![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ceriI've been continuing to ponder the sweep of issues around the sundry *fails, and thinking about what it is that I might usefully contribute. I've been keeping in mind what parts of my exposition draw cautions and objections about ignorant, insensitive baggage, among other things - where it's most clear I need to learn more about what's up with a thing, that's where I should keep quiet for a while as I get clues. The world keeps us richly endowed in ignorant expositors, after all. One subject that I know something about, though, is what it was like to be a white, middle-class, male-bodied and male-identifying part of sf fandom in the '80s, '90s, and '00s. So I can write about that, with an eye on this question in particular: How did I so totally miss the much greater diversity in "media fandom", and what was I thinking about the cultural reach of fandom as I participated?
I'll be wanting to do some research to check and supplement memory, and there are great resources for that online now. I rather expect to ramble up and down the years and take side trips and all like that. What greater value there may be in what I'd like to do, I can't say, and I'm trying not to make over-inflated claims here. I hope that it may be useful in illuminating shadowy background to the current discussion, though. I'm tagging this so that I can keep little chunks drawn together, and may do some compiling once I'm done with a topic.
Side note: I know some of my readers haven't been soaking in this stuff. As a starting point, check out![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
linkspam for links to topics of active interest, some with good historical roundups. The super, super short form is that on several occasions this year, people in and around the world of print sf have come off very badly in handling matters of race and in responding to fans of color raising concerns. For me as a lifelong white fan, it's been unsettling, sometimes appalling, and deeply challenging. Hence this reassessment, because I blew my initial responses about as much as most of my compatriots, and I'd like to be doing better.
I'll be wanting to do some research to check and supplement memory, and there are great resources for that online now. I rather expect to ramble up and down the years and take side trips and all like that. What greater value there may be in what I'd like to do, I can't say, and I'm trying not to make over-inflated claims here. I hope that it may be useful in illuminating shadowy background to the current discussion, though. I'm tagging this so that I can keep little chunks drawn together, and may do some compiling once I'm done with a topic.
Side note: I know some of my readers haven't been soaking in this stuff. As a starting point, check out
linkspam for links to topics of active interest, some with good historical roundups. The super, super short form is that on several occasions this year, people in and around the world of print sf have come off very badly in handling matters of race and in responding to fans of color raising concerns. For me as a lifelong white fan, it's been unsettling, sometimes appalling, and deeply challenging. Hence this reassessment, because I blew my initial responses about as much as most of my compatriots, and I'd like to be doing better.
Re: Choosing my topic: the fail before the *fail
Date: 2009-06-06 07:33 am (UTC)i looked down on media SFF. i thought it was at best on the downside of mediocre and at worst utter, contemptable schlock. i was forever complaining about hollywood et al taking the worst SFF and making movies from it, or taking something good and totally ruining it. i didn't look into its fandom because the media itself disappointed me so much.
and when i first heard of media fandom it was about wank. that seemed to fit right with the crappy media -- thoughtless fans, yay. seemed to make perfect sense, and made me stay far away.
since then i have discovered that there are huge swaths of media fandom that make the media better. and that it spawns some excellent discussions, much thoughtfulness, and at least at much acknowledgment of various fails as SFF book fandom, if not more.
Re: Choosing my topic: the fail before the *fail
Date: 2009-06-06 07:42 am (UTC)