Fangirl Saves the World

sorry, I don’t stop being feminist because it’s fandom

Fangirl — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 20:20:56 +0000

Long time, no see.
At Ohayocon I let a couple of emcees know exactly what I thought of them.
People shout at anime conventions, and I figured there was no reason I shouldn’t do so at an acceptable time, either – never mind that my shouting was of a political bent.
I can’t, or won’t, or don’t, check my feminism (or femaleness) at the door when I go somewhere. Even though I can compartmentalize a little (or I’d never enjoy anything), I cannot and will not simply stop caring about problematic stuff just because it’s “only fandom/entertainment/whatever.”
It’s never “just for fun.”
Usually, if a show bothers me, I try to just ignore it, unless it’s shoved in my face. If something I enjoy suddenly becomes problematic (or if it’s problematic from the beginning), I’ll think/talk about that, too – because, like I said, I can’t not enjoy anything ever because it’s not completely politically correct. There would be nothing left.
However, if I am at a convention – if my physical body is in a physical space, especially one I have paid money to inhabit – then I absolutely refuse to just ignore it. Even if it’s not a literal and immediate threat of violence against me, personally, the kind of “jokes” that I ended up shouting about were implicit threats against my personal safety – especially the first time.
One of the improv actors in the Anime Whose Line made a “joke” about violence against women, and that was the first (and probably loudest) time that I spoke up. “What other manly things can we do?” he asked, “beat women!”
And I sat up straighter, cupped my hands in front of my mouth, and told him to go fuck himself.
It was only a conference room, not a big theater like the Masquerade. I bet everyone heard me. I hope they did. I hope he went home and was terribly embarrassed that some chick called him out as the unfunny douchebag he is.
I was worried at first, but then nothing bad happened to me – the actor himself just ignored me, and I got a few approving nods.
Whether he realized it or not, and even if he didn’t ~intend~ to make me (and, you know, like half of his audience) uncomfortable, what he said was directly threatening to women’s safety – and con spaces are not known as very women-friendly spaces to begin with. (I’m sure there are more examples, those are just the first two that came to mind.)
Of course, everyone in that panel was just a douche. Another guy called on an attendee for a suggestion, then said “see, I didn’t call on you as ‘that Black guy there!’” and I was like wow, really? because come on, dude not funny. I think once upon a time, fandom was a place for white, straight, cis dudes, but the world has moved on.
After that, the actor added a disclaimer, saying that the 18+ panel later during the conference wouldn’t be “PC.”
If you can’t be “funny” without reinforcing the *ist status quo, you’re a shitty comedian and need to get a day job. Seriously, there is nothing entertaining or edgy about being a douchebag. It’s just a lazy way to get some cheap laughs; ditto this to the emcee of the Masquerade, who said “you want to hear a joke? women’s rights.”
I shouted about that, too, but I think my protest was lost in the general din – and while I was offended*, it wasn’t as threatening, because what can he, this one loser emcee, do to take my legal rights away? Of course, it contributed to a general culture of misogyny, but unlike the first emcee, would could literally go out and attack women at the con, this one couldn’t really do much other than stick his foot in his mouth and make himself look like a douche.
I also yelled at a couple of Hetalia cosplayers for letting their flags touch the ground† but I couldn’t've addressed every case of that I saw, and… well, tbh I care more about the feminism thing than the flag thing.
However, if there is a repeat of the Anime Boston ’10 incident, I will be speaking up – and loudly.
I won’t sit back and let the parts of fandom that I don’t like slide by. I won’t be made to feel uncomfortable in something I enjoy because I’m not a cis white straight man. Fuck that; we’ve all got a right to be here, and to feel safe here.
-M

—
*and no, jokes about stripping me of my legal rights as a citizen to vote, to press charges, &c. are not funny and I’m not being ~over-sensitive~. just don’t start that with me right here/now.
†just don’t carry them, people. just don’t.

fiction as religious text, part II

Fangirl — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 22:30:48 +0000

Here’s the part I left out yesterday.
If we buy my theory, then soulbonding is no weirder than praying.
Yup, I said it.
I’ll stop here to say that, from what I understand, there are a lot of ways to soulbond and a lot of ways to pray. That being said, we can’t compare being married to Snape on the astral plane to closing your eyes and reciting a quick Lord’s Prayer before you hop into bed; apples to apples, please.
So how is muses/characters telling writers how the story goes any different than divine inspiration? You’re interacting with some kind of unseen entity who tells you things. As your friendly neighborhood godless heathen, this seems like a fair comparison to me because taken out of context* the Bible is a book. (You are free to shoot me for heresy at any point in this discussion.) I don’t have the time, energy or expertise to get into a debate about the historical/scientific accuracy of the Bible, but lets go with the easy argument: there is no objective evidence for the existence of anything divine.
So, talking to Mary (or whoever) in prayer is not, in my opinion, any more or less “crazy” than talking to, e.g., Gandalf; believing you’re a reincarnated human soul is no different than believing you’re a reincarnated elf, a reincarnated Na’vi or even a reincarnation of a specific character from a book or an anime or something. (Okay, it’s true that humans could have existed on this earth and elves or Na’vi would have to have been on other planets or planes of existence, but isn’t heaven itself supposed to be in another dimension/realm/thing?)
I have this horrible feeling like I’m going to be dragged out into the street and shot. Before you do that, let me say that I’m not defending or attacking either side here, just drawing attention to the parallels that I see between them

—
*okay, I will give you that thousands of years of history is a hell of a lot of context

fiction as religious text, part I

Fangirl — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 20:35:36 +0000

This is a little different than what I usually post about, but fandom is also important to me and is something I kept meaning to write about and never getting around to. Well, here you are.

standard disclaimer: whether this or that holy text is true is not relevant to the topic of this post; frankly, I don’t know and that doesn’t really bother me. I know this can be a sensitive topic but please just try to roll with the idea.

For a long time, I’ve had this theory that modern day fiction and fandom communities serve basically the same emotional need as traditional organized religion.* I’ve never, as far as I remember, committed this idea to paper (or w/e), but I have given it considerable thought.
There are two essential components to this theory, which I’m going to divide into “narrative” and “community.”
First, narrative. This is the texts themselves. The stories that usually serve this purpose are most likely epic tales of world saving adventure and true deep love and completely fucking awesome badassery: think Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings or Final Fantasy – think big. (I’m not sure if smaller, more personal slice-of-life style stories could fill the same role. I’m inclined to think not, but I’d consider the possibility.)
The stories themselves are exciting and fun, and offer an escape from daily life. Even those of you who think I am full of shit can probably agree with me on this point. They allow us access to better worlds, whether it’s because people can use magic or alchemy or the landscape is just prettier or there’s no *isms, we can go to Hogwarts or Middle-earth and it’s way better than our boring, normal and also sometimes difficult lives. Which is – again, harping on the psychological not spiritual thing – kinda like the idea of heaven.
The characters are also a crucial part of this theory. No, I will never be Olivier Armstrong, nor will I ever reach her levels of epic badasery in my real life. In fact, my real life is pretty boring sometimes (and certainly never as interesting as hers) and I’m actually a very shy, anxious person – but when I’m nervous, I can think of her and get some second hand badassery even if all I’m doing is giving a speech in class or calling someone out for being a douchebag.
I think the reason the story needs to be so larger than life in this scenario is so that the characters have room to be completely fucking ridiculously amazing without breaking our suspension of disbelief. It’s reassuring and validating to see stories about people like ourselves doing things like we do in a life we can recognized and identify with as similar to our own, but I don’t think those stories can inspire the same kind of devotion that epics get. (This is skipping ahead a little, but most of the stories I can think of with fucking ginormous fandoms are save the world stories.)
I think these characters fill basically the same emotional need as the saints or god/ess/es. Most of us will never be saints because most of us probably work pretty hard to avoid being thrown to the lions or whatever, but we can still admire their bravery and conviction and try to emulate them in our own mundane lives. Obviously, taking a big test is not the same as being fed to giant carnivores for other people’s entertainment, but these stories are larger than (real) life, and in our small lives, our trials are difficult and frightening for us as we live through them – and when we’re upset or afraid, we can recall those larger than life heros and say “you know what, self? Eowyn killed the goddamn Witch King you can take a stupid test” or “c’mon, Hermione would stand up for what’s right and tell that person they’re being a complete asshole about this” or whatever.
The second component is the fandom, which I think is roughly equivalent to the church community.
Think about it. Fandom is a place where people get together to express their mutual adoration of a given text. The characters and stories have special meaning in the lives of fans. (I’m not saying all fans or even most fans ascribe this level of meaning to their fandoms, but if you like a text enough to be a member of it’s fandom, you clearly enjoy it more than the average reader/viewer/consumer.) Like a religious community, there will probably be intense scrutiny of the text and it’s possible meanings and, in more-or-less the same way religious groups splinter and fight over dogma, fandom breaks off into little groups and argues about whose ‘ship is more canon, whether or not balrogs have wings and how far it is possible to apparate; goddamnit, there’s even the “my version is better” no “my version is better”-type wank in Fullmetal Alchemist fandom as there is in the various editions of the Bible and which texts are/are not apocryphal. (Yes, I just said that; same kind, vastly different degree.)
The most important thing about the community is the community. Here is a place where people speak a common language, if you will; they are moved by the same text you are moved by, they care about the same thing you care about – and they care more than most people. There are plenty of Christian-identifying people who don’t attend church, and then there are those who are there every Sunday, rain or shine. Likewise, lots of people read Harry Potter but only a fraction of those people showed up for the midnight release parties. Among those devoted enough to put on a wizard robe and hat (/shot) there is a sense of belonging that, I imagine, is roughly similar to being a member of a devout religious group.
(This is all guesswork, however, because I have never been a member of an organized religion that I did not invent for the hell of it.) Fans go on pilgrimages to places associated with their texts, whether with the story itself (e.g., the bench Will & Lyra meet on every summer) or it’s creators (e.g., the grave where Tolkien and his wife are buried); basically, they go to places made special (read: holy, in a religious context) by the connection.
If you think I’m full of shit, I don’t blame you, but I would like to point out that this person did actual research and reached roughly the same conclusions about the Twilight fandom as I have drawn here to fandoms in general in her article, The Religion of Twilight. In fact, there is an entire book about it.
I actually have moar thoughts on this topic, but they will have to wait for a separate post.

fundamentalist Biblical literalism and you: part 2 of ??

Fangirl — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 02:41:11 +0000

A quick and friendly disclaimer to start this post before I step on any toes: I’m not saying you should live your life based on the Bible, nor am I saying you should not. What I am saying is that if you claim to live, word for word, by what the Bible says, you are expected to do exactly that. If you, like me, believe that this is a book, perhaps divinely inspired but ultimately written (and then translated) by fallible human beings two thousand years ago, and that therefore some of this stuff just isn’t relevant any more now that we know better and just think that what matters is that Jesus wanted us to love our neighbors, that’s totally cool. It’s the hypocrisy of cherry picking what matters while simultaneously insisting that the cultural context it was written in doesn’t matter and God wants us to obey every single rule laid down therein that gets me.

Without further ado: I found s’more handy Bible knowledge!
This won’t be news to any of you who actually know jack shit about the Bible, but it was new to me.
First off: I Corinthians 11:5-6, which says “But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven. For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered.” So at the very least, women should cover their heads in prayer (and, by extension, in church). I don’t wanna hear jack shit about literal Biblical living* from any woman who doesn’t do that, because otherwise she is a hypocrite and/or a liar. This passage is full of heinously sexist bullshit, much of which I am sure they use to support their patriarchal society, but if you’re gonna say that you can’t pick and choose, you can’t pick and fucking choose.
I’ve tried this before by quoting Leviticus 19:19, but was told that, because Jesus made a new covenant with God, many of those rules don’t apply any more (e.g., Christians don’t have to keep kosher). This argument pissed me off for two reasons: one, as far as I know (and correct me if I’m wrong), Jesus never says anything about eating bacon (&c.) outside The Gospel According to Biff†. Funny, though, how they have no problem keeping Leviticus 18:22. See what I mean about hypocrites and liars?
Also, continuing the anti-family theme in Corinthians that I talked about earlier, Luke 14:26, wherein Jesus basically says that if you have ties to your family, you’re not worthy of him. Ironic, considering the Biblical literalist/fundamentalist obsession with marriage and babies, ’cause these two passages (both New Testament, mind you, and therefore – according to what I’ve been told about why Christians don’t have to keep kosher - more relevant/important than their favorite passages about replenishing the earth (Genesis 1:28)) make it pretty clear that Christ likes unattached singles.
I did find two verses – and here I am, picking out what I think is still relevant, but I never claimed to do otherwise – that I liked: Joel 2:28-29: “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit” and Galatians 3:28: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” So fucking play nice with each other, kiddies, or Our Father may have to come down here and kick some unrighteous ass: yours.

—
*I’m not referring here to “What Would Jesus Do?” but to the Quiverfull and related movements that interpret the Bible literally (or so claim to) and live (or say they live) by what the Bible says, word for word; by all means, protect adulterers from being stoned to death and whatnot – be nice to widows and orphans, pet kittens, whatever!
†I went there.

but I speak this by permission, and not of commandment.

Fangirl — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 18:27:13 +0000

I somehow have ended up arguing Scripture with a group of… well, I’m not sure. They call themselves “Christian,” and I’m not going to say that they’re not, but that’s an awfully broad label and doesn’t tell y’all much about what I’m talking about. They’re not exactly Quiverfull, but they’re close.
Anyway, I got into a debate about 1 Corinthians 7 and whether or not marriage is always supposed to be part of God’s plan.
(Some handy background for people who don’t know me well: I’m nonreligious, and I actually care whether or not the Bible says I should or should not do something. I’m here for the debate, because I enjoy debating.)
Now, that passage sounds to me – and to another woman on the site who actually seems to care – like Paul is saying basically that ideally, everyone would be an unmarried (and, hence, celibate) like him and marriage is just a compromise for those who aren’t cut out for life as an ascetic.
Basically, marriage is for those too weak willed to fight temptation.
(I’m not saying I believe this, I’m just saying this is what it sounds, to me, like what this passage is saying.)
One woman said that the times were different then, Christians were persecuted and in grave danger, and it would be better for a Christian to burn than to watch, helpless, as their spouse burned. However – this is where I jumped into the argument – why can’t we apply that rule to other Scriptural mandates? I doubt she’d be as willing to say that the Bible was written in a different cultural context than the world we live in today, therefore the things the Bible says about women/homosexuality/&c. no longer apply, either.
Funny how the Bible needs to be taken completely literally in some contexts (this site is big on the “[b]e fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth,” bit being a continued mandate, despite the Earth being more’n replenished already) but not in others (they don’t seem to support the “I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, it is good for them if they abide even as I” thing that Paul here is on about.)
If someone who actually knows the Bible and teachings thereof would like to educate me, I would like to be educated. I’m working with the passages themselves and some reading comprehension, but no religious teaching. (Yours truly is your friendly neighborhood godless heathen.)

geek girls: only there to provide eye candy for geek boys

Fangirl — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 20:12:21 +0000

Full transcript @ Shakesville.

I knew as soon as this commercial started that it was going to crash & burn. I hoped, briefly, that it would be funny or subversive somehow, but no.
I feel like it speaks for itself, but one thing that the transcript fails to mention is that the female geek – whose geek specialty we are never told – comes with “accessories.” You know that was intentional, you’re supposed to see that and think dirty thoughts, what with the way she’s posed and the way the customer is drooling at her.
Ew.

are you serious?

Fangirl — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 14:06:36 +0000

Back in the day, my friend Stephen and I invented a religion (“fuckyouism”) and declared that math, among other things, was against it. As a devout fuckyouist, I shouldn’t be required to take advanced mathematics courses (part of the belief system was that letters were for literature and whatnot, numbers were for math, and never the twain shall meet) but still be awarded my diploma because a state funded school can’t force me to go against my religious beliefs.
This was, obviously, complete bullshit. I took my math classes, whined about it and moved on. (I still think those pesky letters should stay the fuck out of my mathematical equations, thank you very much.)
That was tenth grade, I think. So why do grown-ups think that they can get away with basically the same thing?
Okay, so they didn’t invent a religion with a deliberately offensive name in the name of high school political satire and a half-assed attempt to skip out on requirements, but the fact remains that they expect to get away with not doing the work without getting in trouble… Uh, no. Creationists don’t get to be biology teachers unless they can teach actual science, Christian Scientists probably shouldn’t be doctors and when was the last time you met a Jehovah’s Witness blood transfusion tech? Yeah, that’s what I thought.
I couldn’t go to court and defend Fred Phelps’ right to free speech under the First Amendment (which he has, no matter how deeply I desire to kick him in the teeth) and so I’m not studying to be a constitutional lawyer.
On a tangentially related note, this is actually not a constitutional issue at all. The First Amendment means the government can’t shut you up, but it does not mean that a private institution needs to allow you to speak/publish with them. Also, the Alliance Defend Fund is trying to say that her right to due process was violated, and again, this is a governmental issue and the university is free to organize its own procedures. (Unless I’m misunderstanding the 14th Amendment violation claim and it’s actually directed at the judge who, rightly, recognized that this was bogus – because the 1st Amendment is only about the government, duh.)
People, get with the program. (Reality has a liberal bias.)

a little Greco-Roman know how

Fangirl — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 13:45:13 +0000

In this post, the app in question (it tracks menstrual cycles – for men in heterosexual romantic/sexual relationships) has “a female symbol …sporting devil horns.”
For those of you who failed Greco-Roman mythology and/or astrology or just plain ol’ fashion do not give a damn about either subject, let me remind you: the female symbol (♀) is the astrological sign for Venus. (The male symbol (♂) is the astrological symbol for Mars.) However, the Venus symbol with horns (☿) is no longer the Venus symbol at all, but is, instead, the symbol for Mercury, and it’s used to represent intersex individuals the way the Venus/Mars symbols represent ciswomen and cismen.
Whoops. (KNOWING STUFF: It helps!)

the F word (no, the other F word)

Fangirl — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 13:46:05 +0000

I fucking hate when anti-feminists blame feminists for shit that is actually the fault of the patriarchy/kyriarchy. Like, seriously, it is not feminism’s fault that girls are sexualized. Feminism said “hey, you know, women should be able to have sex if they want to and not have sex if they don’t! it’ll be awesome,” and the patriarchy said “hey, all women need to be sexually available for all men, even if they don’t want it!” and feminism said “wait, that’s not what we said at all because you totally missed out on the consent part!” and the patriarchy says “yeah, but if you have consensual sex outside of my pre-approved, God-given framework of heterosexual marriage, you were asking for it,” and feminism says “no, that’s not okay! women are autonomous human beings and we have the right to sleep with whoever we want to sleep with and to not be forced into sexual situations we don’t want!” and anti-feminism says “you made your bed, now sleep in it” and this feminist says “die in a shark on fire, anti-feminism” and then anti-feminism usually tells me off for having a potty mouth and not being submissive enough (though it has yet to clarify for me who, exactly, I should be submissive to as the unwed daughter of a widow – and yes, I have asked).
(Likewise, should an anti-feminist happen to be reading this, call me a feminazi and I will gladly kick you in the teeth. Do not accuse me of being a Nazi and do not insinuate my views are anything akin to Nazism. Learn something about a) what I’m actually saying and b) actual Nazis.)
Don’t you hate being reprimanded for something you didn’t do?

women in public cause problems

Fangirl — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 13:19:59 +0000

You know that whole “women are distractions” theme I’ve been harping on lately? Well, the new Allstate commercial is the most blatant example I’ve seen. There’s a guy who is supposed to be the embodiment of reasons you need car insurance; in another one, he’s a guy driving an expensive car that your current insurance won’t fully cover, so he’s going to sue you. In this one, he’s “a hot babe jogging on the side of the road” which causes “you” (in this part, a youngish (late teens/early twenties) man) to crash his car into a tree or a sign or something.
So what do we get from this commercial? Two things: first, women exist to be looked at (“woman as image, man as bearer of the look”*) and second, women are distractions.

—
*Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema“