Yet another Two White Guys Do The Same Thing Every Week show starts airing. Fans cream themselves instantly and jump on the show, declaring it the best thing ever, shipping the two white male leads, and occasionally pointing out its problematic aspects in between.
Meanwhile, shows starring women, characters of color, fat characters, or disabled characters also start airing. One of two things happen: some of the fans loudest about social justice pretend these shows don't exist. Alternatively, they go overboard in finding reasons to criticize these shows.
From there, they either continue to watch and constantly find things "wrong" with these shows, while in the very same posts squeeing about their Two White Guys programming; or they give up altogether and go back exclusively to Two White Guys.
There are long and plentiful meta posts about how Supernatural or Sherlock OMG TREATS THE FEMALE CHARACTERS AND CHARACTERS OF COLOR SOOO BADLY! Meanwhile, fans write the most horribly sexist and racist posts about, say, River Song, or Samantha Bloom, thinly veiled as criticism borne of concern for social justice issues.
Forgive me for being
You don't need to check out every single show starring minorities. You don't even need to like them all. But I can read, and I have a functioning brain; I see the pattern, and I know when I see bullshit.
So I've taken to avoiding fans who scream loudest about social justice, because that's where I've found the ones most full of shit. And I know I'm missing out on some of the awesome fans who do back up their words with action, but the fact is that there are fans who are seriously poisoning the well of social justice and aren't being called on it, and who need to be told:
Be the change you want to see in the world, or shut the fuck up.
_______
EDIT 11/21 - Hello new people wandering in. I'm finding that some of you are misunderstanding my post. I recommend you take a deep breath when you finish reading, and re-read it, and make sure it says what you think it says before you wind up disagreeing with points that were not made. I will ask you to quote back portions of this post where you think I made said points. Who knows, I might concede I wasn't clear enough. I might not. But I'm not going to argue about points or tangential arguments I didn't make.
EDIT 11/23 - Changed "So I've taken to avoiding fans who scream loudest about social justice, because they're inevitably the ones most full of shit." to "So I've taken to avoiding fans who scream loudest about social justice, because that's where I've found the ones most full of shit. And I know I'm missing out on some of the awesome fans who do back up their words with action, but the fact is that there are fans who are seriously poisoning the well of social justice and aren't being called on it, and who need to be told:" in order to clear up that I'm talking about a subgroup of fans who talk about social justice.
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Yet another Two White Guys Do The Same Thing Every Week show starts airing. Fans cream themselves instantly and jump on the show, declaring it the best thing ever, shipping the two white male leads, and occasionally pointing out its problematic aspects in between.
True. Sometimes though it is a white man and a white woman (Chuck, Bones, Law and Order SVU, etc). And yeah, people are still squeeing about those shows. Sadly, most shows are still white. The trick is to get people with the Nielsen boxes to start watching the shows with the minority leads.
As for characters with handicaps (I'm assuming you mean physical, not mental because then I could include Tara from United States of Tara), I only know of two currently on tv: Artie (on Glee) and Auggie (Covert Affairs). I suppose you could count House? But House's disability seems to be barely there *shrugs*
(There used to be Kerry Weaver on ER, the only female character that I can recall with a physical disability on tv. Unfortunately, she was never portrayed as sexy, but rather just as a bitch. Sigh). Sadly, I think it will be a long time for a female lead (ER was more of an ensemble show than a show with a clear lead) with a physical disability to be on tv (and to be shown as sexy).
There are long and plentiful meta posts about how Supernatural or Sherlock OMG TREATS THE FEMALE CHARACTERS AND CHARACTERS OF COLOR SOOO BADLY!
I read that as "long and painful meta posts" which can sometimes be true. :)
I do not like to read those posts. Yeah, I realize that Sherlock doesn't have a lot of female characters, but the books didn't have a lot of main/major female characters either (and Moffat and Gatiss are trying to be true to the books).
Thankfully, I haven't written any meta posts about Sherlock and I don't plan to. I am sorry that those meta posts (and whoever wrote them) was your introduction to Holmes fandom. I like Sherlock (BBC version), but I can understand that not everyone does. Hopefully my squeeing on tumblr hasn't annoyed you too much (I have tried to keep it off my lj, at least until it airs in the U.S.).
Meanwhile, fans write the most horribly sexist and racist posts about, say, River Song, or Samantha Bloom, thinly veiled as criticism borne of concern for social justice issues.
The hate for female characters isn't new in Who fandom. I've read comments where people like River, but hate Amy, or they like Martha, but hate Rose (vice versa) and all variations of the above (and that's not even getting into Donna, Romana, Jenny).
So the hate posts have happened in Undercovers fandom already?! Damn, that was fast. I was not really expecting that at all. Usually people like the lead characters (okay that's not entirely true: I remember people saying that they hated Buffy and i was truly baffled by that.) Fandom is weird sometimes (and not in a good way).
Why do they hate Samantha (in Undercovers fandom)?
OT: Undercovers is doing okay in the ratings (according to TV By the Numbers)—not great, but not terrible either. I think NBC is going to cancel Outlaw with Jimmy Smits before they cancel anything else.
Who is "Sjers"?
See, I actually loved Sherlock. I don't care about how much fans are squeeing, but this particular subgroup of fans, the SJers, all decided to sit down and watch a show based on books they know are about two white guys, and then act surprised and write a buttload of meta on how much it fails--which they then pat each other on the back for--and even though it fails so hard and it just pains them, they'll keep watching. But they're the very same people who won't give non-white-guy shows a chance (Huge, Covert Affairs, Undercovers, etc), so I find their whining hard to take seriously. (Hell, I don't care if someone watches nothing but white guy shows, so long as they don't pretend to be concerned about diversity.)
But if you want to talk about social justice issues in fandom, these are the people who are controlling the conversation. (I'm pretty sure none of them will read this post; I'm not in the right circle.) And I wish they would just shut the fuck up.
Be the change you want to see in the world, or shut the fuck up.
So much this. Especially when they think that a few whiny blog entries = taking action.
I could go on and on but eventually I'd run out of space. Btw, would you mind if I linked to your post? Not on metafandom or any other public comms, but in my own journal.
The part that drives me up the wall is that some fans will jizz over Alexander Skarsgard in Nazi get-up, then turn around nitpick everything about Tara and Lafayette. HELLO, PEOPLE?
Btw, would you mind if I linked to your post?
Go right ahead--I don't post public anything I don't want linked to.
I laughed out loud when I read this; it could be so many shows that are on right now. (It was a bitter laugh, btw.)
Are people hating on Samantha Bloom? Damn. I wish I could say I was shocked, but that chunk of fandom that loves to tear women down is really very predictable. And sadly vocal.
(*has a tiny Undercovers squee with you* This show!)
I wanted to like Sherlock - I did like a lot of things about it - but there's nothing wrong with liking something and being able to look at it critically. I think that's hard for the SJers to do, maybe?
NKristin De Santos is having her annual "Save Your Favorite New Show" where you can vote to save your favorite (new) show from the chopping block. Whatever show gets the most votes, Kristin writes to them (and probably gives them your letters of support to) not to cancel it or something. . .
Undercovers is on there (so you might want to encourage everyone you know to vote for Undercovers).
Don't blink—Another TV show is probably about to get canceled!
If the superfast axings of Lone Star and My Generation have taught us anything, it's that the network suits are more trigger-happy than ever this season, and giving new series until about, oh, yesterday to prove their ratings muster.
Here's where all the new shows stand and how you can help the good ones survive:
(click on the link for the entire list and the poll).
http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/watch_with_kristin/b204490_fall_tv_save_your_new_fave.html
Anyway. I think the kind of behaviour you're talking about exists, and it's hypocritical and complicit with the injustice it claims to be fighting. No disagreement there.
But. While SOME people who make a big song and dance about social justice behave this way, not everyone does, and while Forgive me for being a little suspicious of anyone who goes on and on about the need for diversity, but makes excuses to not watch shows that actually are diverse is entirely reasonable, I think I've taken to avoiding fans who scream loudest about social justice can easily become an excuse to avoid people who are making valid criticisms you don't like just because they're expressing themselves strongly. Why not just avoid the hypocritical ones?
Perhaps we've just encountered different sorts of people! The people on my flist/reading circle who talk the most about social justice do not seem at all correlated with the ones most interested in Sherlock, Supernatural etc (though there is some overlap), their (and my) response to such shows is generally to check it out because everyone's going on about it, post once or twice in annoyance about it's sexism etc and then stop watching. Or if we do like faily stuff (because most things are somewhat faily in one way or another) we'll write femslash or picspams of the non-white/POC characters etc. Or if they(*) are in love with the archetypical Two White Guys (you can't entirely help who you squee over) they don't pretend this is because the alternatives suck. To point to one of your specific examples, despite having a LOT of very vocal social justice type people on my flist, many of whom like Dr Who, the only times I've encountered anti River Song rants has been via friends complaining about them.
I mean noone is perfect, everyone with strong ethical opinions is likely to be a little hypocritical about them from time to time. But I don't think people who complain about sexism etc are any more prone to this than anyone else, and it feels counterproductive to only support criticism of popular culture if it's sufficiently polite or whatever.
(*)I am not generally a big fan of Two White Guys shows myself. But I do like stuff like Castle etc, which are nearly as bad.
Well, we're really not disagreeing then. I mean, I care about social justice issues. Unfortunately, the group of fans who constantly go and on about "social justice" but don't back it up with their actions, never seem to get called out on it (at least not outside anon memes), and hold way too much sway. Meta_fandom, for example, seems to be overrun with the type (again, not saying it's everyone).
My reading circle is pretty clear of these types, but I like reading meta, so it's hard to not keep running into them.
As I said in an above comment, I don't really care that people watch Two White Guys shows. (I watched Sherlock, though I'm not fannish about it, and was a big House/Wilson shipper.) I don't care if people watch nothing but Two White Guys shows 24/7. I just get irritated when some fans watch and are fannish about almost exclusively Two White Guys shows, finding excuses to not watch anything that's not about Two White Guys, and pretend they actually care about diversity.
it feels counterproductive to only support criticism of popular culture if it's sufficiently polite or whatever.
Yeah, I think you to re-read my post. I didn't say anything about only supporting polite criticism. I just finished arguing with someone who was intentionally twisting my words, so forgive me if I come off a bit cranky right now.
Another point of confusion would be that I have no idea what your definition of "social justice" is. Because as far as I can tell, the term is almost as meaningless as "politically correct" in that people on LJ/DW are starting to use it to mean "anything I personally don't like".
Also, being the change doesn't preclude critical thought. You can do both at the same time. You're setting up a false dichotomy.
I'm totally sympathetic to the point of your post as it relates to pointing out a certain levels of hypocrisy and inconsistency between speech and action in fandom. I see that happening in Torchwood fandom around issues of homophobia, Ianto's death, the whole complex there. But I don't see what you're describing has to do with "social justice". And you're also describing a widespread situation where people "get credit" for pointing out representation problems. And I don't see that. I really don't. It certainly hasn't been my experience.
And where did I say this? Seriously, quote the part of the post where I said this.
I'm getting so sick of trying to have discussions in fandom, and people falling over themselves to be righteously offended that they don't check to see if what they think they read actually matches up with what they really read.
Feminist critique is legitimate.
Of course, using the word 'feminist' to hide a bashing isn't.
For example, Cuddy on House. That's a character that could use a... feminist critique. It's not bashing, it's working out the problems in the representations of women.
Yeah. I'm kind of sad, though not surprised, that the recent Hawaii 5-0 fandom seems to have gone the way of focusing on the two main white dudes. I'm glad I have not seen those Samantha Bloom posts. :(
Asexuals in TV are almost exclusively white and male. If I define 'asexuality' as one of my criteria for Shows I Must Try Once (which I do), then guess what? I end up watching a lot of white guys.
Please don't assume that 'two white guys' is necessarily un-diverse. It's not perfect, I agree. God knows I worship shows like Sarah-Jane Adventures, that manage to be almost or completely romance-free while still being diverse. But I, and presumably quite a few other people on my flist, are watching things like Sherlock and Doctor Who because those are the only shows where we can see an important part of ourselves in the (white, male) cast.
I apologise for the derailment and I apologise if this comes off as defensive: as I said, I'm having trouble with tone. I had to say it.
I save my social activism for my RL, where I am part of two on-campus activist groups (Gay-Straight Alliance and Human Rights Watch: Student Task Force), and in other areas I fight racism, sexism, ect ect. But I don't feel the need to insert this into my fandom activities, and I don't bother trying to. (And for the record, I'm Indian, female, bisexual, and an Atheist, so I'm among those of the least/worst represented people in Western culture).
I think a big problem is that people are more likely to be cross about something that clearly tries and fails than about something that simply fails. For instance, take Sherlock - so, it's totally about two white men; but if you go to watch it then you KNOW that, you are expecting to see this, and you judge it on it's merits as something sold as "a show about two white men". Is it interesting? Are the stars hot? Does anyone do anything so gratuitously racist/sexist/other-ist that it sticks out like a sore thumb amidst the general atmosphere of such oppression that is in every other show?
Whereas a show that claims "feminist" or "anti-racist" credentials, that SETS OUT to tell stories too often ignored... well then we don't just want it to exist, we want it to be MAGNIFICENT, to be the very pinnacle of excellence in social justice. And of course it will fail, it is almost impossible to achieve such perfection (especially since "what perfection is" is a far from settled matter!). Because these stories are so rare we rip them apart trying to say what would be perfection, perhaps in the naive hope that the next one made will be PERFECT.
Me, these days mostly I hope that there will simply be MORE shows that stray from the "bunch of white men" pattern. Because the more there is the more likely some of it will be what I actually want to watch. And in the meantime I have no time in my life to watch much TV and am sadly addicted to trashy US cop dramas so I'm probably part of the problem.
Me, these days mostly I hope that there will simply be MORE shows that stray from the "bunch of white men" pattern.
I think these two points kind of go together. If we have more none-white-guy shows, I think the impulse to tear apart a show that tries would go down, particularly when it comes to particular portrayals that are more "gray area," and not everyone agrees is necessarily faily. (Like the problem of having, say only one woman in a cast, and she is expected to be everything to everyone, setting that character up for inevitable failure.)
How perfect does a TV show have to be-- if it has POC leads? Exceedingly, apparently.
I really would like to see more effort in paying attention to shows featuring POC leads.
I become highly aware of a mostly white cast, or leads being mostly white males, when I watch most shows or movies. There's a lot of movies and shows that I like that have them, of course, but I really enjoy movies such as Alien vs Predator (the first one), Blade, and Star Wars that focuses on diversity (although I think Star Wars can do a more. The same with Star Trek).
I am currently reading the Dark Tower series by Stephen King, and my favorite character there is Susannah Deane, who is a disabled Woman of Color (and is kick-ass). I hear rumors that these books are being made into movies, and with its fandom, I'm sure they will be careful to making them right, like the LOTR movies had to be made to meet the demands of its fandom. So I am hoping Susannah is going to portrayed right.
The one problem I see is Hollywood; there aren't enough prominent shows with POC, or women leads. I refused to watch the Last Airbender, or Prince of Persia because these productions were not faithful to their stories and used white leads instead.
This whole question reminds me of the 2001 Oscars where Halle Berry and Sidney Poitier were awarded, People of Color finally being recognized for decades of superlative acting. It's way overdue.
Thank you for this post; I was quietly wondering the same.
I love this line a lot. There are so many people who will write long meta posts about the Latest Diversity Issue In Fandom and two weeks later be back to writing fic exclusively (or close enough to make no nevermind) about the Two White Guys. And their big meta posts always gets tons of comments chiming in from people and then nothing ever happens.
I don't particularly care if someone only want to do fandom with the Two White Guys, I don't. I wouldn't want someone forced to be fannish about stuff they don't feel fannish about, it's no fun for anyone, but I do wish they'd shut up already. If a person's fannish focus is going to be the Two White Guys than they should own that. If they don't want their fannish focus to be the Two White Guys they need to own that as well and start changing their fannish experience.
And that was basically a long-winded +1. You are not the only person sick of this behaviour.
(I know dramas like that aren't everyone's thing, it's just the first example that comes to mind.)
Words to live by :)
It probably says something that I have no idea who River Song or Samantha Bloom are. I'm sort of peripheral on fandom, and, for example, have not seen any Sherlock at all, but I thought I was usually aware of what shows were currently interesting because I saw people talking about them, you know?
Bwa ha ha. Thank you. This is the hardest lesson to learn about social justice.
I know there are great shows out there about women/characters of color/disabled characters/etc. But let's say, hypothetically, that I'm only interested in sci-fi. Are there sci-fi shows out there with these kinds of people as the lead, or does sci-fi only ever star white men? Is it not okay for me to express my desire for greater diversity within this genre? You can say that I shouldn't limit myself to only sci-fi, but that's side-stepping the issue.
Actual example now: I love heists. Heist shows, heist movies, heist books. Love them. Ocean's Eleven, The Italian Job, Hustle, the Gentlemen Bastard series. I can't get enough of them. But damnit, I can't name a single one with a female lead, and I would really, really, really like to see that.
I don't think that the diversity currently shown in television is evenly distributed across the board, and there's no reason we shouldn't want to see it in every genre. It should be in every genre, in every show. That said, I am as previously mentioned not very TV-savvy, so if you'd like to debunk this with examples, I'd be super interested in watching them!
I kind of...agree and don't agree with this. I agree in the sense that I think you mean, which is that if you complain about something but then perpetuate it or pass up genuine opportunities to do something about it, you're a hypocrite.
But at the same time, I'd argue that not everyone is going to be able to effect real, significant change on their own, and that doesn't invalidate their concerns or efforts. If I stop watching a show because I find it offensive, I don't really feel like I'm "being the change I want to see in the world" -- I'm probably not changing anything. I'm just not being a hypocrite. But if I talk about how I feel, maybe others will think I have a good point, and that might lead to change. Sometimes just talking about these things can actually help. On the other hand, if I decided not to do anything about some of the things that matter to me because I'm not in a position to effect change, what good does that do anyone? The only result would be one less person who cares.
Then there are Univision (sometimes with ratings near or equal the top four US networks), Telemundo, Galavision, etc. with programming aimed for another type of "people of colour"?
I've seen channels on west coast cable systems with programming aimed for those of Korean, Japanese, etc. ethnicity but I don't know what the heck is going on because they are not subtitled. Nice costumes though.
Then there are WE, Lifetime, Lifetime Movie, etc. with programming aimed for women?
Then there is LOGO? Family channels? Good grief, they even have entire channels with programming for BABIES and TODDLERS.
What the heck is the definition of "people of color" anyway? "Non-White Anglo-Saxon Protestant"?
By the way, Law and Order: UK is pretty good.