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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Medium Dave's LiveJournal:
| Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008 | |
| 9:27 am | Allan Ball does a vampire series? Huh. I may have to get my HBO back to watch this new series from the guy who created Six Feet Under... apparently it's based on a series of books that feature a character named Sookie Stackhouse. I've never heard of it, but it sounds intriguing. Ball will definitely have his work cut out for him if he wants to avoid retreading what was done by Joss Whedon and others. But vampires are very versatile creatures. Both more-than and less-than human, they can stand for any number of things. Bram Stoker, I think, used Dracula to poke holes in the thin veneer of Victorian society... John Carpenter's vampires were metaphors for sin and disease... the vamps in the Blade movies were chaotic and power-hungry (a stand-in for the generic "other" if ever there was one), and Whedon's, well... I won't pretend that I'm not a stalwart Whedon fan. Buffy and Angel covered a vast range of themes and ideas, from teen-adult tension to alternate sexuality to leadership and community. While it wasn't all good, it was usually ambitious, and I tend to give him a lot of slack because of that. The settings, at least, are quite different: Buffy, especially in earlier seasons, played off the contrast between the sunny "have a nice day" southern California culture and the goth-y vampire world. Ball's True Blood is set in Louisiana, which is pretty gothic in its own way, and Ball could do a great deal with brooding, creepy atmospherics. Hell, after seeing his brilliant intro to SFU, I expect it. Current Mood: thoughtful |
| Friday, July 25th, 2008 | |
| 12:23 pm | Terrific! Now can we talk about sexism? The denizens of Fandom_Discuss have no problem smacking down someone with a case of Defensive White Person Syndrome... but when it comes to a question of sexism, the (basically) same cast of characters is a lot less unanimous. Which isn't a big surprise to me. I'm not interested in playing Oppression Olympics here... which "ism" is more serious depends on the context... but there's a definite difference n the acceptability of the public expression of each. And it really jumps out at me that so many women in the latter thread are hesitant and apologetic about standing up for themselves (though happily, many aren't). And I wonder why this is... any thoughts, folks? |
| Wednesday, May 14th, 2008 | |
| 10:11 am | Ah, fannish defensiveness It's one of the true constants of the universe... |
| Wednesday, April 9th, 2008 | |
| 11:01 am | Just FYI The "whore" thing isn't funny, and isn't really meant to be. It's a warning to members who might be thinking of stepping out of line. A word to the wise... |
| Tuesday, April 8th, 2008 | |
| 9:29 am | What Pollak said! He's reacting specifically to the news about the polygamist compound in Texas, but this bit of wisdom covers a lot of bases: There's always this caveat when people make libertarian platitudes towards sexual culture, as if saying "as long as everyone wants to, it's great" means that it will actually happen. My point is, it doesn't... there's a huge difference between the left/libertarian idealism of sexual liberty in America and the reality of its actual application by people who do not exactly have sexual equality in mind. Oh, hell yes. And to my mind this is one of the best arguments against legalization of prostitution and other kinds of commercial sexual exploitation: For it to really work, a level playing field is necessary. And of course, the playing field is not level... at present, men have more power than women, and adults will always have more power than children. To pretend that this will change if everyone just mellows out and follows the "do what you will" philosophy is to ignore the realities of human experience. Pollak just keeps getting better and better... |
| Monday, January 21st, 2008 | |
| 12:59 pm | Are you outraged by the current Expanded Universe? Huh. Me neither. These Star Wars fans in this entry who are upset because slapdash media tie-ins are unsatisfying... well, what did they expect? Seems to me that a significant chunk of SW fans just will not accept this very obvious point about their fandom: The movies were great fun (or at least the first 2-4 were), but the universe they're set in is about as deep as a dime. And was intended that way. Star Wars and its sequels were a wacky collage of bits from other genres (samurai flicks, WW2 aviation movies, sword and sorcery, martial arts, etc.) thinly overlaid with a layer of science fiction trappings. They were not, and were never meant to be, real science fiction. So take this already thin stuff and spread it out over dozen of tie-in novels, what do you get? It's akin to complaining about the blandness of Cheese Whiz, and then consuming more of it. Sheesh. There's a whole world of good cheese out there. Go out and sample it, kids, there's no one stopping you but you. (Grouchiness over. Later, folks...) |
| Tuesday, November 6th, 2007 | |
| 12:27 pm | If you thought that Charitygate was bad... Via Sadly, No! I learned of this story that makes the harassment of Christina Hall by Heidi8, MsScribe and assorted minions look like a Unitarian Church potluck: In 2005, Democratic Underground member Andy Stephenson was ill with pancreatic cancer, and uninsured. So his friends organized an effort to pay for his treatment with, as I've once heard it described, "acts of paypal"*, and well... What followed was a coordinated effort to block Andy’s medical care or his benefit from the medical care we could secure for him. In specific, the Bush right had its agents make small donations so they could then call Paypal with allegations of fraud that froze Andy’s account. They also called Paypal, misrepresenting themselves as the hospital to “verify” that this effort was a scam. And it got more vicious from there. Due to the frozen funds and the confusion it caused us all, Andy’s surgery date was canceled by Johns Hopkins. It was with great difficulty that we were able to persuade the doctor to be put Andy back into the surgical rotation. That cost him two weeks while he suffered from the most aggressive, invasive form of cancer. The whole post at Democratic Underground can be read here. There's also a concise write-up of the story in this Seattle Weekly article. This is coming to light now because one of the former ringleaders of this campaign, "PJ Comix", is now trying very hard to get fellow bloggers to vote for his site as "funniest" in an online contest, and these efforts got the attention of Sadly, No. Well, the resulting mockery couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. I had thought the evilness of Charitygate was unusual, but no one attempted (that I know of) to actually interfere with Christina's treatment for cancer. Here, the actions of the online mob not only caused mental anguish, but probably hastened someone's death. If you're also hearing echos of the recent Graeme Frost affair, y'aint the only one. *H/T to Allyson B, aka ![[info]](http://www.journalfen.net/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} paperdol. |
| Thursday, November 1st, 2007 | |
| 11:30 am | Heh heh, Gregg Easterbrook OK... change to HTML mode, then paste. I iz so smartt. There are a lot of wankers out there in the mainstream media, but there's only one that I've actually emailed to tell him so: Alleged sports writer Gregg Easterbrook. As they note at Sadly, No, plenty of people are wrong about plenty of things plenty of the time, but it takes a special kind of guy to be constantly wrong on a wide variety of subjects, and yet still have a place in our supposedly elite discourse. The funny thing is that when I emailed him, it wasn't because of football, intelligent design or politics; it was because he'd gotten something wrong about Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Yes, make a thousand errors when it comes to energy policy, but don't mess with my fandom, bub. It was in the middle of one of his infamous ESPN columns in which he decided to make a point about the NFL, and made a comparison to season 7 BtVS but got his facts completely wrong. (He'd complained that near the end of the season Anya "forgot" she could teleport out of danger, and of course she could not do that, having lost her demon powers several episodes previous.) Sure it's a small thing, but the comparison would've been dumb even had he been right. Which he wasn't, and I said so in the note I sent to the feedback address. Gregg never wrote back, darn. Probably he'll never know that this was a memorable point for me as I learned to be skeptical of the mainstream media. Let that be a lesson to you, pundits; don't piss off the Buffy fans... |
| Wednesday, October 17th, 2007 | |
| 10:03 am | The complaints of minorities are just so inconvenient... Full of fail, Fandom Wank. And so unnecessarily. Most of the wankas got it right when they responded to the Daily Deviant/miscegenation controversy. But when it came to the "Yuletide" flap the consensus was pretty much "Shut it and go away, annoying minority person. You're making us think about privilege again, and it hurts." Which might indicate that anti-semitism is harder to see in our society than anti-black racism. But that's not much of an excuse. Aren't "we" fans supposed to be the open-minded and skeptical ones? Yet so much of our energy goes toward keeping our emotional comfort zones intact. In that way, we're pretty much like everyone else. |
| Thursday, September 13th, 2007 | |
| 4:32 pm | Dear Internets... Hang on a minute; I'm express-mailing you a tiny bottle to catch your tears in. But be conservative about it. We will, eventually, run out of bottles. (Immediately inspired by this thread at Pandagon, but it could be almost any day, y'know?) |
| Tuesday, August 21st, 2007 | |
| 1:36 pm | Livejournal is serious business, but first: Cross-posted from LJ... a silly quiz: ( salieri, you dirty snitcher you.) ;)So... I've been reading back through some of the classic Harry Potter "race wanks", and two things occur to me: 1) There's a big difference between moral clarity and moral simplicity... sadly, too many fans don't get this. While that's often described as a typically American failing, I see it in people from all over. (Naturally, it doesn't help things when much of modern "conservative" thought aims to erase this distinction, but that's a whole other topic.) 2) Many people will fight to their last breath to maintain their emotional comfort zones. Much of the defensiveness I've seen in reaction to the Daily_Deviant "miscegenation" controversy was motivated by #2 (if unfamiliar with this controversy, you could do worse than checking out liviapenn's roundup of links here). To make a long story short: A fanfic community on LJ called daily_deviant used the word "miscegenation" as a fic prompt, a black woman asked them to remove it, the community members refused, she took her complaints public, they got angry and defensive... I think y'all know the drill.While part of what went on here has to do with latent, unrecognized racist feelings, I think that the root problem was the inability of these fans to step outside of their comfort zones even for a moment. The very thought that they might be racist was overwhelmingly scary, so they closed their minds and tried to shut down the discussion. A valuable opportunity to learn is lost that way, which is tragic. So it goes with so many discussions of race and racism in the "real world". Then again, I don't really believe in a stark division between the fandom sphere and everything else. Too much like that moral simplicity thing. Eh? |
| Friday, March 2nd, 2007 | |
| 2:04 pm | Veronica Mars: Not like the other girls (Cross-posted from LJ) I've wanted to write this post on exceptionalism for a while, but I never felt quite exceptional enough. Or perhaps I needed a hook, and this is as good a one as any. I've grown (as I said previously) somewhat bored with this season of Veronica Mars. The Dean's murder investigation never grabbed me, really, the Logan/Veronica angst is getting old, the Keith/Veronica banter is getting a mite stale too. This series needs a real shake-up; something that'll piss off 30% of the viewers but make them keep watching anyway, and ensure that people will be arguing about it ten years from now. But I doubt that it will happen. I said, back in Season 1, that Rob Thomas is a relatively cautious showrunner, and isn't going to take those kind of risks. And I think that subsequent seasons have proved me right. Season 1 was good, and I've been reasonably entertained since then; don't get me wrong. But I've had the feeling all along that the makers of VM try to have it both ways too often.( Read more... ) And heck, I'd be happy with just one of them. |
| Thursday, February 22nd, 2007 | |
| 3:02 pm | No, dear, Rob Thomas is not out to ruin your life (Cross-posted from LJ) Having grown somewhat bored with this season of Veronica Mars, I haven't gotten around yet to watching last night's episode. And so I ran afoul of one of the hazards of online fandom: I got spoiled.( Beware: Spoilers for this week's episodes of Veronica Mars ) Thoughts from my flist? |
| Wednesday, October 18th, 2006 | |
| 10:02 am | Fandom and narcissism, Part 2 There’s a term which is well-known in the “literary” circles of SF/fantasy fandom which deserves to be better known: Egoboo, reportedly a shortened form of “ego-boosting activity,” means the good feeling one gains from recognition of voluntary work. This term tells us something about one of the forces that drive fannish activity: The desire for recognition and validation by others.( Read more... ) Perhaps a bit of thought about why fan organizations are vulnerable to these people should be next. |
| Tuesday, October 17th, 2006 | |
| 11:44 am | Fandom and narcissism: A stab at it I've I've referenced previous LJ posts on this topic in my LJ, I thought I'd cross-post them. I am still somewhat dissatisfied with my articulation of this topic, and wonder if there's some piece of the puzzle that I'm missing. But here, for what it's worth... I've kicked around the idea of writing this post for a long time, but have never gotten very far before. I worry that it's not a "nice" thing to say, or that I'm making too much out of the behavior of a few bad apples, or even that I'm engaging in self-justification. But perhaps it just needs to be said: Genre fandom has a problem with narcissism. No, I don't think that the majority of genre fans are personally narcissistic. But I do think that, more than most other sectors of society, fandom is infected and influenced by narcissism. ( Read more... ) (Part 2 to be posted tomorrow.) |
| Friday, October 13th, 2006 | |
| 12:23 pm | From fandom to fiction (x-posted from LJ) After my recent posts (in my LJ) on narcissism in fandom, it was great to come across this List of fictional narcissists at Wikipedia.org. While I'd quibble with some of the characters listed (Peggy Hill from King of the Hill? Uhh... no.) it's mostly an insightful collection. And also indicative of the overall geekiness of wikipedia contributors, as the first two characters are from Star Wars, the third is from a video game, and the list is heavy with references to fantasy and science fiction works. I'm rather surprised that Voldemort, Saruman and Spike from BtVS aren't on the list, though. Hehe, that last one may get me in hot water. But I definitely see the classic signs of a narcissistic personality in Spike, at least up to season 7. The boastfulness, the very limited empathy (not absent entirely, but limited), the self-centered thinking, all very present. One of the things that makes his story so compelling, I think, is that he has the opportunity to move beyond narcissism, and takes it. This rarely happens in real life, I fear. Well, that's one of the things that fantasy is good for. Saruman the White from LOTR? A brilliant portrait of the arrogance that power can bring. He believes that Sauron is going to win the war of the ring, and besides, he can increase his own power if he joins the side of Evil, so to him the choice is obvious. And when, to his shock, he turns out to be on the losing side, he tries to talk his way out of it. A slick modern politician in wizard's robes, is Saruman. To me, though, one of the best portrayals of narcissism in fiction is in a fairly obscure novel from the 1970's called Grand Obese, by Cesar J. Rotondi. Sylvie, the protagonist, is a woman of insatiable appetite, mainly for food, but also for validation. She sees the entire world, especially the people in it, either as opportunities for feeding or obstacles to it. Even her own children barely exist as people to her; the facts of their miserably lonely, circumscribed lives make no impression upon her. Sylvie's physical size serves as a metaphor for her ego... both increase to ridiculous, life-threatening size as the novel progresses, and it's only when her family reaches a point of profound crisis that she begins to realize that something is wrong. And by then, the reader suspects, it is too late. But I won't give away the ending. You really need to read it for yourself (the book is out of print, sadly, but used copies are around). |
| Friday, September 1st, 2006 | |
| 11:56 am | 15 Unpopular Fannish Opinions Since all the cool kids, including theregoesmygun, are doing it, here's my list of 15 unpopular fannish opinions. I've tried to keep it as non-specific as possible, but you may see reflections of various controversies that are familiar. These are not necessarily unpopular everywhere (they may well be the majority opinions in some quarters), but are certainly unpopular in certain circles. Here we go... ( Come on in, they won't bite (hard) ) |
| Wednesday, August 9th, 2006 | |
| 1:26 pm | I don't care, I'm still free, you can't take the sky... Our friend Sterno's courageous struggle with cancer ended yesterday, August 8th 2006. I don't think I'll ever hear the Firefly theme song again without getting a little lump in my throat. Happy skies to you, my friend. |
| Thursday, June 8th, 2006 | |
| 11:01 am | The Wimp Brigade rides again... Cross-posted from LiveJournal: While the Harry Potter books hold no great fascination for me, Harry Potter fandom certainly does. Partly because many of my friends are in it, partly because the issues and controversies that arise often mirror ones I've seen in BtVS fandom, and also because social behavior in any large, diverse group of passionate people is fascinating in and of itself. One of the issues I've been following recently involves an intense discussion about sexism in the fan community, and one of the hot questions is whether it's acceptable to call the adolescent female characters (such as Ginny Weasely, who seems to catch most of the flak) sluts or whores. My answer is a firm "NO!"; in fact I'm astonished that this is even in question. Did slut-baiting come back "in" when I wasn't looking? Should I hang onto that old flannel shirt in case grunge comes back too? In the "YES" column, on the other hand, comes disgruntled Harry/Hermione 'shipper Vanceone, who last week wrote this strange essay in which he argues that yes, it is appropriate because Ginny is just a sex object in the books. To say that the textual evidence for this is dubious would be putting it mildly, and many people who read the essay concluded that Vanceone is a creepy misogynist who's projecting his fear and loathing of female sexuality onto J.K. Rowling's books. One of the most strongly worded condemnations came from It's a good thing I'm not going to Lumos [a fan convention], because after reading this and other comments, I would actually fear for my safety from such "warm and compassionate, hot-tempered, impulsive, affectionate, lovable" people such as you. What's worse, me expressing my views about a fictional character, or the thousands howling for my head and calling for my sterilization? I happen to exist, Ginny does not. Which, I must admit, is a tactic that takes real chutzpah. Or, perhaps, simply a narcissistic disregard for anything outside of his own head. Histrionic drivel though this is, it does underscore an important point that has relevance far beyond fandom: Many men express an exaggerated fear of being physically attacked by women when they're experiencing women's criticism. It's a pretended weakness that, often enough, works. The educator Hugo Schwyzer, by an interesting coincidence, published a long post on this topic on the same day that Vanceone put up his essay. It's called Words are not fists, and it describes how male students in his Women's Studies class would joke about being physically assaulted if they expressed unpopular opinions: They prefaced their remarks by joking "I know I'm going to get killed for saying this, but..." One of them, even pretended to rise from his desk to position himself by the door, saying that "Once I say this, I know I'm going to have to make a run for it." Most of the women laughed indulgently, and I even found myself grinning along. Hugo goes on: All of this behavior reflects two things: men's genuine fear of being challenged and confronted, and the persistence of the stereotype of feminists as being aggressive "man-bashers." The painful thing about all this, of course, is that no man is in any real physical danger in the classroom -- or even outside of it -- from feminists. Name one incident where an irate women's studies major physically assaulted a male classmate for something he said? Women are regularly beaten and raped -- even on college campuses -- but I know of no instance where a man found himself a victim of violence for making a sexist remark in a college feminist setting! And I would argue that this is largely true outside of college as well. Yet the attitude persists, because it serves a purpose. Several commenters to this post, such as "Gonzman" in fact ignore the substance of Hugo's words and go right into complaining that men are the targets of female violence. What's more, they claim that men cannot fight back because "It's wrong to hit girls." Considering how many guys do hit girls, this statement is ridiculous. And here, perhaps, we see the darker side of the "wimp brigade" (thanks to |
| Saturday, May 6th, 2006 | |
| 12:37 pm | Fannish controversies made simple (Part II) (Psst. I'm hiding from a Jehovah's Witness. Thank Jehovah that my building's intercom works.) In my previous entry I speculated that much of the controversy in fandom exists simply because it's so easy to be controversial. One could write thousands of words of sensible, balanced commentary on themes and characterization in the Harry Potter series, for example, and not get very much attention, but write a short rant about how writing Marauders* slash is sick and immoral, and clearly the work of sex-deranged cat hoarders, and it could easily draw hundreds of comments. Many of them may be negative or angry, but attention is attention (I actually saw this happen a few months back). So more than a few fans will look at this situation and conclude that the quickest way to become a "Big Name" is to be stubbornly, relentlessly negative. The sad thing is, they're often right. And fandom and the Internet being what it is, it's always possible to find like-minded people who will support even the extreme positions. Soon the controversy artist has developed a following, and is the leader of a faction. How can we distinguish the "controversy artist" from the person who merely has sincere but unconventional opinions? The latter usually recognize that they need to make a strong case to go against the prevailing wisdom, and act accordingly. And, though they might disagree vehemently with others, they try to respect the humanity of others. The controversy artist, on the other hand, knows on some level that his case is a flimsy one, based not on true conviction but on the desire to get attention. So he spends little time making his case, and a great deal of time denigrating his opponents. Anyone who's studied the basic types of fallacies will recognize this tactic... it's called "poisoning the well". One of my favorite well-poisoners at present is ataniell93, who routinely refers to... well, basically everyone in HP fandom who doesn't agree with her... as "Rowling dittoheads". This is actually a clever insult, as it works on several levels. Firstly, the "dittohead" clearly implies that the people in question are like Rush Limbaugh's followers. Secondly, it compares Jo Rowling to Limbaugh (who is, as most of my readers would agree, a mouthpiece for the authoritarian far right, and a nasty piece of work in general). Thirdly, it creates the impression that said group of fans passively absorbs every word of Rowling's without thinking or judging. Well then, clearly the people who don't agree with ataniell93 are a pack of slack-jawed, pro-authoritarian morons, and not to be taken seriously! (That ataniell93 just might be acting out feelings of envy toward Rowling is not to be considered, of course.) Other examples from recent memory include the fan who compared her opponents to Iraq War supporters (making political analogies of this type seems to be a favorite tactic)... and to get away from picking on Potter fans, there are the hard-shell Spikefen in BtVS fandom who continue to demonize David Fury, Marti Noxon, Joss Whedon; and pretty much anyone who ever touched a script, characterize other fans as "fundies", and keep up the cry of "persecution" to this day. In the grand scheme of things, controversy artists in fandom are a fairly harmless annoyance. But the same kind of process occurs in areas where its effects are very serious. Rush Limbaugh (and his ilk such as Michael Savage and Michelle Malkin), for example, creates fake controversies not just for attention, but to frustrate political progress and keep the public ignorant. I like to think that standing up to irrationality in any sphere of life is a worthwhile activity. Does anyone else have favorite stories about controversy artists, and ideas about how to oppose them? Or care to tell me I'm making a mountain out of a molehill? :D *Marauders = Sirius Black, James Potter, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew when they were all students at Hogwarts. |