The Pointless, Yet Poignant, Crisis of a Co-Ed

So, I was trying to write a comment on this post by zokiblue, which was a rebuttal to this post by _dahne_ about the recent trend in fandom towards self-policing against the various "isms" - she mentions racism, rape culture, ableism, homophobia,  and transphobia in particular.  It got a little out of hand for a comment, but I think it makes an okay post.

I'm glad this made metafandom. Because here's my thing: while I agree with the majority of zokiblue 's article (notably her call-outs about  _dahne_'s needless alienation of the Republican diss opening, attachment to "crazy" and "retarded" when there are so many wonderful synonyms, and dismissal of the "-ist" trend), I'm not sure _dahne_ entirely wrong. She's a lot wrong, especially when she tries the "there is honest-to-god injustice in the world, why are you arguing on the internet" derailing tactic, but she's not entirely wrong.

I support the FoCing Cabal and Ableist Allies and all the letters in the alphabet soup of Queer rights in their quest to lay the smackdown on -ist trends in fandom. There is too little fic about characters outside the pretty white male demographic. Hurt/Comfort does represent a skewed way of looking at disability. Our culture does treat rape too lightly. Teens figuring out who they are and who they like do need to have safe spaces to do just that, so maybe they'll stop fucking killing themselves because they can't see any other way out.

But there is a line between calling out offensive material and attempting to micromanage the creative processes of fandom as a whole, and we're collectively starting to flirt with it. I'm thinking here of the "-somebody in an Inception fic joking with his Indian friend about looking like a cab driver" kerfuffle, which _dahne_ cites as a product of the "vacuum chamber full of self-important pseudointellectual gibberish." I actually read the fic before the kerfuffle went live, and I remember being appalled at the fact that this author was being taken to task by prominent fans for a joke that a character made in a story to a close friend. Maybe I'm not actually a good person, but in my experience, close friends? Say stuff to each other that would make any outside observer think they hated each other. Example from my life (bear in mind that these two were debate partners for years and double-dated to prom):

Bengali-American: Man, why do they call you "white" people? Every time I look at you, you're bright red!
Irish-American: Hey, at least we're not all pruney from being underwater all the time like Deshies.

So needless to say, I viewed the joke as relatively mild. I was saddened when the writer (voluntarily, and with a Good Apology) removed it from the fic. Not only did that action take out what I perceived as a nice character moment, it also came entirely too close to self-censorship for my comfort.

Not everyone deals with injustice in the same way. Some people write thoughtful, experience-based essays that inspire other people to purge all -ist thought and action from their life. Other people make jokes, often in bad taste. There needs to be room for a little reflection of reality in the virtual world, especially in fic, where the views of a character may not reflect the views of the author. Sometimes, yes, they do, especially indirectly, but sometimes not!

If a pervasive trend (like H/C) does reflect a common prejudice (like an ooky and inaccurate view of disability), the best response isn't to try to get everyone who enjoys H/C to stop writing it, it's to point out, loudly and publicly, that H/C reflects an ooky and inaccurate view of disability, and then write a crapton of well-researched fic with characters with disabilities being awesome and screwing it up and getting it on and generally being, you know, people. The answer to bad speech isn't censorship, however indirect; it's more goddamn speech. This is why challenges like purimgifts and Chromatic Yuletide and Chromatic Porn Battle are so awesome - instead of silencing the airwaves (with criticism of portrayals of women, PoCs, or the differently abled), they're trying to boost the signal-to-noise ratio.

I recognize that I'm picking on one hyperbolic example among many worthy kerfuffles, but that's what happens - people forget the times when fandom pressure took down honest-to-jebus racist content (c.f. the metafandom debate on the Haiti J2 fic) and focus on the debates that make us look like the worst stereotypes of a group of Soapbox Sallies. I'm not saying that we collectively need to stop getting mad about stuff; just, maybe take a moment to breathe before we go into a full-court press.