![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eumeliaA Torchwood and Fandom meta.
My muscles are all aching from the 'flu shot. This is a possible side effect of being injected with pod-person making nanogens - we'll see who wins this battle.
Battles, can be exasperating.
Over the past couple of days I had engaged in a comment battle over who has the right to be offended and why.
I would never, ever, accuse anyone of being over sensitive when it comes to how their feel - I've had that hurled at me since childhood, to this very day.
I will, however, go head to head with someone who isn't willing to understand that context matters and that by ignoring one, you pretty much lose the leg you're standing on while making your argument.
I fear there may be wank.
You see, it all started in July 2009, when good ole' Rusty wrote and produced Torchwood: Children of Earth.
I won't rehash all that I loved about it, considering that I wrote non-stop about for about a month (if not more).
A huge discussion regarding Ianto's treatment as a queer character was what I focused on because my mind boggled at how people thought to read what was happening as homophobic rather than a depiction of homophobia.
You can travel back in time to my comments and reviews under the torchwood tag.
One other thing that ensued was that after TW:CoE aired and Ianto died there was a huge, massive and completely amazing fan reaction that brought about people leaving flowers and cards in his memory in Cardiff, a charity was put up in his name and there have been campaigns that demand Ianto be brought back.
Fair enough, we're Fandom. It's a crazy world, I'm down with that.
Something else that came out of this fan reaction was that Russel T. Davies quite possibly became agitated by the quality and quantity of reaction Ianto's death brought. Very likely it was Stephen's death and Alice's cold "I wish so much death unto you" glare that affected Jack the most - not to sound callous, because I am a Jack/Ianto shipper, a big one - but Ianto was another lover in a long string of lovers that Jack tells and will tell stories about. I'm inclined to say that Ianto was special because not only did Jack love him, but because we love him too.
RTD's agitation and irritability with the fans got him name calling.
Calling anyone a "hysterical woman" is pretty damn low.
Many a fan, quite rightly, took offence.
And have not forgiven. Quite rightly, but like all things in fandom these things tend to become huge in magnitude and proportion is lost.
With that, one of the outcomes of people taking offence of the way RTD wrote homophobia and of people being very very sad indeed that Ianto and Jack are no more - a disturbing trend in Torchwood fandom, but also fandom at large, has been the appropriation of very Real Life Queer Issues & Homophobia and conflating it with the 'ship that we like being over!
Good luck trying to distinguish the two.
I find the trend disturbing. It doesn't help when the After Elton poll about the Worst Gay Pop Culture Culture Moments of the Decade puts real Dead People along with Ianto Jones and Ianto is at the top... there need to be priorities.
We can argue until the cows come home as to whether RTD wrote homophobia and indeed was homophobic in his treatment of Ianto.
It's an interesting discussion and one I'm willing to have, mainly because RTD can indeed be sloppy, but his prickly moments are spot on.
Institutional homophobia is not what RTD was on about in TW:CoE, he was very much talking of class disparity - but that's a discussion for another day, it's been neglected enough with the onslaught of it being all about The Gay, when funnily enough, it wasn't really.
I've said it before and I've said it again, sloppy writing or not, people agreeing with him or not, him being a sexist pig or not - RTD, nor in fact any creator, writer, actor, performer, owe us any explanation as to why they used the word they used.
What we get to do, much to our pleasure, is debate it.
I say what I think he meant by saying this, and it has nothing with what I think he intended to say, but in fact but what I saw on the teevee screen and anyone can disagree with me.
Saying that the fact that so many saw it another way, an offensive way, doesn't mean he wrote it wrong. It means that's what you extrapolated from it!
This is a tedious and old and quite frankly irritating discussion to have, because this is what fandom is about - sitting around and trying out what it was that the creator meant.
The fact that we get to ask him, specifically, is a bonus, but his opinion is just as valid as mine because once it's out there it stands on its own within broader culture and not just in the hands of its Daddy.
RTD has been subject to a lot of hating from the Torchwood Fandom (and from Doctor Who fandom, though with less vitriol from what I've seen) and while I'm not in on the hate, or even completely understand why, I do understand that burning effigies is not the same as actually burning someone at the stake.
So when I read a story in which he's hit by a buss and someone considers it Karma for bad deeds done, I'm going to roll my eyes at the immaturity and move on.
However, when someone else writes a story, in response to the one above (now locked, but there are screen shots of the story and after it was slightly altered), and in a fictional setting decides to educate the masses on Real Life Institutional Homophobia by using the fictional effigy of RTD, and has someone call him "faggot" as a karma for the "hysterical women" remark - I'm going to be uncomfortable.
Because while trying to show what homophobia looks like - this person ended up being offensive and in my mind counter productive to the Cause, such as it is.
Context is everything, as we say, and the context of the fic was to "teach RTD a lesson", which made the homophobic remark fucking personal.
The context of TW:CoE, while debatable, was about the casual homophobia found in every day life including your friends and family.
That's debatable.
We did, in fact, debate it at length. (still locked, *sad face*)
What isn't, are the feelings of hurt, or the fact simply having other gay people who agree with one reading of what went on, negates the other.
Edited to Add: aviv_b informed me that she locked the post and comments because she'd been getting spammed, trolled threatened by gendered and sexist remarks by some of the more cowardly and darker contingents of those who disagree with her.
If I find out anyone is doing that because of what I've written here I will be very disappointed and effing pissed!
Edited to Add the 2nd: Screen shots of the story are available and linked. The original link and our debate are still locked due to people being horrible bullies.
My muscles are all aching from the 'flu shot. This is a possible side effect of being injected with pod-person making nanogens - we'll see who wins this battle.
Battles, can be exasperating.
Over the past couple of days I had engaged in a comment battle over who has the right to be offended and why.
I would never, ever, accuse anyone of being over sensitive when it comes to how their feel - I've had that hurled at me since childhood, to this very day.
I will, however, go head to head with someone who isn't willing to understand that context matters and that by ignoring one, you pretty much lose the leg you're standing on while making your argument.
I fear there may be wank.
You see, it all started in July 2009, when good ole' Rusty wrote and produced Torchwood: Children of Earth.
I won't rehash all that I loved about it, considering that I wrote non-stop about for about a month (if not more).
A huge discussion regarding Ianto's treatment as a queer character was what I focused on because my mind boggled at how people thought to read what was happening as homophobic rather than a depiction of homophobia.
You can travel back in time to my comments and reviews under the torchwood tag.
One other thing that ensued was that after TW:CoE aired and Ianto died there was a huge, massive and completely amazing fan reaction that brought about people leaving flowers and cards in his memory in Cardiff, a charity was put up in his name and there have been campaigns that demand Ianto be brought back.
Fair enough, we're Fandom. It's a crazy world, I'm down with that.
Something else that came out of this fan reaction was that Russel T. Davies quite possibly became agitated by the quality and quantity of reaction Ianto's death brought. Very likely it was Stephen's death and Alice's cold "I wish so much death unto you" glare that affected Jack the most - not to sound callous, because I am a Jack/Ianto shipper, a big one - but Ianto was another lover in a long string of lovers that Jack tells and will tell stories about. I'm inclined to say that Ianto was special because not only did Jack love him, but because we love him too.
RTD's agitation and irritability with the fans got him name calling.
Calling anyone a "hysterical woman" is pretty damn low.
Many a fan, quite rightly, took offence.
And have not forgiven. Quite rightly, but like all things in fandom these things tend to become huge in magnitude and proportion is lost.
With that, one of the outcomes of people taking offence of the way RTD wrote homophobia and of people being very very sad indeed that Ianto and Jack are no more - a disturbing trend in Torchwood fandom, but also fandom at large, has been the appropriation of very Real Life Queer Issues & Homophobia and conflating it with the 'ship that we like being over!
Good luck trying to distinguish the two.
I find the trend disturbing. It doesn't help when the After Elton poll about the Worst Gay Pop Culture Culture Moments of the Decade puts real Dead People along with Ianto Jones and Ianto is at the top... there need to be priorities.
We can argue until the cows come home as to whether RTD wrote homophobia and indeed was homophobic in his treatment of Ianto.
It's an interesting discussion and one I'm willing to have, mainly because RTD can indeed be sloppy, but his prickly moments are spot on.
Institutional homophobia is not what RTD was on about in TW:CoE, he was very much talking of class disparity - but that's a discussion for another day, it's been neglected enough with the onslaught of it being all about The Gay, when funnily enough, it wasn't really.
I've said it before and I've said it again, sloppy writing or not, people agreeing with him or not, him being a sexist pig or not - RTD, nor in fact any creator, writer, actor, performer, owe us any explanation as to why they used the word they used.
What we get to do, much to our pleasure, is debate it.
I say what I think he meant by saying this, and it has nothing with what I think he intended to say, but in fact but what I saw on the teevee screen and anyone can disagree with me.
Saying that the fact that so many saw it another way, an offensive way, doesn't mean he wrote it wrong. It means that's what you extrapolated from it!
This is a tedious and old and quite frankly irritating discussion to have, because this is what fandom is about - sitting around and trying out what it was that the creator meant.
The fact that we get to ask him, specifically, is a bonus, but his opinion is just as valid as mine because once it's out there it stands on its own within broader culture and not just in the hands of its Daddy.
RTD has been subject to a lot of hating from the Torchwood Fandom (and from Doctor Who fandom, though with less vitriol from what I've seen) and while I'm not in on the hate, or even completely understand why, I do understand that burning effigies is not the same as actually burning someone at the stake.
So when I read a story in which he's hit by a buss and someone considers it Karma for bad deeds done, I'm going to roll my eyes at the immaturity and move on.
However, when someone else writes a story, in response to the one above (now locked, but there are screen shots of the story and after it was slightly altered), and in a fictional setting decides to educate the masses on Real Life Institutional Homophobia by using the fictional effigy of RTD, and has someone call him "faggot" as a karma for the "hysterical women" remark - I'm going to be uncomfortable.
Because while trying to show what homophobia looks like - this person ended up being offensive and in my mind counter productive to the Cause, such as it is.
Context is everything, as we say, and the context of the fic was to "teach RTD a lesson", which made the homophobic remark fucking personal.
The context of TW:CoE, while debatable, was about the casual homophobia found in every day life including your friends and family.
That's debatable.
We did, in fact, debate it at length. (still locked, *sad face*)
What isn't, are the feelings of hurt, or the fact simply having other gay people who agree with one reading of what went on, negates the other.
Edited to Add: aviv_b informed me that she locked the post and comments because she'd been getting spammed, trolled threatened by gendered and sexist remarks by some of the more cowardly and darker contingents of those who disagree with her.
If I find out anyone is doing that because of what I've written here I will be very disappointed and effing pissed!
Edited to Add the 2nd: Screen shots of the story are available and linked. The original link and our debate are still locked due to people being horrible bullies.
