Even as I was writing it, I realized how much I *had* learned, esp. from the Transcendental debates...so, yes, you're right!
I'd still maintain, though, that it's a matter of tone, of approach, of establishing some form of baseline against which to judge/comment. Like, I feel even the charges of not being gendersubverting enough in Arcana seems to miss the mark, b/c I don't see the story trying to do that.
I have two stories in SGA fandom that I could rant over for ages and have immense issues with. But I think part of my issues are that there's enough in them to make them want me to engage with them. I read tons of fic just for pleasure, enjoyment, not necessarily muting my critical faculties but not expecting them to be anything they're not.
I love Ebert's movie reviews, b/c he never blames a film for not living up to something it didn't intend to be. He'll give Mission impossible thumbs up because it does what he sets out to do, what its viewers expect it to be.
In a way, I realize, I'm almost bringing in a hierarchical evaluating system through the backdoor, i.e., I don't criticize some cheap sitcom for making this message, but VM is complex enough otherwise that I can criticize it here. Or maybe it *is* about context, i.e., I don't criticize a parody for having Rodney OOC but I can criticize Transcendental...
And now I'm not even sure any more where I stand on all this, because I don't think analysis forecloses critical engagement or even the type of evaluation you're describing. And yet, i find many of the comments completely inappropriate. I guess the only discussion where I could conceivably see Arcana getting criticized for its gender portrayal would be something like whether we as women should *ever* indulge ourselves in heteronormative/izing narratives but even then I'd need much more analysis on how where why..on what happens when we read/write stereotypes etc.
So, to get back to your initial provocative comment: how can we create an environment to critically engage? And when is it useful to have the writers as audience and when might it not be? [Not in the sense of exclusion but inthe sense that she may not be the intended audience for that debate]
And sorry for the cut off comment...I'd linked to the one time I actually did somewhat criticize a story (or rather, the way I engaged with it of analyzing and coneecting it with other stories without dissing it..or so I hope)
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Date: 2006-05-21 03:07 pm (UTC)From:Even as I was writing it, I realized how much I *had* learned, esp. from the Transcendental debates...so, yes, you're right!
I'd still maintain, though, that it's a matter of tone, of approach, of establishing some form of baseline against which to judge/comment. Like, I feel even the charges of not being gendersubverting enough in Arcana seems to miss the mark, b/c I don't see the story trying to do that.
I have two stories in SGA fandom that I could rant over for ages and have immense issues with. But I think part of my issues are that there's enough in them to make them want me to engage with them. I read tons of fic just for pleasure, enjoyment, not necessarily muting my critical faculties but not expecting them to be anything they're not.
I love Ebert's movie reviews, b/c he never blames a film for not living up to something it didn't intend to be. He'll give Mission impossible thumbs up because it does what he sets out to do, what its viewers expect it to be.
In a way, I realize, I'm almost bringing in a hierarchical evaluating system through the backdoor, i.e., I don't criticize some cheap sitcom for making this message, but VM is complex enough otherwise that I can criticize it here. Or maybe it *is* about context, i.e., I don't criticize a parody for having Rodney OOC but I can criticize Transcendental...
And now I'm not even sure any more where I stand on all this, because I don't think analysis forecloses critical engagement or even the type of evaluation you're describing. And yet, i find many of the comments completely inappropriate. I guess the only discussion where I could conceivably see Arcana getting criticized for its gender portrayal would be something like whether we as women should *ever* indulge ourselves in heteronormative/izing narratives but even then I'd need much more analysis on how where why..on what happens when we read/write stereotypes etc.
So, to get back to your initial provocative comment: how can we create an environment to critically engage? And when is it useful to have the writers as audience and when might it not be? [Not in the sense of exclusion but inthe sense that she may not be the intended audience for that debate]
And sorry for the cut off comment...I'd linked to the one time I actually did somewhat criticize a story (or rather, the way I engaged with it of analyzing and coneecting it with other stories without dissing it..or so I hope)