amanuensis1 | Muggles. Gotta live with 'em.

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Muggles. Gotta live with 'em.

Whoa, are we all really that upset over that article in The Guardian about Lumos? I didn't find it negative, really; the article's written by someone who is not only NOT a fan but admits she hasn't even read the books or seen the films ("Well...some of them"). She's not a fannish type at all. She's gone into it frankly baffled by the whole concept of fans who sink into their medium so deeply. She is, to belabor the obvious, a classic mundane (which is what we called 'em before Rowling got Muggle into the OED). And she observes, and there's an air of "okay, this remains distant and odd to me," but, gosh, me, I don't expect anything else from mundanes. I thought the piece was presented with a reasonably neutral "not for me, and some of it's definitely strange to me, but, wow, there's a lot of devotion and variety here" air.

Given that the article didn't purport to be a detached record of the event, I think we got lucky that she didn't shriek "weirdoes weirdoes weirdoes!" all through it. Maybe some of you feel she did? Because she doesn't think Snape/Hermione is so much about empowering women as it is titillation? Because she thought some of the discussions/topics were lame or unfounded? Because the idea of HP bestiality got to her? Shoot, I think we got off light. And she does end on this positive note:

It's all amazing. And seeing anybody, let alone 1,200 people enthused with joy about anything is really quite uplifting. And not just anything. Books! It makes my girlish, swotty heart swell with pride.

Maybe that wasn't enough for fan readers. Perhaps a lot of you feel you've had enough of this kind of "not for me, but, whatever floats your boat" editorializing. Maybe in the same way I don't exactly want to see more films like Brokeback Mountain but rather am waiting for the gay James Bond to unapologetically flaunt the queer all over the screen.

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You are definitely right, in one of the comments, that the reaction to this is based a lot on how one reads the article; I f.x. had the feeling that she felt the Trek-fans were more sane than us *S* No way of telling, really, short of asking her.

Anyway, my point in commenting here was something entirely different:
Yes, this may be an article that "could have been a lot worse" (as paraphrased from a lot of people) and yes, we fans are weird to the outside view.
But why do we have to be happy that it isn't worse? Why can't we, like any other group of people, expect to be treated better than this simply because we are weird or odd to the onlooker? I think we do need to value ourselves and our hobby highly enough to expect or even demand a certain amount of respect.
This being said, I hate when people go all high and mighty and holier-than-thou on something - I do not want us to lose the irony inherint in claiming that Harry is better off with Draco than Ginny (which I happily do and laugh about *S*).

I hope what I'm trying to say here is coming through: It's about not short-changing ourselves and accepting being ridiculed just because it could've been worse. It's like saying the school bully is okay because at least he didn't punch your front teeth out...
Yes, this sort of article is a fact of life and letting it run off you is a lot more comfortable than getting upset. (I'm mainly upset on behalf of two friends, one of whom was mentioned by name despite asking not to be. Being ridiculed is no news to me, hey, I have people chuck water at me for how I look *G*)
So I'm not saying it's great to cry bloody murder, but I think it's great to call attention to the fact that this was in many ways a highly unethical article and that better should be expected.

(P.S. And that way of dismissing other people's research was appalling too.)

But why do we have to be happy that it isn't worse? Why can't we, like any other group of people, expect to be treated better than this simply because we are weird or odd to the onlooker?

And I think it's pretty nifty that some of us are refusing to be appeased with "it could have been worse." Why indeed? Hooray for those who think we deserve to be treated as perfectly normal, and I do mean that.

:-) Seems we agree. Thanks for providing ranting-space.
(And that icon is absolutely fantastic!)

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amanuensis1.livejournal.com - 2006-08-12 10:07 (UTC) - Expand

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kabal42.livejournal.com - 2006-08-12 12:59 (UTC) - Expand

Here through Hogwarts Today...

One of the things that bothered me about this article that no one has really touched on is the fact that this wasn't an American paper but a British one. American culture is different from British, we react differently to different things. Reading the article made me feel as though she came "across the pond" to poke fun at American pseudo-intellectuals in a forum where they would have little recourse.

How many of us have read a hard copy of the article? If it weren't for the Internet how many of us would've known what she had written it?

I've been dressing up on weekends for fun since I was little. (My whole family, including grandparents were really into the Bicentennial celebration in the mid 1970s.) I've done Rev War, Buckskinning, Civ War, SCA, and Sci-Fi Cons at various times over the last 30 years. I've seen various media representations of all of the above and I found the abovementioned article to be one of the worst.

Instead of trying to learn something, she poked fun. Her article reminded me of the "popular girls" that used to torment me in grade school for being smarter and more imaginative than they were. Since it was in a forum that few of the attendees would ever read in hard copy, who cared if a bunch of middle-aged, disaffected, American housewives were teased.

It's one thing when it's good natured teasing but I, at least, felt there were some very nasty undercurrents in the article, that struck a very sour note with me.

I'm not going to say fandom of any stripe isn't weird. I've been in enough to know that each fandoms have their own weirdnesses and some are weirder than others. But what I've found and why I've stayed past the point of what brought me to begin with is the acceptance.

Fandom in all stripes is one of the most accepting places I've ever been priveledged to be. As long as you share a similar interest, we don't really care about your ethnicity, religion, gender, physical abilities, or sexual orientation. She didn't care to look at that side. All she wanted to do was show off the American geekettes so her readers could snicker behind our backs and that disgusts me.

i agree with you completely. it's because of people like her that i'm afraid to tell anyone in my RL about how into the fandom i am. and only my sister knows i write slash :(

I do see why many people saw a mean-spirited read of this, and, rather than think everyone should grow a thicker skin, I applaud those who say we deserve better. Because, really, aren't we, as a model for a society of acceptance, allowed to hold people to the standards we have for ourselves? Good for us. ^_^

I'm with you on the Brokeback Mountain thing. I'm still holding out for a mainstream movie or tv series featuring a gay main character, where the gay-ness isn't the whole point of the story. I think that'll be the true mark of acceptance. Of, y'know. Gay-ness. ;)

where the gay-ness isn't the whole point of the story

Exactly. We've had it in some sources, but never mainstream-y enough, in my opinion.

Oooh! There was the detective in The Boondock Saints, and that was fairly popular.

YES to the covert misogyny, YES to the lack of homework (and, um, for future reference, if you're going to piss on academics for substandard con programming, I think you should at the very least have your background research done when you step off the plane).

And here's another thing: the fact that she casually assumes she knows why we're all here, as if we're all, the many thousands of us, here for the exact same reason. She's not the first to make this type of all-encompassing pocket-diagnosis -- hell, I've seen fen do it -- and I'm sure she won't be the last, but it infuritates me every time I see it.

Ms. Carole Cadwalladr made it demostrably clear that she knows almost almost nothing about fandom; ergo, she should keep the amateur psychiatrics to herself.

the fact that she casually assumes she knows why we're all here

Oh, that's an excellent point. Yeah, amateur knee-jerk analysis, that doesn't help one's cause any.

Okay, I had this nice response I was going to post, but then it became a post of its own, so lookit, you are pop culture gold, you have spin-offs.

Good thing I saved a copy, then. ^_^

Oh, I meant to put it back up with an amendment about some things being more serious than tone or perceived tone, but forgot. Well anyway, you get my point, and that I'm basically agreeing with you. I thought the tone was a tiny bit out of date in terms of perceiving her likely readership's probable reactions to literary criticism/fandom extravagances/women porn writers; in other words, if the tone falls a little flat, it's because it reads as being about five to seven years behind where her readership actually is vis-a-vis these things, if you see what I mean. But yeah, nothing really objectionable.

I am reminded of a conversation a friend of mine in college had with one of her friends from back home, when she went visiting during a holiday. Her friend had become an earnest evangelical, who eschewed all manner of vice but most especially dancing. My friend was shocked at this, and tried at some length to argue her out of it, but the evangelical would not be shaken. "I don't so much think the dancing is wrong," she finally said. "It's what it leads to -- sex, and kissing, and groping, and all kinds of behavior like that. Dancing leads to sex, and that's all there is to it." And my friend just sort of sat there, momentarily poleaxed, and when she related this conversation to us later, she said, "You know, for the longest time I couldn't think of any response to that, because I thought back over how we spend our weekends, and what dancing generally DOES lead to when we hang out, and yeah. . it DOES in fact always lead to sex!"

Anyway, I don't know why I thought of that, other than that it serves to remind me that sometimes, when people accuse you of something, be it lewd behavior or (in the case of fandom) impossibly strange behavior, they just might posssibly be onto something.

Re: long-ass pointless reply

amanuensis1.livejournal.com - 2006-08-12 11:26 (UTC) - Expand

she made one to many jabs for me to think she was just "clueless." the way i read it, her entire air was one of "i'm so much better than everyone here," and the ending (which you quoted) came across as insincere. then again, it's all about tone, and no matter how one person reads something, others will read it differently :/

I think you are right, that it is all about tone. I read it as, "Well, aren't all these people rather sweet?" and all it takes is for one to read it as, "Well, aren't all these people rather...sweet," to create a whole new perspective.

I agree. It's the attitude I expect a lot of people to have, especially if they haven't read the books. I was alarmed at the publishing of people's names and credentials, but I thought perhaps these persons were "out". Guess not, though. Not cool.

However, how many fics, which ones, and in what order, do you think it would take before we corrupted her? Because I'm thinking about doing the same thing to my mother. *g*

M.

VERY not cool. I was really unhappy to learn about that.

Maybe start your mom out with some plotty gen? Maybe with some dark stuff in it just to feel her out? ^_~

Just stumbled over this by pure chance and have to comment, because you hit it on the head. There was some complaining over it on my flist, but I must admit that first and foremost I found the article hilarious precisely because of her mundane/Muggle point of view. This is how we're perceived from the outside, and it's good to be reminded of it sometimes. We definitely got off lightly, through all my laughter, I was still bracing myself for the real blow, but the only mild blow there was, were her comments on the crowd that attended the Snape/Hermione panel. I found it a bit strange, though, was that as an English Lit major, as she said she was, she didn't approach the whole event from a more literary angle, I suppose she was too much expecting something like a Trekkie convention. I do thank her for the tears of laughter she brought on my face over quoting

midnitemaraud_r all over the place.

I suppose she was too much expecting something like a Trekkie convention.

Isn't that funny--that because we weren't just like a Trekkie convention, with celebrities and things to buy, but aimed for a greater literary bent, it seemed to count against us. Go figure.

Just goes to show that there's no pleasing the world. :D I'm terribly sorry we didn't meet her expectations -- no, I'm not really.

I found it (abbreviated) in an Australian paper on a train seat. It was called "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Zealots" and afterwards I wanted to ring her up and ask her if she needs any help getting the Pole of Self-Righteous Academic Snobbery out of her arse.

*cracks up*

I actually think she made us seem like simpering silly little school girls, by her tone and her constant reminding that 24 year old to middle aged women dressed up for this thing. And I was almost certain that the quotes she put in there were paraphrased, and come to find out, HAH, they are. The way she paraphrased it dumbed the speaker down quite a bit from the original comment. I also agree that is sounds as if she just tacked the end on to smooth out the wrinkles, so to speak.

I think I can see where the reader perception comes in to this--she may be stating how there are "24 year old to middle aged women dressed up for this thing," as you say, but I hear that as a statement of fact, see. And am deaf to the way the reporter may have a tone of " o_O" regarding it.

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godlikepiro.livejournal.com - 2006-09-29 18:07 (UTC) - Expand

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