allchildren: kay eiffel's face meets the typewriter (deal with it)
Amy Ponds of the 99% ([personal profile] allchildren) wrote2010-04-18 10:37 pm

on ship-shaming and watching things wrong

[please do not link in comms/newsletters]

Ship-shaming (and the larger issue of You're Watching It Wrong) comes in many forms. Serious/true/adult/smart/rightheaded/unentitled[/ungirly?] fans don't ship, or ship contrarily to canon. As we proceed please watch out for falling blocks of sarcastic rage.

There was my favorite in Harry Potter and later Battlestar Galactica fandoms: "I don't care who ends up with who because I care about the plot." Because one element of an imaginary narrative deliberately invented for entertainment is naturally MORE WORTHY than another. Because emotional arcs are unaffected by who ends up with who. (Because all shipping is indeed about who ends up with who, and all any shipper wants is for any ship she ships to get married and have babies. Because she couldn't possibly have other desires, or contradictory desires, or no desires but simply an enjoyment of a dynamic. Or if she does desire them to get married and have babies, that's just unforgivably boring/childish/silly[/girly].) Because relationships are unrelated to characterization. (Because relationships are not part of a plot?) Because the only real question of a children's fantasy series is whether the cartoonish bad guy will be defeated, not how the abused and emotionally starved hero will reach a state of healing.

And there is my newer favorite, championed heartily by certain factions of the Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles fandom and Doctor Who fandom. Which is even better because now it's not just that your narrative priorities are bad and you should feel bad, but you're actually MAKING IT UP. (Again, because making shit up in fandom would certainly be unheard of and immorally stupid.) Oh, you deluded little fanpoodles/twits/teenies/GIRLS. Sure it's canon that she just unequivocally declared her love for him, sure it's canon that she takes off clothing before going to lie down on his bed with him, and sure, the blocking of this scene deliberately mirrors SEX, but for you to infer any subtext from the myriad incidents and character choices stemming from them is laughable and wrong! Also the thing from above about how you probably just don't understand the ramifications of string theory and time travel and are caring about the wrong thing! And DW fandom, well, it's just the tip of the doing it wrong iceberg, but let us all agree on one thing and that is that Amy Pond getting extreme enjoyment out of watching the Doctor undress, of having made her boyfriend roleplay as the Doctor, of skipping out on her wedding to be with him, should obviously be taken in the most gen way possible. Which, although I am not actually certain what that gen way is, is doubtlessly super duper unambiguously gen.

Oh, and clearly, there is no way a fan could possibly be interested or invested in multiple elements of a narrative, because it is a zero sum game, and did we cover yet how wrong/immature/stupid/emotional/entitled[/probably girly] you are?

Now, sarcasm time is over. And let me tell you: I am not that easily shamed a person! I own my sense of entitlement to engage with a text (a TEXT, which does not have feelings, which supports multiple interpretations) any old way I want. And to that end I have long since heavily filtered my fannish experience to minimize my contact with Fandom Establishments (such as hublike comms and forums) and their opinions. So, in some ways, this is not that big a problem for me. It's really just an annoying fact of existence, much like the Tea Party and people who make fun of little dogs. I cannot "leave fandom" because I am unavoidably a fan and part of that is enjoying interaction with other fans, but I can certainly go to the fringes and conduct my fandom with individuals who, whether we agree on anything or not, I don't find to be pompous superior assholes. (I recommend it!) I am not twenty anymore; I don't need to engage with jerks or jerkish communities; I do very much need to conserve my energy. So I'm not even sure why I expended the energy here.

But I have been seeing it going around again, and it raises my hackles, and I guess I am just ... still tired of it! Still sick of your shit! There is no fucking one right way to be a fan. To watch a show. To engage with a narrative. Brainless shippers are not unlike those other ghouls of jerk-ass fandom, "real fans" and "haters": all pretty much your projections on how other people should react to a story. (I'm thinking a word, it begins with an E...) And which, by the way, was created by real people with the real purpose of sparking emotional reactions. Who are as responsible for their subtext as their text. Whose intentions beyond what shows up on the screen or page don't mean much to me, but if they matter to you like you frequently claim they do (because how often are the ship shamers the ones who call themselves canon thumpers and accuse everyone else of being entitled and ungrateful to the creator? A LOT OFTEN is the answer), maybe you should give them an actual non-pick-and-choosing listen because quite fucking rarely are the people in charge of these stories ashamed or unaware of the fact that their stories contain shippiness.

Now, I don't want to pull a These Jerks and tell them they're all Doing It Wrong. After all, my whole point is that without diversity of opinion and behavior and creation and engagement, there would be no fandom. And then who would talk with me about the mechanics of time travel AND hot time travelers doin' it? So I'm not gonna be a hypocrite and say that. I'm just going to think it really loudly.
wordsatourbacks: close-up of detective meldrick lewis in a dimly lit hospital room, light shining down across his face (don't look down don't look now)

[personal profile] wordsatourbacks 2010-04-19 09:17 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, whoops! But yes, I endorse "the worth of lady characters, lady fans, and lady-involving ships THAT EVEN HAVE BEARING ON THE PLOT"! Good post at [livejournal.com profile] sainfoin_fields, too.