Mister Charles, I presume?
Oct. 26th, 2010 01:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eumeliaPre-Ordered Inception.
Huzzah!!!!!!!!
Now I need... a DVD player.
You guys! I have five seasons on New-Who, six (not seven, I know) seasons of Buffy, five seasons of Angel, movies containing Robert Downey Jr., Fawlty Towers, The Rocky Horror Picture Show and ALL OF TORCHWOOD... and no actual DVD player to go with our smacking new 37" HD LCD television screen.
This is just not on.
Not on.
I know, First World... I can't even call them problems can I? It's just too shallow for words. I'm too shallow for words.
I'm a horrible, terrible consumer of television and movies, aren't I. I should also get a portable hard drive. I'm really tempted to splurge on the 1TB, because damn! I could back up my entire computer onto that with room to spare. Room for more hours of movies and teevee! Hells yes!
Terrible. Have I mentioned?
I want to write more about Inception, I know, it bores you dear readers, but it has so much! But fandom, alas, is a fandom I'm really not used to.
Many, is not most, of the fics are so AU it's tedius. The fandom isn't even six months old and already the repetition is too much, I must have read the same fic over and over again by different people - variations are good, but there are too few of them.
The misogyny has been there from the get go and is irritating as suxh. The racism is seriously getting out of hand. Fetishising actors and gay sex... *groan* really? Really?! I know this may sound hypocritical, what with me being all enamored of Tom Hardy and pursuing the movies and shows of his I haven't seen, but dude... I'm seeing a whole lot of objectification I'm not liking.
It's debatable as to whether actors (of any gender) are there to be objectified or not, but there's aesthetic appreciation and there's... what I see is happening.
I'm seeing a lot of titillation at the whole "Men fucking" thing. Not that porn isn't supposed to titillating, but can we please, please remember that the men (fictional they may be) do not fuck for the benefit of Slash writers and readers. This may sound contrived, but I'm actually bothered by this whole fetishising the Queers. Not the first time, nor the last, and even if the stories are written by queers, I'm still seeing a whole lot of insensitivity going on.
Mainly in the whole heteronormativity thing. I'm not talking about Curtain!Fics, that's a genre in fan-fiction and has it's place, nor am I talking specifically about genderswitch fics some of which have been the Queerest I've ever read and with ostensibly "het" pairing. No, I'm talking about the fact that I'm seeing a huge amount of fic in which penetration is the be all and end all of the sexual repertoire. I'm seeing a whole lot of penetration sans lube (at which point I'm going to tell you that spit, generally speaking, does not work unless you make a drooling mess of things. Seriously, you need a lot of spit in order for it to be proper lube. Now read this. Everyone has an ass!) and a lot of this penetration is framed as positions of power, i.e. "Penetrator has power, penetrated has none", simplified perhaps, but definitely a big part of what's being written.
I'm seeing a lot rape and healing narratives as well. I know, they're going into someone's head, invading them and changing them, it's quite possibly a requisite reading of Inception. And yet, there is a difference between exploring the nature of consent in safe (which the fic may or may not be) environment. I know I sound like a big fuddy-duddy, but I'm not saying don't write the story that contains rape, I'm saying don't fall into the very disturbing cliches (warning! TV Tropes Links). There's more to the consent narrative that is worth exploring and isn't dealt with enough.
(Yes, yes, write my own. Whatever)
I suppose it's inevitable in a fandom that's built on a text that circles and puts in great focus issues of abuse and consent, that readers and writers will pursue those issues in fic. But once again I see them being explored without any thought of what these issues of abuse and consent mean. There's so much sexual violence in this fandom, I'm a bit taken a back, to tell you the truth. So many stories about prostitution (I blame Mysterious Skin, I really do) that are all about the abuse suffered in such a job, so much abuse for being gay (a lot of it gratuitous, a lot of it sensitive and interesting to read) so many stories perpetuating racist notions of Desi ex-pats, of nosy women, of monstrous women, of love that needs to be forced and pursued and...
I'll stop now and finish with this.
Torchwood fandom has spoiled me, seriously, when the subtext of that show is about class, gender, the nature of love and relationships and the angst is taken away from the characters being canonically queer in a sci-fi setting, lord there is richness.
There is a great deal of richness in Inception that is going unnoticed I think. Slash fandom tends to go in a particular direction and then there's no stopping it.
The written above are broad trends I've seen in fandom, they are by no means the only things I've seen written (I should probably open a Delicious at some point and safe what I like in one place), but yeah, that's what I see going on from my position of (mainly) a lurker and a reader.
Huzzah!!!!!!!!
Now I need... a DVD player.
You guys! I have five seasons on New-Who, six (not seven, I know) seasons of Buffy, five seasons of Angel, movies containing Robert Downey Jr., Fawlty Towers, The Rocky Horror Picture Show and ALL OF TORCHWOOD... and no actual DVD player to go with our smacking new 37" HD LCD television screen.
This is just not on.
Not on.
I know, First World... I can't even call them problems can I? It's just too shallow for words. I'm too shallow for words.
I'm a horrible, terrible consumer of television and movies, aren't I. I should also get a portable hard drive. I'm really tempted to splurge on the 1TB, because damn! I could back up my entire computer onto that with room to spare. Room for more hours of movies and teevee! Hells yes!
Terrible. Have I mentioned?
I want to write more about Inception, I know, it bores you dear readers, but it has so much! But fandom, alas, is a fandom I'm really not used to.
Many, is not most, of the fics are so AU it's tedius. The fandom isn't even six months old and already the repetition is too much, I must have read the same fic over and over again by different people - variations are good, but there are too few of them.
The misogyny has been there from the get go and is irritating as suxh. The racism is seriously getting out of hand. Fetishising actors and gay sex... *groan* really? Really?! I know this may sound hypocritical, what with me being all enamored of Tom Hardy and pursuing the movies and shows of his I haven't seen, but dude... I'm seeing a whole lot of objectification I'm not liking.
It's debatable as to whether actors (of any gender) are there to be objectified or not, but there's aesthetic appreciation and there's... what I see is happening.
I'm seeing a lot of titillation at the whole "Men fucking" thing. Not that porn isn't supposed to titillating, but can we please, please remember that the men (fictional they may be) do not fuck for the benefit of Slash writers and readers. This may sound contrived, but I'm actually bothered by this whole fetishising the Queers. Not the first time, nor the last, and even if the stories are written by queers, I'm still seeing a whole lot of insensitivity going on.
Mainly in the whole heteronormativity thing. I'm not talking about Curtain!Fics, that's a genre in fan-fiction and has it's place, nor am I talking specifically about genderswitch fics some of which have been the Queerest I've ever read and with ostensibly "het" pairing. No, I'm talking about the fact that I'm seeing a huge amount of fic in which penetration is the be all and end all of the sexual repertoire. I'm seeing a whole lot of penetration sans lube (at which point I'm going to tell you that spit, generally speaking, does not work unless you make a drooling mess of things. Seriously, you need a lot of spit in order for it to be proper lube. Now read this. Everyone has an ass!) and a lot of this penetration is framed as positions of power, i.e. "Penetrator has power, penetrated has none", simplified perhaps, but definitely a big part of what's being written.
I'm seeing a lot rape and healing narratives as well. I know, they're going into someone's head, invading them and changing them, it's quite possibly a requisite reading of Inception. And yet, there is a difference between exploring the nature of consent in safe (which the fic may or may not be) environment. I know I sound like a big fuddy-duddy, but I'm not saying don't write the story that contains rape, I'm saying don't fall into the very disturbing cliches (warning! TV Tropes Links). There's more to the consent narrative that is worth exploring and isn't dealt with enough.
(Yes, yes, write my own. Whatever)
I suppose it's inevitable in a fandom that's built on a text that circles and puts in great focus issues of abuse and consent, that readers and writers will pursue those issues in fic. But once again I see them being explored without any thought of what these issues of abuse and consent mean. There's so much sexual violence in this fandom, I'm a bit taken a back, to tell you the truth. So many stories about prostitution (I blame Mysterious Skin, I really do) that are all about the abuse suffered in such a job, so much abuse for being gay (a lot of it gratuitous, a lot of it sensitive and interesting to read) so many stories perpetuating racist notions of Desi ex-pats, of nosy women, of monstrous women, of love that needs to be forced and pursued and...
I'll stop now and finish with this.
Torchwood fandom has spoiled me, seriously, when the subtext of that show is about class, gender, the nature of love and relationships and the angst is taken away from the characters being canonically queer in a sci-fi setting, lord there is richness.
There is a great deal of richness in Inception that is going unnoticed I think. Slash fandom tends to go in a particular direction and then there's no stopping it.
The written above are broad trends I've seen in fandom, they are by no means the only things I've seen written (I should probably open a Delicious at some point and safe what I like in one place), but yeah, that's what I see going on from my position of (mainly) a lurker and a reader.
