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Critiquing the ones you love
I'm going through a stretch of Pinboard bookmarking - which for me involves going through my carefully sorted browser bookmarks of 'fic I liked', re-reading them, and then deleting the ones that don't hold up on the second run. I started doing this because a) binge reading upon joining a fandom often drives me to bookmark dozens of subpar stories in that first fandom flush of infatuation, and b) too much 3AM reading. It's a good set of filters for me, but it does mean I tend to tuck stories away in my bookmarks folder for several years. (finally finished through 2009 last year, whoo!)
Which means I just now finished going through my bookmarks for The Eagle and Hawaii 5-0, and have just started into Dresden Files. The Eagle fic held up fairly well, but I ended up keeping only ten out of about sixty H50 stories, and wound up re-reading some wank that went down in Dresden back in 2011 when I binge-read the whole series.
Which got me thinking about how we critique canons that are problematic but keep consuming them anyway, and how 'so just stop watching it!' seems to be the first defensive response when we do that.
There's a good reason we call it 'breaking up with a fandom' when we leave, because it *is* a love affair. And like many relationships, marriage or domestic partnership or whatever, we commit and fall in love and create spaces and memories, but we still have issues. Nobody's perfect. Your girlfriend leaves her towels on the floor. Your showrunner makes inappropriate jokes in a public interview. You hate the colors your husband chooses for his clothing.
And everyone has a different breaking point. Your significant other wants to have children. Your show kills off your favorite, or triggers you and doesn't see the problem. Your partner cheats on you, or hits you. Your show does something unforgiveably racist/misogynist/___phobic.
You make the choice to leave, or separate. It doesn't mean there weren't good things; you may still see each other; it may not even mean you don't love them anymore. But it's gonna hurt, it's gonna be ugly, and it's gonna be different for everyone involved.
Anyway, tl;dr. Going through my H50 fic felt like going through that box of crap your douchebag ex left behind and alternating between feeling like I should be using tongs and just not caring anymore. Except every once in a while there was an awesome memory, or something shiny, so I had to keep going until I was done. And Dresden Files was like that fling where you find their number in your phone and realize you haven't heard from them in three years, and maybe you should call them, or check their Facebook? Except, fuck, what if they start acting awkward and sketchy and making sexist jokes again -- but otoh, they were funny, and the sex was really great. Hmmm.
FANDOM LIFE. I have a lot of feelings.
Which means I just now finished going through my bookmarks for The Eagle and Hawaii 5-0, and have just started into Dresden Files. The Eagle fic held up fairly well, but I ended up keeping only ten out of about sixty H50 stories, and wound up re-reading some wank that went down in Dresden back in 2011 when I binge-read the whole series.
Which got me thinking about how we critique canons that are problematic but keep consuming them anyway, and how 'so just stop watching it!' seems to be the first defensive response when we do that.
There's a good reason we call it 'breaking up with a fandom' when we leave, because it *is* a love affair. And like many relationships, marriage or domestic partnership or whatever, we commit and fall in love and create spaces and memories, but we still have issues. Nobody's perfect. Your girlfriend leaves her towels on the floor. Your showrunner makes inappropriate jokes in a public interview. You hate the colors your husband chooses for his clothing.
And everyone has a different breaking point. Your significant other wants to have children. Your show kills off your favorite, or triggers you and doesn't see the problem. Your partner cheats on you, or hits you. Your show does something unforgiveably racist/misogynist/___phobic.
You make the choice to leave, or separate. It doesn't mean there weren't good things; you may still see each other; it may not even mean you don't love them anymore. But it's gonna hurt, it's gonna be ugly, and it's gonna be different for everyone involved.
Anyway, tl;dr. Going through my H50 fic felt like going through that box of crap your douchebag ex left behind and alternating between feeling like I should be using tongs and just not caring anymore. Except every once in a while there was an awesome memory, or something shiny, so I had to keep going until I was done. And Dresden Files was like that fling where you find their number in your phone and realize you haven't heard from them in three years, and maybe you should call them, or check their Facebook? Except, fuck, what if they start acting awkward and sketchy and making sexist jokes again -- but otoh, they were funny, and the sex was really great. Hmmm.
FANDOM LIFE. I have a lot of feelings.
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I don't get the whole hatewatching thing either, but I also don't get people who stay in unhealthy relationships, so.... It's really the grey zone that I have more trouble with - if I actually turn the corner into hating something, we're done, like with H50. But before it dove off the deep end with the S1 finale, I was already having discomfort -- the cavalier way they treated torture and police brutality and violations of civil liberties, etc. -- and that slow accumulation would have driven me away eventually, like with NCIS & NCIS LA.
I also chose the relationship analogy because it fits in that sense of community and history that comes with a breakup - you're not just breaking up with the show/person, you're losing (or potentially losing) that group of friends and that set of activities. Which I didn't really include in the post, on reflection. (That was the whole point of the analogy, Katie! *sigh*)
*hugs Eagle fandom* I know, right? Given the quality, I was shocked when I saw it was still a Yuletide fandom last year. There's barely 600 works on AO3 even now! Even tossing in the book fandom only brings it to 700ish.