware and interesting than, say, sports fandom is that we can be more honest about it or more interested in that fact that we're doing that. Sports fans are just as committed and sometimes wind up even fighting physically over this stuff. It just seems that usually they talk about the why's less, you know? They're not supposed to talk about the personal, geeky reasons they do this--they just think X is the better player or the better team. Maybe it's because it's not spoken about it can be treated with more respect by Hollywood--I mean, the sports movie is pretty standard and comes pretty close to the stuff those Clay Aiken fans were talking about, only it's presented as something healthy and universal there.
The celebrity or character or idea you like says something about who you are-not in a passive way, like a zodiac sign, but in what you've chosen to stand for. The object of your attention simply gives you a good context in which to discuss it. You define what that means by how you talk about that character or celebrity. Who you dislike is exactly the same thing. And it's rarely, in my experience, a case of two people being on opposite sides of something. It's more that they are both looking at the same object and understanding it differently in context of the world. This sometimes makes it much harder to discuss it with each other, perhaps because both sides feel threatened. But you know, there are lots of times when I feel like people assume that if they accept that the other person's view of something is valid it means they have to give up their own when they really don't. The two views really often can exist side by side if we'd let them, imo. Though maybe neither side can be quite so extreme in their views…I don't think that's usually a bad thing.
I think I've begun to ramble. Perhaps more than begun.:-)
Yes, my reaction to the text is completely explained by my not being able to read, and the fact that I spend all my time projecting and twisting the text to say things I want it to say rather than what it does. Anyway, one of the many ways I seem to have stumbled across this recently brought up the idea of people identifying with Slytherin and why they do this. (This particular discussion was actually not obnoxious and was not part of the stuff I just described; I'm just mentioning it because I think it gets into that same area of trying to understand someone else without really leaving your own pov.)
The idea was that to identify as being Slytherin one must be turning them into what you want them to be, either the movie actors or the fanon versions. Obviously there are people who do that, who consider it the "Goth house" or the one that shows you're sort of a rebel or whatever. And while I think even those people are responding to something in the text people may want to deny, the fact is that sitting where I do in fandom, smack in the middle of Slytherin-land, that's not my experience. I, myself, do not identify with that house--in most tests I've taken I come out with Slytherin on the very bottom. Perhaps it's the fact that they're so foreign to me that makes me not dislike them as much as others. But anyway, of the people I know who do identify with those characters they actually seem not only accurate about where they would be but surprisingly honest about themselves. Because not only do they not deny all the bad qualities of Slytherin, they say they once had that mindset, and in some ways still do, and so understand them. HP is based on stereotypes which in themselves are based on reality. The Slytherin characters may be the most cartoony but even they are based on real people--so why would people not identify with them? They recognize themselves as the ones being caricatured. In fact, the one person like that who made the most impression on me was a kid who loved the books until she got old enough to recognize that she would be in Slytherin and so was really not wanted there. It seems like dismissing this pov as basically stupid, while that is what the text seems to favor, is a bit counter-productive.
Of course, you don't have to identify with the house to dislike the way it's used within canon or interpret scenes with Slytherin differently than someone else. Some of the things that seem perfectly obvious and uncontroversial to me are decried as absolute insanity in many parts of the fandom. People have been known to convince me that I'm seeing things wrong, though the arguments against my view of Slytherin still seem to come down, bluntly, to adopting way of looking at the world I don't like and don't see as a particularly good one.
Which brings me to the next thing that came up elsewhere, which is why one is in fandom? This came up in the context of saying that fandom is supposed to be "fun" and if you're making yourself miserable there's something wrong with you. First, this taps into something that's always going on in fandom, I think, which is always finding ways to show that you're not one of the crazies or the losers. We all know that people have been known to stalk and kill actors, or have no social life outside of fandom. To outsiders we're probably all perilously close to that stereotype. For many people the fact that you read or write fanfic is enough to mark you as a loser; they don't care if you only write genfic or you think slash b/w underage characters is abhorrent. I don't know if this is why we feel we need to police ourselves vigilantly, or if perhaps there's some self-hatred going on or what. But I'd say pretty consistently since I've been in fandom the standard way to insult anyone is to tell them they have no life and suggest their fandom obsession marks them as "one of those" people--unlike the person doing the insulting, who does not take fandom seriously at all, etc.
We all have certain behaviors that ping us as being unhealthy and weird in ways that our own behavior isn't. It'd be dishonest for me to act like this is everyone else's problem and not my own (or that people don't sometimes get unhealthy, of course). It's sometimes just different things that disturb us, different attitudes that strike us as indicative that the person is losing their grip on reality. The trouble is, fandom is by definition about agreeing to loosen your grip on reality, isn't it? It's about discussing works of fiction as if they were somehow "real," if not in terms of the characters actually existing (though for some people it is about that) then in terms of these works being solid enough to hold up to examination and tell us something about the real world.
This is maybe why it surprised me to hear someone say that there was something wrong about someone's fandom experience encompassing feelings of grief or dissatisfaction or sorrow or pain. To me, fandom is not for people who just really enjoy a piece of fiction, it's for people who interact with fiction a certain way--a way we really can't help, at least I can't. We're not just sitting around agreeing with something as being good. Some people do get something out of, say, squeeing at the fact that "their" book is a movie, or cheering for the actors who are in it, or whatever. I can't really relate to that social aspect. While I think this is a valid part of fandom, I think if that was all there was to it there simply wouldn't be much of what we call fandom.
Fandom is more people coming together because it means more than that. Last week on Bullshit Penn & Teller took on Mother Theresa, Gandhi and the Dalai Llama, proving they were all just people who didn't always represent what was best about the species. They kept going back to this group of women who were talking about what sounded like one of the three--a spiritual leader. They couldn't really explain why he made them feel so inspired, but they wanted to help him reach his goals etc. They discussed times they had met him in person and described how his actions in those few minutes supported their previous ideas that he was just a really special, good person. Finally at the end of the show they went out to see him and we, the audience learned the name of their idol-their American Idol: Clay Aiken-woo-hoo!!!
And you know? The show wasn't making fun of them. Partially because they'd just shown that deifying Gandhi or Mother Theresa is just as ridiculous as deifying Clay Aiken, even if they, personally, admired certain acts of Gandhi more than anything Clay's done. The point was just that people do this, that these figures are something we use to discuss what we admire, what we want to be. I think as strange as it sounds, this is just a common way of processing the world. People have always done it.
So what happens if it starts to become negative? Well, that's part of it too. How could you process the world through fandom, be it fandom surrounding a person or a canon, if it didn't reflect the bad as well as the good? In my own experience, if the object of my fannishness makes me upset it's because it taps into something bigger than just that I'm sad my character didn't get the girl or whatever. That's why you tend to gravitate towards people who read canon the same way you do, at least that's what happens to me. Why else would we need to come up with explanations of how those other people in fandom think? If it was all just the same people wouldn't need to explain away why people like Sirius rather than Snape-it would just come down to which cardboard cut-out you chose to squee at the feet of. That's really what it's about, isn't it, us thinking differently about the world? That's why it seems impossible to privilege our own fannish experience as being the one that's not crazy or not as much of a personal investment. It's kind of like ignoring the huge elephant in the middle of the fandom room, which is that we all get something personal out of this, and we all put something into it personally. When we debate about scenes or characters we really are arguing about different ways of seeing the world, and that's not, imo, a waste of time or having no life. The thing that makes fictional fandom potentially more self-aware and interesting than, say, sports fandom is that we can be more honest about it or more interested in that fact that we're doing that. Sports fans are just as committed and sometimes wind up even fighting physically over this stuff. It just seems that usually they talk about the why's less, you know? They're not supposed to talk about the personal, geeky reasons they do this--they just think X is the better player or the better team. Maybe it's because it's not spoken about it can be treated with more respect by Hollywood--I mean, the sports movie is pretty standard and comes pretty close to the stuff those Clay Aiken fans were talking about, only it's presented as something healthy and universal there.
The celebrity or character or idea you like says something about who you are-not in a passive way, like a zodiac sign, but in what you've chosen to stand for. The object of your attention simply gives you a good context in which to discuss it. You define what that means by how you talk about that character or celebrity. Who you dislike is exactly the same thing. And it's rarely, in my experience, a case of two people being on opposite sides of something. It's more that they are both looking at the same object and understanding it differently in context of the world. This sometimes makes it much harder to discuss it with each other, perhaps because both sides feel threatened. But you know, there are lots of times when I feel like people assume that if they accept that the other person's view of something is valid it means they have to give up their own when they really don't. The two views really often can exist side by side if we'd let them, imo. Though maybe neither side can be quite so extreme in their views…I don't think that's usually a bad thing.
I think I've begun to ramble. Perhaps more than begun.:-)
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Sometimes sports fans get the same treatment (The Fan, Fever Pitch), but most jokes directly end up on the trekkies' doorstep. (Considering this I am always astonished how much the mainstream media ignored HP fandom in their sneering. Maybe we should be grateful for once that we are perceived as being a bunch of fourteen-year olds.)
I would love to speculate why being a fan is such a sneer-worthy topic, but I suspect it has a lot to do with the perception of a - being a geek (Just look at the media representation of D&D players and gamers - which aren't fanboys, but are virtually treated the same.) or b - having low self-esteem and therefore projecting their dreams on someone else.
Fanboys and girls are perceived as weak. And there aren't too many weak people out there that you can make politically correct jokes about. Fans are an easy target.
Of course, there is a certain amount of obsession and wank, where the old "Get a life" standard does contain a grain of truth.
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And yes, the fact that there's truth at the heart of it is not something you can really deny--that William Shatner sketch on SNL still cracks me up; it's great! It's just that that can be used to mask a lot of other things going on that maybe also make people uncomfortable, but shouldn't.
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Partly I think it's because when you get too deep into anything, you're going where the majority of people around you can't follow in everyday conversation - and this, in some sense, is a minor breach in the etiquette of being a good social animal. When you're looking at bugs or trying to figure out the stars you're not helping the troop find food or keeping an eye out for sabre-toothed cats. I could be wrong though. Part of it is obviously also a pervasive social valuation of 'staying cool' and not caring about anything 'too much' - a value judgement best exemplified, for good and ill, by fandom_wank and the like.
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And it all went back to the same question you went through here- if I didn't love you before, this is just more proof I should have LAST YEAR.
It is a different way of approaching the fandom, though, and I don't know how many times I listed all my especially embarrassing "likes list" just to say, I enjoy this, I like it, I like that people play with it in such a dirty, fun, smart way, and that doesn't make me/us bad bad people (not for that at least) who don't know any better.
The way one reads is at the heart of it, isn't it? And not that 'identifying' is a stupid way to read - it's one of the most immediate responses to a text, but to move from there to the immediate conclusion of equating that simplistic view of a character with the reader(You like Slytherin=You are bad/simple minded/going through a rebellious phase), "judging them", then prescribing the narrow and "correct" way to read (all identify with THIS character because that's the hero), just makes me roll my eyes.
And it's difficult isn't it, when the prescriptionists can demand and insist on their way (because the method is in line with the way they interact), and the interpretists (or, as I like to think, the shameless playahs) feel hesitant because arguing that we should not tell someone how to read/what to like is kinda contradictory (on the surface.)
(not that liberals were ever quiet, hahaha)
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The thing about a lot of the judging is I think it misses the point for most people. It's like most strawmen arguments, that if what the person believed something as silly as people think they believe, they wouldn't believe it. And even if they are twisting the text, which some people do, there's probably a reason they're doing it that comes down to more than their being juvenile or stupid.
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I've come around to the view that the "wizarding world" apple had a worm in it from the beginning. And after three centuries of philosophical drift we are seeing some truly appalling social pathologies which have developed (or intensified) largely in response to the self-isolation. The whole thing is fragmenting beyond belief and becoming totally dysfunctional. It didn't happen overnight, either. It took the whole of that 300 years.
They can't rejoin general *human* society. It wouldn't serve any beneficial purpose to resume the cycles of assimilation and persecution. But they need to renegotiate and rebuld the basic tenants that their own society is founded on.
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This is a cool post, too, for getting at so many issues relating to how we handle fundamental differences in fandom. Speaking personally, one of the reasons I love getting into a thread with you is that I think that you and I, for example, do disagree in some fundamental ways on our approach to canon and fanon, sometimes strongly, and it's fascinating to work through those differences meticulously and see what comes out of the process. I love doing that, and somehow I think that kind of engagement needs to be protected from both the forces of flaming coercion and the sort of entropy that results from insisting differences are private and unimportant. A classic liberal dilemma, no?
When we debate about scenes or characters we really are arguing about different ways of seeing the world, and that's not, imo, a waste of time or having no life.
I think this is just a perfect discription of fandom, at both "meta" and more "naive" levels. Fandom is fun to the extent that it creates a pretext for talking about interesting things. And the "interest" is of course probably going to be some kind of visceral connection to an important real-life issue for the participants -- observing and understanding personalities, thinking about character traits, how to behave, how to respond to the world, maybe even how to judge it.
though the arguments against my view of Slytherin still seem to come down, bluntly, to adopting way of looking at the world I don't like and don't see as a particularly good one.
Yay! So if we ever argue about your view of Slytherin *whistles* we're arguing from the heart, about things that matter, which is the only kind of argument worth having.
What starts things sloshing dangerously around in the bilge is very simply, as you say, the fact that different people in fandom are doing radically different things, depending on the commitments and interests that they bring to the whole exercise. And sometimes the apparent nature of fandom as a focused, limited community is deceptive in that it leads people to assume those differences can't be radical, makes them too inclined to assume that rules and standards can and should be imposed on the "right" use of fandom.
Which leads to two issues: First, there probably needs to be a clearer understanding, and more respect, for the radical nature of some of those differences. And second, to the extent that participants value argument and the possibility of change, there has to be an understanding that it's OK to talk about those differences, even in normative terms (because so much of fandom discussion involves thinking about norms).
Obviously, those are contradictory ideas, and negotiating between them takes some consideration and discretion and trial and error. Too often, I think, normative discussion is considered implicitly coercive, or is actually conducted in a coercive way, where in fact it can and should, at its best, be hypothetical, exploratory, provisional, serious the way a game is serious.
The celebrity or character or idea you like says something about who you are-not in a passive way, like a zodiac sign, but in what you've chosen to stand for.
I sometimes wonder if I'm just a terminally irresolute person, but something in this sentence whets my appetite for argument. :) It's not that I disagree, it's just that I wonder if the image is too static. Is it interesting to subject those choices to discussion and argument? Is it a debate-stopper to say "well, that's just my world-view?" Is there a difference between saying "we agree to disagree" (which has always struck me as an intellectual copout) and "we agree not to argue about it" (which is a necessary and healthy form of social tact.)
Now I'm rambling. Nothing new there. :D
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LOL! Yes, and I think what's also important about it is to remember that while a canon can bring people together by showing them things they have in common it can probably also mask agreements in superficial disagreements. With something like HP, for instance, I think in many cases it's just dumb luck that one person happens to read it from one pov and another person see something else in it. It's like that picture I posted that time, where you're looking at the young woman and the old woman. What people are actually disagreeing about can be hidden in what they think they're disagreeing about, because what they sound like they're saying isn't really what they're saying.
So, for instance, I've never really gotten the feeling that you and I disagree on fundamental principles of life to the point where we couldn't work something out in the real world. We seem, most of the time, to both be going for the same ideals and value a lot of the same things. It's just the way we arrange them or work them out within this particular canon that is different--and it's silly to make that the deciding point on whether we can discuss something or not.
And the "interest" is of course probably going to be some kind of visceral connection to an important real-life issue for the participants -- observing and understanding personalities, thinking about character traits, how to behave, how to respond to the world, maybe even how to judge it.
Yes! And I think the thing is that sometimes what we're judging isn't even that clear cut. You have to really talk and listen to the person to understand what concerns they have about something, or what their priorities are. Especially since sometimes if you're talking about something else people get the wrong idea...someone recently read something I wrote and got the impression I really didn't like Sirius as a character, and really I do like him as a character and (I think) viewed the scene much the way that person did.
It's not that I disagree, it's just that I wonder if the image is too static. Is it interesting to subject those choices to discussion and argument? Is it a debate-stopper to say "well, that's just my world-view?" Is there a difference between saying "we agree to disagree" (which has always struck me as an intellectual copout) and "we agree not to argue about it" (which is a necessary and healthy form of social tact.)
Ooh--no you are right to challenge it as too static, because it does sound static. On the contrary, maybe it's more that these things are just a starting off point and should remain completely fluid. Because now that you say it, saying "this is my worldview" sounds almost frighteningly restrictive, because I don't even know what my worldview is, really. That's what I'm trying to work out in the text. So if I say something about the scene I need to think about why I think that, and also make room for people who come at it from a different angle. Because there's always going to be multiple ways of looking at the world, but it's the same world. Agreeing to disagree, to me, usually seems like it really means, "You're wrong but I'm sick of trying to prove it to you because you won't listen."
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being an anti-fan
Maybe part of this is growing up in a family with some snobbishness about TV, so I always had this concept of "it's so bad, it's good" or "love-to-hate-it" texts. Like I said before, we all bond over making fun of 7th Heaven. And I do go read the WB official boards sometimes, or the fanfiction of that show, because I'm fascinated by how other people read it (and how angry they get at anyone who criticizes it). My first introduction to Internet fandom was by the show Dawson's Creek, and I was also fascinated by how people interpreted the actions of the main characters so radically differently, and drew such opposite messages about what the show "meant."
I do find it frustrating when people either insist that one is "reading wrong," or that only bullying brats could be interested in Draco Malfoy, or whatever. But then, I've never really believed in "reading wrong." I'm also always confused when people seem to expect that because an author seems to be obviously making a cue that's the only correct response. I don't get visceral satisfaction out of the house points scene at the end of PS, or either of the train scenes in the last two books. Maybe I'm just not a revenge minded personality (this has been an issue in recent political discussions I've been in), but aside from that, to me just because JKR is trying to elicit a certain response doesn't mean I owe it to her. And I don't think that's simple postmodern English major talk--I always read subversively if that's what felt, well, emotionally authentic to me.
Maybe that's what's really key to my fan or anti-fan interests--I'm more likely to be intrigued in discussing a text that somehow doesn't have that complete emotional authenticity for me--the texts that do, for me, are usually enough in themselves.
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Re: being an anti-fan
I do find it frustrating when people either insist that one is "reading wrong," or that only bullying brats could be interested in Draco Malfoy, or whatever.
Especially since, in my experience, liking or disliking a character only goes so far in explaining someone's personality. Like, two people might agree on certain things, but it's just not that simple, so it's frustrating for anybody to claim it is. Particularly, I think, when it doesn't even fit the stereotype of that fan. For instance, I know nothing about how R/Hr fans come across in fandom, but it would be like let's say I did know how they came across and they were mostly, in my experience, very jokey and someone claimed they were overly seriously just because they assumed that Hermione=serious so they must be that. And I've had more than one experience where I've spoken to someone who was bullying me because they hated Malfoy and were furious I didn't hate him too. Not that this led me to believe that hating Draco=bullying brat, but it obviously proved that it's not as simple as having to be a character to like him, or being unable to dislike a character if you were like him. People are neat that way.:-)
I'm also always confused when people seem to expect that because an author seems to be obviously making a cue that's the only correct response. I don't get visceral satisfaction out of the house points scene at the end of PS, or either of the train scenes in the last two books.
I always find it odd when people feel that not reacting this way emotionally means you've overthought it, like you must be talking yourself out of your real emotions when as far as you know, you had a very visceral response that was just not the one the majority had. But then, that happens in real life too, like in the previous thread where it came up that people were accused of not loving a loved one who was murdered because they didn't want to see the murderer executed. I always get very uncomfortable when people judge actions too narrowly, like that there's only one way to express love or sorrow, and anything else means you don't measure up in that department.
Anyway, I'm just like you in not usually being interested in a fandom too much unless there are holes or disagreements or tensions I have with it. Otherwise my loving something is much more of a private experience and I just don't need other people to bond with or talk with.
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I agree with teratologist. The rule of thumb in sciet seems to that if you are at the point where you can "speak in tongues" about something then you are geek. My friend Joe and I are teased mercillessly by our friends for having in depth discussions about the politics of Tudor Britain. They mock because they do not understand.
In that same vein I think that causes a lot of the wank in fandom. People assume that your interpretation goes agaisnt theirs in away they can't get their heads around then it msut be wrong and there must be soemthign wrong with you for thinking that. It may also come from projecting. People feel weird abotu being in fandom and need to convince themselves that they are not the extreme. Personally? I like beign the extreme but I'm adork.
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Personally, I find it just funny listening to people have serious conversations about stuff I can't completely follow. It's boring if they're doing it to the point where you can't even follow the grammar, but if you basically get it and just can't speak that intensely and confidently I think it's just amusing.
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The celebrity or character or idea you like says something about who you are-not in a passive way, like a zodiac sign, but in what you've chosen to stand for. The object of your attention simply gives you a good context in which to discuss it. You define what that means by how you talk about that character or celebrity.
While I think the character you like does say something about you, it doesn't necessarily indicate what you choose to stand for, and people have so many vastly different reasons for liking a character, it's almost like they like a different character. ;) Thus we get bully!Draco, rebel!Draco, sexgod!Draco, misunderstood!Draco, antihero!Draco, etc. Well, that's my theory, and I'm probably guilty of doing what annoyed you in the first place--assigning motives to people as if I could read their minds. For me, my favorite character is Harry, but I don't think he says anything obvious about me since my values are different from his values, my outlook is vastly different than his, I don't have a crush on him, he's too different from me for me to identify with him in an obvious way, and while he's the hero he's not my hero/role model. I think he's my favorite because I find him intriguingly problematic, and the character shift from GoF to OotP, and I do sympathize with him. I don't know, I consider OotP one of the most flawed books in the series, but it was the book, and Harry's new behavior in it, that brought me into fandom and had me obsessing about it.
I do think that how we choose to explain or discuss our favorite, or hated, character says a lot about us, and what we stand for. For example, the way that I argue that a character's strengths are the character's weaknesses in another context, says a lot about me and how I view the world and what I stand for. So does my privileging of complex worldviews, morality, and situations. To go project my worldview on others, I'd argue that if a fan says that they have a crush on Harry, then they value romance and Harry's traits are what they look for in a significant other. If a fan says that they hate Harry for his dishonesty and hypocrisy, then I'd say the fan values honesty. If a fan touts Harry's virtues and goes into attack mode at the mere suggestion that Harry has flaws or could be wrong, then I'd say the fan has a b&w POV, or identifies with Harry in such a way that an attack on the character is an attack on the fan her/himself.
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Yes--you've hit the nail right on the head. People tend to want to simplify it in ways it just isn't. Most people probably aren't even aware of why they like a particular character, but it's in the way they talk about him/her that you get a sense of where they're coming from. Assuming you know why they like the character is just a bad idea because, as you say, there's so many reasons to.
For instance, people even sometimes assume that whatever character you like is the "type" of character you like when it might not be. Like, people will even assume that if you like the hero of HP you just always like the hero, or if you like a bad guy in HP you just always like the bad guy, and that's not always the case. That's why I like thinking about why I'm drawn to the things I am, because maybe a character or situation slipped under my radar and hit something I don't even know about yet.
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[These] figures are something we use to discuss what we admire, what we want to be. I think…this is just a common way of processing the world. People have always done it.
Right on… this sort of thing seems hard wired into our psyches and cntrary toward being Here we’re referencing the power of symbols for going straight past the conscious mind and touching more instinctual levels… something very powerful, potentially.
I agree completely Whether it was some medieval common person looking up at a knight on his war horse or Romans idolizing gladiators the ‘Hey.. wow…. that’s COOL… he’s coool…” seems to be hardwired into our systems somehow. Modern day fandom is just another kind of “looking up” – a continuation of an age old phenomenon.
When we debate about scenes or characters we really are arguing about different ways of seeing the world, and that's not, imo, a waste of time or having no life.
What’s key here is the concept of “life” as being mutually exclusive from the intense discussion/debate over intangible ideas. IMHO if a “life” is to be healthy needs to include a lot of debate over things you can’t touch, hear or taste. It’s a good workout for the brain, for one thing.
The celebrity or character or idea you like says something about who you are… in what you've chosen to stand for. The object of your attention simply gives you a good context in which to discuss it…by how you talk about that character or celebrity.
Can’t agree more. Celebrities or characters or pop culture ideas then can serve the purpose of a litmus test of sorts, not for the measuring of “right ideas”, but rather referring back to the values and personality and commitment of the individual fan.
I always get very uncomfortable when people judge actions too narrowly, like that there's only one way to express love or sorrow, and anything else means you don't measure up in that department.
As I recall writer Scott Peck commonly uses phrase like “the cause/reason was overdetermined”, by which he means attributed to one, single aspect or factor while ignoring other influences, to describe this sort of thing. I think “overdeterminating” actions as a method of processing is key to the underlying sloppy thinking you’re commenting on here.
Just my contribution to the pile rapidly forming at your feet Ms. M.
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I do think it's sort of hard-wired into us, and when used positively it's probably been a big help in our development. I'm a big believer in the idea that we usually come that which we admire. Of course with celebrities you're not admiring the person so much as what you make of them with the little you see, but that in itself means something. What is it about James Dean that makes him such an icon? Yet he works as one.
I think “overdeterminating” actions as a method of processing is key to the underlying sloppy thinking you’re commenting on here.
That sounds good--I hope that's what I was commenting on.:-)
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Um, but yeah. Just earlier today I came across a post randomly where the person was like, 'people should lighten up! even great fiction doesn't last, so stop taking your stuff seriously!' and it did feel like an insult, somehow. It seems there's been a cornucopia of posts saying 'hey, fandom is just for fun, omg!!1' and at some point I start to feel a bit unhappy, with my fun being trampled on by the relentless emphasis on fun, or something. I really want to say something about how it's not a sign of having a sense of humor if you go on and on about how other people should lighten up. I mean, if one really didn't take fandom seriously, why would they need to tell others not to & preach and so on? Ahhh, is someone taking fandom too seriously?? Do I smell hypocrisy? Of course not, I mean, I'm taking fandom too seriously right now -.- *coughs*
Heheh, oh, and I have to reiterate that Clay Aiken bit throws things in such perspective :D I love the idea that fannishness is really a basic human response and not a sign one 'has no life' or is 'too obsessed'; it's just that dividing line about how intellectual/geeky your interests are. I suppose it's too geeky to take things 'too seriously' even for most people that consider themselves intelligent, maybe? There's certainly some sort of self-censure based on the separation of commonly accepted ideas of work & play that goes on, where it's just embarrassing if you take play as work (and vice versa), nevermind that this happens to be my ideal, for one.
You know, I've never thought I was a 'Slytherin sympathizer' or what have you, though somehow I think I wound up being in that subsection of fandom too. I think we wouldn't be so obvious if the rest of fandom didn't disagree with us? Or something. I also think that the Slytherin issues are the most interesting because they're some of the least explored and most up in the air in canon, and people have these explosive reactions which are interesting to observe, too. I tend to have a vague wariness of people who identify with -any- House too strongly though, not because they're taking things too seriously but because they're boxing themselves in & having this us-vs-them mentality which bothers me (not to mention the "Goth House" deal can get pretty immature, and the attendant martyr complex only makes things worse... actually, the martyr complex is what they accuse the 'Gryffidors' of, which brings the hypocrisy home yet again). But it makes sense that people do group themselves by type in fandom & everywhere else, it's just that I wish they wouldn't.
Also, people have actually tried to convince others that All Slytherins Are Bad?? Man, something tells me if I told them everyone has their good & bad points, their whole world-view would threaten to collapse or something :>
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Maybe the trouble is more when people make it all about *themselves* rather than the ideas...? It's just when people talk about not taking things seriously it always seems like they want to say, "Hey, here's fandom! We like this thing! Here it is--OMG DON'T TOUCH IT!! Let's just all stand across the room and say we like it without looking at it too closely."
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One of the first discussion I had in HP fandom was me trying to convince a bunch of other fans, using very carefully thought out examples from canon as a proof, that Not All Slytherins Are Necessarily Bad. I'm afraid I wasn't terribly succesful. (Incidentally, the discussion wasn't on LJ, but on another discussion forum which was mainly devoted to Jane Austen.)
I've come a long way from my not-all-Slytherins-are-bad viewpoint to they're so misunderstood! woe is them! Or something. ;-)
[BTW, sorry for commenting so late. I've been away from computer quite a lot and am catching up on all the interesting discussions I've bookmarked.]
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One of the things that really got me going during that discussion last week was the other poster's insistence that this thing we do here is something that is always supposed to make us happy as bluebirds, and that if it doesn't, it's wrong and we should walk away from it. As you know, I had just written a very long essay about how the things of which we're fans become legendary, and how being part of that process encompasses a very wide range of feelings -- everything from giddy joy to outright sorrow. I don't think it's at all uncommon or even unhealthy for the things we love to make us unhappy, or to make the realities of our lives seem lacking. The example I used was of Tolkien, and how he often seemed to be unhappy with this "fallen world," setting up the world of Middle-earth as his own personal legend -- a place that was better than this world, and that certainly made this one look even less satisfying than it is. The poster's response to me was that she didn't even know how to respond to the idea that "our hobbies aren't supposed to make us happy." As if I had just been writing about stamp collecting or something!
How many times have I heard someone say that reading Lord of the Rings makes them burst into tears? Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey describes the ending of those books as the "saddest" in literature --but also the most perfect. The idea of joy and grief being closely related is one that reverberates throughout much of Tolkien's work, and also appears frequently in the non-fiction essays of writers like C.S. Lewis. So it also surprised me to suddenly find out that loving something or someone so passionately that it makes you sad was some sort of freakish behavior.
...this taps into something that's always going on in fandom, I think, which is always finding ways to show that you're not one of the crazies or the losers.
The very idea of "fandom wank" seems to be based upon a small group of people who have set themselves up as the arbiters of what is and isn't a healthy expression of fandom. Some wanks are justified as there are many people who do behave outlandishly. But many others are just the wankers' way of pointing and saying "Whoa, look at that lunatic, glad I'm not like HER!" I do agree with your suggestion that this is self-hatred, or at the least a sort of self-anxiety that manifests itself as the wanker's need to show that there is always someone nuttier than herself -- based, of course, on her own subjective judgment of what "nutty" means. It's a shame because I know that wank has prevented more than a few people from expressing the real depth of their passion for whatever fandom they're in; they don't want to get wanked about it, and I can hardly blame them.
The fact is that if we all "had lives" in the socially acceptable (i.e., non-fandom) sense, NONE of us would be here at all, not the fans and not the people who wank them. We'd all be off somewhere driving our kids to soccer practice or going to board meetings or doing whatever is supposed to be part of "having a life." And yet the interesting thing is that most of us manage to do ALL of those real-lifey things while still maintaining a corner of ourselves for fandom, for which many of us have very passionate feelings that go far beyond superficial "squeeing" or simple appreciation of an artist's work.
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This is one of the most well-thought-out and intelligent comments I've ever had the joy of reading. Thank you for writing this - you've let me look into an entirely new perspective, but one that I agree very emphatically with. I love this - The fact is that if we all "had lives" in the socially acceptable (i.e., non-fandom) sense, NONE of us would be here at all, not the fans and not the people who wank them - and it reminds me that some of the people I admire and respect most in fandom are those capable of maintaining a very active RL and fandom life, women whom I look up to and think I want to be like you someday. *smiles* Perhaps someone outside fandom would say that they're dangerous role models for me, but I see them as individuals who make time for their passions, to share with others their love and their art and work, while having families and working and everything that everyone has always had to do.
I don't think it's at all uncommon or even unhealthy for the things we love to make us unhappy, or to make the realities of our lives seem lacking. The example I used was of Tolkien, and how he often seemed to be unhappy with this "fallen world," setting up the world of Middle-earth as his own personal legend -- a place that was better than this world, and that certainly made this one look even less satisfying than it is
Oh, I love this so much. Thank you for sharing this with us. I've always seen fandom - or fantasy, or science fiction, and to some extent, all art - as a way of escaping from a world where things don't always, and usually don't, make sense. If the real world doesn't make us happy, sometimes the other world can be the solution, or can make the real world bearable until it gets better again. Fandom makes you see the world in a different light.
So it also surprised me to suddenly find out that loving something or someone so passionately that it makes you sad was some sort of freakish behavior.
Oh, this is such a beautiful line! I'd never thought of this, and I'd always be slightly annoyed with myself whenever I'd get upset at a story I read in fandom, or a video I watched which made me sad, because on some level I'd thought that fandom is meant to make us happy, and that feeling sad wasn't a justifiable reaction. Thank you for helping me feel less alone in this regard. Now that I think about it, I think of people who cry at movies, or at books, or even at religious experiences - and their emotion is no less valid than mine (or so I think). It is merely the sources that provoke these emotions are different, but essentially, anything that moves us so deeply has touched something deep in the core of our very selves. And - people in relationships tend to feel such dramatic swings of mood, simply because they care so much. Maybe it's irrational to compare fandom with relationships, but they're both things that make us feel deeply.
Thank you for your insightful observations! I really enjoyed reading this comment!
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I was talking about a friend recently who was talking about her love of the Beatles when she was a teenager--she considers it the way she got through being a teenager. Yes, it was important for her to feel the way you talked about. She had to see Hard Days Night over and over for an entire weekend. (It's funny because I've never had a real celebrity crush, but I did have/do have a grudge, which works much the same way, only you don't like the celebrity. Never had any violent thoughts towards this person or wanted to have any real life contact, it was just a story that meant something to me. Couldn't say it made me happy, but I think any misery it brought me reflected something I already felt that came out this way.
Anyway, I really don't get the idea that fandom is supposed to be constantly fun. To me art (and I think celebrity fandoms are related to art too) is a way of understanding the whole world. For whatever reason, this is a middle ground where we can process stuff about the world and about ourselves. And you know, that's probably especially important when we're not sure what we want to do IRL. Tolkien, for instance, maybe eventually wrote things that made it seem worthwhile, but before that he was a reader and a fan who used other peoples' stories to escape/dream/understand/deal with life. All the fictional characters I've loved have made me sad as well as happy.
I don't know how to stop doing that, frankly. I've been doing it since I was old enough to read or go to movies. That's one reason, imo, that people write fanfic to stretch their fantasy world to encompass all their emotions, many of which are sad ones. That, imo, is also a reason to write rps. Why would anyone put any character or real person into a vaguely negative situation? Because we need or want to, for some reason.