I'm a little nervous about jumping in here, but for the purposes of my own clarification:
Okay, this is what I got out of Ces' post, and I would be happy to be corrected if I'm wrong: Basically, a piece of fanfic where Obi-Wan's a scantily-clad sex-slave != say, a Gor novel. Because we fans are identifying with *Obi-Wan*, rather than purely objectifying him. Basically, the post seemed to be a response to the argument that we, as slash fans, can't complain about stuff like the MJ statue because we do stuff that's "just as bad." And it seems like Ces doesn't think we do.
And *I* don't think we do, partly because I do think there's (usually) an empathy going on in (most) fanfic that mitigates or complicates the objectification. And also, partly because... basically, it's the same reason that I don't believe in "reverse racism" or "reverse sexism." What we're doing isn't, I don't feel, contributing to a harmful status quo that damages the other gender in question, whereas when men objectify women, I think it's doing exactly that.
Again, apologies if I'm totally off-base, here.
And then it seemed like some fans went, "Hey, whoah, whoah, could you not say 'we' when you say that empathizing/identifying/etc. is what 'we' fans are doing? 'Cause that's not the way I play in the fannish sandbox."
So, Hth, it seems like you are elaborating on that point...? So, it's sort of become a discussion about the way we play and...discuss, and about what types of play and discussion get privileged in... discussion? Yes? No? Maybe so?
In that way, the race issue isn't the exception to the rule at all -- it's just that these issues that got discussed in the original post in re: identifying up vs. down the power scale from yourself [...] make it so that white writers feel unable to apply the fix-it solution to the problem of B and largely default to the ignore solution.
I want to respond to this, but I worry that I'm misunderstanding it. Here goes, anyway: Are you saying that when identification/empathy/over-empathizing is privileged, this way of engaging keeps many white writers from writing CoC, 'cause they feel for whatever reason that they can't identify with CoC, and the dominant mode is for fanwriters to write characters they identify with?
For me -- and I'm not really directing this at you here, but more in general -- I'm not really sure I buy the "I can't write [insert CoC here] 'cause I don't identify with him/her" argument, anyway... I mean, I think you could make the case that Jeeves is more alien to us than Ronon. And yet. (Hm. Maybe that's a bad example.)
I hope it doesn't seem like I'm piling on you, here, btw, because I think it's good that fans are saying, "Hey, wait a minute, that's not how I play."
Again, I am happy to be corrected if I'm mangling people's arguments.
Comment #2 (let the rambling begin)
Okay, this is what I got out of Ces' post, and I would be happy to be corrected if I'm wrong: Basically, a piece of fanfic where Obi-Wan's a scantily-clad sex-slave != say, a Gor novel. Because we fans are identifying with *Obi-Wan*, rather than purely objectifying him. Basically, the post seemed to be a response to the argument that we, as slash fans, can't complain about stuff like the MJ statue because we do stuff that's "just as bad." And it seems like Ces doesn't think we do.
And *I* don't think we do, partly because I do think there's (usually) an empathy going on in (most) fanfic that mitigates or complicates the objectification. And also, partly because... basically, it's the same reason that I don't believe in "reverse racism" or "reverse sexism." What we're doing isn't, I don't feel, contributing to a harmful status quo that damages the other gender in question, whereas when men objectify women, I think it's doing exactly that.
Again, apologies if I'm totally off-base, here.
And then it seemed like some fans went, "Hey, whoah, whoah, could you not say 'we' when you say that empathizing/identifying/etc. is what 'we' fans are doing? 'Cause that's not the way I play in the fannish sandbox."
So, Hth, it seems like you are elaborating on that point...? So, it's sort of become a discussion about the way we play and...discuss, and about what types of play and discussion get privileged in... discussion? Yes? No? Maybe so?
In that way, the race issue isn't the exception to the rule at all -- it's just that these issues that got discussed in the original post in re: identifying up vs. down the power scale from yourself [...] make it so that white writers feel unable to apply the fix-it solution to the problem of B and largely default to the ignore solution.
I want to respond to this, but I worry that I'm misunderstanding it. Here goes, anyway: Are you saying that when identification/empathy/over-empathizing is privileged, this way of engaging keeps many white writers from writing CoC, 'cause they feel for whatever reason that they can't identify with CoC, and the dominant mode is for fanwriters to write characters they identify with?
For me -- and I'm not really directing this at you here, but more in general -- I'm not really sure I buy the "I can't write [insert CoC here] 'cause I don't identify with him/her" argument, anyway... I mean, I think you could make the case that Jeeves is more alien to us than Ronon. And yet. (Hm. Maybe that's a bad example.)
I hope it doesn't seem like I'm piling on you, here, btw, because I think it's good that fans are saying, "Hey, wait a minute, that's not how I play."
Again, I am happy to be corrected if I'm mangling people's arguments.