http://xkcd.com/1061/

naamah_darling

Because I didn't feel like leaving it JUST on Tumblr, I responded to a good post by patheticfangirl about guys who are angry that there are yucky-ucky girls and gay people in their fandoms:

Seriously.  Hear fucking hear.

You don’t get to complain that there are no women in fandom and that you can’t meet “cool” chicks AND try to define how women DO engage with fandoms when they do.  I mean, you CAN do that, but it makes you a juvenile asshole.

It would be especially great if your objections didn’t so often boil down to “OMG TEH GAYNESS EWW!”  That’s just pathetic and sad.

So what if it’s “out of character” and “not canon”?  Women have had to put up with CANONICAL inconsistencies of character, stupid outfits, ridiculous pairings, sexist storylines, and blatant pandering to a male audience.  That shit insults us as women and as readers (if you are taking notes, that means it’s insulting your intelligence, too).

GLBT people have had to put up with the fact that people like us pretty much do not even fucking exist in comics and derived works, that when a gay character is presented, it’s unusual, and that small-minded dipshits would literally shit their pants in rage if you ever had a trans character in a mainstram comic.  Characters like us are considered a threat.

Racial issues?  Don’t make me fucking laugh.  Er, vomit.

Complaining about how fans enjoy their fandom is basically saying “Hey, you aren’t the kind of person I want in my fandom.”  Know what?  You don’t get to decide that.  We’re here, and we’re not going to take our dollies and go home crying just because you want to preserve your fandom as a pristine preserve for the oh-so-rare-and-endangered free-roaming male gaze.  Your fandom will change to accomodate us because we are here.  And we get to help define our fandom for ourselves, just like you have been doing.

We really ought to get along.  All of us.  We all have the same basic interests at heart.  We like geeky things.  We like superheroes and spaceships and snark.  We aren’t just here for the tight pants — we’ve been here all along.  The difference is now we have at least some fanservice directed at women to enjoy, and there is finally a great enough density of us on the internet to connect with one another and start carving out our own corners of fandom.  The difference is that you have finally noticed us.  And you don’t like what we’re doing.  And you know, you don’t have to like it.  You can walk away.

It was irritating when your parents and teachers and everyone else in the goddamn world acted all disgusted at your choice of entertainment, right?  You remember that feeling?  Yeah.  That kind of petty, judgmental crap is exactly what is being directed at us.  Knock it the fuck off.

I don’t write fanfiction.  I barely even read it.  I think, in all the years I’ve been on the internet, I’ve read maybe ten fics.  Most of it’s just not my thing.  And yet, my world has not imploded from the weight of gay Avengers fanfiction, or been torn apart by the lack of the fanfiction I would like to read.

If I can manage to cope with an internet full of things that do not interest me, and a fandom that does not always cater to my every whim, you can, too.  You can grow up and share.  You can decide that it’s great that people who aren’t like you are interested in the same things you are interested in, even if they show that differently, even if they are demonstrating their appreciation in ways that — shock and horror — do not include you.  Step up, grow up, act like an adult, and be part of a bigger, more inclusive fandom.

If you really need the help, you can borrow my big-girl panties.  THEY WILL BE COMING OFF JUST AS SOON AS MY COPY OF JOHN CARTER A PRINCESS OF MARS GETS HERE.

Oh, and JSYK, tonight, in honor of all the blatant, petty homophobia that gets slung around on threads like these, I am going to ship the ever-loving balls-deep FUCK out of John Carter and Kantos Kan.  BECAUSE IT IS MY GODDAMN FANDOM, TOO.  And Dejah Thoris would totally watch the shit out of that.

http://mightygodking.com/index.php/2012/05/27/fandom-is-jointly-owned/

http://mightygodking.com/?p=6289

Recently…well, probably not recently because it’s a very old debate but here’s another recent iteration of it…the discussion once again came up regarding slash fiction. In this particular case, for those of you not clicking the link, it’s a woman stating that she has just as much of a right to remix canon as anyone else, and any guy (and they do always seem to be guys) who gets creeped out, personally offended, emotionally disturbed, or just generally defensive on behalf of poor straight Captain America and Iron Man who can’t do anything about some gurl making them make out and stuff can lump it.

Which is, of course, 99% correct. (It’d be 100%, except that I’ve always felt like Cap and Iron Man’s arguing doesn’t mask a simmering romantic tension between the two men that could erupt at any moment. Cap and Iron Man’s arguing actually masks a much deeper and more fundamental dislike that the two have for each other based on the fact that Iron Man really is a dangerous control freak whose actions, while well-meaning, betray the fact that he actually is so elitist that he thinks that he should be allowed to run other people’s lives, and Cap finds that morally abhorrent. A much better slash pairing would be Cap and Hawkeye, whose macho banter practically screams, “We’re boning each other in the locker room after missions.” But I digress.) The point is, arguing that “this isn’t canon!” or “these characters wouldn’t do that!” is a disingenuous mask that this particular breed of fanboys use to attack fiction that makes them uncomfortable. The same people are probably writing Black Canary/Oracle slash, or at the very least nodding approvingly at it while saying, “Yes, exactly. Good for you for having the courage to show what DC can’t show on the printed page regarding these two characters and their mutual love of kinky bondage games!”

People like that know (perhaps, if you want to give them the benefit of the doubt, you could say that they’re aware on a subconscious level, but I suspect that most of them are perfectly knowledgeable on a conscious level) that if they say, “Ick! Seeing gay male characters being physically affectionate makes me deeply uncomfortable, and I think that only sexy women should be publicly sexualized because that’s the sort of thing I enjoy and fandom is all about servicing me and people like me,” then they will get a pointed lack of sympathy. They also know that fans care deeply about canon, because we read comics as much to inhabit the fictional universe for a brief period as to read any particular story, and as a result we’re very bothered when that fictional universe lacks internal consistency. So by hiding behind, “So-and-so wouldn’t do that!”, they divert the discussion away from their own homophobia and dislike of females behaving as though they have just as much of a right to enjoy comics as males, and towards the question of whether or not Captain America would really sleep with Iron Man. (A discussion that, as shown above, I am not entirely immune to participating in.)

But, as the blogger above pointed out, that is not an honest argument. They don’t run around pointing to every single piece of non-canonical fan art or fanfiction and tell the people involved that they shouldn’t be coming up with a different interpretation of the character than tradtionally done. They don’t even go up to Frank Miller and say, “Hey, your relentlessly angry, anti-social, ruthless Batman is actually pretty fundamentally at odds with the character’s history, and is depressingly unsympathetic and one-note.” They save their ire for women, minorities, and alternative sexualities who insist that they should be represented in fandom as well. They are, in short, practicing enforcement of white male privilege, and that’s actually pretty pathetic.

So, to “Pathetic Avengers Fangirl”…you’re right. You should totally keep enjoying the Avengers in whatever way makes you feel happy. Because that’s what being a fan is about.