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bofoddityThose who are familiar with Supernatural-fandom are probably aware that there has been a lot of discussion about the latest season and its disturbing attitude to women and minorities. Personally, I think this is a good thing, because fandom in general tends to be guilty of the same thing, and it's great that people are making a stand and saying it's not acceptable.
However, despite Supernatural reaching very ugly peak with the season finale, there have been posts about how the season hasn't been that bad. Alternatively, that people shouldn't take it so seriously. In fact, people should just shut up because it doesn't matter.
Excuse me.
Okay, maybe some people just don't want to think about these things. I can't understand why myself, but people have the right not to care. But demanding people to stay quiet about things that bother them is unreasonable because if these things aren't being discussed, then people are of course not going to pay any goddamn attention to them. How is that a better choice? A person is usually going to flinch if somebody screams "Whore!" in their face. It's a word that used to express disgust and demean. It's not a word you can just toss around. Dean Winchester may be fiction, but when he calls women whores and bitches and skanks and is not called on it either in the show or by the fandom, the implication is that doing this shit is okay. Same thing with the now notorious "You all look the same to me"-line; should people really not bring up the racist element of that line because it might horrify those who didn't immediately realize the meaning of it? Misogyny and racism are okay; that's the message that ignorance is going to send. And it shouldn't matter?
The other thing is that although things like Open Source Boob Project are condemned by the entire fandom for being demeaning to women, fandom tends to be guilty of similarly offending behavior every day and most of the time it slips people by. Sad majority of House-fandom honestly believes that an only way to allow a female character to exit smoothly from the series is to kill her off. Similar majority Final Fantasy VII-fandom sincerely claims that certain female character's biggest offense was not to force herself to be friends with a popular male character when they were young, despite the male character in question having some stalker-like tendencies. Majority of Smallville-fandom was horrified when an unpopular female character ended up mind-raped and in state of constant pain, but this didn't stop plenty of people showing honest glee over her fate. An increasing amount of people protest over this kind of behavior, which makes me happy, but these things still remain unaddressed most of the time. They still aren't discussed enough.
Perhaps is unreasonable to demand awareness from everybody. Back when girl-wonder.org of the comics fandom started out, I remember a reaction that went something like this: "It's fandom, so I don't care enough." It was not an opinion I agreed with, but if a person feels that way, that's their right. However, attempting to silence opinions and discussions? Opinions and discussions are what make fandom a better place. Silence isn't.
However, despite Supernatural reaching very ugly peak with the season finale, there have been posts about how the season hasn't been that bad. Alternatively, that people shouldn't take it so seriously. In fact, people should just shut up because it doesn't matter.
Excuse me.
Okay, maybe some people just don't want to think about these things. I can't understand why myself, but people have the right not to care. But demanding people to stay quiet about things that bother them is unreasonable because if these things aren't being discussed, then people are of course not going to pay any goddamn attention to them. How is that a better choice? A person is usually going to flinch if somebody screams "Whore!" in their face. It's a word that used to express disgust and demean. It's not a word you can just toss around. Dean Winchester may be fiction, but when he calls women whores and bitches and skanks and is not called on it either in the show or by the fandom, the implication is that doing this shit is okay. Same thing with the now notorious "You all look the same to me"-line; should people really not bring up the racist element of that line because it might horrify those who didn't immediately realize the meaning of it? Misogyny and racism are okay; that's the message that ignorance is going to send. And it shouldn't matter?
The other thing is that although things like Open Source Boob Project are condemned by the entire fandom for being demeaning to women, fandom tends to be guilty of similarly offending behavior every day and most of the time it slips people by. Sad majority of House-fandom honestly believes that an only way to allow a female character to exit smoothly from the series is to kill her off. Similar majority Final Fantasy VII-fandom sincerely claims that certain female character's biggest offense was not to force herself to be friends with a popular male character when they were young, despite the male character in question having some stalker-like tendencies. Majority of Smallville-fandom was horrified when an unpopular female character ended up mind-raped and in state of constant pain, but this didn't stop plenty of people showing honest glee over her fate. An increasing amount of people protest over this kind of behavior, which makes me happy, but these things still remain unaddressed most of the time. They still aren't discussed enough.
Perhaps is unreasonable to demand awareness from everybody. Back when girl-wonder.org of the comics fandom started out, I remember a reaction that went something like this: "It's fandom, so I don't care enough." It was not an opinion I agreed with, but if a person feels that way, that's their right. However, attempting to silence opinions and discussions? Opinions and discussions are what make fandom a better place. Silence isn't.
