The Importance of Fandom and Fan Creation

Content note: we’re going to touch on transphobia, racism and sexism in this piece. Also, it’s a long post, FYI. Don’t let that deter you though. I’ve used some section breaks (***) to note where sections start and end and, I hope, short enough paragraphs for readability.

If you’ve been following me for a while, you’ll have noticed that I love fandom. Fandom = all fans of something (in a broad or narrow sense); or the state or attitude of being a fan. This can be about anything – sports, fashion, celebrities, or fiction such as a certain book or television series or film.

I have an entire category of blog posts on this site devoted to it. Fandom was instrumental in my child and teenage years in providing me with a belonging space and a space for my creative ideas to expand. Through identifying with characters in specific fandoms and using them to explore different scenarios based on what happened in their stories, I felt connected.

Fandom has largely been a positive experience for me. However…we’re going to go a bit deeper than that today.

If you were to go look through the Fandom category of this blog I linked above, you’d find two posts where I list my fandoms: “Fandoms, or I’m a Fan of…” and “Fandoms, Updated“. I have a lot of them, some more obscure than others. There are nuances on that list, as I like to engage with my fandoms critically. Friends, it’s time for another update of those lists.

Almost three weeks ago, two Fandom-related events happened:

1. The author of the Harry Potter series fully showed herself to be a transphobe. I discovered this on the morning of the 20th of December, AEDT.
2. The latest Star Wars movie was released after great expectations. I cosplayed as Rey to watch it at the movies on the afternoon of the 20th of December.

***

I’m a major Harry Potter fan. It was my second fandom and one that has endured through the years. I know that it – and the fandom around it – has shaped my sense of self and how I see the world. For example, I describe myself as a Hufflepuff – loyal, hard-working, and kind. I identified strongly with Hermione and Harry in the books. I’ve spoken about this in my Fandom posts and in other posts such as Happy Birthday Harry.

However, over the past four or five years, I’ve become more aware of the uncomfortable parts of the books and fandom. See Harry Potter and the Canon-Fanon Thing for an early example. I honestly thought I’d addressed it more than this, but apparently not.

Basically: Harry’s world in the books still echoes the ‘real’ world – it’s set in a boarding school (echoes of the posh British boarding school trope), has racist undertones regarding the goblins and elves, and there is next to no representation of black or queer characters in a positive manner. Most of the representation came later, after fandom asked. (For example, if Dumbledore’s gay, which I do support, why did it have to be “hinted at” instead of mentioned?)

Also, looking at the new Fantastic Beasts movies – are the Goldstein sisters Jewish? No clue from the first movie….and the revelations about Nagini (she’s a shapeshifting Asian woman rather than a snake) turned me away from watching the second one. Also, the women in the books often don’t have the most well-rounded or fleshed out characterisations. Fandom has had to do a lot of our own exploration of these characters to “fill them in”.

We haven’t had to do as much with the male characters – though we often still do, as there are still problematic elements we want to address through exploring them. I used to think the books were “nuanced” in their character development. Now, I’m not so sure… and I feel that it’s strange that the fandom “catchphrase” is the “after all this time? Always.” line that’s taken from a conversation between Dumbledore and Snape and is actually, in context, kinda creepy.

Then there’s the author herself. Over the timeframe I mentioned above, she’s become more obvious in her biases and prejudices. (See the canon-fanon article for an example.) There have been rumours that she was a transphobe for some time, through the form of her liking things on Twitter or following certain people there, explained away by her PR team or herself. Then on the 20th December, she actually tweeted her own transphobic views and refused to back down.

I had begun to separate her from her books and the fandom for some time before that, discussing it with friends. I think it was sometime in the first half of 2018 that I made this decision, but I didn’t share it on here. Sorry about that. I think that a number of fans were hoping that she’d realise her folly at some point and back off. Or they didn’t know how to deal with the “hinted” transphobia and other concerns and wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt, despite what many trans people and other minority groups were saying. Sorry about that. There can be none of that now. She’s shown herself publicly and has in fact doubled down on her comments since.

This is particularly infuriating because – as I mentioned above – for many Potter fans, the Potterverse made us feel welcome. Including trans fans. It’s upsetting to see the creator reject that. So, we reject the creator…but keep the fandom. A lot has been said about that in the past few weeks. I stand with trans and non-binary people, especially those who are fans hurt by the recent comments. I am sorry that the Harry Potter creator has said those things and I reject her premise. Trans women are women, trans men are men, non-binary people are people, and so on. You are loved and valued.

***

As for the Star Wars movie: I’m planning to write another post after this where I get into the good and bad stuff in a bid more detail (i.e. with spoilers). For now, I will say that – as you can see from my Force Awakens post, I was really keen on where the Sequel Trilogy was going after the first movie. The ending movie? Not so much. It was an ending that gave us one version of how those threads could’ve tied together, with Last Jedi in the middle, but to be honest I’m a bit disappointed that that is the canon ending we get.

There are multiple reasons about that. Chuck Wendig, who’s written for the “new” Star Wars in the form of a tie-in book trilogy set between RotJ and TFA, has some thoughts over on his blog that I agree with a lot. I’ll expand more on that angle in the TRoS-themed spoliery blog post. What I’m going to mention today is: SW fans, we have multiple problems within our fandom.

Namely, racism and sexism. The sexism can be seen in the way some fans have interacted with Daisy Ridley (Rey) and Kelly Marie Tran (Rose Tico) over the course of the films. Fans compared Rey to a Mary Sue after TFA and got really angry at Tran after TLJ – they’ve made social media engagement so toxic that both Tran and Ridley have deleted their public social media accounts (Ridley in 2016 and Tran in 2018). Tran’s role in the films has also been impacted by racism.

The racism in the Star Wars fandom is a big problem. This is present in the people working on the films (how else do you explain how Finn’s story-arc has diminished each film, as well as the disappearance of Rose, and possibly the lack of thought about Poe’s “new” backstory in TRoS?), but it’s feral in the fandom. The fans have been absolutely toxic to Finn and his actor, John Boyega. Boyega has received so much hate for daring to exist as a Star Wars actor and be black, all through the films. To quote an article on gizmodo from a couple of days ago,

” The larger point is that throughout almost the whole of his run as one of Star Wars’ central characters, Boyega—like essentially all of the actors portraying Star Wars characters who aren’t white men—has been the recipient of an inordinate amount of what seems to be outright hatred for having the audacity to simply be themselves in public spaces.”

https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2020/01/john-boyegas-post-star-wars-honesty-is-a-good-thing/

A lot of that negativity passed me by – I knew it was a thing, but I’d largely grumbled then dismissed it as toxic white fanboys. In the past week, I’ve been forced to realise that there are many toxic white fangirls, too. They don’t like Finn and they don’t like John Boyega. He exists and he “gets in the way of” their ship of Rey and Kylo Ren (bleurgh). He calls them out on their shit, as well. This has been present from the beginning and throughout filming (see John Boyega tells fans to stop harrassing cast and John Boyega explains his assertive stance on toxic fandom and the article I quoted above).

A lot of what I know in detail about this has come from me reading other more-well-informed fans’ posts about the issue(s), especially in the wake of John Boyega’s comments on Twitter over NYE. Please read them. They explain things better than I ever could.

• Racism in the Star Wars fandom
• John Boyega ends 2019 with a bang
• John Boyega and the case of no more damns to give

We need to ‘fess up to the dark side of Fandom – how it carries the -isms of the real world into it. We need to examine that critically and call that out. Or else we risk the enjoyment of fandom being ruined for fans who aren’t cishet white people. We need to do better.

Edited to add this last bit because I acccidentally published an earlier draft:

So, Fandom can be absolutely wonderful, when we make the stories ours. I will always be grateful for that. But we need to think critically when we do so, because our own biases get in the way of making Fandom inclusive and enjoyable for all. Otherwise, participating in Fandom can suck.

If you could choose the major virtues of society, what would they be?

Hi all.

I just read a book called Eve of Eridu. In it, a society is based on six virtues, which guide rules that have saved a portion of humanity after dark times caused by a Third World War. These rules include restrictions on feeling emotions. The book is the first in a series by Alanah Andrews and is a somewhat dark thought experiment considering the lengths people go to survive and how people can be conditioned into believing a particular way of existence. I’m a naturally emotional person and I found the book a challenge at times. I’m interested in the sequel that’s coming out this year.

Back to those virtues. I’m curious as to what six virtues you’d base your ideal society on. I found reducing the number to six quite challenging. I could only whittle mine down to nine and I’m not entirely satisfied.

• Authenticity [Edited to add]
• Compassion
• Assertiveness
• Self-determination (& self worth)
• Creativity
• Generosity
• Whole intelligence (EQ & IQ)
• Healthy individual spiritualism
• Equitable justice & care for all people

What are yours?

Carly Findlay’s memoir, Say Hello

Hi there! Last month, I went to Carly Findlay’s book launch. The atmosphere was lovely and I came away with a copy of her book. I then spent the next few days devouring it.

Carly is an award-winning writer, speaker and appearance activist, writing about disability and appearance diversity issues. She is a proud disabled woman, living with a rare skin condition, ichthyosis. She is an awesome person and I’m glad I’ve met her.

Her memoir, Say Hello, details her life growing up with ichthyosis and how she has come to be proud of her disability and to own it. She speaks honestly of the ups and downs of living with her disability. The highs of family support, fandom, finding her community, loving herself and disability pride – and the lows of people’s ableism*, their pitying attitudes and intrusive questions.

N.B. Ableism = discrimination and/or prejudice against disabled people.

On her website, Carly writes about her book:

“….

There was no one in media or books who looked like me, or to tell me it’s ok to not want to change my appearance, and I didn’t know whether I’d find love – love with another or love for myself. I had to write that book. To be the person Little Carly needed. In Say Hello, I want to show parents who have a disabled child that there is no need to grieve a life lost – because their child is alive and can live a great life with love and support. I want to show readers how to be proud of their identity and their appearance, and love themselves even when the world has told them they have to hide. Representation matters. I hope this book is the start of more people with ichthyosis telling their own story – to shift the focus from the exploitative media we are seeing a lot of. Representation matters because shapes the way ichthyosis is seen, and lets people with ichthyosis see themselves. Disability literature must be disability-led.”

http://carlyfindlay.com.au/SayHello/

I related to parts of this book – being the odd-one-out sucks, and escapism through fandom, then finding my people, those who get me, have been saving graces. However, I should say too that my disability is invisible, so I have had more privilege than Carly. For example, I don’t get asked “what happened to my face?” regularly when I’m out and about, and people don’t flinch away from me or avoid touching me. Carly speaks candidly of these sorts of instances in Say Hello. She has faced plenty of discrimination and casual ableism. It sucks and, as Carly details in the book, is exhausting. People, stop it. PSA: check your attitudes and your privilege, drat it, in thinking about, seeing and interacting with disabled people. Stop making assumptions on behalf of us. We’re just going about our daily lives, ‘k? We’re not your bloody inspiration! Seriously, back off. 😡

Carly is unapologetic about her disability activism, politics and pride. From Carly and others like her, I am learning to be the same.

I encourage everyone to read Carly’s book. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s an angry memoir in parts (with good reason), as well as being laugh-out-loud funny and heart-warming. Thanks for writing it Carly. I can’t wait to read what you write next!

Buy Say Hello from Booktopia (paperback) and Apple Books (ebook), as well as department stores and bookstores in Australia and New Zealand. Carly is also doing a book tour. Having already visited Melbourne and Sydney (and with the Brisbane event sold out), she’s going to Perth, Albury Wodonga, Wagga Wagga, Canberra and Adelaide as well. See her website (http://carlyfindlay.com.au/SayHello/) for details.

Life update – and update on Abdi’s story

First, some (qualified) good news: Abdi, whom I told you about last Friday, has been helped over the weekend. On Friday, his leg was finally x-rayed and he was flown to Port Moresby to have his leg looked at properly on Saturday. Reports indicate that he has snapped his patella tendons; at PIH in Port Moresby, they removed 100mL of fluid from around his knee and have given him appropriate painkillers. He’ll need surgery and he also needs an interpreter, as right now without one he’s having trouble understanding what the doctors are saying. So it’s not over yet, but I hope his situation continues to improve. Also I really hope that another refugee mentioned in last Friday’s Guardian article gets help before he loses his sight(!!). I wish things were better. Five years of detention is too long.

Now, onto the life update.

The next couple of weeks are busy. As of the 20th of this month, I’ll have finished my second-last subject of this uni degree and with it my project placement. But there are a number of milestones I have to meet first.

What have I been up to? Well, yesterday I helped out at my uni’s open day, which was interesting. A long day but a good one.

I have read a number of books lately. My strategy is to read on public transport and before bed, and I use my local library. It has online shelves including one called, “For Later”. This becomes my TBR list. I then combine this with the “place on hold” option to get my reading material, because I can read through a book in a matter of days or even hours if I find it interesting enough. Of course, uni and life mean that sometimes it takes me weeks to get through a book as well. So placing several at once on hold, collecting them and making my way through them over time is a good thing.

So far in the past month or so, I have enjoyed Redshirts (John Scalzi), Eat Up! (Ruby Tandoh), Zac and Mia (AJ Betts) and Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves (Rachel Malik).

Redshirts is space satire sci-fi, poking fun at several different tropes, especially a particular Star Trek one about the (minor) character deaths always happening to the ones with red shirts. It makes a good point, in a whimsical way, about being the creator of your own destiny.

Eat Up! is a non-fiction book about food, food culture and food satisfaction. It’s a great read. Food for the soul and very reassuring. I’d like to buy it someday, tbh.

Zac and Mia is about two teenagers who are quite unlike each other, except that both are (as the story starts) in hospital due to cancer. They form a bond that deepens throughout the book. It’s a book that I find hard to define, but it was a really good read. See more here.

Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves is an interesting story. It’s a fictional tale of two women in the mid-20th-century that was inspired by a family tale of the author’s. It’s about forging your own path, making your own home and finding your own way. It’s also about how those things can come with consequences, especially if the past catches up with you.

I’m currently reading Second hand: a novel (Michael Zadoorian), which isn’t as engaging as I’d hoped.

Over the next couple of weeks, one of two things will happen: either almost all the posts you see here will be scheduled, or there’ll be very few posts at all. 😉 See you on the other side…

Life, and…

Hi all.

I’m writing this on Sunday evening after a nice weekend. Fun, but tiring.

I spent Sunday afternoon reading through a book called Space Opera. It is Eurovision in space, where the stakes are high and Earth’s hopes for their first (and possibly last!) entry rest on a couple of misfits.

Utter ridiculousness ensues, with the small semblance of plot finding time to make broad geopolitical commentary amidst heady descriptions and a dizzying pace.

I expected a light-hearted romp featuring a starry-eyed main star and got a tragicomedy drama with a bunch of cynics. Also, unexpectedly, quite a lot of feels.

Hoping that this week’s literature search for the project is a bit easier than last week’s.

I’m halfway through my second-last uni subject! Wow!

 

Fandoms, Updated

Hi all. In the first few months of this blog, I posted about my fandoms. It’s a category all of itself on this blog because I’m a voracious reader who also watches a few different shows/ movies from time to time. I thought it was time to redo the actual fandoms post, instead of just editing the original – as I’ve done a few times.

Image taken from the header of this post via Google. Image is white writing on black text and reads: keep calm and join fandoms

Potential spoilers in the links and also a content note as I have to mention why I’m glad the Dr Blake Mysteries was removed from the ABC.

The link to the original is here. In it, I describe my love of Harry Potter (JK Rowling), Tortall and Emelan (Tamora Pierce), and a huge list of others, ranging from the well-known to the more obscure.

I’ll get to the old favourites in a minute, but first I want to celebrate two new ones. The first one is a series which has its first book in my original fandoms post. I’ve now read the second and discovered that not only is there a third book due out this month, but that the collection has a name: introducing the Wayfarers series by Becky Chambers. The two books so far are A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet and A Closed and Common Orbit, and the third book that’ll be released soon is Record of a Spaceborn Few. I can’t wait! Becky Chambers has a really good way of worldbuilding her stories, and the story of how she became published is interesting. Books in the series have won some prestigious awards as well.

The second series I am adding to my Fandoms wall is, as promised, The Chaos Walking. I gushed about it a bit under a month ago, but I really like the character development of Patrick Ness’ stories, and the way he asks questions about human nature.

I’m going to also promote The Moorehawke Trilogy here, because while it was first placed in the “read once, really liked it, searched for more” section of this post, seeing it on the list made me realise I hadn’t done the final part of that. Celine Kiernan has other works out too, and judging from my memory of Moorehawke, they should be good.

Now, onto the “old favourites and other things” section of this post.

I separated Harry Potter and both of Tamora Pierce’s series from the rest because I think that they’re the ones I keep returning to. HP was my first major (second remembered) fandom and I love it for that, and the depth of many characters, and the idea of the magical world existing beside our own. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to critique it, when I see ways it could be better.

Tamora Pierce’s Tortall and Emelan worlds are put here because they’re fun mediaeval fantasy – that has lots of diversity, magic, and deep world-building. The Tortall world has had some new books come out relatively recently: Tortall: A Spy’s Guide and Tempests and Slaughter (book 1 of the latest series, the Numair Chronicles). I engage with her series’  critically as well, when I need to.

Some of the series on the original list I liked more when I was a teenager than perhaps now. I’ll still enjoy them if I pick them up but perhaps some of that is nostalgia.  LIke Rangers Apprentice, Deltora Quest, Rowan of Rin series, Rondo trilogy, Saddle Club, Warriors, and books by particular authors like Roald Dahl and Jackie French.

Some titles on the list, I’ll keep being involved in the fandom even if they’re not my primary ones at present. Most of the ones on the list fall into this category: Star Wars, Star Trek, Hunger Games, Divergent, To Kill a Mockingbird, LotR and The Hobbit, His Dark Materials, Doctor Who, Chronicles of Narnia* and Call the Midwife. Also to a certain extent it includes ones I read/watched once and liked, and maybe looked at the other works by the authors for a time: Earth’s Children series,  New Tricks, Vera, Dr Blake Mysteries*.

Two in that list have asterisks next to them because as I’ve mentioned before, I enjoy my fandoms with a critical eye, and for those two, in particular, there are parts of their stories that are uncomfortable. With Narnia, it’s CS Lewis’ treatment of Susan in the later books that gets my goat (as well as certain preachy elements). With Dr Blake Mysteries it’s that, while the show was fairly decent (especially series 1-3, and parts of series 5), the actor who played Dr Blake (Craig McLachlan) turned out to be Not Nice behind the scenes. (There was a big expose on that at the start of this year/ end of last year.)

 

Shout-out to an admired blogger

When I had just started to fill my email inbox with different blogs and the like from across the globe and around the web, I stumbled across a blog. It combined cheap recipes with real-world politics and I liked it. Now, I use their recipes sometimes and still read their political views. It’s not views though, it’s life. Food is political and Jack knows this all too well.

I’ve mentioned them a few times before when doing a recipe post or the like, but here’s a direct shout-out: go check out Cooking on a Bootstrap and send some love their way, they need it right now. Maybe buy one of their books?

If you’ve got hate, stick it somewhere else!

 

Review: The Chaos Walking Trilogy

The Chaos Walking Trilogy is a series written by Patrick Ness. It’d been on my TBR list for a while, but this past month I’ve finally got around to reading them.

Verdict: fantastic! It’s a beautiful series which explores questions around human nature and morality – secrets, truth, family, love, integrity, leadership, redemption, good and evil… It’s brilliant.

It’s not for the faint-hearted though – it has war, death and quite shocking brutality in it.

The trilogy is set in a dystopian world where all living creatures can hear each other’s thoughts in a stream of images, words, and sounds called Noise. All except human women, that is. The two main characters are two adolescents, Todd Hewitt and Viola Eade, who are forced to grapple with various emotional and physical conflicts as their world shifts and changes.

The first novel is narrated entirely by Todd, the second is told through the viewpoints of both Todd and Viola and the third book is narrated by Todd, Viola and a third character, The Return. Each of books 1 (The Knife of Never Letting Go) and 2 (The Ask and the Answer) end of cliffhangers. The trilogy is best seen as one story told in three parts, as the narrative runs at a cracking pace throughout. It is an emotional rollercoaster and so, so good. The way Ness develops the characters is very well done.

My only quibbles were that I found the cliffhangers kind of irritating – I think if I’d had to wait for the books to come out (instead of having borrowed all from the library at once), it would have been quite frustrating. Ending the first two books at their climax point and having their resolution be the first part of the next book is jarring. It works, but it’s not my favourite technique. Also, as the books are told via first-person narration, when Todd has the POV, be prepared to see a lot of spelling and grammar oddities. It was jarring during the first book, but by the last book I barely noticed it – it’s just what Todd knows.

See Patrick Ness’ website here for more books and a detailed description of the trilogy and go get your hands and eyes on the books! https://patrickness.com/book/

And if you’ve read them, seek out the short stories – two prequels and a coda – that follow the trilogy. Wonderful world-building. Lovely! I’ll have to update my “Fandoms” post…. tbh, it’s well overdue for an update.

What are you up to?

Guess what – according to WordPress, I’ve been blogging for three years exactly as of yesterday. Hooray!

 

It’s getting to that busy time of year again, isn’t it?

Melbourne is quite a big city – and I really feel that when my weekend involved going from the north-east to the south-east on Friday, then from there to my regional hometown on Saturday before going back to the south-east on Sunday. Yep, it was one of those weekends. Lots of fun stuff with a bit of work/ business thrown in.

Quite a few people had their eyes turned northwards on Saturday through to Sunday as QLD voted. I know people up there and given a couple of the major election issues were pertinent to my interest, I paid attention too. Then today I spied this article – one Queenslander’s opinion of the election. Interesting! I’m curious about what the Queenslanders in my life think about it.

Lately, I’ve been reading a book about General Sir John Monash. I put a hold on it after the concert I participated in in September. I have to admit, I had songs from the September concert running through my head during parts of the book. The book is called, “Maestro John Monash: Australia’s Greatest Citizen General” and is by Tim Fischer, former deputy PM of Australia. Fischer gives a good overview of Monash’s life, focusing on his activities during WWI but not neglecting his other achievements, pre- and post-war. The book has been written with an agenda – Fischer believes that Monash was discriminated against while he was alive, and denied an active service promotion to General due to this (his promotion came a year before his death). The book also maintains that Monash is not properly recognised now. Actually, that’s really the main purpose of Fischer’s book. So I’m going to read another book about the General from a different author when I get the chance as well.

I’m keeping busy organising choir things. LaTUCS have a carolling gig at a Christmas Fair that’s near uni this Saturday then another one at uni the following Thursday. If you’re in the area, why not come along to Saturday’s one? Details in the Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/816640598506065/

Another thing that’s keeping me on my toes and will only ramp up from now until January is MIV2018. There are six weeks and two days until Thursday, January 11th 2018, when the festival opens. The concert is just under two months away…and tickets are on-sale! 😀     Click on the link for more info: https://www.miv.org.au/concert.
Meanwhile, I’m putting the details into plans of how to keep 100+ registrants entertained. Hee hee!

Ooh and finally… I’m going to the Pop-Up Globe this evening to see Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing and I can’t wait! 😀

 

Book Review: Letters of Love

My weekend was busy in some aspects – travel here, do this, travel there (with an early start), do that. But it meant I got to see family (yay!) and then, at the end of it all, I spent a lazy late Sunday afternoon reading and chatting with housemates.

The book I read was a non-fiction one. It was a series of letters written by Prominent Australians, to people and things they love. Including their older and younger selves, their children (currently born or yet-to-be), football (Aussie Rules), childhood, love, parents, partner, friends, grandparents, Australia, and more.

This book is a beautiful treasure, a tribute to life in many forms and often thought-provoking. It left me feeling calm and reinvigorated, as well as making me reflect on what things I would say to different people in my life if given the chance. It makes me want to create that chance and write letters to them.

I highly recommend the book.