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hopsandbarley
2013-03-20 01:00 am UTC (link)

I was re-reading the first four pages of that saga during slow periods during my Writing Horror, Fantasy & Sci-Fi class*, and I just...I just still can't wrap my brain around that. I mean, I know fictional works can be powerful enough to actually play a role in changing someone's life for the better, but I don't care if you're channeling the spirit of Simone de Beauvoir herself, there is no way your mediocre Harry Potter smut can be that empowering.

*Don't get me wrong, I love the class, I just have a short attention span and I had an excuse to whip my laptop out. Don't tell me you wouldn't have done the same.

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	lady_ganesh 2013-03-20 01:10 am UTC (link)
	I'm kind of glad that laptops didn't exist when I was in college, ngl. (Reply to this)(Parent)

franzen
2013-03-21 02:38 am UTC (link)

The first piece of smut you read tends to be burned into your brain, if you're unaware that such a genre exists. Ask me about the romance novel I found in the condo we stayed in during a beach vacation when I was seven or eight. (I didn't know what a "romance novel" was, oops.)

To borrow a line someone leveled at Andy Blake: I know this is criticizing the paint job on the Titanic, but considering what else she got away with, I'm almost tempted to call that bit of wank "tame by comparison."

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	hopsandbarley 2013-03-21 09:25 am UTC (link)
	A valid point. And I certainly don't mean to understate the wankiness of the rest of this saga. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

franzen
2013-03-22 02:35 am UTC (link)

Oddly, I think the romance novel that was seared into my brain was one level up from the Arab Sheik's Harem Girl or whatever that godawful book was that Smart Bitches, Trashy Books tore apart. So ... I don't know why I'm trying to explain the psychology of a stereotyped non-existent entity.

My hed is up a sock and my son the sparrow is biting my hand. That's what this clusterfuck of fail does.

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ekaterinv
2013-03-21 10:38 am UTC (link)

I actually find it central to the entire wank. I've gotten some glowing comments about sexual stuff I've written from unlikely corners, and I know it can be a big deal. But Msscribe played on stereotypes: Pakistani woman is abused and has never been exposed to porn except through some bad fanfic by this random writer. Because of course she had to be from Pakistan *and* naive about porn *and* abused by her husband. Msscribe couldn't have made it a woman from New York or Ontario: no, it had to be a woman from Pakistan. Just like one of her supposed enemies was a fat white woman from Texas.

And this is what she did the whole time. It was the reason she was able to succeed, because people bought into these stereotypes. It's pretty disgusting, but I also find it pretty hilarious.

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franzen
2013-03-22 02:32 am UTC (link)

That's it! Thanks: you said what I was trying to touch on so much more clearly. And, weirdly, it's that specific element (among a few other things) that really makes the Ms.Scribe wank a case of "not funny, not at all" for me. The stereotypes Ms.Scribe used aren't exactly eradicated and having been on the receiving end of them, it's really hard for me to laugh. Ten years later, those same prejudices are still kicking. While I doubt fandom would be as gung-ho with the fatphobic remarks today, I think it's a question of degree and/or "obvious prejudice" rather than fans simply developing a norm that appearance is not mockable. I know a lot of HP fans (or HP fans who migrated to other fandoms) have aged and transitioned into social justice work, but fatphobia and "vaguely brown backward people lulz" are far from dead.

It's like the in-house transfail that, mercifully, has not been repeated with regard to Andy Blake -- wanky behaviour is funny; devaluing someone based on prejudice is not. I can understand why that clusterfuck left so many people unable to remember that once upon a time, VB/AB was known for "the wank that never ends," because it was disgusting and it made me look twice at people. Watching the Ms.Scribe saga -- both at the time and then again in 2006 (and yet again this week, to refresh my memory) -- was like that for me.

Ms.Scribe played on people's prejudices and created (in my eyes) cartoonish villains (I am constantly amazed that anyone bought her act, as I... didn't find the reveal that surprising). Writing a manifesto about shipping or a tao of a character? Funny, even wanky, if you go over-the-top pretentious. Fatphobia? Not so much. And it wasn't just Ms.Scribe, unfortunately, as I remember some very nasty attacks related to weight being leveled against a BNF. (And weight was probably part of the reason Cassie absolutely did not want her photo leaked.) It's hard for me to see the lulz, because it's not like those stereotypes have died out -- just thinking about the stats regarding negative character judgments and weight depresses the hell out of me (and, of course, the correlation breaks down when you look at men, not women).

tl;dr I get it, intellectually, but for some reason it's not funny for me. The fact that she got away with so much without being checked is amusing, in a sort of "what the hell is wrong with you people" kind of way, but I don't really think of Ms.Scribe as harmless, in the same way Andy gives me the creeps when I look at what a mess he's made of other people's lives.

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ivyette
2013-03-22 06:50 pm UTC (link)

If this were happening nowadays, I bet msscribe would be one of the social justice warriors who bullies people for going against whatever tumblr/fandom have decided is their crusade this week, and would attract attention that way. She would probably have used exactly the same gross stereotypes, except in the opposite direction. I'm sure a lot of her wanks would have shown up on unfunny_fandom instead.

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	sepiamagpie 2013-03-22 10:44 pm UTC (link)
	Please stop. You're rapidly sucking the enjoyment out of the universe. (Reply to this)(Parent)

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