okay, fine, the Tiptree thing

[hth]

Here's my thing. It seems like the argument I'm seeing most consistently aimed at people who are publically unhappy with "Arcana's" longlisting for the Tiptree Award goes a little something like this:
Fandom is different from other people. We have certain standards and expectations and conventions and we judge quality differently from the way people who give out "literary awards" do, and therefore to talk about whether "Arcana" is up to standard misses and distorts the most important question, which is "Whose standards?"

And this isn't an unreasonable thing to say. But I think it's fucking the debate on two different fronts.

A) Fandom isn't giving this award. Why would it even occur to us that our standards are the ones that apply here? A nominator basically invited fandom to a party at someone else's house, and even if we always shoot guns in the air or say grace before meals or whatever it is we do at our family parties, it's absurd to suggest that now the hosts of this party and their other guests must do so or risk offending or marginalizing us. Fandom has *lots* of chances -- daily! hourly! -- to promote what we as fans think expresses the best examples of fanfic in its proper context. Even if I were only to read stories that someone on lj has recced, I would never in a billion years get through all of them. That's the fan community saying, "Here's what I suggest you look at as an example of terrific work" -- by the fannish standards of the reccer and her anticipated audience. To nominate something for a NON-FAN, worldwide award I think quite fairly carries the implicit meaning of "Here's what I suggest you look at as an example of terrific work" -- by the standards of the audience you're offering it up to. I don't think it's then unreasonable for people to, as members of *that* audience (which for these purposes I think we can define as readers of science fiction and fantasy with a particular interest in gender issues), speak from that perspective. That's the perspective that some of us are coming from when we talk about the story not "deserving" a Tiptree award -- it doesn't invalidate the idea that there are also fandom-standards, or that fandom-standards are meaningful, too. It just says, right now the debate is happening in this context, on this turf, so let's talk about it in terms of these people's house rules. Which are, btw, also my house rules at certain times, since I *am* a reader of science fiction and fantasy with a particular interest in gender issues. I'm speaking from the inside on both fronts, and it's really awkward to have it suggested, or flat out stated, that my loyalty to either group depends on my always choosing to privilege it over my membership in the other.

2) Some of the criticism of "Arcana" HAS BEEN from within the context of fandom. A lot of people think it's out of character. What could possibly be more fannish than that? That term doesn't even have any really secure meaning outside of fandom; an original fiction character can't *be* "OOC," because OOC refers, the way we use it, to the perceived gap between canon characterization and fic characterization. There's only one character in original fiction, ergo, no gap to deal with. A lot of people feel like it feminizes Nick's character, and for the NINE YEARS I'VE BEEN IN FANDOM, nobody has fucking *stopped* debating whether it's okay, *within* fandom, by *our* standards, to make a character's behavior in a story more archetypally feminine than it is in canon. We have that conversation all the time! Blair wants his dick back, remember? That's *our* version of a literary debate, and this is absolutely no different, except that instead of people saying "All y'all who do this in your writing MUST STOP because it irks us for x, y, and z reasons" are now saying "for x, y, and z reasons, Emily Brunson's 'Arcana' is the kind of fanfic I've never liked." All we've done is reiterated this old chestnut of fannish in-conversation with a single example to hand.

My problem with "Arcana" isn't, strictly speaking, that I don't think the literary quality is high. As one of the judges pointed out (you can find the link on metafandom), that just makes "Arcana" a lot like a lot of other things on the longlist. My problem with it is that the Tiptree Award is supposed to be for genre fiction that "explores or expands gender roles," and while this story may do that from a totally outside perspective (he's a man! and he's pregnant!), from *inside fandom,* mpreg is thick on the ground, and from *inside fandom,* I don't think this story does explore or expand gender roles BY OUR COMMUNITY STANDARDS. Our community, by and large, has consistently been that what we perceive to be OOC "feminization" of a male character is trite, cliche, and reactionary. That's not new, and that's not imposed from the outside. That's what I've been hearing "Fandom" say overwhelmingly for as long as I've been around. This *is* a debate from the inside, and it is a debate about our standards.

And from that inside perspective, as a fan talking about fanfiction without trying to bring in any alien standards, there are at least two other things that concern me fannishly, and they are thus:
-- who defines "crackfic" and what does it mean? I admit I kind of have a dog in this fight, since the term was, as far as I've been able to tell, invented here under my own roof, by marythefan -- so I'm a little resistant to using it in ways I happen to know it was never meant to be used, but on the other hand, welcome to language, right? Anyway, that possible bias admitted up front, I have to say that I *love* crackfic, and I *love* that we have a fandom community that believes in and likes and values our crackfic. I don't love that there's now a tendency to use the label as a way to shut down discussion, so that if somebody says "I don't like this about the story," other people can answer, "well, it was written for a crackfic challenge." You can still like and not like crackfic, as a story. There's still room for conversation. Crackfic is just a particular type of writing, somewhat akin to surrealism or magical realism (except not exactly, but somewhat), and that means some of it works and some of it doesn't. "Well, it's surrealism" isn't a defense for every criticism of a story, and neither is "Crackfic! Crackfic!" I'm sad that it's been deployed that way, because then what grounds do we have left to call something *really great* crackfic, if all of it doesn't matter and wasn't serious anyway?
-- what are the limits and benefits of the fandom "pleasure principle"? If we accept that our Fandom Community Standard is "if it worked for you, it's all good!" then by what rights do we criticize any story, ever, as long as one person popped up in comments to say they loved it? There *has* to be some kind of middle ground that allows us to love and respect our PWPs and our kinkfic and our 200k h/c epics and our high school AUs and our Everyone Is Gay! and all the things we love and cherish so much about fandom, but also allows us to do criticism for ourselves. Sometimes all of us want to say, "I know you may have loved that story, but it totally fell down for me" or even "it offended and angered me." Because if we can't do that, then what we've created is a space that is completely safe and welcoming for any kind of fiction, and completely closed-off and inaccessible to anyone's direct expression of their reactions to fiction. And for what it's worth, the *entire reason* I'm in fandom is that I like to react to fiction and to express it in both emotional and intellectual ways. Talking back to stories IS fandom for me, so if I can't talk back to another fan's story (because nothing matters except that it made someone, somewhere go "Woohoo!")...it's not fandom for me. It's not a place where I can do what I want to do, what I love doing. It's a community that no longer is willing to make itself open to my needs.

Fortunately, we're not at all there. I think there's been a lot of good discussion and criticism to come out of this -- and some obnoxious stuff, but that's the way it goes. The day there's no obnoxiousness to be found anywhere in fandom, I'll probably have a coronary and die of the shock. Fandom is still, for me, the best place in the world to get good conversations going about what people like and don't like, what they want and don't want, what turns them on and pisses them off. All of that stuff is relevant to the idea of pleasure, but it's inclusive of the fact that people get pleasure in different ways. For some of us, some of those things that get lumped in as "literary quality" issues are *precisely* how we get pleasure, at least some of the time. Which makes quality and pleasure interpenetrating (heh, she said *penetrating*) categories; I can't necessarily own and champion my pleasure as a reader without also being able to say certain things about what quality means to me. I grind to a halt if I'm asked to speak always about my pleasures and never about what I admire. It's not two different conversations.

As for Em, I will say that I empathize with her greatly, because I very much doubt she's having any fun. I know I wouldn't be, in her position. All I can say is, what we do in fandom is, we talk about what we like and don't like and why. A *lot* of people like Em Brunson's work. A lot of people admire her as a writer. At least one person wanted to publically honor this particular story. If this were happening to some newbie who'd just posted her first story ever, I'd probably feel even worse. At the end of the day, Em will always be able to say that she's written a ton of fanfic that really worked for a ton of fans, that she's had career longevity, that people have come forward to say that she's one of their favorites or one of their formative influences, etc. That's all good news. A lot of people didn't like "Arcana," and that's the bad news. I know it's not easy to hear that your work displeased some people -- been there myself, trust me, *zero fun* -- but all you can say is, win some, lose some, and feel grateful for all your supporters and how grateful they are for you and your body of work. That's not nothing, you know? I'm not exactly trying to give Em life wisdom, here, I'm just saying...the issue came up of how would I respond if it were happening to me, and I'm saying, I very much hope that's how I would respond. (In between the bouts of wild, cathartic ranting to my friends. And the alcohol. Oh, yes, there would be alcohol.)

Anyway, to sum up. It's easy to say you're for critical discussion in the abstract. Now it's concrete, now it's real, now the chips are down, and we have to decide if we meant it, and if we're only for critical discussion if nobody catches us at it. There are those people who feel that's a "betrayal" of Em as a person and as a member of my community, and I'm really sorry they feel that way, but hopefully at least some of this has gone toward carving out a position where questioning what this story does and how can be seen as something other than a personal betrayal. It's coming directly out of everything I love and value about fandom; I can't love and value fandom without saying exactly this.

Comments

[hth-the-first.livejournal.com]

Well, like I said, you know...I'm not in favor of obnoxiousness, and I think it's always advisible to watch your tone, and I think matociquala had exactly the right response to that first one: good discussion, please watch your mouth.

It's one of those frustrating things where you want to say, "Can you get off my side? You're not helping." Because I do think she brought up interesting points, particularly by saying, if the work is derivative of a certain kind of bodice-ripper (and I think that's a strong argument, particularly given how it leans on the whole thing where getting dick makes Nicky happy to be a woman), what's the gender message there? Maybe even, what's the relationship between fanfic and romance novels, how much do we use those conventions to subvert them, and how much do we resort to them out of convenience, or even because we actually like them?

My frustration with the debate comes out of me kind of realizing that when fandom says we want to look at fanficition critically, we mean *always* in broad-stroke views (talking about qualities of stories and tendencies in some writers, etc. etc.), and *never* by being able to cite examples in order to back up our meta appropriately (by saying "X story by Y writer does these things, and here's what I think about that") -- at least not when it's a story we don't like. Then we get on lj and say "I wish SOME PEOPLE wouldn't write out-of-character" and make everybody worried that we mean them *g* I don't know, maybe I'm at a place in my meta-life where I'm like, look, we've covered all these theoretical ideas, and we can't advance anywhere from here until we do criticism like criticism is actually done, story by story, writer by writer. (Dammit, I knew this English degree thing would ruin my life one way or another! *g*) But I can't guarantee to you that nobody will ever do it sarcastically or snippily or pissily (particularly when lj culture tends to lionize that type of writing, because the newspaper-movie-critic style is frankly more entertaining than the literary-critic style of analysis). I don't know, though, I wonder if being more able to express negativity about stories would keep people from only doing it when they're so ticked off that they can't modulate their tempers anymore?

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

That last one is a really interesting point!

i'mnot sure where I stand on the public crit debate. On the one hand, I totally want and do public analysis, but, just like in the 'real' world, I rarely bother to spend too much time on things I genuinely dislike. If I waste my time discussing a story in detail, it ought to be worth it, y'know.

which is very differnt for me from betaing, where I totally emphasize the negative 9pretty much at the exclusion of whatworked), but that's not public.

I'm trying to figure out who and what's helped here? Yes, I get that it might be useful to say, mpreg in general can do X really well but is in danger of Y and here are examples for both. But I wonder whom you'd ultimately be writing for.

I mean, you bring up OOC debates that are too abstract. But look at how utterly subjetive and ultmately useless the debates get when we do get into specifics (*points to case studies Transcendental and Hindsight). The folks who thought Rodney was OOC in either won't budge and neither will those that thought the show's version could extrapolate to include these versions.

And in the end people were upset and i'm not sure anyone learned anything. And the only reason this could even be done was that the stories were good enough to withstand this. Do you really want to take some random wraithbait fic and tear it apart?

But then I don't think English *is* about evaluating. other than my bizarre "which story is better" exercise I cite in my latest post that happened a good two decades ago, I haven't ever judged or evaluated. I've analyzed, look at the way gender functions, the way voice is used, whatever. But that's ANALYSIS not EVALUATION.

Andyes, I know that the author might still get upset, but there are ways in which an analysis has both a tone and focus that refuses to judge.

[OK, I have done it once and maybe that can be an example--or maybe not--in my <a href='http://cathexys.livejournal.com/169827.html">celebrity</a> paper, I discuss, what many might consider a Mary Sue story...and I think I address some of the aspecects surrounding that, esp. its particular appeal. B/c ultimately, we don't really want to criticize the utterly bad. We want to figure out why a story we hate is beloved by others, right? Noone runs in open doors and states what we all agree on. What we are desperate to do is explain in exhausting detail why story X was really, truly bad...b/c half our flist is in love with it!!! [and yes, I know not every single person is in that 'we'...i'm sure plenty of people have different motivations...i should have possibly said I?]

[hth-the-first.livejournal.com]

'm trying to figure out who and what's helped here? Yes, I get that it might be useful to say, mpreg in general can do X really well but is in danger of Y and here are examples for both. But I wonder whom you'd ultimately be writing for.

For me! Because I know you say nobody learns anything, but you're just wrong about that, and I know because I do. I have. I learn things from other fans, and I change my mind, and I get excited because points of view that previously seemed bizarre and alien to me suddenly make sense on their own terms. You mention "Transcendental," and that's the best case in point for me -- I love that story so much, and when I first heard people had objections to its characterization, my reaction was "Well, those people are clearly idiots." I don't feel that way anymore. I'm not even convinced that they're wrong anymore. I still love the story, but through that discussion, I now have a clear sense of why I love it, and why those things that work for me aren't working for everybody. I know the character better than I would have without that debate, both the way I construct him and the way other people do, and I know more about what I want and need in a story and what's incidental, and I got over the knee-jerk assumption that people who didn't respond to it the same way I did were coming at it from an unconsidered or irrational or illegitimate point of view. I think their argument was in some ways stronger than mine, and so my perspective had to shift to accomodate that, even though I wasn't "converted" to someone else's way of thinking. So *I'm* the person that benefits from conversations like that, and I'm pretty sure I'm not entirely alone.

But that's ANALYSIS not EVALUATION. Andyes, I know that the author might still get upset, but there are ways in which an analysis has both a tone and focus that refuses to judge.

Well, yes and no, I think. I mean, I'm on your side if you're saying it's pointless to look for a means of "evaluation" that ranks things in a linear way, from Best to Worst.

But on the other hand, what's the point of analysis if you totally divorce it from evaluation? You can spend all day long and say "gender functions like this in Buffy the Vampire Slayer" or "in popslash genderswitch stories" or "in Madonna videos" -- but at the end of the day, once you have amassed this body of knowledge on the subject, what do you do with it? I think it's okay -- important, actually, to come to the end of it and say, "So, is that all right with me? Do I like the uses to which the artist(s) have put gender, do I think it says something I want to hear, or maybe that I don't want to hear but need to? Have these choices they've made served what I perceive to be their own intentions? Are those choices serving my needs as an audience member?" And the more I talk about things like that, the more clarity I can achieve in separating out a variety of purposes and needs, so that I'm able to say something more useful than, "X uses gender this way, Y uses gender this way, so X is great and Y sucks." I can take something like VMars, which I *love,* and be critical in certain ways of their use of gender by noting that you can see a pattern with their female lead, the way all her intimate relationships are with men and her relationships with women are regularly fraught and estranged, as if to imply that she never quite fits into that world while being totally at home and totally functional in the male universe. There's an undertone there that bugs me of "dumb girls run in packs of girls; cool heroines like Veronica conquer the man's world and find that it welcomes them with love and admiration." Does that mean I have evaluated VMars and found it lacking? In some ways. In practically every other way, I think it's fucking *brilliant.* So "evaluation" isn't necessarily a simple thing, where we give something an 8.4 and move on. But it is, for me, the practical end to the means that is analysis. My experience with English is that "refusing to judge" isn't really the definer of what analysis is, or even what good analysis is, but that analysis is our all-purpose sonic screwdriver that lets us evaluate in a considered way so that we can use what we know.

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

You're totally right :-)

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)