reenka | ~~ to shallow or not to shallow, that is the question.

Eh. The problem with me & meta-fandom recently (okay, today) is that I feel like I can answer any question I ask (of myself) well enough, 'cause I've seen it all discussed already. It's an odd, hollow sort of feeling-- like, I still love the things I loved (okay, I still love H/D porn), but I don't really -hate- the things I hated as much. Like, the need to figure out the confusing and disturbing and odd aspects of fannishness isn't so great when I just -know- 'this is how things are and how they're going to stay, so what'?
I'm still interested in literary analysis, but I almost never see that going on, really, not even of the weak sort that we have in my English classes (enjoyable as they are, I really don't think they're all that challenging on the undergraduate level at least). And well... er... I want to be challenged as well as entertained. I want someone's viewpoint to surprise me and make me rethink things. I already know I don't know 'the real answer', most likely, but I want to hope that others do.

What it really comes to is this-- is fannishness, by definition, 'shallow'? Because when someone refers to making a 'shallow fannish lj', I just have to wonder. What's so shallow about being a fan?? (Then again, I'm a person that doesn't understand why should -anything- be shallow, even talking about grocery shopping-- surely it can at least be witty & banterish? So, in fact, why do people feel the need to not be entertaining?? Though the real question is, why is everyone Not Like Maya??... me included, of course. Le sigh.)

Does being a fan of some work you admire (given that you admire it in the first place) make you more or less picky & discerning in your tastes?

And if there are two fandoms-- one 'shallow' & one 'scholarly' or 'meta'-- why don't they write porn for the scholarly bit?? Er, that is, porn that a pickier person would still enjoy while remaining picky.

Is it just HP? I mean, I don't read much in Smallville or the DC comics fandom or even Highlander (these days)-- do they have 'smart' porn? I want my smart porn, dammit!

Perhaps it's just that I usually want to ask the silly questions.

Earlier, I read a bad fic, right, and I was really tempted to say, Whyyyyyy do you people like such OOC fics?-- But I know the answer, and that answer is 'kink'. All right. Discussion over. Le sigh. This also applies to Why do you like submissive Harry so very much??, too. And Why do you all like bad, clunky writing so much in conjunction with submissive Harry and OOC behavior?? Kink, kink, kink (with a side of not caring & not noticing). It's the answer to everything that bugs me about fannishness and yet it's the root cause of fannishness. I feel so... disillusioned in meta all of a sudden, because it really seems like quibbling in the face of things that are illogical by definition (ie, our responses to the arts). But it's not 'meta' that's at fault-- it's my desire to apply reason/meta-analysis to something that should be exempt from it-- people's preferences & responses.

It's hard to resist, though-- especially being personally bitter about not getting as much attention (and the constant thought that 'well, why am I not as popular?' because while I'm not great, at least I'm not that). Eh, like I said. This is all the worst stuff about fandom.

Ahh, I remember the 'good old days', when I really almost felt that if I made a good enough argument, maybe I could change someone's mind or something silly like that. Really, I do & don't get people who think they can change people's minds about anything that has to do with preference-- in a way, I almost admire such ambition, but in another way, I'm glad I'm not them, because they must all have horrible ulcers. I mean, in some things, I suppose change -should- come for the betterment of humanity (and boy, do I feel full of myself saying that), but sometimes it's tough to judge things like what's in humanity's best interests. And then, of course, one wonders what, exactly, short of brainwashing, has the power to convince large groups of people to start with.

Going on a tangent, perhaps one can see fannishness itself as a meme-- an example of a mass phenomenon where there has been something of a widespread, rather consistent response (either positive or negative). There's a lot of disagreement within the fandom (the positive response), so it's not uniform, but one could still say that in this case the creator had found the 'secret' to 'convince' large numbers of people of... er... the idea that this is a worthwhile subject to pay attention to, at least. And the more popular something is, the more surprising its existence is, on some level, isn't it? Because out of hundreds & thousands of works created by hundreds and thousands of people-- it's this work that happened to touch this huge, disparate number of individuals. Now that's amazing.

And now for controversy: I've only now started reading `The Magician's Nephew' & I already like it better than Harry Potter. It's funny, really well-written & actually quite touching. Then again, I like lots of books better. I always said I was here for the H/D porn, but really, a lot of that just bothers me 'cause it's OOC (when I'm not so hormonal that I don't care-- which is actually more time than it'd seem if you know me well). And then I said I was here for the people, except 90% are gone. And then I said I was here 'cause I just want to write, except I haven't written much the past month. Le sigh again.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

cathexys.livejournal.com

i think you're mixing two things here that as a good popular culture person i cannot let stand :-) i don't think you need "smart" porn to have smart discussions. In fact, sometimes the not so smart porn can offer just as much to analyze. Look at gender roles, for instance. You don't need to write your diss on it to be steeped in culture and have that come out in your writing.

yeah, it can be more fun to detect the symbolism and such, but personally, that's not necessarily the level of analysis i'm interested in.

plus, there's the fact that the fic *is* analysis of a sort, so to figure out how a text chooses to read certain characters is at times stating the obvious.

finally, have you checked out hp_fictalk? not that active, but the analyses that do take place are very good.

I think the problem is that ff *is* often the antithesis of academic analysis. Many of the academics I know enjoy the escape from formalized analysis and the embracing of their escapist tendencies...plus, there is the point that much of ff only works in context, i.e., you might end up doing a better analysis of a particular plot/trope/genre than a singular fic...

From:

yourpoison.livejournal.com

Oh, I didn't mean I wanted smart porn for discussion purposes-- more for 'okay, porn that doesn't piss me off would be good' purposes :> I mean, I don't usually want to discuss bad porn so much as rant about it fruitlessly-- since I don't -really- feel better and the porn doesn't -really- get better either. I mean... I would prefer to discuss things from the standpoint of 'this is fascinating' without the element of 'it's also frustrating as hell to read'. Because even -reading- it makes me... twitchy, y'know? Like I want to 'enlighten' the people who like it, by shaking them and yelling (nicely) WHAT CRACK ARE YOU BITCHES ON??! (Except I wouldn't, honest-- not least because I -know- what crack, anyway.)

I don't know what -kind- of analysis I'm looking for-- probably any kind that doesn't depend on analyzing preference (which is so prevalent-- I mean, it seems like more than half the meta discussion I see has something to do with 'the people who don't like what I like are STUPID AND WRONG: discuss').

Which is to say-- I really want to discuss fic I -like- and read fic I like-- and that's getting more and more difficult. As far as canon discussion (which I'm actually less interested in, but seems more 'constructive' since you'd think there'd be less bitching & more diverse commentary)... there too, I feel like it's all been said or at least, most of it in HP fandom keeps degenerating into discussion of preferences. Either that, or a lot of the meta centers around everything that's wrong with the text-- all the ways in which JKR has messed up with the Slytherins is an all-time favorite, for instance. It gets a bit boring to me, if nothing else. I'd love to see more discussion of symbolism 'cause well, no one really does that (though in my Folklore & Fantasy class, we talk about it all the time).

I know what you mean about the merits of discussing the fic even/especially if it's bad/OOC-- but I still can't get past the whole 'but it's torture to read it' thing. Once I get past the bitching stage, I'm just bored with it 'cause it seems like I can see right through it (like, I know why people write bottom!Harry, for instance-- because they want to pamper their favorite, because they think it -is- in character, because they think it's hot, because they think Malfoy, being 'meaner', is more 'manly'... what have you).

In other words, it's hard for me to distance myself from fanfic enough to just see it as being useful for analysis (if anything 'cause I don't read it to analyse it-- I didn't mean to unite those two things). I just meant I wanted porn I could enjoy without shutting off my brain, and I want to analyze things without feeling the need to rant but then I run up against the 'well run dry' thing.

It also seems like-- given that ff is the antithesis of logic/analysis (since people just read it to escape/enjoy), why does it have to be so completely far-fetched as to make me have to work hard to suspend my disbelief for precious little pay-off? If it was at least well-written... but it's not. And yet people eat it up, and thusly I am bitter~:) That's really what it is. The more time I spend reading bad fic, the more bitter I get, which shouldn't have to be true, it seems. I mean, it's not a question of formalized analysis telling me that submissive!Harry is wrong, wrong, wrong-- it's gut feeling. My base conception of the text is being violated with that very concept, so to speak, and it would be all right if I felt the writer was only demonstrating -their- different conception of the text, but I get the feeling like they just don't care about anything but kink.

Ahhh, the travail of being too involved to enjoy the trimmings, probably~:)

From:

blacksatinrose.livejournal.com

t seems like more than half the meta discussion I see has something to do with 'the people who don't like what I like are STUPID AND WRONG: discuss'

That's why I don't read much meta anymore. ;) It just pisses me off, dude. I end up ranting at them with cane in hand.

My base conception of the text is being violated with that very concept, so to speak, and it would be all right if I felt the writer was only demonstrating -their- different conception of the text, but I get the feeling like they just don't care about anything but kink.

And that's why I don't read much fanfic anymore. ;) It, also, just pisses me off. ;)

~~ to shallow or not to shallow, that is the question.

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