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kylenne
2011-03-28 06:56 pm UTC (link)

God help me for partially defending this shitty overgeneralizing comment, but I can kinda see where Azuire is coming from if I tilt my head and squint. It's a pattern with a lot of Fandom Approved White Dudes (see above comment where someone mentioned Joss Wheedon Feminism) where you'll sort of get jumped if they do something faily and you point out that it's not really an isolated incident and maybe this beloved guy really kind of is a douche. Neil Gaiman in particular tends to get pass after pass after pass from (mostly white) fans because he's generally talented and Sandman/Good Omens/etc was awesome, and there's an element of his fandom that definitely likes to holler at meen PoC for harshing their squee. Much more so than say, even Whedon, since it's gotten a bit more acceptable to criticize him over the last few years. "He wrote Anansi Boys, he can't be a racist, appropriating douchebag!" (?) People are a lot more willing to make excuses for him, and it's annoying.

Why Azuire extrapolated that wanky behavior to all Gaiman fans, I don't know. But I do understand where the frustration that led to that comment came from, even if it was shitty and erased the fans who aren't wanky and do question his fail/struggle with liking some of his work despite the BS. Hell, I used to be a Gaiman fan myself until I got tired of this kind of thing (and his Browncoat-esque segment of fans).

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	pretzelcoatl 2011-03-28 07:14 pm UTC (link)
	This was my line of thinking, too. Especially considering how I heard people defending his comments during this whole thing, and knew that they would be against them if it were any other author. I still like some of Neil Gaiman's stuff, but I don't think he's above fault and unfortunately some people do from my experience. (Reply to this)(Parent)

franzen
2011-03-28 11:20 pm UTC (link)

Thank you for saying what I meant to, far more eloquently. I've read some of Gaiman's work -- and don't get me wrong, I loved Sandman. But there's this sort of bottomless goodwill reservoir that seems to exist in certain fandom circles for him, for Joss -- two creators whose work I've tried, have enjoyed but not adored, and have found problematic. In both cases, my goodwill is exhausted -- there is enough history of fail out there that I no longer assume the best in any given sketch scenario. So my reaction to this piece was very "Gaiman does something douchey, water is wet, film at eleven." Not that he's a bad guy or that all of his work is intrinsically awful now, just that this is in no way surprising and the way certain parts of fandom fall over to make it a surprise, to downplay it, etc., can get really fucking old if you're already tired of having someone (whom you see) to have a history of questionable acts and SJ fail being held up as a fandom hero. Yes, he's funny. Yes, he says some cool things. But ... guys, come on.

Like you, I never meant to tar all his fans with the same brush, and of course it's possible to like an author and still find yourself disgusted by some of their comments. But it's more the routine of "SHOCK. AWE. THIS CANNOT BE. MORE WILL BE REVEALED." whenever Gaiman-related fail comes up that tires me out. Maybe I'm being harsh and inflexible in my judgments, but like I said -- this isn't the first time, it won't be the last, and while I'm sure he's capable of being awesome, when he does something like this, my reaction is much more "So he still hasn't learned anything then" rather than "This is totally out of character."

And I say this as someone who is not particularly invested in Neil or his work. I can imagine that if you are a longtime Neil fan, if you're doing the reckoning of his privilege vs. enjoyment of his work and wondering what to make of it, being told to sit down and shut up because this is NEIL, of course he's not going to appropriate would be infuriating. And could lead to, say, a hastily written blog post.

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