Well okay then, I say those are really bigots.
Why is toxic fandom destroying everything?
- Thread starter Sgt. Sacrament
- Start date
Well okay then, I say those are really bigots.
Thanks, and sorry if I got heated for a moment. No harm done, and I didn't intend any, either.
I wasn't aware of your past experiences with that poster, but I agree, there ARE real bigots, quite a few I think, especially within the "anti-woke" faction.
I think The Doctor, as a *non-violent for the most part* male hero character was important for boys. There are very very few of those. (Sam Neill in Jurassic Park is literally the only other one that springs to mind) In that sense I was against the gender flip-flop. (Missy was great, when they did it to the master) In the end, Jodie was alright, except when the writing wasn’t — which was often — and the costume was all wrong. The same thing is mostly happening again tbh, but I have zero problem with any of the identifiers of the actor in the role.
Liet-Kynes in Dune is… awkward. Because the gender of that character *is* relevant, but more much much later on in the overall Dune stories (not that the post-Frank stuff is much cop…) and it didn’t really add anything of use. Gender is also something pretty thematic in the whole Dune set-up as well. Did it bother me? Not particularly. But I can see why it would bother someone without it being because of some ‘ot ‘ist ‘obe prejudices.
Starbuck? Meh. She was pretty cool in how much she *was* like the original, and maybe someone really attached to the earlier one might be bothered.
(GB2016 doesn’t contain any gender flipped characters, but would need an essay about how badly that missed *all* the points.)
Gender flipping characters, particularly in repeatedly adapted stories, can be incredibly interesting as a way of doing stories in different ways. (In sixth form I started writing an SF Hamlet re-imagining with a gender-flipped Hamlet.) Even gender-flipping *expectations* can be fun (if you keep the opening of Carpenters ‘Ghosts of Mars’ in mid throughout, it’s a very different thing to if you don’t. Stathams character particularly becomes a totally different archetype once you remember you are dealing with a strong *matriarchal* society) or powerful.
But like *almost any creative decision* if you’re just doing it for points or trends, then it can really end up backfiring or making a mess, particularly if you’re dealing with stories, characters, or genres that have a fan-following you are looking to leverage into being a part of your audience. Thinking about that following can be important sometimes. (Something Feig realised retrospectively over GB2016, without that even being about the gender choices being made. He just didn’t realise there were different audiences for the original, let alone any remake or reboot.)
Toxic fandoms though? Well. How much of a fan are we talking? How Toxic are we talking? Is it more about people latching onto things for the social points of ye olde disk-horse? Or people talking about something they really care about?
For a shining example of something truly, indisputably, messed up by… ideologically motivated creative choices, but with utter blind disregard for its source, go and look at ‘The Watch’ and how that was summarily rejected by DiscWorld fandom en masse. No toxic fandom accusations there, though goodness knows there was a brief attempt to make it into a culture war front — when it was just *terrible*. They missed the point of the characters and story so much, that the thing succumbed to blunt force stupidity.
The truth is, you have to *believe* in any message you weave into your work on some level, and you can’t just subvert something that came before and have that work unless you *really know the thing* and can treat it with respect.
And don’t put one of those goals above the other.
Otherwise, stay away from *anything* that has pre-existing fandom. Here be dragons.
Liet-Kynes in Dune is… awkward. Because the gender of that character *is* relevant, but more much much later on in the overall Dune stories (not that the post-Frank stuff is much cop…) and it didn’t really add anything of use. Gender is also something pretty thematic in the whole Dune set-up as well. Did it bother me? Not particularly. But I can see why it would bother someone without it being because of some ‘ot ‘ist ‘obe prejudices.
Starbuck? Meh. She was pretty cool in how much she *was* like the original, and maybe someone really attached to the earlier one might be bothered.
(GB2016 doesn’t contain any gender flipped characters, but would need an essay about how badly that missed *all* the points.)
Gender flipping characters, particularly in repeatedly adapted stories, can be incredibly interesting as a way of doing stories in different ways. (In sixth form I started writing an SF Hamlet re-imagining with a gender-flipped Hamlet.) Even gender-flipping *expectations* can be fun (if you keep the opening of Carpenters ‘Ghosts of Mars’ in mid throughout, it’s a very different thing to if you don’t. Stathams character particularly becomes a totally different archetype once you remember you are dealing with a strong *matriarchal* society) or powerful.
But like *almost any creative decision* if you’re just doing it for points or trends, then it can really end up backfiring or making a mess, particularly if you’re dealing with stories, characters, or genres that have a fan-following you are looking to leverage into being a part of your audience. Thinking about that following can be important sometimes. (Something Feig realised retrospectively over GB2016, without that even being about the gender choices being made. He just didn’t realise there were different audiences for the original, let alone any remake or reboot.)
Toxic fandoms though? Well. How much of a fan are we talking? How Toxic are we talking? Is it more about people latching onto things for the social points of ye olde disk-horse? Or people talking about something they really care about?
For a shining example of something truly, indisputably, messed up by… ideologically motivated creative choices, but with utter blind disregard for its source, go and look at ‘The Watch’ and how that was summarily rejected by DiscWorld fandom en masse. No toxic fandom accusations there, though goodness knows there was a brief attempt to make it into a culture war front — when it was just *terrible*. They missed the point of the characters and story so much, that the thing succumbed to blunt force stupidity.
The truth is, you have to *believe* in any message you weave into your work on some level, and you can’t just subvert something that came before and have that work unless you *really know the thing* and can treat it with respect.
And don’t put one of those goals above the other.
Otherwise, stay away from *anything* that has pre-existing fandom. Here be dragons.
One of those things where, if one likes everything they hear about something, except for a gender flipped character, and one refuses to watch on that basis alone, I would see them as a bigot.
I think though that if a person tends towards wanting their adaptations as *pure* as possible, as *close* as possible to their source (which is the case for TimeLady when it comes to Dune in particular as I remember from other discussions) or if an individual has sat through repeated gender-bent or otherwise flip-flopped recycled fiction and never really left with a good impression with any of it — I can see why they would get fed up of otherwise incensed when it looks like it’s happening to something they care about. Possibly *again*. And for that not to be bigotry, even if they have reached the point where they just reject any of it out of hand by that point.
It’s an extreme position, wanting pure adaptation, but perfectly within the bounds of fan behaviour — whether it be Stars War and Trek, or Writers Tolkien and Austen. Pure History nuts may have a cause for rejecting Sophie Okenedo as Queen of England (and indeed whoever ended up in that Cleopatra thing as Cleo) whereas fans of Shakespeare would or should likely have far less of an issue. That the rejection can then be thrown on the fires, to stoke anger and derision, is the real problem. Especially when a lot of people who don’t give a pair of fetid dingoes kidneys about either suddenly decide to go to war over it (on keyboards, naturally) and often on behalf of some imagined other.
The problem is, a lot of people can’t seem to tell the difference between a drama and documentary these days, and that includes the people making the bloody things. Especially at Netflix.
(Okenedo was great, incidentally.)
There is never a reason to get incensed over fiction you don't like, for whatever reason. That is the behavior of a child.
Sort of. I mean, I don’t disagree. But at the same time, being a fan is about passion for a thing — and some people have more of that than others for good or ill. It’s going to happen. It’s childish in the way that fandom itself is. Is there a reason then? No. But once you are already passionate about something, incensed — in other words a fan — it’s fair to say that strength of emotion will carry through.
And people can get incensed over things they aren’t even a fan of these days. Look at the Ghost In The Shell live action. That had backlash from people who for the most part didn’t have a clue about the IP itself, but got so incensed over what they thought was happening with ScarJo’s casting that the thing was screwed. Just another facet of that ‘toxic’ element in media discussion these days.
(I have been a fan of GiTS since about 1991, and the live action was pretty good from my perspective, and the fans over on Reddit either quite like the thing or have problems that for the most part aren’t about the casting)
I think the problem is some people are a fan of the ‘culture war’ itself, and every time there’s an opportunity they are gonna pop up to grift the grift, whichever side of it they are on.
If one is to that point, then they should back off. The people they are talking to are humans, the cast and crew of any given production are humans. We shouldn't excuse someone being an ass because they are passionate about something.
If they're a fan doesn't that excuse their behavior because they're just passionate?
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Oh totally. There’s a line beyond which people sadly go all too often. But I wouldn’t expect any discussion to be devoid of a certain level of… intensity. I mean the footballs on at the moment, and people are weeping and singing at that. Completely alien to me. But even more so if they get to the fighting on the streets part.
The specific bit you quote there is my subtly saying that they are *not* fans of whatever it is they have attached to, but fans of the political/ideological conflict that has come up. They turn up for the fight, not the thing itself.
But no, some behaviour shouldn’t be tolerated under the aegis of simply being part of a fandom — but expecting people not to care, whilst being fans, is oxymoronic. (Like people telling me not critique Doctor Who because of my low opinion of the current stuff. After forty years I’m going to have an opinion, and am as entitled to express it as much as anyone else. I’ve not latched onto it to have a barney because of all the current ideological… well, debate is too kind a word for it — I’ve always been ‘here’ as it were) Fans came about things, talk about things, but importantly they also critique a thing. The die-hard Tolkien fan who *also* critiques it for its lack of strong female lead characters — assuming they do so in good faith — is still a fan, still cares, as much the die-hard Tolkien fan who critiques an adaptation for radical shifts and changes motivated by present day social norms — assuming *they* do so in good faith — is also a fan, and also cares.
When they get nasty, or start trying force the other out of the group identity, that’s when things are clearly going wrong.
(And that’s relatively benign toxic behaviour compared to real crazy shit.)
When some Johnny-come-lately turns up for the fight with their flag up — probably with some stupid modern meme or symbol — and next-to-no relationship with the object of the fandom? That’s about the ideologies, and being naff people.
Fandoms are all about people coming together, at the end of the day. That they devolve into petty tribalism is rather sad.
The violence in fandoms always baffles me
Ugliest Fan Moments in Sports History
Fans play an important role in sports, but bad things can happen when they lose control.
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As a big Superman fan, I find the tribal wars of the last decade or so really regrettable, even as I used to participate in them. But I realized eventually how toxic and just basically unpleasant that was making the fandom, and I decided to back off and adopt a more accepting attitude. It's made me a happier fan -- plus I think Clark would approve.
Superman fans are kind of lucky. Gender flip? Super girl. Non-white? Steel. Superman himself isn’t even human, and there’s already half a dozen continuities. There’s never a screen reboot — whatever people may say — because it’s all just another adaptation, and those have been happening just shy of a hundred years now.
As someone relatively outside of Supes fandom, I find myself wondering how out-of-hand such things could possibly get. Heated debates over differing opinions, maybe a lot of ‘this was best’ ‘this was better’ but how bad can it get?
Then I remember how idiots get in everywhere. You have my sympathy. XD
(Especially when idiots of every flavour get het-up over the recent cinematic stuff.)
It was mainly a lot of heated controversy over the last movie version of the character, which was conceived as an update for a bleaker world, with Superman framed accordingly. (Even that short description I felt the need to state carefully so as not to ignite conflict with any fans of that version who might be reading.) Fans of the more traditional, brighter, and more openly optimistic version of the character were not pleased. But as I say, after fighting in those wars myself, I've decided instead to accentuate the positive, and be more accepting of everybody's preferences and the virtues of all the different versions.
Thanks for sharing the video.
Speaking of toxic fans…. It was the most balanced discussion of what and why I’ve seen and was devoid of the extreme “it sucks “ or “it's great “ knee jerk reaction videos which seem to be popular.
I enjoy Man of Steel a lot, and I was a huge fan of Cavill's take on the character.
I just laugh sometimes at the visceral hatred that Zack Snyder gets.
Fans: "God, Superman Returns SUCKED! Superman didn't punch anything!"
Zack Snyder: "Here's Man of Steel."
Fans: "NO NOT LIKE THAT"
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